Carrying The King's Pride
Her mouth twisted. “Which could also fall apart if the market changes.”
“Any business could fall apart if the market changes. It’s the reality of being in the game. You don’t anticipate failure, you believe in your vision.”
She absorbed the verbal hand slap.
“How did you fund the business?” he asked. “You never did tell me.”
“The airline was at fault for my father’s accident. Faulty mechanics. The settlement was held in trust for me until I turned twenty-one. I put myself through design school on a scholarship in the meantime.”
“What was the ultimate intention? The business or the designing?”
“Both. My first love is designing, but I put that on hold when we started the business. We needed to get the store in the black, pay off some investments. Now I finally feel like we’re getting to the point where we can hire some staff and I can work on a line for the store.”
“How many years have you been open now?”
“Six.”
“Six years is a long time to wait on a dream, Sofía.”
Heat singed her cheeks. “These things don’t happen overnight. Interviewing is time-consuming, not to mention finding someone I can trust my baby with.”
“Perhaps it’s you you don’t trust.” Nik’s softly worded challenge brought her chin up. “When you want something badly enough, you make it happen. There are no can’ts in life, only barriers we create for ourselves.”
“I’m getting there.” She hated the defensive note in her voice. “We don’t all cut a swath through our lives like you do, Nik, impervious to anything or anyone but the end goal.”
His gaze sharpened on her face. “Is that how you see me?”
“Isn’t it true?”
He studied her silently for a moment. She looked away, his criticisms broaching an uncomfortable truth, one she’d been avoiding examining too closely. Putting off the designing had been practicality in the beginning when establishing Carlotta and finding a steady clientele had been a matter of survival. The problem was the longer she put it off, the harder it was to pick up her sketch pad again. Doubt had crept in as to whether she had what it took.
“You know what I think?” Nik said finally. “I think you’re scared. I think you talk a good game, Sofía, but you aren’t nearly as tough as you make yourself out to be. I think you’re scared of investing yourself in something you care so much about because there’s a chance you might fail. And it’s personal, isn’t it, designing for you? You’re putting yourself out there. What if you do and New York rejects you? What if it all falls apart?”
She blinked at how scarily accurate that was. “I think that’s a bit of a stretch.”
“I don’t.” He stepped closer and reached up to trace a finger down her cheek, an electric charge zigzagging its way through her. “I know how easily it can all fall apart. Your words, not mine.”
“Philosophical musings,” she denied.
His fingers dropped to her mouth, tracing the line of her bottom lip. “I think my first impression of you at that benefit that night was right. You don’t fully engage with life, you hold a part of yourself back so you won’t get hurt. So there’s no chance it will fall apart. But that’s a delusion you feed yourself. Nothing can prevent a tragedy or a failure or someone walking away because it isn’t right. To reap the reward you have to take the risk.”
She had no answer for that because she was afraid it was true. All of it. But if it was true about her, it was equally, if not more so, true about him.
“And what about you?” she countered. “You hide yourself under this smooth veneer, Nik. No one ever really gets to know the real you. What you dream of. What you hope for. Tonight, what you said about winning, about not knowing what happens when it isn’t enough anymore, it was the first time you’ve admitted anything truly intimate about yourself to me. And soon, my time will be up, won’t it? You’ll decide I’m getting too close, your attention span will wane and I’ll receive a very nice piece of jewelry to kiss off and fade into the sunset.”
His gaze darkened. “I never promised you more, Sofía. It’s the way I am. You knew that.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I did. We are two birds of a feather. Unwilling or unable to be intimate with someone else. Which is why I think we should end it now while it’s still good. While we still like each other. So it doesn’t get drawn out and bitter. We did promise ourselves that, after all, didn’t we?”
His eyes widened, then narrowed. “You arranged to meet me tonight to end things between us?”
She forced herself to nod. “Be honest. You were going to do it soon, weren’t you? Your silence this week was your way of demonstrating to me I can’t depend on you.”
His mouth tightened. “I was swamped this week, Sofía. But yes, I did think we should end it soon. I was waiting for the chemistry to burn its natural course.”
Which it hadn’t. She had a feeling it would be a long, long time before that happened. But it was about more than that for her now, more about who Nik was and how they connected on a deeper level. She’d thought it might be more for him, too, sometimes she could swear that it was, but apparently she’d been wrong.
She lifted her chin, her chest tight. She’d wanted to be different from the rest. Realized that’s what tonight had been about. Wanting him to say they were different. And now she knew her delusion had been complete.
Nik closed the distance between them. There was a dark glitter of emotion in his eyes she couldn’t even come close to identifying. “It was good, Sofía.”
“Yes,” she agreed, shocked at how steady and resolute her voice was. “We were.”
His gaze held hers—probing, searching. “Is this how you want to end us?”
“No.” She stepped closer and lifted up on tiptoe, her eyes on his as she cupped the hard line of his jaw. “I wanted to end it like this.”
CHAPTER TWO
HEAT FLARED IN Nik’s gaze, wiping out the cool blue perusal that was his default expression and replacing it with a banked fire she knew preceded extreme pleasure.
He kissed her then, his lips parting hers with none of his earlier gentle coaxing. This time he demanded her acquiescence, insisted she give in to the electricity between them, and despite her better sense, she wanted this. She had known it would end like this, known it would have to end like this between them because their chemistry had always been beyond compare.
She sank into the kiss, gave herself permission to taste the lush depths of his mouth. The familiar, intoxicating flavor of him, enhanced by the wine, was deadly to her senses. She slid her arms around his waist to rest against the smooth fabric of his shirt. His hand came up to cup the back of her head, every bone in her body going liquid at the sensation of being back in his arms.
He released her lips to explore the curve of her jaw with butterfly kisses. She arched her neck to give him better access, sighing as he found the ultrasensitive spot between neck and shoulder. His fingers found the zipper of her dress and pulled it down, his palms sliding beneath the fabric, the heat of his fingers on her skin a brand she craved.
She pressed closer as his hands shifted lower to shape her hips against him. The heavy, potent force of his arousal imprinted itself on her; stirred a sweet, deep ache low in her abdomen.
“Nik...”
He pulled away from her and reached up to tug his tie loose. “Take off the dress.”
She eyed him. “Was that an order?”
“What do you think?”
She couldn’t deny the command was a turn-on. Power and his outrageous sex appeal were a lethal combination.
Electing to acquiesce, she slipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. Nik stripped the tie off and reached for the buttons of his shirt. His eyes never left hers as he worked his way methodically down the row.
She stepped out of the dress. He crooked a finger at her. “Come here.”
“I like these orders.” She closed the distance between them. “You do the prince thing so well.”
His mouth tipped up at one corner. He closed his fingers around hers and brought them to his unbuttoned shirt. “Take the rest off.”
She slid the shirt off his broad shoulders, the anticipation of exploring all that masculine power making her feel all tied up inside. Her breath jammed in her throat as she dropped the shirt to the floor. He was so beautiful: powerful biceps and forearms honed at a Manhattan gym with a world-class boxer as a sparring partner every morning, his chest a work of art with its deep ridges defining rock-hard muscle. The sexy V that forged his lower abdomen drew her eyes to the potent masculinity straining against his trousers.
The low-grade intensity of his stare as she flicked the button of his pants open and lowered his zipper made her stomach clench. Swallowing past her fervent anticipation, she tunneled her fingers underneath the waistband of his pants, bent and pushed them off his hips to the floor. Her position kneeling before him was undeniably provocative. As if she had been summoned to satisfy the prince’s desire.
She found the thick, rigid evidence of his lust for her and freed it from his close-fitting black boxers. He was silky and mind-numbingly virile as she took him in her hands and ran her fingers from the base of him to the tip.
His hands curled in her hair. “In your mouth, Sofía. Take me in your mouth.”
The rasp in his voice heated her blood. He had always loved it when she did this for him. It made him crazy. Desperate. But she didn’t give him what he wanted, not right away. She teased him with her tongue first, tracing the throbbing veins that etched his shaft, exploring each one until his muffled curse filled the air. Only then did she take him deep into the heat of her mouth, again and again until his fists bunched tight in her hair and his patience failed.
“Enough.”
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her to her feet. A heady satisfaction filled her as he slid an arm beneath her knees and picked her up in a thrilling display of strength and carried her through to his bedroom. Dark and masculine it was dominated by an enormous four-poster bed. She landed on the whisper-soft silk bedspread. Nik stripped off his boxers and came down beside her.
Bracing himself on an elbow, he ran a finger across her bottom lip. “I have been craving this wicked mouth for weeks. On me, under me...”
Her heart slammed into her chest. She reached for him, curving her hands around his muscular torso. He caught her mouth in a kiss that was a blatant seduction, his tongue stroking the length of hers in a long, slow caress that made her shiver. The slide of his thumbs over her nipples deepened her shudder. They were already hard from wanting him, but his expert touch brought them to a rigid tautness that made her stomach curl, her insides ache. It had been too long since she’d had him and her body was crying out for release.
He broke the kiss, reached underneath her and unhooked her bra. The heat of his gaze on her turgid flesh made her tremble. He pushed himself upright to come down over her, his palms cupping her breasts. “I have missed these, too, glykeia mou.”
She closed her eyes as he took a rigid peak in his mouth. His tongue and teeth worked her nipple, the hard suction he applied intensifying the sweet ache inside of her. She moaned his name as he transferred his attention to her other nipple, his thumb teasing the damp, throbbing peak he’d left behind.
It was too much. Too much.
“Nik...”
His mouth still at her breast, he nudged her legs apart and slid his palm up her thigh. She trembled at the pleasure she knew he could give her, spreading wide for him. A guttural sound of approval left him. Her flesh was moist, ready for him as he pushed her panties aside and traced the line of her most intimate part.
God. She pressed her head back against the bed as he brought his thumb to the hard nub at the center of her at the same time he slid one of his long, masculine fingers inside of her. Her body tightened around him, missing him, aching for his touch. Nik knew how to work a woman until she begged; always made sure she was never anything less than fully aroused before he took her. Made her wild for him.
His eyes were hot on her face now, watching her reactions, absorbing every sound of pleasure she made. Slowly, deliberately, he brought her higher, until her hips were writhing against his hand. Then he added another finger and filled her so exquisitely, her vision glazed over. Her hands clenched the silk coverlet as the pleasure built and built until she was drowning in it.
Eyes glittering, he brought his mouth down to hers, their breath mingling. “Come for me, Sofía. Now.”
His sexy command pushed her over the edge. The insistent caress of his thumb against her nerve endings strung tight with tension sent her spiraling into a white-hot release that curled her toes. A release only Nik could give her.
His mouth closed over hers as he kissed her through every mind-numbing second of it, murmuring his husky approval of her response against her lips. She shuddered and grasped his powerful biceps to ground herself as the aftershocks tore through her.
He lifted himself off her, ready to retrieve a condom. The magnificence of his virility in full arousal was heart-stopping. Indescribable. “No,” she said, curling her fingers around his arm, wanting, needing the intimacy of them together, just them, this last night. “I’m protected. You know that. Can’t it just be us?”
He hesitated, his hand midway to the bedside table drawer, then he came back to her, settling his hard body between her thighs. “Nai,” he murmured, bringing his mouth down to hers. “I want that, too.”
In bed, out of it, in the elevator to his penthouse, their lovemaking had not lacked in creativity. But tonight, he palmed her thigh and brought it around his waist in the most traditional of positions.
“So I can watch your face,” he murmured, reading her expression. “I want to see you as I take you apart, Sofía.”
The dark emotion in his eyes marked him angry. Angry that she was ending it, not he. He would ensure she thought of nothing but this in the future and she was sure, in turn, he would be right.
He notched himself into her slick opening and slid into her welcoming body. She gasped as he buried himself to the hilt, pressing an openmouthed kiss against her throat as he stayed motionless deep inside her. She felt him everywhere, stimulating every nerve ending, making her entire body feel alive.
He withdrew and took her again and again, the silky sensation of his body sliding against hers incredible, imprinting itself on her mind in a possession that claimed every last piece of her. She blinked, holding back the emotion storming through her. Nik brought his mouth to her ear telling her how sexy she was, how good she felt, refusing to take his own release until she came again with him.
When she cried out against his mouth and he stiffened and allowed himself to join her in a powerful orgasm that shook them both, she had never experienced anything so exquisitely intimate as the sensation of Nik joining his body with hers without reservation.
She collapsed on his chest, catching her breath as Nik smoothed a hand over her hair. Long moments passed, moments that felt suspended in time. She should go, she told herself when their breath evened out in the shadows of the silent room. Tonight was not the night to linger. Not when it felt as if Nik had taken all the control she’d walked in here with and decimated it.
She slid out of bed, found the beautiful champagne-colored dress, slipped it and her underwear on, then found her shoes in the salon. Nik followed her, watching her silently as he leaned against the wall in the entranceway, clad only in boxers. She slipped her shoes on, pulled the last of the pins from her hair, long since having lost its updo, and smoothed a hand over it.
“Regrets?” Nik asked as she came to stand in front of him.
“No.” She stood on tiptoe to brush a kiss against his cheek. “No regrets.”
She left before the conversation could drag on into something painful and awkward. Carlos was waiting for her downstairs, that same pleasant smile fixed on his face as had been there earlier. She slid into the back of the car, unable to summon a smile in return, and rested her head against the back of the seat as Carlos climbed in and set the car into motion.
A raw, achy feeling invaded her. She wrapped her arms around her chest to ward it off. She’d lied to Nik upstairs, perhaps to save face. Because if this was what taking risks felt like, she didn’t need them in her life. She’d rather feel empty than feel any more pain.
* * *
Fully awake and unable to sleep after Sofía left, Nik pulled on shorts and a faded Harvard T-shirt and took a glass of Prosecco into the salon.
Ending things with Sofía had been the right thing to do. She had been starting to get attached. He could see the signs; they were unmistakable for a man who’d spent his life avoiding commitment. And perhaps he’d already let it go on for too long, because hadn’t he always known Sofía was different from the rest of the sycophants he’d dated? Tough with a vulnerable underside... Content to keep their affair between the two of them because she didn’t care about the rest.
Content to keep it uncomplicated. And yet tonight it had gotten complicated. He had hurt her.
His insides twisted. His rule never to allow a woman too close, to trust anyone in his position, was based on experience. He was a target for fame seekers, for those who sought to use him to further their own agendas. Charlotte, his ex-girlfriend, who’d sold her story to the tabloids and almost destroyed his family’s reputation was a prime example.
Not that he put Sofía in that category. She was different. He had trusted her. He thought, perhaps, he was more angry than anything. Angry she’d broken things off first. Angry because he’d thought their relationship still had legs—the sexual part of it that is. It was the first time a woman had initiated an end to a mutually beneficial relationship. He couldn’t deny it stung.
A wry smile curved his lips. Perhaps he’d had that one coming for a long time.
He pulled out his laptop, deciding to work through a few emails he’d left earlier to attend the event. His personal aide, Abram, who must have seen the light, knocked and entered from the adjoining staff quarters.
Equal parts friend, butler and highly trained fixer, Abram was sometimes dour, frequently circumspect, but never flustered. And yet, right now, in the heart of the Manhattan night, he looked distinctly agitated.
“What is it now?” Nik asked. “Don’t tell me—King Idas has somehow managed to put my brother’s nose out of joint with yet another expulsion of hot air.”
Abram fixed his faded green gaze on him. The tumultuous light he saw there made his heart skip a beat. “Crown Prince Athamos has been in an accident, Your Highness. He is dead.”
The room dissolved around him. He rested a palm against the sofa, his head spinning. “An accident,” he repeated. “It’s not possible. I just spoke with Athamos last night.”
Abram dipped his head. “I’m so sorry, sir. It happened last evening in Carnelia. It’s taken time to verify the reports.”
His blood turned to ice. His mind raced as he attempted to process what his aide had just told him. His brother had been raging about Akathinia’s overly amorous suitor last night, its sister island Carnelia and its king, Idas, who wanted to annex Akathinia back into the Catharian Islands to which it had once belonged over a century ago. Insanity in this age of democracy, but there were enough examples around the world to put everyone on edge.
Nik had talked his brother off the ledge. What the hell had happened after that?
“What was he doing in Carnelia?”
“The facts are thin at the moment. There was an argument of some sort over a woman. Prince Athamos and Crown Prince Kostas of Carnelia decided to settle it with a car race through the mountains, the same route the ancient horse race used to take.” His aide paused. “An onlooker said Prince Athamos took a curve too steeply. His car plunged off the cliff and into the ocean.”
An argument? Over a woman? His brother was as levelheaded as Nik was passionate and reckless. And yet he had gotten into his car and raced his arch nemesis through the suicidal cliffs of Carnelia? His enemy’s domain? A man known to have as much fire in his veins as his hotheaded, tyrannical father...
He worked to free his throat from the paralysis that claimed it. “Are they sure...?”
“That he is dead?” Abram nodded. “I’m sorry, sir. Witnesses say there is no possibility a man could have emerged alive from that drop. They are working to recover his body now.”
“And Kostas,” Nik grated. “He survived?”
Abram nodded. “He was a car length behind. He saw the whole thing happen.”
A red rage blurred his vision, mixing with the agony that gripped his insides to form a deadly, potent storm. He got up and walked blindly to the windows, the spectacular skyline of Manhattan unfolding in front of him.
All he could see was red.
The clink of crystal sounded behind him. Abram came to stand beside him and pressed a glass of whiskey into his hand. Nik raised it to his mouth and took a long swig. When he had emptied half the glass, his aide cleared his throat. “There is more.”
More? How could there be more?
“Your father took the news of the accident badly. He has suffered a severe heart attack. The doctors are holding out hope he will survive, but it’s touch and go.”
A complete sense of unreality enveloped him. His fingers gripped the glass tighter. “What is his condition?”
“He is in surgery now. We’ll know more in a few hours.”
He lifted the tumbler to his lips with a jerky movement and downed another long swallow. The fire the potent liquor lit in his insides wasn’t enough to make the reality of losing both his father and his brother in one day in any way conceivable. His father was too strong, too vigorous to let such a thing fell him. It could not happen. Not when their estrangement ate at his insides like a slow-moving disease.
He flicked a look at his aide. “The jet is ready?”
Abram nodded. “Carlos is waiting downstairs to drive you to the airfield. I thought you might want to gather some things. I will stay behind and take care of the outstanding details, cancel your commitments, then join you in Akathinia.”
Nik nodded. Abram melted into the shadows.
Alone at the window, Nik looked out at Manhattan sprawled in front of him, his brother’s voice, crystal clear on the phone the night before, filling his head. Athamos had sounded vital, belligerent. Alive. Despite the different philosophical viewpoints he and his brother had held, despite the wedges that had been driven between them in the past few years as Athamos had prepared to take over from his father as king, they had loved each other deeply.
It was inconceivable he was dead.
The sense of unreality blanketing him thickened into a dark fog with only one thought breaking through. He was now heir to the throne. He would be king.
It was a role he had never expected to have, never wanted. He had been happy to allow Athamos to take the spotlight while he did his part in New York to make Akathinia the thriving, successful nation that it was. Happy to keep his distance from the wounds of the past.
But fate had other plans for him and his brother...
Sorrow and rage gripped his heart, engulfing him like the inescapable gale force winds of the meltemia that ravaged the Akathinian shores without warning or mercy. His hand tightened around the glass as the storm swept over him, immersing him in its turbulent fury until all he could see was red.
Abram’s horrified gasp split the air. He followed his aide’s gaze down to his bleeding hand, the shattered remains of the glass strewn across the carpet. The dark splatter that seeped into the plush cream carpet seemed like the stain on his heart that would never be removed.