One Reckless Decision

Not a damn thing.

“How noble of you to abandon your considerable fortune and fight for your preferred existence by choice rather than necessity,” Nikos drawled, and had the satisfaction of watching her pale. His smile could have drawn blood. He wished it did. “The desperate residents of the slums where I grew up salute you, I am sure. Or would, if they could afford to have your exalted standards.”

He had the pleasure of watching her flush red, though she did not otherwise change expression. She met his gaze steadily, as if she was not afraid of him, when he knew better. He had seen to it that she was. Or should be. And he knew that she should be.

“And, of course, those standards no longer apply,” he said smoothly, daring her to continue defying him. “Since you are here. My brand-new mistress, who has such high hopes for my generosity. Did the charms of honest work pale, Tristanne? Did you remember that you need not work for your money after all?”

“Something like that,” she bit off.

Her gaze dropped then, and her hands trembled slightly, and he told himself he was glad. Because this was how it had to be between them, no matter how much he desired her, and how he planned to indulge that desire. She was payback, nothing more.

He was certain of it.

Tristanne was still smarting from that conversation and the unpleasant emotions it had stirred up within her the following afternoon, some two hundred kilometers to the south and east in Florence.

Their strained evening in Portofino had led to a long, sleepless night aboard the yacht. For her, in any event. Tristanne had tossed from side to side in her stateroom’s large, unfamiliar bed as the hours ticked by, growing increasingly more frustrated as the night wore on into morning. Had part of her been waiting, wondering if Nikos would come to her as she’d thought he might—to assert whatever “rights” he believed he had over her? She was supposed to be his mistress, after all, and he had made it clear he intended that relationship to be sexual upon his command—which, she told herself firmly, made her despise him. That, clearly, was the source of the burning restlessness that had her nerves stretched thin, her skin too sensitive to the touch.

Or had she simply been too agitated from all that he had said to her—and, worse, all that she had felt? Why should she feel anything at all, she had asked herself again and again throughout the night? Why should she care what he thought, especially about her, when he was nothing but smoke and mirrors, a trick, to make Peter do as she wished?

Not that any of it had mattered, in the end. She had fallen into a dreamless sleep just as the night sky began to bleed into blue through her porthole. She had not wanted to wake for the breakfast Nikos had told her, curtly, would be at half past nine—but she had. She had taken a very long, very hot shower in an attempt to conceal her exhaustion, and yet when she’d found him in the boat’s lavish receiving room, Nikos had barely spared her a glance.

“Be ready in thirty minutes,” he had said without looking up from his high-tech PDA, Greek coffee steaming at his elbow. “We must go to Florence.”

“Florence, Italy?” Tristanne had asked. She’d shaken her head in confusion or exhaustion, or some combination thereof. “I thought we were going to Greece.” She had stared at the plentiful breakfast buffet spread out before her on the rich wood table, bright and colorful fruits, fluffy egg dishes, flaky, perfect pastries—and, for some reason, all of it had seemed completely unappealing.

He had looked at her then, his dark eyes hard and that full mouth unsmiling. She had had to order herself not to react, not to shiver, not to give in to the command in that searing gaze.

“Be ready,” he said again, his voice low, his tone ruthless, “in thirty minutes.”

She had taken forty minutes—her own quiet protest—which he had assiduously ignored. He had continued to ignore her. He had taken several calls as they walked into the village of Portofino again, barking out orders in emphatic Greek as they climbed the hill away from the piazza where, she had been ashamed to remember, she had so betrayed herself the night before.

He had handed her into the gleaming black, low-slung Italian sports car that awaited them at a private garage, and had not bothered to make conversation with her as he drove. Tristanne told herself she did not care what he did; it did not matter. Nikos drove as he did everything else—with ruthless command and a complete disregard for others. She had stared out the window as the powerful car hugged the craggy coastline, her eyes drinking in the Italian sea spread out below her, sparkling in the morning light. It was mesmerizing, turquoise and inviting, and she’d wanted to be out of that car and as far away from the dark, grim driver beside her as the sea could take her. She must have drifted off to sleep at some point, for when she woke, it was to find herself deep in the heart of Florence.