The Immortal Greek Read Online Free PDF Page A

successful. Alexander Drako was too handsome. And he smelled good. And he had kind eyes. And a bright smile. And she was at his house on official Council business. She inwardly groaned and smashed her palm against the iron-wrought railing of the balcony.
    “Is everything okay?”
    “Yes.” She had to finish her search as fast as she could. She tried to blame her unprofessional behavior and wayward thoughts on the lack of sleep—she had been working for four days straight and maybe napped an hour a day. The resemblance of the boy’s death with Tommaso’s had also caught her unprepared. “I’m almost done here.” She leaned over the less illuminated corner in the balcony, but what at first had looked like something worth inspecting turned out to be a cast iron plant holder sporting several terracotta vases filled with succulents. Mentally worn-out, she walked back in and strode out into the hallway without glancing at Drako. “Let’s go back downstairs.”
    “As you wish.” Sounding as tired as she felt, he followed a step behind, then passed her and headed toward the staircase.
    On her way back, she noticed the long corridor had an alcove opening at an angle that made it impossible to see it from the other direction. “That’s clever architecture.”
    He slowed his pace and turned to look at her, his eyes following the direction of hers. “What…? Oh, that. The lovers’ nest.” The hint of a smile, a sincere child-like smile, made an appearance on his face. “I asked Coppedè to add this cozy spot and he named it such.” He entered the small space and plopped himself on the cushioned bench taking the whole width of the alcove, then reached for a light blue tassel dangling from the low ceiling and pulled it. A curtain the exact shade of the wall came down, and Drako disappeared behind it. “I spend hours here reading.”
    Ravenna was hit by a memory from her youth. “When I was a kid, I had something similar in my house.” Tommaso had showed her the hiding space beneath the servants’ stairs. Their secret house was big enough to contain the two of them, plus a night table Tommaso had cut the legs of to make shorter and two kids’ chairs. She didn’t know why she had just shared that with the playboy.
    Drako’s head peeped out of the curtain. He opened his mouth to say something, but she reached inside and yanked the tassel to raise the curtain. “I need to take a look at it.”
    He pushed himself out of the alcove, and with a flourish of his right hand, he showed her the inside. “By all means.”
    She replaced him on the bench and took a good look at the alcove. The inside was nothing more than a shallow nook, big enough for one person—or two very affectionate ones as its name implied. The place was painted light gray as the curtain and outside walls, but the cushion was the same light blue as the tassel. On the two opposite walls, white built-in shelves were filled with books. Drako liked to read about ancient mythology it seemed. She chastised herself for taking notice of his reading habits and redirected her focus once again to her investigation. Soft illumination came from two directional lights on the ceiling. She could have spent hours there too. Her gloved hand trailed over the cushion, then carefully under it. Something hard bumped against her probing fingers. Her heart raced as her gut feeling told her she had found her proof.
    Drako’s eyebrow shot up in a silent question.
    She retrieved the small object and exhaled the breath she had been holding. In her hand there was a small glass flask with a few dark drops left inside. She straightened the flask to send whatever was left of the potion to the bottom, carefully moved it to the other hand, then asked him the perfunctory question she had to ask.
    “Is this yours?”
    He regarded her with a cold expression. “No. It isn’t.”
    As she was looking for the lid under the cushion, Drako swore in Greek. Without warning, he hit the wall