Chapter 5
DRASKO
The carriage moved slowly through crowded Piccadilly. Too slow for Drasko’s patience, though he didn’t show it.
She sat right next to him. Grace Sommerville, the famous piano virtuoso, was now Mrs. Mawr.
Drasko didn’t look at her, didn’t move, didn’t light a cigarette though he craved one, and a stiff drink as well.
The newspapers called Drasko the Diamond King, yet this brazen thing called him the diamond thug.
Fierce , he had to admit. But he hadn’t expected anything different from her.
Drasko had a fucking wife, her , of all people. Incomprehensible, really, but nothing ever prepared him for the tasks of the dead man who had had his own plans in mind.
Drasko had a bad feeling about her. She absolutely could not become important, not to him, not in any foreseeable future. Because then history would repeat itself. It couldn’t. Drasko was cursed, and she did not deserve to bear the consequences.
Yet here she was.
Two tasks had been accomplished. Now this third one.
Fuck Uriah Mawr.
If the man hadn’t been dead, Drasko would have strangled him with his bare hands.
But then again, Drasko had agreed to this, hadn’t he?
As per the bet with his brother, Uriah Mawr had taught Drasko everything he knew, made him a gentleman, slowly drawn him into his twisted games, and then got himself killed.
And yet, the dead man still executed his game from the grave. Drasko played along, curious about where it would lead.
Until Grace Sommerville had entered the picture. She was here, in the carriage, going to his house, to stay there… for good.
She was shivering, and he clenched his jaw at the fact that he felt bad for her. Only a short time ago, he had wished her to be ruined. Look at him now!
With a pang of irritation, he took off his suit jacket and slung it over her shoulders, carelessly and roughly as to not give away his gentleman-like intention.
She didn’t say a word, kept staring out the window.
Spoiled.
She was a mere pawn in this game. Her role was yet to be determined.
Drasko was puzzled as to why Uriah had chosen her.
He couldn’t have known what Miss Grace was, the self-conceited person who chased fame and wealth and, yes, surprise-surprise, an earl, the pathetic Charles Hatchet who was less of a man than a rag doll.
Drasko clasped his gloved hands, staring at the black leather and wishing he could rewind time, go back to the day he’d agreed to this, the day that had taken away his freedom that he would get back soon.
Very soon. Three more tasks to complete.
Six in total, and he would be free.
Her closeness was unbearable: that was now a fact. She was exquisite in her angry helplessness. Not a hair out of place, pristine and polished, graceful posture as if she were posing for a portrait. Her gloved hand rubbed her forearm through the fabrics, back and forth, like a meditation.
No tears anymore, though. How strange. Rather, her gaze was detached. There was something odd about how quickly she had submitted to this deal. But she was a vain creature, and she would act on this marriage. After all, she was a professional performer. Exquisite , as per the newspapers.
Simmering in angst, Drasko rubbed the ring on his thumb through the leather of his gloves until the carriage halted. The guards opened the massive gates to his home, and the carriage pulled up to the fountain.
The carriage door opened to let him out. He held his hand out to her. She didn’t take it as she got out but studied the house, a newly built two-story mansion with an exotic greenhouse in the back.
Drasko didn’t need all this opulence, but he had several such houses in London, one in France, and villas in India. And he certainly hadn’t planned on a wife when he acquired the property several years ago.
Her face was pale, her cheeks puffy from dried tears.
But she was still pretty. Half an hour married, and already he couldn’t stop looking at her.
He took in her delicate features, then moved to her lips, full and the prettiest shade of coral.
He had seen her numerous times in the last few years.
Now she was twenty, more beautiful than ever and his .
“Are you keeping me outside?” she asked, her chest shaking in a tiny snort as she caught him staring. Her eyebrows lifted. “Will you show your wife ,” it was impossible to miss the bitterness at the word, “where she will reside from now on?”
She was half an hour of tears and sobs out of the church but already demanding.
And Drasko was already enchanted. A beautiful woman, with hazel eyes, framed with thick black lashes that seemed to reach her brows.
Not a sign of fear in them, just anger and nervousness.
He saw the way she tried to project confidence yet flinched barely noticeably at his every movement— barely —but Drasko had learned to notice everything, read people like books.
She? She was pure talent wrapped in pretty looks, a newspaper headline, The Virtuoso Pianist Who Continues to Stun London!
Drasko enjoyed good music and despised self-conceited women. Yet every time he watched her play, she drew him in like some wicked spell.
The rain that was about to break out hours ago had cleared, the clouds still heavy, the wind still playful.
But Drasko felt hot, burned from the inside. Because she was standing at the steps of his house, and he wasn’t certain how it truly made him feel.
“Welcome to your new home,” he said.
He offered his elbow for her to hold on to, but she didn’t spare him even a glance, only turned on her heel and walked toward the entrance.
Fine. He was fine. She would learn. She would understand that he didn’t want this any more than she did.
Yet his chest tightened with regret at the sight of her—her slender figure, so small and vulnerable, the white dress, the hem of it muddied as it dragged on the ground, his black jacket like a mourning cape over her shoulders, her veil flapping in the wind.
She looked like a fallen angel. And he followed her to his own house, their house, a room adjoined his master bedroom already waiting for her.
The tingling of the tiger tattoo, Rakshasa, on his back made him shift his shoulders. That tattoo was the ghost of his past, haunting him in his present, talking to him like a live creature, especially in moments of tension.
And Rakshasa was chuckling.
Be quiet.
The dozen servants lined up at the entrance looked expectant as Grace confidently strode through the door.
Narayan, Drasko’s chef, bowed. His bushy black mustache playfully wiggled over a cheerful white smile.
Samira, the head maid, pursed her lips and adjusted her sari .
His wife’s eyes widened at the sight of the traditional Indian dresses, and Samira smiled at her new mistress and bowed with her hands pressed together to her chest as if in a prayer.
What in the devil was Samira happy about?
Drasko didn’t have time for this marriage nonsense. He had a diamond empire to handle. When this wicked game was over, he would head back to India, and his wife would stay here, for years, doing whatever she chose to do. Two days ago, his life was perfectly on course, and now, now?—
“My room?” His new wife’s sweet voice irritated him like salt in a wound. She stood in the middle of the hall and defiantly stared at him.
Samira smiled broadly at her. “May I show you around, madam?” She turned to catch Drasko’s eyes and mouthed in Hindi, “ Sundar .” Beautiful. “ Raani jesi .” Like a queen.
Drasko didn’t need a queen.
The warning voice of the dead man echoed in his mind:
The path of a king is a solitary one.