LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FIVE

      VIVEKA’S VISION GREW grainy and colorless for a moment. She thought she might pass out, which was not like her at all. She was tough as nails, not given to fainting spells like a Victorian maiden.

      She had been subtly hyperventilating this whole time Mikolas had been tying his noose around her neck. Now she’d stopped breathing altogether.

      Had she heard him right?

      He looked like a god, his neat wedding haircut finger-combed to the side, his mouth symmetrical and unwavering after smiting her with his words. His gray eyes were impassive. Just the facts.

      “But—” she started to argue, wanting to bring up Aunt Hildy.

      He shook his head. “We’re not bargaining. Actions have consequences. These are yours.”

      “You,” she choked, trying to grasp what he was saying. “You are my consequence?”

      “It’s me or Grigor. I’ve already told you that I won’t allow you to hurt yourself, so yes. I have chosen your consequence. We should eat. Before it gets warm,” he said with a whimsical levity that struck her as bizarre in the middle of this intense, life-altering conversation.

      He picked up his spoon, but she only stared at him. Her fingers were icicles, stiff and frozen. All of her muscles had atrophied while her heart was racing. Her mind stumbled around in the last glimmers of the bleeding sun.

      “I have a life in London,” she managed. “Things to do.”

      “I’m sure Grigor knows that and has men waiting.”

      Her panicked mind sprang to Aunt Hildy, but she was out of harm’s reach for the moment. Still, “Mikolas—”

      “Think, Viveka. Think hard.”

      She was trying to. She had been searching for alternatives this whole time.

      “So you’re abandoning the merger?” She hated the way her voice became puny and confused.

      “Not at all. But the terms have changed.” He was making short work of his soup and waved his spoon. “With your sister as my wife, Grigor would have had considerable influence over me and our combined organization. I was prepared to let him control his side for up to five years and pay him handsomely for his trouble. Now the takeover becomes hostile and I will push him out, take control of everything and leave him very little. I expect he’ll be even more angry with you.”

      “Then don’t be so ruthless! Why aggravate him further?”

      His answer was a gentle nudge of his bent knuckle under her chin, thumb brushing the tender place at the corner of her mouth.

      “He left a mark on my mistress. He needs to be punished.”

      Her heart stopped. She jerked back. “Mistress!”

      “You thought I was keeping you out of the goodness of my heart?”

      Her vision did that wobble again, fading in and out. “You said you didn’t want sex.” Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

      “I said I would decide if and when I gave it to you. I have decided. Are you not going to eat those?” He had switched to his fork to eat his prawns and now stabbed one from her bowl, hungrily snapping it between his teeth, but his gaze was watchful when it swung up to hers.

      “I’m not having sex with you!”

      “You’ve changed your mind?”

      “You did,” she pointed out tartly, wishing she was one of those women who could be casual about sex. She’d been anxious from the get-go, which was probably why it had turned into this massive issue for her. “I’m not something you can buy like a luxury boat with your ill-gotten gains,” she pointed out.

      “I haven’t purchased you.” He gave her a frown of insult. “I’ve earned your loyalty the same way my grandfather earned mine, by saving your life. You will show your gratitude by being whatever I need you to be, wherever I need you to be.”

      “I’m not going to be that! If I understand you correctly, you want to live within the law. Well, pro tip, forcing women to have sex is against the law.”

      “Sex will be a fringe benefit for both of us.” He was flinty in the face of her sarcasm. “I won’t force you and I won’t have to.”

      “Keep. Dreaming,” she declared.

      His fork clattered into his empty bowl and he shifted to face her, one arm behind her, one on the table, bracketing her into a space that enveloped her in masculine energy.

      She could have skittered out the far side of the bench, but she held her ground, trying to stare him down.

      His gaze fell to her mouth, causing her abdominals to tighten and tremble.

      “You’re not thinking about it? Wondering? Dreaming,” he mocked in a voice that jarred because he did not sound angry. He sounded amused and knowing. “Let’s see, shall we?”

      His hand shifted to cup her neck. The caress of his thumb into the hollow at the base of her throat unnerved her. If he’d been forceful, she would have reacted with a slap, but this felt almost tender. She trusted this hand. It had dragged her up to the surface of the water, giving her life.

      So she didn’t knock that hand away. She didn’t hit him in the face as he neared, or pull away to say a hard No.

      Somehow she got it into her head she would prove he didn’t affect her. Maybe she even thought she

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