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That had always been her downfall. From their earliest days, she had thought their physical connection would be enough to sustain her, but it wasn’t. Not when her past and present were being stretched and wrapped like an elastic band around her, coiling and coiling upon itself, growing tight enough to cut off her breathing while threatening to snap altogether.
“I’m glad you’re awake. I was worried.” Rafael sounded sincere, but she didn’t put much store into that. Let’s give the people the show they came to see, he often said. “When can we go home?” he asked the nurse.
Sasha pulled her hand from his, earning another sharp glace from Rafael.
“She’ll come home with us,” her mother said. “Won’t she, Daddy?”
Sasha nearly threw up.
“Yes. She’s confused and needs her mother,” Humbolt said firmly.
Sasha locked eyes with the nurse. “Surely there’s a—”
Clinic, she was going to say, but Rafael was talking over her, staring down Humbolt.
“Alexandra is my wife. She’ll come back to our home in Athens. With me.”
“You can’t look after her like that.” Humbolt sent a condescending wave at Rafael’s condition.
“It will be a day or two before either of them are well enough to travel,” the nurse hurried to interject, trying to defuse the confrontation. “Decisions don’t have to be made right this moment. The doctor will want to assess both patients and run more tests. Let’s let them rest.” She ushered Sasha’s parents from the room.
Rafael hovered beside her, but Sasha closed her eyes and turned her face away.
He swore under his breath and she heard the orderly wheel him away.
CHAPTER ONE
Three years ago...
RAFAEL ZAMOS HAD become a chameleon capable of blending into whichever surrounding would provide him the best chance of survival.
Tonight, he’d put on his bespoke tuxedo and walked into a New York ballroom where old money elites were gathered. A young woman in a short black dress tried to check his name off a list on her tablet, but he gave her his most dispassionate, reptilian stare.
“Have a nice evening, sir,” she stammered and allowed him to pass without having to say a word.
That was the funny thing about power. A lot of the time, it was something other people gave you, especially if you created the impression that you already had an abundance of it.
He didn’t have as much as he wanted. He doubted he ever would. He’d been on the wrong side of power often enough in his childhood that he had an insatiable thirst for it now, to ensure he was never at anyone’s mercy ever again.
That resistance and thirst had drawn him here tonight. Competitors back in Greece were beginning to see him as a threat and were flexing their muscles against him. Yet again, he was being pressured to quit rising above his station.
Rafael was beyond literal fights that left him bleeding on the ground. No, he understood that tailored suits were a type of armor and the right connections could be an impermeable shield. He hated being beholden to anyone, but strategic partnerships would reinforce the place he was carving for himself as a global player in international trade. No one closer to home was willing to align with him, but an American pillar would do nicely for now.
These snobbish circles were notoriously hard to penetrate, though. They could smell an imposter a mile off. He was already receiving the side-eye as he accepted champagne and scoped out the roomful of balding, heavyset men with bejeweled, middle-aged wives. The few youthful women were likely trophies. This wasn’t an event for mistresses. It was a political fundraiser of some kind. The power behind the power.
But who the hell was she?
Rafael’s abdomen tightened as though taking a punch while his gaze fixated on a blonde woman of midtwenties who floated to the center of the ballroom in a risqué gown of diaphanous purple. The fabric twisted from one shoulder across her breasts and around her torso before it fell in mostly see-through panels around her naked legs. Well-placed spangles on the underlay covered her nipples and mound, but it was barely decent. He could see her ass.
Which was a joy to behold. All of her was mouthwatering.
He was not the only person who noticed. Everyone turned their heads and goggled their eyes. Even the music faltered briefly, just long enough for a curse to be heard from some distant corner of the room.
A fiftyish woman in a blue gown with a skirt like a church bell bore down on the newcomer. She had to press her skirt down to lean close enough to scorch the blonde’s ear.
The blonde, much to his everlasting respect, maintained a bland smile of disinterest, barely acknowledging whatever was being said as she scanned the room and landed on making eye contact with him.
Another blow struck his midsection, radiating heat into his chest and low into his groin.
