by Alison Kent
“I didn’t think I could leave the island,” she said, feeling absurdly primal.
“We’re just going out on the water. We won’t be heading ashore.”
She pictured a day of sunbathing in skimpy swimsuits. A day of bare, gleaming skin. A day of heated bodies fragrant with coconut oil. It wasn’t what she needed right now. “I’m to spend all day on a boat with you?”
The corners of his mouth lifted in a faint, challenging smile. “You make it sound miserable.”
“It will be. If I’m trapped with you.”
“Trapped.” His smile grew fractionally. “Trapped. Hunted. Bagged. Caught.” He said each word slowly, as if savoring the syllables. “Interesting words. Particularly when applied to you. And, yes, cara, I suppose you’re right. You are trapped. At least until after the holidays. And then…”
She knew what he meant. “Jail.”
“It’s up to you.”
“And I wouldn’t go to jail if I married you?” The muscles between her shoulderblades tightened. He was treating her as someone very dangerous…a threat to be eliminated. Permanently.
“There are worse things.”
“I can’t think of any.”
“You’ve clearly led a sheltered life.”
Emily shot him a poisonous glance. She shouldn’t have come back to St. Matt’s—should have stayed away. Mum had stayed away, and Mum was the smart one. Good. Sensible. But then Emily was neither good nor sensible. She’d thought she could handle the return, thought she was ready to face the ghosts of Christmas past. But the ghosts were bigger than she’d thought.
The ghosts of the past owned her. Body and soul.
Tristano leaned over, brushed hair from her eyes before straightening. “You need me.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. You need someone to watch over you, keep you from harm, keep you from ruining your life.”
A lump filled her throat, and as she looked up into Tristano’s face the lump grew bigger.
He regarded her steadily, and as he gazed at her she felt a current of energy, a sizzle of light, and for a moment all she saw was possibility. For a moment she thought life could be anything she wanted it to be, that not everything had been predetermined. Her father’s failure and shame had run its course; the future could hold something good and beautiful for her after all.
For a moment she could feel Tristano’s warmth, feel it deep inside her, where she’d once kept everything she held dear. She could focus on all the good things again. Think about that which gave meaning, contentment, pleasure.
No more feuding, no more anger, no more conflict and no more revenge.
She could let go the burden, the dead weight she’d been dragging around, and she’d be free.
Then she glanced past his shoulder to the beach, and she saw the girl she’d once been running down the sand, laughing. And then she saw the woman she’d become, bent over her father, battling to pump air into lungs that had stopped working.
She’d grown up that Christmas on St. Matt’s, and she might want to be young and innocent again but she knew who she was. Knew who Tristano was. The realist in her took over.
She couldn’t kid herself. Tristano might find her physically attractive—might desire her body and be willing to bed her—but the attraction would end there. She’d be a temporary distraction, a woman to bed, but once the challenge was gone…so would she be.
“So full of mistrust,” he said softly.
She turned back to him. It was on the tip of her tongue to say that he didn’t know what she was thinking, that he didn’t know her, but he probably knew her just as well as she knew him. “Too deeply engrained now.”
He said nothing for a moment, just studied her, and Emily felt the heat between them grow. His eyes said all the things he wasn’t speaking aloud: he wanted her. And the attraction was mutual.
They’d always had something raw and physical between them, a slow simmer on a low heat, with the potential to boil over. The heat wasn’t definable, wasn’t entirely physical, and wasn’t based on externals, either. They’d always had this peculiar competition between them, sparked by admiration and a hunger for challenge. They’d spent years dueling in unwritten one-upmanship. Who could best the other?
And yet this wasn’t a contest. This was real life, serious life, and there were unholy consequences.
She tried to break the hold he had over her, reminding herself about the past. Hell had broken loose once. He’d broken it open, too. How could she forget? How could she ever let him close after what had happened?
Life was hard. Savage. She had to be hard and savage, too.
“Why can’t you let the past be the past?” he asked.
She could never tell him what she’d given up to exact her revenge, never admit that she’d given up her own life, her own dreams, to bring justice to her father’s name.
Tristano, standing so close, his body strong, hard, taut with honed muscle, was nothing short of sexual—physical, gorgeous. And his maleness did something to her. It made her see the world as suddenly bigger, made her realize how small and puny she was. She could fight for her father all she wanted, but his time had come and gone and now she was taking her life, taking her energy and her heart and her hope, and pouring it all into something that would never truly reap a just reward.
Because nothing she did, nothing she could ever do, would bring her father back.
And no matter how hard she fought, how long she battled, he would always have died the way he did.
By his own hand. Broken by his own despair.
So he’d never be truly avenged and she’d be—what? Alone and bitter? Bitterly lonely?
As it was, she’d given up love. Companionship. Nearly all her friendships. There’d been no time or energy for relationships, no emotion for love or even a love affair.
How could she love when she was so angry, so hard, so intent on destroying the Ferres?
All this time she’d thought she was breaking down the Ferres peace of mind, and yet it had been her own.
She’d destroyed herself, crushed what she’d needed, and for what?
She didn’t like the answer—didn’t want to face it. She knew herself well enough to see that if she admitted the futility of her pursuit it would negate everything she’d done these past five years. And then what would her life mean? What about all the grief? All the heartache?
“Nothing in life will ever be fair,” Tristano said, and he reached for her, took her by the arm and pulled her against his bare chest, into the circle of his arms.
She resisted the tug, but he was stronger, and he was determined. She knew she couldn’t want this, but at the same time she needed his arms and his mouth and his kiss.
She needed someone who would hold her, keep her. Someone who knew her and still…loved her.
But Tristano wasn’t talking love. He was talking conquest. Ownership. Possession.
Entirely different than love.
She shivered at the press of his body, suddenly sensitive all over, aware of him from the hardness of his thighs to the muscular planes of his chest. He felt even better than he had down on the beach, and she was beginning to want this contact, crave the closeness.
“Stop fighting me, carissima,” he said, and he tipped her head up and kissed the corner of her mouth so lightly that her nape tingled. “It’s a useless fight,” he added, and she knew he was speaking on several levels.
He wanted her to stop attacking Ferre with her counterfeit goods, and he wanted her to stop fighting the physical attraction between them. But in all honesty it would be easier for her to drop her attack on Ferre than it would be to drop her defenses with regard to him.
Tristano had been the bad guy for so long she didn’t know how to think of him otherwise. And even if she stopped manufacturing her leather goods she’d still remember how Tristano had buried her father with so many legal threats that he’d had no choice but to leave the company with nothing but the shi
rt on his back.
She’d always remember. She had to remember. Because if Tristano could do that to her father, he could do that to her. Maybe not now, maybe not this year or next. But sooner or later he’d harden whatever it was inside him—and it wasn’t a heart, she knew that much: he had no heart—and she’d be lost.
Twice broken.
Twice stricken.
And she couldn’t do it. She was too proud, had too much self-respect. You could play her for a fool once, but you couldn’t twice.
“Don’t,” she whispered, her voice tremulous as he widened his stance and drew her into even more intimate contact with his body. He was touching her everywhere, his hips cradling hers, his arms encircling her waist, hands resting low on her back, shaping her firmly against him.
“Why not?” he asked, kissing the side of her neck.
She burned at his touch, nerves tightening, skin prickling, her heart leaping to her throat. She wanted him, so wanted him, but she couldn’t give in to the desire. Desire was passing, fleeting—oh, hell, desire would just complicate an already impossible situation.
“Because I haven’t said I’d marry you and I don’t want a cheap fling.”
“It wouldn’t be a cheap fling, and you will marry me. You’re mine already. You just haven’t admitted it.”
Heat flooded her, heat and hunger, weakening her limbs. “Not yours.”
He lowered his head, whispered against her cheekbone. “Yes, mine. And mine for the taking.”
Emily closed her eyes, felt her heart race, felt everything collide. He was tormenting her, creating twin strands of excitement and fear. She couldn’t allow this to happen. She couldn’t seem to stop this—him—much less her response, because she wanted his touch, felt positively frantic for more him, more power, more of everything.
“Where’s the protest?” he murmured, his breath warm against her heated skin.
Her lips parted to answer, but before she could speak his hands encircled her waist, his fingers splayed, spanning the width of her, fingers touching from hipbone to lower ribs. He seemed to know the right way to hold her, to silence the stream of words, the empty, frantic thoughts. She had felt lost—yes, lost—and suddenly she was found.
He was big and hard and powerful. He was strong.
He was everything she wasn’t.
She repeated the last words in her head, repeating them so this time she heard, understood. He was everything she wasn’t.
He was Ferre. She Pelosi. He was brain. She was heart. He was strong. She soft.
This would never work, never do.
One of his hands brushed the swell of her breast and she shuddered. “Tristano…” She’d meant to sound a warning but instead his name had come out a husky whisper.
His hands wrapped beneath her ribs, his fingers brushing the undersides of her breasts, and sensation rushed through her, nipples peaking, hardening, her body responding.
“Not going to let you go,” he said, his head dropping lower, his mouth nearing hers, and she froze, waiting, heart hammering. And when his lips finally covered hers she exhaled, tension dissolving, her body sinking into him.
He tasted like the sun and the sea, like life and intensity, and as his lips moved across hers she wanted to feel more, wanted to capture what had been lost between them.
His mouth firmed, his lips parting hers, and what had been light, teasing, quickly became searching. Insistent. He demanded a response from her, his lips drawing so much more than she wanted to give—but hadn’t that always been the way?
He won. He had to win because he was the conqueror. The victor. And she, despite all, gave in to him.
His thumbs stroked the outer swell of her breasts and she stiffened, sensation, fierce sensation, running rampant through her. He stroked again and, arching against him, she groaned.
He seized advantage, finding her tongue with his, using everything he knew, everything he could, to destroy, to ravish her senses. His hands caressed. His lips sucked and nipped. His body heated hers all the way through, warming her, melting the last of her resistance. She clung to him, resistance gone, thoughts silenced, leaving her warm and willing.
Tristano’s lips briefly left hers and he whispered at her ear. “I told you that you were mine. And if you stopped thinking about yourself for a moment you’d realize that your mother doesn’t need a nasty trial.”
It was like ice water being thrown in her face. Emily jerked, hands rising to cover herself. “What?”
“Your mother doesn’t need your father’s problems—or his poor decisions—made public knowledge—”
“My father did nothing wrong.” Her head still spun, her senses reeling, and it was a struggle to put together an argument.
“If this goes to court, there will be endless public scrutiny,” he continued, as if she’d never spoken. “The media will follow the trial closely. You’ll be besieged by snooping reporters, sleazy photographers, trying to get close, to get unflattering photos of your mother as she enters and exits court.”
“That’s enough.” Her voice shook. She felt sick all the way through.
Tristano’s dark blue eyes narrowed, gleamed dangerously. “Cara, the pressure hasn’t even begun.”
She took an unsteady step backwards. “How can you do this? You know Mum. You know her. She’s not part of the business—never has been, never will be. How can you punish her like this?”
“You’re the one punishing her. You’re punishing her because you can’t let go of the past.”
Trapped. Hunted. Caught. The words circled wildly inside her head. She did feel trapped. Caught. “I can’t let go of the past because my father died tragically and yours is alive and well.”
“Quite well, yes,” he agreed.
“Rich, too.”
“That’s true. My father was able to retire comfortably. But we are not our fathers—”
“No. We’re not. I don’t have a father anymore. I don’t have his love or his advice. I don’t have his laughter or his sense of humor. I just have pain.” Her hands balled, fingernails digging into her palms. “And that’s why I can’t let go of the past. Because the hurt, the suffering, makes me desperate for justice.”
“Justice?”
“Revenge,” she clarified. “It’s all I think about. Making you suffer.” She closed her eyes, pressed a hand to her eyes, seeing red—all red—the red of heartbreak, the red of heartache.
After a moment she looked at him, numb, exhausted. “I’ve lived to destroy you.” Ice-cold adrenaline shot through her and her voice sounded faint, eerily disjointed. “I’ve wanted to destroy you just the way you destroyed my father. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
“One life for another?”
Tears filled her eyes. “Yes.”
“And you’ll be satisfied when you’ve taken my life from me?”
“I hope so. Because you’re right. I hate living this way. I hate who I’ve become. But it’s too late to go back. I am who I am, and I don’t know how to change.”
“Em—”
“No.” She moved away from his outstretched hand, needing to keep her distance, needing to keep her heart surrounded in thick, impenetrable ice. “I’m not your Em. And you’re not my Tristano. We’re nothing to each other—understand?”
His expression didn’t change. “I don’t accept it.”
“You’ll have to.”
“No, I don’t. And as long as you’re here, under my roof, I’m not going to give up on you. You need more, even if you say you don’t.”
Wearily she stared at him, her words used up. He didn’t understand. He’d never truly understand.
“We might be nothing to each other,” Tristano continued calmly, “but that doesn’t change our plans. We’re still heading out for the day. So pack a bag with your swimsuit, a change of clothes, and something for the evening. I’ll meet you at the dock in a half-hour.”
Emily threw her swimsuit and clothes into a small travel bag and heade
d down to the dock with time to spare. The yacht was already moored, waiting for them, and as she approached she drew a deep, rough breath, her emotions wildly chaotic.
Tristano was confusing her, knocking her off-balance with his arguments, his lovemaking, his not-so-subtle pressure and persuasion. She hated Tristano. She did.
So why did she want the old days back? Why did she want everything the way it had once been between them, before the families had split apart, before Tristano had fallen off his pedestal?
Standing on the dock, Emily breathed in the tangy salt air and looked out across the shimmering ocean. The turquoise and lapis waters sparkled beneath the incandescent Caribbean sun. It had looked this way on the Christmas morning she’d found Father, too. Stunning. Beautiful. Unforgettable. That Hollywood kind of lovely, where the beaches are all smooth white sand, blooming hibiscus and fragrant orchid blossoms.
Tristano was late. Nearly a half-hour late. And when he arrived down on the dock he looked tense. Distracted. Not at all Tristano’s usual unflappable calm.
“Sorry to make you wait,” he apologized, giving her a hand and assisting her onto the sleek white yacht. “I had a call come in. It was important I took it.”
She felt the warmth of his fingers around hers as she stepped onto the yacht, caught a whiff of his cologne as she moved past him. Her skin prickled with awareness, her nerves stretched taut. You hate him, she told herself harshly. Don’t lose focus.
“It’s fine.”
He joined her on the deck. “Another offer from Tony Viders came in just as I was leaving, and it was a good offer. Clean. I couldn’t ignore it.”
And just like that her icy reserve shattered. “An offer for St. Matt’s?”
“A very good offer.”
“You accepted?”
“We’ll probably counter.”
Emily gripped her travel bag by the handles. “What does your estate agent think?
“That it’s an incredibly generous offer. She thinks we should accept and sign today.”
Sign today. Today. Her stomach rose up, high in her throat, and she nearly gagged. The island could be gone by the end of today. “Don’t sell,” she choked. “Please don’t sell.”
