She realized that she had no idea what he would do. He was a ruthless, dangerous man—she had known that from the start, hadn’t she? It was why she’d chosen him. She had no doubt that he dealt with betrayal harshly. Like the dragon he was. What would he do to her?
When she was finished, she found herself staring down at her hands once more. She willed herself not to shake. Not to weep. Not to beg or plead with him. And not, under any circumstances, to let it slip that she was in love with him. She nearly shuddered then, at the very thought. She did not have to know what would happen next to know that would be like throwing gasoline on an open flame.
“And this is why you say you will not marry me?”
Her head shot up at the sound of his low, firm voice. She searched his face, but could see nothing save that same fire in his gaze. She could only nod, no longer trusting herself to speak.
Nikos leaned forward, and set his wine down on the wide glass coffee table. As Tristanne watched, panic and hope and fear surged through her in equal measure, making her feel light-headed. He stood up with that masculine grace that, even now, made her throat go dry.
“I do not care,” he said quietly, fiercely, closing the distance between them. He reached over and cupped her cheek in his hand, his eyes dark and intense. “I do not care about any of it.”
“What?” She could barely speak. Her voice was a thread of sound, and she knew she was trembling, shaking—finally breaking down in front of him, as she had vowed she would never do. Must never do! “How can you say such a thing? Of course you must care!”
“I care that you have been put in a position to do such things by your pig of a brother,” he growled at her, his voice low and rough, as if he, too, did not entirely trust himself to speak. “I care that had I refused your proposition, you might have made it to someone else.” His hand, hot against her skin, tightened a fraction. “I care that you are standing before me trying your hardest not to weep.”
“I am not!” she snapped at him, but it was too late. She felt all of her fear, all of her anger and pain and isolation and love, so much desperate, impossible love, coalesce into that searing heat in her eyes and then spill over, tracking wet, hot tears down her face.
She disgraced herself, and yet she could not seem to stop.
He murmured something in Greek, something tender, and it made it all the worse. Tristanne jabbed at her eyes with the back of one hand, furious at herself. What was next? Would she start to cling to the hem of his trousers as he made for the door? How soon would she become her mother, in every aspect?
It was a chilling thought. Her very worst nightmare made real—but then Nikos took her face in both of his hands, and she could think only of him.
“Listen to me,” he said, in that supremely arrogant way of his—that tone that demanded instant obedience. “You will marry me. I will handle your brother, and your mother will be protected. You will not worry about any of this again. Do you understand me?”
“You cannot order me to marry you,” she said, pricked into remembering her own spine by the sheer conceit of him, by his overwhelming confidence that her very tears would dry up on the spot at his command.
His hands tightened slightly, and his mouth curved into a very male smile.
“I just did,” he said. “And you will.”
And then he kissed her, as if it was all a foregone conclusion; as if she had already agreed.
She could have been putting on an elaborate act, but he did not think so, Nikos thought much later as he stood out on the balcony that hung high over the cliffs, far above the crashing waves. He did not believe that her body could deceive him on that level, even if she wished it to do so.
He turned to look at her, stretched out across the rumpled bed inside the master suite, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open as she slept. Her hair was a satisfying tangle around her shoulders, and her curves seemed to gleam in the moonlight—beckoning him with a siren’s call he could not seem to escape. He felt himself stir, always ready for her, always desperate to lose himself inside her once again. He felt something squeeze tight inside of his chest, and turned his back on her again, ruthlessly.
The night was cool, with a brisk breeze coming in off the sea, smelling of salt and pine. Nikos stared out at the dark swell of the water and the twinkling lights of the village below, and could not understand why he did not feel that kick of adrenaline, that hum in his veins of victory firmly within his grasp. He had felt it when he’d weakened the various Barbery assets enough that, following the old man’s death, it had taken the merest whisper to send them tumbling. He had celebrated that victory—remembering too well what it had been like when the situations were reversed and it had been the Katrakis fortune on the line. He remembered Peter’s gloating laughter when he’d called to announce the deal was off, the Katrakis money lost, Althea discarded, and all of it according to the Barberys’ plan. Nikos imagined the Barberys had celebrated that, too, all those years ago. He had made himself coldly furious over the years, imagining that very celebration in minute detail, reliving Peter’s vile words.