don’t have to understand,” Peter had hissed at her, triumph and malice alive in his cold gaze. “You need only do as I say. Find an appropriately wealthy man, and bend him to your will. How hard can that be, even for you?”
“I fail to see how that would help you,” Tristanne had said. So formal, so polite, as if the conversation were either. As if she did not feel like giving in to her upset stomach, her horror.
“You need not concern yourself with anything save your own contribution,” Peter had snapped. “A liaison with a certain caliber of man will make my investors more confident. And believe me, Tristanne, you’ll want to ensure their confidence. If this deal does not go through, I will lose everything and the first casualty will be your useless mother.”
Tristanne understood all too well. Peter had never made any secret of his disdain for Tristanne’s mother. Gustave had put his empire in Peter’s hands at the onset of his long illness, having cut off Tristanne for her rebelliousness years before. He had no doubt expected his son to provide for his second wife, and had therefore made no specific provision for her in his will. But Tristanne was well aware that Peter had waited years to make Vivienne Barbery pay for usurping his own late mother’s place in what passed for Gustave’s affections. He had dismissed her failing, fragile health as attention-seeking, and allowed her debts to mount. He was capable of anything.
“What do you want me to do?” Tristanne had asked woodenly. She could do it, whatever it was. She would.
“Sleep with them, marry them, I do not care.” Peter had sneered. “Make certain it is public—splashed across every tabloid in Europe. You must do whatever it takes to convince the world that this family has access to serious money, Tristanne, do you understand me?”
On the Katrakis yacht, Tristanne looked away from the financier and back to Peter, whose gaze burned with loathing. And as easily as that, her indecision vanished. Better to burn out on Nikos Katrakis’s fire—and annoy Peter in the process by contributing using his avowed worst enemy—than suffer a far more clammy and repulsive fate. Tristanne repressed a shudder.
When she returned her attention to Nikos Katrakis, the dragon, his half smile had disappeared. Though he still lounged against the bar, Tristanne sensed that his long, hard-muscled body was on red-alert. She had the sense of his physical might, of tremendous power hidden in casual clothes. It made her throat go dry.
This is a terrible mistake, she thought. She knew it in her bones. She felt it like an ache, a sob. But there was nothing to do but go for it.
“I would like you to kiss me,” she said, very distinctly. And then there was no going back. It was done. She cleared her throat. “Here and now. If it is not too much trouble.”
Of all the things Nikos Katrakis had expected might happen during the course of the afternoon’s party, being solicited in any form by the Barbery heiress had not made the list.
A hard kind of triumph poured through him. He was sure that she could see it—sense it. How could she not?
But she only gazed at him, her eyes the color of the finest Swiss chocolate. A dark satisfaction threatened to get the best of him. He found himself smiling, not pleasantly—and still, she did not look away.
She was a brave little thing. Braver by far than her cowardly, dishonorable relatives.
Not that her bravery would help her much. Not with him.
“Why should I kiss you?” he asked softly, enjoying the flush that heated her skin, making her skin glow red and gold in the late afternoon light. He toyed with his glass, and indicated the throng around them with a careless flick of his wrist. “There are any number of women on this boat who would fight to kiss me. Why should it be you?”
Surprise shone briefly in her gaze, then was replaced by something else. She swallowed, and then, very deliberately, smiled. It was a razor-sharp society smile. Nikos did not mistake it for anything but the weapon it was.
“Surely there are points for asking directly,” she said, her distractingly strong chin tilting up, her accent an unidentifiable yet attractive mix of Europe and North America. Her dark lashes swept down, then rose again to reveal her frank gaze. “Rather than lounging about in inappropriate clothing, hoping my décolletage might do the asking for me.”
Nikos found himself very nearly amused, despite himself. Despite his urge to crush her—because she was a Barbery and thus tainted, because he had vowed long ago that he would not rest until they were all so much dust beneath his feet, because her spineless worm of a brother watched them, even now. He shifted closer to her, moving his body far nearer to hers than was polite. She held her ground.
He wished he did not like it, but he did. Oh, how he did.
“Some women have no qualms about displaying whatever assets they possess to their best advantage,” he said. He placed his drink on the bar. “But I take your point.”
He let his gaze travel over her—not for the first time, though she could not know it. But today he had the pleasure of letting her stand there and watch him as he did it. From the gentle waves of her dark blonde hair, to her disarmingly intelligent brown eyes, to the lithe figure she’d poured into a simple shift dress that appreciated her curves almost as much as he did, she was compelling—but more for the ways in which she was not quite beautiful than for the ways she was. The strong chin. The obvious intellect she did nothing to conceal. The faint evidence that she did not spend her free time injecting herself with Botox or collagen or silicone. The signs of tension in her neck and shoulders that she was trying to hide, that hinted at her reasons for such a request. He dragged his attention back to her face, pleased to see a hint of temper crack across her expression before she carefully hid it behind her polished social veneer.
“What can you bring to a kiss that another cannot?” he asked, as if he was unimpressed with what he’d seen.
She did not retreat, or turn bright red with shame, as others might have. She merely crooked one delicate eyebrow, challenging him. Daring him.
“Me,” she said. Her expression added, of course.
Nikos felt desire flash through him, surprising him. Shocking him. He had not expected it—he should, by rights, despise her by association. But Tristanne Barbery was not at all what he had imagined she would be. He had expected her to be attractive. How could she not be? She had been schooled in the finest finishing schools in Europe, polished to the nth degree. He had looked at her in photographs over the years, and had found her to be natural, unstudied, though it was impossible to tell if that was a trick of the lens. He knew now that photographs could not do this woman justice. She was too alive—too vibrant—as if life danced in her, like a fire.
He wanted to touch it. Her.
And then he wanted to ruin her, just as Althea had been ruined and his father destroyed. Just as he, too, had been ruined, however temporarily. Never again, he vowed. Not for the first time.
“You make another good point,” he agreed, his voice low as he fought off the dark memories. He reached across the space between them and pulled a long strand of her hair between his fingers. It felt like raw silk, soft and supple, and warm. Her lips parted slightly, as if she could feel his touch. He felt himself harden in response. “But I am not in the habit of kissing strange women in view of so many,” he continued, his voice pitched for her ears alone. “It has a nasty habit of ending up in the tabloids, I find.”
“I apologize,”
