Restrained Box Set: Boston Doms Books 1-4, page 34
Fresher. Real. Of course, the Rock of Gibraltar on her ring finger chases a bit of that realism away, but tiny lines tighten around her lips, and her eyes are bloodshot. Up close, she looks like she needs a week at a spa. Or at least a good night’s sleep.
“Only the most important thing ever.” Elizabeth sighs and stares down at her hands. “I hate every wedding ring design the jeweler’s come up with.
They’re all ‘befitting a man of Alexander’s station—and the woman he marries.’ But they don’t fit me.”
“What do you want, then?” I speak the language, and I have a fair idea what a “man of Alexander’s station” should want. I don’t blame Elizabeth a bit for rejecting those designs. No personality. No heart.
A small smile graces her lips. “I want my grandmother’s wedding ring.
It’s long gone now, or at least out of my reach, but…”
Devan rushes over and greets me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I hold onto her a little longer than usual, still kicking myself for ruining the gorgeous Christmas wrapping job on at least half of my wares. When I finally pull away, Devan’s smiling, and I can’t help responding in kind, even though
my voice cracks a little as I gesture to the wilted bows and soaked corners.
“The boxes got a little wet. But I’ll bring some fresh ones down this afternoon once the ice melts.”
“Oh hon, don’t worry about that. I’ll send Mac to walk you home, and he can cart them back, okay?”
I try not to show how much her offer means to me. I do okay most of the time. The headaches don’t bother me more than once or twice a week, and I haven’t had a seizure in a month. But a brief halo flashes behind Devan’s brown curls, and I worry that run of good luck is soon to come to an end. I need to be careful today. “Thanks. Do you want me to arrange the display?”
My voice drops to a whisper, and I hope she hears the plea behind my words.
“God, no. That’s what you pay me the big bucks for. Elora makes jewelry, Elizabeth. Around the holidays, I have a hard time keeping her earrings in stock.” Pride fills Devan’s voice as she sweeps up the bag and practically dances off to the rear of the shop. With a practiced eye, Devan maneuvers some of the display racks full of scarves, mittens, stained glass art, hand-stamped stationary, and Mac’s metal work.
“Really?” Longing lends a breathy sound to Elizabeth’s tone, and her gaze bores into me, desperation darkening her blue eyes. “What kind?”
“Um, today I brought in six rings, a dozen pendants, five sets of earrings, and three bracelets. They’re not fancy, but I enjoy working with my hands.”
She looks down and gasps. “Oh my God. Did you make this?” Taking my left hand, she runs her index finger over the ring I wear on my thumb. The design resembles the gears on the Doctor’s cradle from “A Good Man Goes to War,” with a pale green peridot in the center. One of my first designs—I haven’t removed the ring in ten years, other than for cleaning and my last surgery.
“Y-yes. One of my first pieces.”
Elizabeth worries her lip between her teeth, still clutching my hand.
“Could you…I mean…I know it’s short notice, but…” Her eyes shimmer, and she glances over at Devan, who’s draping several of my necklaces over Mac’s metal sculptures, before returning her gaze to me. “My grandmother’s ring wasn’t stuffy and elegant and…polished. It was real. Like yours. It had character. Most of the wedding details I simply don’t care about. I just want to marry Alexander. But the rings…these are symbols we’ll wear for the rest of our lives…”
Hope lightens her face, so much that she seems to almost glow with
excitement. “Elizabeth, I…I love what I do, but are you sure you shouldn’t find a big-time designer? I can help you with some of the lingo if you’d like, but—“
“How quickly could you design me a ring? Or two? Could they be ready by New Year’s Eve?”
I sputter, a bit of coffee sloshing over the rim of my mug. “I…um…yes?
If we settled on a design in the next week or so… I brought a few other styles today if you want to look…”
Elizabeth beams and heads over to the display tables. My hip throbs as I push myself up to join her, and I curse my traitorous body, even as Milos takes my arm. “Careful,” he says quietly. “The floor is wet.”
Oh God. I’m half-tempted to fake a fall just to have his arms around me.
Except Elizabeth oohs and ahhs over my designs, and I force myself to nod my thanks and then extract my arm from his warm grip. But since I can’t tear my gaze from his, I bump into the table as I try to head for Elizabeth. “Shit.”
Forcing myself to look away, I chide myself. He probably thinks you’re drunk. At eleven in the morning. Great first impression, Elora.
Elizabeth holds three of my rings. “These are so close. I love the—” she gestures with her free hand.
“Whorls.”
“Yes, and the filigree. The inset on the middle one. And on this last one, the etching is gorgeous.” She presses her lips together as she sets the rings back in their cases, then turns to me and swallows hard. “Can you combine all three of those looks and maybe a little bit of yours. In three weeks?”
Design a ring for a billionaire’s wedding? The thought terrifies me, but Elizabeth’s enthusiasm is infectious, and as she clutches my hand and pleads with me, I can’t help but agree. “I have a sketchbook in my bag. I could rough out a couple of ideas for you now. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Absolutely. Let me call Alexander and tell him to cancel his meeting with Neil Lane. Thank God.” She throws her arms around me and squeezes.
“You’re saving my wedding. Truly.”
I highly doubt that, but still, I hug her back. After all, she—and her gorgeous hunk of a bodyguard—did prevent my ass from freezing to the sidewalk. I steal a glance at said gorgeous hunk, hovering close with a phone in his hand as I make my way to our table, and my cheeks flush.
“Elora Kalivas. I remember seeing you on television when I was young.
The state dinner.” His brows furrow, and he angles his head. “But after that,
you disappeared. The papers spoke of rumors. The vrykolakas from Santorini.
What really happened? Why did you leave Greece?”
Oh God. He knows. A flare of light draws my attention, but as soon as I turn my head, the brightness disappears. “Shit,” I whisper as my messed-up brain decides now’s the time to hit me with one of the cluster headaches that always precede a seizure. I’ve got ten minutes, maybe fifteen, before my body betrays me. Milos steadies me when I sway, and he tries to brush the hair away from the right side of my face.
“Are you all right, Elora?”
He says my name with such reverence, I fear his voice will drown me. I can’t do this. I need my pills, my cat, and my bed. Wrenching my arm free, I tug my bag over my shoulder. “Elizabeth, I’m sorry. I have to go. Now. My number’s on the cards there. Call me tomorrow.” With a last look into Milos’s dark eyes, I flee, praying I’ll reach my apartment without another fall.
Milos
Elizabeth stares after Elora, confusion pinching her brows. “Milos? What happened?”
I shift my focus to my boots and the drops of melted snow that gather around the chair. “I am sorry, Elizabeth. I spoke out of turn.”
She arches a brow, and her voice takes on that authoritative tone she’s picked up from Mr. Fairhaven—the one she uses on me when she thinks I’m being too hard on myself. “Sit. I think you need to tell me a little bit about Elora Kalivas. And how you know her.”
Uncertainty churns in my gut as I fold my body into the small cafe chair across from Elizabeth. How much do I tell my employer about Greece’s missing princess? Elora’s card draws my gaze, and I run my fingers over the embossed lettering. The font fits her—so flowing and beautiful, yet still bold.
“Years ago, back in Greece, the national papers claimed she was a vampire.”
Elizabeth’s eyes dance with her laughter, though she must see the sorrow written on my face, for she quickly stops. “A vampire. And people believed that?”
“Many of the small towns in my country…the old stories linger. A redheaded demon terrorizing the citizens. Children stolen in the night, blood painted on the doors. Few Greeks are born with red-hair. Elora…in the sun you can see the highlights. Or, you could when she was a child. If pressed, most would admit there is no such thing as a vrykolakas, but a politician’s daughter—well, it is much like in America. Those in the spotlight have targets on their backs.”
“What happened to her?” She leans forward and rests her elbows on the table.
“I don’t know the details. I was only seventeen when she disappeared from the public eye, and I enlisted in the military a month or two later. She made some sort of scene at a state dinner, and then her father lost the election. No one ever saw her after that.” I shake my head. “Why did I remind her of that public shame?”
Though my words were meant more for myself than Elizabeth, she lays her hand on my arm. “Boot-in-mouth syndrome? Brought on by a sudden attraction to a beautiful woman?” Her understanding smile only serves to heighten my shame, and I pull away to stare into my coffee. “Milos, I’d have to be deaf not to hear how your voice changed when you spoke to her.” She nudges the card towards me. “Call her. Apologize. Ask her out.”
“I can’t. She deserves better.”
“Better?” Elizabeth snorts. “You saved my life. Alexander’s life. You love your family, I’ve seen you stop the car to let ducks cross the road, and I’m pretty sure the last time I forced you to take a day off, you spent it volunteering down at the food bank. I don’t know how much better of a man you could possibly be. Call. Her.”
After more than a year of working for Alexander Fairhaven and protecting his fiancé, I’ve learned the futility of arguing with Elizabeth.
Under her piercing gaze, I take the card and catch a whiff of Elora’s perfume.
Longing stirs deep inside, warming me in a way coffee never could, and I wonder, just for a moment, what she’d feel like pressed against me.
Until shame crushes those dreams into dust. I could be a much better man. Greece’s princess deserves more than a killer. Even if my crime did save two other lives. I’ll call her because Elizabeth will hound me if I don’t.
But once I apologize, I’ll walk away.
Flipping my coat collar up against the wind, I turn towards my apartment.
After Elizabeth’s former bosses had been sentenced, I’d no longer needed to live in the staff’s quarters. Despite the proximity to my employer’s ritzy neighborhood, this place is affordable. Though I’ve often wondered if Mr.
Fairhaven had something to do with that. Scanning the street, I note the shadows, the hiding places, the potential threats. A hazard of my job.
Nights like this—the lightly falling snowflakes dancing on the breeze—
always remind me of the shooting. Elizabeth’s scream. Mr. Fairhaven’s blood pooling, stark against the white backdrop of the snowy sidewalk. Carl’s sightless eyes staring up at me. My mouth goes dry, and tension holds my head in a vise. Years in the Greek military prepared me to fight. They did not prepare me to kill. Not up close. Or rather, to forgive myself for killing. I had no choice. The assassin would have killed Elizabeth. Mr. Fairhaven spent days in the hospital and weeks recovering at home.
Yet, a year later, I still wake with the scent of gunpowder in my nose.
A letter from my mother waits in my mailbox. Even after I bought her a computer—and my sister taught her how to use email—she still writes to me.
Climbing the steps to my door, I picture her huddled over her desk, painstakingly crafting every line. Once I pop a frozen burrito into the microwave, I tear open the card.
Dear Milos,
I hope you are well. Your father and grandmother send their love and hope you will be able to come home sometime next year. The vineyards are beautiful now that we have rented them to Mr. and Mrs. Elkenos. The profits are not high, but at least your father does not need to walk the hills every day.
Alesia and Doriana have talked of nothing but the big Christmas tree at Boston Commons and the ice skating. Will you be able to take us there when we visit?
Is there anyone special in your life? I worry about you, my son. More so around the holidays. What you went through last year…no one should have to carry that burden. You should be surrounded by love, not living alone, microwaving your food, with only television for company.
Please take care of yourself, Milos. The next few weeks will pass very slowly for me. Slower still because Dori asks me when we need to leave for the airport every few hours.
Love,
Mama
The microwave beeps, and I chuckle at Mama’s telepathy. She has never been one to believe in the spiritual, but her letters are always eerily accurate, despite my best efforts to only let her see the good in my life.
As I sink down onto the couch with my dinner and a beer, something sharp pokes my leg. Elora’s card. Running my finger over the embossed lettering, I wonder why Greece’s fragile princess is hiding in the States. We only exchanged a few words, but I can’t get her voice out of my head. Soft, yet strong. Her laughter as she spoke with Elizabeth, the way she kept glancing over at me, her brown-eyed gaze so intense I wanted to look away, but couldn’t…how can I convince her to have coffee with me?
Elora Kalivas deserves a better man. So why can’t I just walk away?
2
Elora
T he phone blares, startling me from sleep. I barely moved after yesterday’s seizure, and as I roll over and open my eyes, I wince against the light slashing through the part between the curtains. I’ve probably slept fifteen hours, yet I still feel groggy and muddled.
A quick glance at the screen before I answer the call tells me it’s well after nine, so I can’t tear the caller a new one.
“Elora?”
Oh God. I recognize that voice—or at least, how he says my name.
“Milos? How did you get my number?”
He doesn’t speak for so long, I wonder if the call has dropped, but then he clears his throat, and his voice has lost some of yesterday’s commanding tone. “When I told Elizabeth how far I’d managed to insert my foot into my mouth, she gave me your card.”
My cheeks heat at the memory of my own missteps. “Well, she’s probably not going to need it.” I can’t help the bitterness creeping into my tone. I accepted what happened. No matter how careful I am, if a seizure threatens, I’m helpless to fight it. But the shame of that night so long ago is burned into my memory, as is my father’s reaction. His screams telling me how I ruined his chances of reelection, my mother’s tears of embarrassment, the news stories that circulated for months… Now, living in the States, I’m spared the rumors, but five minutes with a hot Greek god and my childhood
comes rushing back.
Shifting in bed, the pain in my hip reminds me before I ran out of the coffee shop, probably offending Elizabeth, I started the day by falling on my ass. Oh shit. “The boxes!”
“What boxes? And why wouldn’t Elizabeth need your number? You are designing her rings, yes?”
I barely hear him as I scroll through my messages. Two from Devan, one from Mac, and two missed calls from another Boston number. I must have slept right through them. “Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter. “I have to go. I owe Devan boxes to replace the ruined ones from yesterday.”
“Wait. Give me five minutes. Please.”
I’m tugging on pants, but something in his voice stills my frantic movements. I’m already a day late. What're five more minutes? “Okay.”
“Uh,” he stammers, and I think it’s cute that such an imposing man is suddenly unsure. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. I just…I grew up hearing about you. Greece’s fragile princess. Cursed to become vrykolakas.
My mother talked about you for a month after the ‘incident.’ The papers had such outrageous claims—”
I snort, remembering how awful the rumors were and how I’d cultivated them, desperate for attention. “I was fifteen. I don’t care how much makeup I wore or how often I pranked the citizens of Oia. No fifteen-year-old deserves to be called a vampire. And I’m not fragile. I had a seizure.”
“I know.” His voice drops, and the deep timbre calms me like a cat’s purr.
“You have a Wikipedia page.”
“Fuck.” My eyes burn as flames engulf my cheeks. Anonymous among the half a million people in Boston, I forgot what my name means back in Greece. I couldn’t walk down the street in Oia without someone calling my name, asking me how many I’d cursed this week, or how it felt to be my family’s greatest embarrassment. Though moving here wasn’t my choice, I leapt at the chance to escape and start a new life. My mother’s US citizenship helped pave the way, along with my aunt’s generosity, and California became my new home. Los Angeles provided a sea of humanity, and I bobbed along on the waves, content to lose myself among starlets and valley girls, surfers and goths. For a sixteen-year-old desperate to forget her mistakes, the change felt like heaven. “Your five minutes are up, Milos. I accept your apology.
Please convey my regrets to Elizabeth. I wish I could have helped her with her rings.”
“Have coffee with me.”
I pause, my finger hovering over the disconnect button as my embarrassment takes a backseat to desire. His tone, that deep rumble, is back, and I’m not even sure what he said, just how his voice made me feel.
“What?”
“Elora, can I buy you a cup of coffee? Or hot chocolate at the ice rink?
Please?” Hope colors his words, bright and bold, and I can no longer hear him breathing on the other end of the line. Why would he do this? He’s read my Wikipedia page. And he’s seen, firsthand, my lack of coordination and poise under pressure. “Elora?”
I don’t think—that’s the only explanation for my response. “When?”
