“I assure you, divorce exists.” He shook his head, and reached for one of the spicy olives. He popped it into his mouth. “My grandfather divorced three wives in his time.”
“Especially not if there are children,” she continued, ignoring him. She shrugged. “I have seen too many children destroyed in their parents’ petty little wars. I could not do that to my own.”
Something in his gaze went electric then, making her breath catch.
“If there are children,” he said quietly, fiercely, “they will be born with my name and live under my protection. Always.”
He did not speak for a long while then, looking out to sea instead. Something about the remoteness of his expression made her heart ache for him, for the abandoned child he had been, though she dared not express her sympathy. She was too worried he would read into it what should not be there—her unreasonable empathy, her compassion, the love she felt for him that scared her, on some level, with its absoluteness. Its certainty. It was a hard rock of conviction inside of her, for all that so much about him remained a mystery—as out of reach as the stars that shone ever brighter above her in the darkening sky.
Was it love? she wondered. Or was she deluding herself in a different way now? First she had thought she could maneuver around this man, use him for her own ends. That had proved laughable. Now she thought she could love him and make a marriage between them work based on only her love, and their breathtaking, consuming chemistry? Was she as foolish as the waves in the sea far below her, thinking they would remain intact as they threw themselves upon the rocks?
Did she really want to know?
“We will marry in two weeks,” he said at last. His head turned toward her, his expression almost grim. “Here. If that suits you.”
“Are you asking my opinion?” she asked dryly, as if things were as they’d used to be between them. As if he was not so stern, suddenly—so unapproachable. “How novel.”
“If you have another preference, you need only make it known.” His brows rose a fraction. “I have already notified the local paper. The announcement will be made in tomorrow’s edition. Everything else can be expedited.”
“Two weeks,” she repeated, wishing she could see behind the distant expression he wore like a mask tonight. Her intuition hummed, whispering that something was not as it ought to be, but she dismissed it. Nerves, she thought. His as well as hers, perhaps. And well she should be nervous, marrying such a man. He would bulldoze right over her, if she showed the slightest weakness. He might do it anyway. He was doing it now.
And yet some primitive part of her thrilled to the challenge of it. To the challenge of him. Even this somber version of him. What did that say about her?
“Two weeks,” he said, as if confirming a deal. He settled back against his chair, and picked up his ever-present mobile. “Perhaps you should take the helicopter into Athens and find yourself something to wear.”
“Perhaps I will,” she agreed, and picked up another crumbled-off piece of the feta, letting the sharp bite of it explode on her tongue. No matter how spicy, or sharp, she always went back for more. She could not fail to make the obvious connection. Perhaps, she thought with some mixture of despair and humor, that was simply who she was.
She did not notice, until much later, that he had not told her why he wanted to marry so quickly. That he had talked around it entirely.
Everything seemed to speed up then, making Tristanne feel almost dizzy. Soon they would be married, she told herself, and they would have the rest of their lives to sort through whatever lay beneath his sudden remoteness. She told herself that this was simply the male version of jitters—and at least her focus on what Nikos was or was not feeling, or how he was behaving, allowed her to avoid focusing on the things she did not want to think about.
He was busy all the time, he claimed. He was always on his mobile, talking fiercely in Greek. When he found time to speak to her, it was to confirm that she was tending to the wedding details he had given over to her. She found a simple dress in a boutique in Athens, as directed. She met with a woman in the capitol city of Argostoli on the island who bubbled over with joy at finding the perfect flowers for Nikos’s bride.
She contacted her family. Vivienne, predictably, was overjoyed—her enthusiasm not quite hiding the tremor in her voice, though she tried.
“That is how it was for your father and me,” she said with a happy sigh. “We took one look at each other and everything else was inevitable.”
Tristanne could not reconcile the cold parent Gustave had been with the stories her mother told of him, but she did not argue. Once her mother arrived, she would be safe. And soon, Tristanne had no doubt, well. It was all as she’d planned, back when she’d believed she could manipulate Nikos to her will.
“You must come to Greece,” she said softly. “We cannot marry without you.”
Peter, of course, was more difficult, even after she had the pleasure of telling him she no longer required his help in any respect—that he could keep her trust fund for the next three years, with her compliments.
“You’ve upped the ante, haven’t you?” He sneered into the phone. “How proud you must be of yourself. I had no idea you could make a man like Katrakis turn his thoughts to matrimony. What a perfect little actress you are!”
“You are, in point of fact, my only sibling,” Tristanne said coldly. “That is the only reason I am extending an invitation.”
“That and the fact it would look powerfully odd if I did not attend,” Peter shot back. “Never fear, Tristanne. I will be there.”
She rather thought that sounded like a threat.
But there was no time to worry about Peter and whatever new atrocity he might be planning. Tristanne was infinitely more concerned about her husband-to-be, whose demeanor seemed to grow colder and more unapproachable by the hour as the clock ticked down to their wedding day.
If it were not for the nights, she would have panicked. But he came to her in the darkness, without fail. She would lie awake until his dark form appeared, crawling over her on the wide bed. Silent and commanding, he made love to her with a fierce urgency that she felt sear her all the way to her soul. He held her in the aftermath, close to his chest, his hands tangled in her hair, and he never said a word.
She should talk to him, she reasoned in the light of day. She should interrupt one of his interminable business calls and ask him what was bothering him. She would have, she told herself, were she not able to perfectly envision the kind of mocking set-down he might deliver. He was not the kind of man who could be asked about his feelings. She was not even certain if he was aware that he had any.
The truth was, she missed him. She missed his teasing, their sparring—that half smile of his and the gleam of old coin gold in his dark eyes—but the sudden stiffness between them felt precarious, like something fragile stretched across a great morass of darkness. Tristanne was afraid to poke at it.
That was the real reason, of course, she admitted to herself only when she was standing alone with the Greek sunlight drenching her in its shine. She was terrified that if she mentioned anything—anything at all—he would think better about all the ways she had deceived him and change his mind. And she could not bear to think of losing him.
It was as simple—as wretchedly, starkly simple—as that.
She could not imagine a day without his touch, without looking at that hard, beautiful face. Without seeing those deep gold eyes, those haughty cheekbones. Without feeling the heat of that steely chest. She did not want to imagine it.
She knew that she should loathe herself for falling so hard, so heedlessly—for risking so much. For being, as Peter had always told her, so very like her poor mother. But try as she might, she could not seem to gain the necessary distance. It was as she’d sensed it would be from the start. Perhaps as she’d imagined when he’d left her breathless at that ball so long ago. The moment she’d let her defenses down, and let him in, she had been forever altered. Sh
e wanted him more, it seemed, than she wanted to keep herself safe.
She could only hope she would not have to choose between the two.
It was like déjà vu.
Nikos stood on the deck of his yacht and watched the well-dressed and well-preserved guests mingle with each other in front of him. He, too, was dressed exquisitely in a beautifully tailored Italian suit, as befitted the host and the bridegroom on the night before his wedding was supposed to take place. But he could not seem to pay the proper amount of attention to his business associates or the expected luminaries who milled about, drinking his wine and laughing too loudly into the coming evening. He could not even pay his respects to the coast of his beloved Kefallonia as the boat slowly moved past this stunning cliff, that hidden gem of a beach and yet another picturesque village. It was all a blur to him.
He only had eyes for Tristanne.
She wore something blue tonight that seemed spun from clouds, so effortlessly did it dance over her curves, calling attention to the bright spark in her warm eyes, the golden glow of her skin. Her hair swept over her shoulders in dark blonde waves, calling to mind the golden Kefallonian sands as they basked beneath the Greek sky. She was too alive, too vibrant. Too beautiful.
And he was keenly aware that this was the last night she would seem so. That he would crush the very thing he found so intoxicating about her from her as surely as if he planned to do it with his own foot.
He could not make sense of the churning in his gut, or his own inability to carry through with his plan with all the comfort of the righteousness that had been his only companion these many years. Why should he regret that she must feel the consequences of her family’s actions? That she must pay for the loss of three lives? Why should he regret anything?
As if she could feel his gaze upon her, she turned away from the guests she was talking to and smiled at him. He watched her excuse herself with a word and her perfect social smile, and then he allowed himself to sink into the vision of her as she crossed the deck to him.
He let himself pretend, for just one moment, that she would truly become his bride in the morning. His wife.
He could not deny the sense of rightness that spread through him then, spiraling out from the part of him that had told him she was his since the start and taking him over in a heady kind of rush. But it did not matter what he felt, he reminded himself grimly, forcing himself back under control. It only mattered what he did. What he had vowed he would see through to the bitter end.
“You look forbidding,” she said, her voice light, though her eyes searched his. He caught the faintest hint of her perfume, something fresh and enticing, that made him want to put his mouth on her. He did not know how he refrained.
“I find I am less interested in parties than I was once,” he said. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, wishing they were hidden away in the villa, where he would already be naked and she would already be astride him. Why could it all not be as simple, as elemental as that?
She smiled, as if she could read his mind. “This party is in your honor,” she pointed out, angling her body toward his. “You could smile. Or at least stop frowning. I don’t think it would ruin your mystique.”
He smiled without meaning to, and then wondered how he could be so susceptible to her. How he could let his control slip so easily. He had ignored the way she had watched him over the past weeks, her brown eyes grave and thoughtful. He had ignored the way he had gone to her, then held on to her as if he could hold back the night, keep reality at bay. He had ignored everything.
But tonight, his resolve seemed to have been left behind when the boat left the shore in Assos. He looked at her, her face so open and trusting, and wanted more than anything to be the man she thought he was. The man he ought to be.
But that man did not exist—and what possibility there might have been of his becoming that man had been snuffed out by the Barberys ten years ago. Why was that so hard to remember when she was near?
“And that is important to you?” he asked idly. He wished that it was done. He wished that he had finished with this act of revenge already, and that it was behind him. He told himself it was the drawing out that was killing him, the waiting even now, at the eleventh hour. “You feel I should pretend to be friendly and approachable for the benefit of wedding guests who, presumably, already know perfectly well I am neither?”
She laughed, and it hurt him, though he refused to acknowledge it. Her eyes were so warm, so happy as she looked up at him.
“Oh, Nikos,” she said, as if she was still laughing, as if the words bubbled up from within her like a mountain spring, fresh and clean and pure. “I do love you.”
He felt himself turn to stone.
He knew who he was. He knew what he must do.
And he did not believe in love.
Even hers.
Tristanne felt him freeze solid beneath her hands. Her words hung there between them, taking over the night, seeming to gather significance—seeming to echo back from the cliffs.
“I did not mean to say that!” she whispered, stricken. Appalled at herself and her carelessness.
He looked like a stranger suddenly—so faraway, so alien—though he had hardly moved a muscle. Panic and dread exploded inside of her, making her feel almost drugged—heavy and close to tears, where seconds before she had felt like air.
“I’m so sorry,” she said hurriedly. “I did not know I was going to say it!”
“Did you not?” His voice was so cold. So distant. Condemning. “Perhaps you meant it in the casual way. The way one loves a car. Or a shoe.”
He sounded almost uninterested. Almost as if he was poking at her as he’d used to. But Tristanne could see something that looked like anguish in his eyes, turning them very nearly black.
She sucked in a breath, skimmed her hands over his wide shoulders. Took another breath, and met his gaze. For a moment she did not know if she could do this. She, who had stood up to him when her very knees threatened to give out. She, who had argued with him when she would have been better-served trying to protect herself.
But if she could not keep herself safe, she could pretend to be brave.
“I did not mean to say it, but it’s true,” she said, her voice soft, but sincere. “I do, Nikos. I love you.”
He only stared at her, as the party seemed to dim and disappear around them. His eyes were so dark as he looked down at her, with no hint at all of gold. No trace of something like tenderness she’d thought she’d seen there on occasion. It was almost as if he could not make sense of her words.
Something passed between them, heavy and unspoken, thick. Tristanne felt her eyes well up, though she did not cry, and saw a muscle twitch in his jaw—though she sensed he was not angry. He was nothing so simple as angry.
“This wedding has addled your brain,” he said, hoarsely, after moments—or years—had passed. “How can you love me, Tristanne? You hardly know me. You have no idea what I am capable of!”
She remembered the words she had thrown at him on the cobblestones in Portofino, and shivered involuntarily. Had that been foreboding? A premonition? Had she been waiting, since then, for the other shoe to fall?
“I know you,” she said softly. She squared her shoulders, and met his gaze straight on. “Better than you think.”
“Very well then,” he said then, biting the words out. So cold, so far away suddenly. “I hope that knowledge brings you great comfort in the days to come.”
“You mean when we are married?” she asked, not quite following him, but feeling somehow that they were poised on the edge of a great disaster.
“Yes,” he said, his mouth twisting, bitterness thick in the air between them, though she could not understand it. “When we are married.”
Chapter Fifteen
TRISTANNE stood before the floor-length mirror in the villa’s master suite, staring at the vision before her. Her hair was caught back in a clasp at her crown, then tumbled about her bare shoulders in a
cascade of dark blonde waves. The ivory dress clasped her tight around the bodice, then skimmed to the ground, light and airy, simple and elegant. Her makeup was flawless, calling attention to her eyes, her lips, and making her complexion seem to be a deep cream, with a glow within. She wore her mother’s pearls and behind her, near to the chair where Vivienne sat clasping her hands to her chest in delight, a bouquet bursting with fragrant white flowers graced a low table.
Tristanne was the perfect vision of the perfect bride. And yet she could not seem to shake the terrible sense of foreboding that had gripped her ever since Nikos had left her side the night before. Ever since she had told him she loved him and he had stared at her as if he’d never laid eyes on her before. She trembled again, now, thinking of it.
“You are a beautiful bride!” Vivienne cried from behind her, as if she were neither fragile nor upsettlingly pale.
“Am I?” Tristanne was hardly aware of having spoken. She felt as if she was in a dream. How could this be her wedding day? How could she be dressed to marry a man that she did not quite trust, who did not love her, who might never care for her as she did for him? How could it all have come to this? Surely, on this day of all days, she should feel some kind of certainty about the man she was about to vow to spend the rest of her life with. Instead all she could see was that odd, cold look in Nikos’s dark eyes last night. All she could feel was a low-level panic, making her faintly nauseous, slightly dizzy. And she could not seem to do anything but stare at herself, as if her reflection held the answers, were she only to look hard enough.
The logical part of her mind knew exactly what she should do. It had spent the long night drawing up exit strategies and outlining escape plans. She could not possibly marry a man who had reacted to her declaration of love in such a way. A man whom she did not trust, who, as he had said himself, she barely knew. What was she thinking? She was the result of a hasty marriage, had grown up watching her mother beg for the scraps of her father’s attention—and she had vowed she would never put herself in that position. How could she possibly sentence herself to the very same fate?
One Reckless Decision (Mills & Boon M&B): Majesty, Mistress...Missing Heir / Katrakis's Last Mistress / Princess From the Past (Special Releases) Page 30
