King of Me (3 page)

CHAPTER TWO

I showered quickly and threw on a pair of jeans and a plain tee. The weather outside was tepid with a slight mugginess to it (I supposed typical for late fall in Crete), but with my curly blonde hair in desperate need of a trim, I was in permanent anti-frizz ponytail mode. At least I’d been getting a little sleep, despite the nightmares, and my blue eyes were finally rid of their bloodshot edges.

I headed downstairs from King’s extravagant open-aired suite, thinking how much I’d miss the place once this was all over. I had to hand it to him: King had excellent taste—balcony overlooking the turquoise and sapphire-blue ocean, steaming sunken pool in the center of the room, murals of Greek goddesses, and neoclassic pillars. The entire estate was “Grecian spa meets the Four Seasons,” complete with private beach, tennis court, helicopter pad, twenty-foot-high fountains, and lush fruit trees. A palace fit for a modern-day king from old money—very, very old money—who didn’t think twice about spending it.

Still, I wondered why King had built the place. Stefanos Spiros, the head of the Spiros family who’d been King’s loyal servants for generations, once hinted the house had been built for me. I didn’t believe that. I mean, I’d only met King a few months prior, and this home had been built a few years ago.

Regardless, goose bumps broke out over my skin every time I thought about that conversation. Stefanos had called me King’s “queen.” So archaic. The real rub, however, was that from the first moment I’d met King, he claimed me as his personal property. Even went as far as placing his stamp—a “K” tattoo—on my left wrist. Later, I’d learned he could control and track me with it, which seriously pissed me off. I wasn’t his. I never would be. And a tattoo wouldn’t change that.

Neither will a house,
I thought,
because I’m not for sale.

I entered the large open living room with white modern furniture and panoramic windows overlooking the ocean. King stood with his broad back to me, staring out across the waves, a glass of champagne in one hand and unlit cigar in the other. “You are correct in your assumption, Miss Turner.”

“Can we go back to ‘Mia’? I think we’re a little past the formal stage at this point.”

He nodded, but did not turn to face me. “As you wish.”

“Which assumption?” I asked.

“It is true; I had everything constructed in anticipation of your arrival, hoping you might want to call it home.”

I sat on the white couch and folded my hands neatly in my lap, mulling that over. There was no use in pretending his statement didn’t affect me, because King could hear my thoughts. There were no secrets. In fact, because he’d crawled around inside my head and body on several occasions, he knew more about me than I did.

“So how did you know I was coming?” I asked.

He stood perfectly still and spoke quietly, as if reliving the memories in his head. “I felt you growing closer with each day, just as I felt the Artifact’s presence.”

I quickly shut down any thoughts or emotions blooming inside my chest that might urge me to believe I meant something to him. I didn’t. To him, I was a means to an end and nothing more.

“All right,” I said. “So I’m here now, in the home you built for me—”

“For us,” he corrected and turned to face me. I wished he hadn’t, because I found it extremely difficult to stay focused when he looked at me. Fact was, the man did things to me—to my body. Even now, completely in control of my emotions, I felt the sensual heat pooling between my legs and deep inside, like some messed up Pavlovian response. Only, my brain and heart were not on board.

Idiot body.

But that was the conundrum about King I couldn’t figure out. It wasn’t like I ran around swooning for hot men, completely discounting their flaws. In fact, I’d always gone for the nice guys whom some might overlook because they weren’t considered handsome by traditional standards. I always,
always
felt attraction for the insides first.

With King, however, something pulled me in. It was a feeling that radiated from some unknown place, drawing me closer while my rational mind kicked and screamed, telling me to stay away. After I learned about his curse, I began to believe that the conflicting emotions might make sense. He was once a man, a good man, and that part of him was still in there somewhere. Anyway, I wanted to believe that the physical attraction I felt was for the man—the real man—he once was. Of course, I’d never know. That person was gone or, at least, changed forever by this curse.

“I’m sorry you had the home built for ‘us,’” I said. “Because there is no ‘us.’ There’s just me and you, and one of us will soon be over.” I know that pointing out his life would soon end sounded cruel, but King was made from the very fabric of cruel. He understood it and thrived on it.

“Yes.” He grinned. “You are correct, and I look forward to the day my existence will end and you will have back your beloved brother. In the meantime, there is much to be done.”

This was what I really wanted to hear: what he expected from me in this new deal of ours. As in my dream, to end his curse we needed the Artifact, and then I had to provide “the antidote” by finding something inside him to love. Not a simple thing. Thankfully, there were many kinds of love.

“You may assume,” King said, replying to my thoughts, “that the breed of affection required to break my curse is not the sort one might feel for a puppy.”

I laughed. “Well, thank goodness for that. Because puppies are irresistible.” He frowned and was about to speak, but I held out my hand. “Just a joke. I get it. Problem is, I can’t force myself to fall in love. So what I really need to know is your plan. What is it you need me to do?”

He nodded solemnly. “There is no plan.”

Right.
King always had a plan.

“Not this time, Mia. I have no scheme, no magic, no devices to force this on you.”

“Seriously? You’ve got nothing?”

He shrugged.

“You’re counting on me to just…swoon and fall in love with you?”

He nodded.

“Then we’re screwed.” Because without the aid of some of King’s otherworldly gifts, I wasn’t going to be falling for him.

He lifted one brow. “You really know how to hurt a man.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

“We could have sex and go from there.”

My jaw dropped. “But you said—”

“That was a joke, Mia.”

“Oh.”

He scratched his chin. “What I propose is something far simpler.”

It was my turn to raise a brow.

“I will take you away, just you and I alone for the next six days. You may ask me anything you like, we can spend time together without interruptions, and you will get to know the real me.”

My body broke out in a cold sweat. “You mean…a vacation?” Was he mad?

“Think of it as an extended date.”

My breasts and core began to heat, fluttering and pulsing from just thinking about being alone with him. I could only imagine the overwhelming urges I’d have to resist if I actually went away with him. It was not a good idea. He had too much control over my body.

I shook my head no. “We should stay here and just…” I didn’t know what we’d do. “You’ve seriously got nothing? No love potions or anything?”

He shook his head no and crossed his arms. “The love must be genuine, or it will not work.”

“I’m not going away with you. I don’t trust you.” I didn’t trust myself, either.

“You will have to try,” he said starkly.

“Trust takes time.”

“There is no ‘time.’ We have one week.”

Oh no.
This didn’t sound good. “Whyyy?”

King looked away, grinding his jaw. I thought how strange it was that a ghost would do that. Then again, everything King did felt real and just as alive as any man. “I have made a deal with the 10 Club.”

What the hell?
“You made a deal with those soulless assholes?”

“Yes. Did I not just say that?”

“What deal, King?” I spat.

“I agreed to surrender my possessions.”

I sprang from my seat, ready to throttle the man. “I’m one of your possessions! Why would you do that?”

For the record, I didn’t agree I belonged to him, but what I thought didn’t matter. According to the 10 Club, a depraved, elite social network of sorts for billionaires who used each other to acquire things that couldn’t be purchased through any normal means—power, sex slaves, and other strange objects—I
was
his property.

“I anticipated you might react that way, Miss Turner, but let me explain: your disturbing dream was not so inaccurate.”

Mia. It’s Mia. Why is that so hard for you?

He ignored my thought and continued, “I do plan to marry you. This week, in fact. I’d hoped you’d warm to the idea after a few days alone with me.”

I had to ask, “Why?”

“I wish to legally transfer my possessions to you while I still live. The 10 Club will get nothing when I sign everything over, because I will own nothing.”

The 10 Club already had rules about ownership after one’s departure from this world. Basically, the significant other got everything. What he had done, however, was barter his possessions in exchange for something he wanted now. Of course, he intended to use a loophole to avoid giving them anything. That was sneaky. Why wasn’t I surprised?

“Why not transfer everything to my name without getting married?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I were daft.

“What?” I asked. It was a legitimate question.

“Miss Turner, I may be a ghost, but I assure you, my billions in assets are not.”

“Meaning?”

“Even if I’ll no longer be here to enjoy it, I am not about to give away half my wealth to taxes. Transfer of assets between spouses circumvents this issue.”

Taxes.
I thought that over for a moment. I supposed it made sense, but something still didn’t feel right.

“What about me?” I asked. “You’ll still ‘own’ me when you sign over your big-nothing to the Club. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”

“I plan to remove my claim on you. You will become my wife instead—no longer my property, but my partner.”

It was quite the grand gesture, but he had to be working another angle.

“I am not,” he said, “working another angle. My wish is to see you safe and well looked after once I am gone. Marriage is merely the vehicle to accomplish this.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Married. You’re serious.”

“Of course.”

“And you think that once the 10 Club finds out what you’ve done, they won’t come and take what they want anyway, including my life?” These bastards did what they wanted, when they wanted, except when dealing with each other, in which case they still did what they wanted, but were simply a bit more careful. Anarchists in suits. With yachts and Mercedes. And planes. Maybe a few small countries, too.

“I will ensure there are other measures in place to stop them,” he said calmly.

None of this made sense, which meant the man was definitely up to something. If I had any chance of making my way through this, I had to lay out my cards and get him to agree to things that were valuable to
me.
“No deal.”

King looked amused and crossed his thick arms over his partially exposed chest, a chest I was trying my damnedest not to look at. “What is it that you want?” he asked.

The old Mia, the one who hadn’t watched a twisted, sick criminal named Vaughn gut her brother like a fish, would have danced around the answer. She might have even asked nicely. But the new Mia, who’d had her life turned into a never-ending stream of chaotic crap, knew she had to watch out for herself.
And I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore. That’s for sure.

“I want them destroyed,” I said. “I want the 10 Club dismantled.”

“You do still care. Proof being your request.”

“Stay out of my head.” I shot him an angry look. “I’m not here to engage in a mental exploration of my feelings. I’m here to lay out the terms of our deal.” I held up a finger. “That was number one. There’s more.”

“While I am intrigued by the rationale behind your requests, what you ask is impossible.”

“Impossible is dead people walking around for thousands of years and driving cars. Impossible is bringing someone’s deceased brother back to life with a rock.”

His eyes glowed with a subtle humor. No, I didn’t care why.

“Those are improbable,” he said smugly, “not impossible.”

“So is ending the 10 Club,” I argued.

“Point taken; however, what you ask means having to kill them all. That would take years. We don’t have years; we have seven days.”

Yeah, thanks to you.

I thought about the situation for a moment. “Okay. Then kill their leaders, starting with Vaughn.” They’d be crippled without any formal organization. The members paid an enormous sum of money into a pool each year to buy their unfettered freedom, making them above the law of any government. Without someone at the helm, someone powerful and ruthless they all feared, the club would fall apart under the weight of their own selfish, evil, cutthroat agendas.

“An excellent point, Mia. By the way, you never inquired as to why I made the deal to surrender my belongings in seven days.”

“Why? Wait, don’t tell me. It has something to do with the Artifact.”

“Very good,” he said a little too haughtily. “In fact, it has everything to do with it.”

“So you have it?” I gasped as I spoke.

“Indeed, I do.”

“Ohmygod.”
Why wasn’t he dancing a jig? This man had been hunting the Artifact for, well, I didn’t know how long, but I guessed it was thousands of years.

“However,” he added, “that was not the only reason I made the deal.”

I stared in anticipation. This news was already big. Huge, in fact. We had the goddamned Artifact! All I needed now was…well, to trust the guy and find some way to love him.

That’s what all this vacation and marriage crap is really all about
. Now that he had the rock, he’d planned to woo me because he needed me to develop some sort of romantic feelings for him.
Always one step ahead.