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Mira drank the water and turned to look at the blinding blue of the ocean. But for once the view lost against her emotional turmoil.
“Rao and I were so sure that you were the girl to ground my grandson, the one to civilize him—”
“He’s not an animal to need civilization,” Mira interrupted, inflamed by the choice of his words. “He was a mere boy when you decided to put the weight of the world on his shoulders. When you decided to set him impossible challenges. You made him fight when you should’ve shown him love and acceptance and...”
If he found her words offensive, Leo didn’t show it. “That was the only way to ready him for what lay ahead. You have seen his cousins and his aunts. They’re all useless vultures who would’ve torn him apart if I didn’t make him strong. But you’re right. I did starve him for something more important in the process.”
Mira lifted her head, shocked at his candor.
Leo laughed and her breath caught at the flash of resemblance between him and his grandson. “I made many mistakes with him, Mira. And it is right that Aristos merely tolerates me.”
“That’s not true. He adores you. But of course, being the stubborn dickhead he is, he can’t show it. He probably thinks it’s a weakness to care about you. That is your fault,ne?”
This time, Leo’s laughter was loud and booming. “Now I see why he’s never forgotten you, why he...” He shook his head. His gaze was fond and searching as it returned to her face. “Even then, I remember how he bloomed under your friendship, how he laughed around you, how happy he was, and I made a deal with Rao. For his happiness and yours. So much for two old men matchmaking, eh?”
Mira looked away, frowning at the disappointment threaded through his words. “The past is full of mistakes, Leo, including mine. Please tell me why you’re here.”
“His words were rash and crude the other night...and yet, you think Aristos would have let anyone tell him how to run his life? Do you think anything but his own wishes motivated him to enter this ridiculous contract marriage between you two?”
“He did it for you and the board and...”
“He did it for himself. My grandson is nothing if not a man full of complex emotions that he barely understands. And the fault of that lies with me.”
Mouth falling open, Mira stared at the older man. “You’re saying Aristos wouldn’t have given in to anyone’s pressures? Not even yours?”
“Carides’s board whines from time to time, but they know where their fat stocks come from. And as for me, I have pressured him, badgered him because his stunts were getting riskier and riskier. I wanted him to settle down.” He sighed. “You’re right that I have demanded the impossible of Aristos and despite all the odds stacked against him, he rose to the occasion. And yet, this is the first time I’ve seen him do something for himself.”
“You’re saying he wanted this marriage for real? That he wanted me for real?”
His silver gaze searched Mira’s face. “Of all the things Rao says about you...” He swallowed and corrected himself, a yawning chasm of loneliness in his eyes. “...said about you, I thought one thing true. That you’re clever, Mira. But maybe he was nothing but a foolish old man like me, hmm? After all these years, if you still don’t know the depths to which you have driven Aristos, if you still don’t understand the impact you’ve had on him...then you’re not only naive but unworthy of him.”
“Please, Leo. Enough riddles,” Mira said, fairly pleading the old man to explain. “Tell me what you mean.”
He shook his head. “I can’t betray my grandson’s secrets. Not even for his own good.”
“Do you know here he is?”
“He was scheduled to appear at a race in Monaco two days ago. His new assistant confirmed his presence. But only as a guest for some kids’ charity the race is sponsoring,” he said in a rush, his gaze shrewd.
“I don’t know what to do, Leo. I... I have tried...”
His arm around her shoulders, Leo squeezed her into a gentle hug that sent tears crawling into her throat. God, she missed her Thaata. She missed his hugs, and his kind words and his gentle nudges...and she missed Aristos. And she wondered for the first time, if she could do this if she didn’t have Aristos’s heart involved. If she could put aside her own need for...
“What do you think he’s expecting of you?”
Leaning her head into his embrace, Mira frowned. “He’s expecting me to...leave. Especially after that disastrous fight.”
With a final wink, Leo walked out.
Mira pushed the bag away and flopped onto the bed, her thoughts in a whirl, her lower back aching. Leo had given her a lot to think about.
She’d slipped away from Aristos’s life all those years ago after she’d been paraded in front of him as the ultimate partner, rejected him in front of the whole family and she knew better than anyone that Aristos Carides didn’t take easily to losing.
His proposition in Vegas had unsettled her on a deep level that she’d refused to examine then. Because in one thing, Leo was right.
Aristos could have chosen any woman on the planet—at least a thousand willing and better suited and less combative and maybe more loving and open—to be his wife. To be the mother of his heirs. To be his convenient wife.
And yet he’d chosen her despite their bad history, despite the fact that it rankled him that she’d broken their engagement. He’d “hunted her down to Vegas” in his own words.
