Desert Jewels & Rising Stars

by Sharon Kendrick

  “That is not very practical,” Nikos said, unable to keep the bite from his tone. “Is that not the point of university? Practicality? An education in service of your future?”

  “You would have gotten on well with my father,” Tristanne said dryly. She shifted in her seat, the candlelight caressing her cheeks, her neck, the hint of velvety shadows between her breasts. “When I opted to ignore his advice, he retracted my funding. I decided to move to Vancouver, which, apparently, sent him into apoplexy, as my father did not care to be defied.” She smiled slightly. “None of this made for pleasant family reunions, so you will understand why the halls of Europe were without me for so long.”

  There was a subtle mockery in her tone. He ignored it.

  “I trust you do not cast yourself as the victim in this scenario,” he said, his voice like a blade. “Those who accept financial support cannot whine about their loss of independence. About feeling crushed or flattened. Everything comes at a price.”

  He expected a storm of emotion—tears, perhaps; a repeat of what had occurred in the piazza. But Tristanne only held his gaze, her own surprisingly clear, if narrowed.

  “I do not disagree,” she said after a moment. “I am not, I think, the hypocrite you would prefer me to be. I chose not to accept any financial support whatsoever from my father once I moved to Canada.”

  Something he could not identify moved through him. He called it anger. Distaste. And yet he knew it was not that simple—or, perhaps, it was not directed across the table.

  “You chose?” he echoed. “Or were you disowned?”

  “Who can say who disowned who?” Tristanne replied in a light tone he did not quite believe. “Either way, I never took another cent from him.” Her chin tilted up; with pride, he thought. He felt a stab of recognition, and ruthlessly suppressed it. “I may have to wait tables or tend a bar, but it’s honest work. I don’t have much in Vancouver, but everything I do have is mine.”

  He could not have said what he felt then, staring at her, but he told himself it was a simmering rage. They were not at all similar, despite her words. Her pride. For what was she really but one more spoiled heiress who made the usual noises about her independence, but only so far as it suited her? She had come running back to Europe quickly enough after Gustave had died, hadn’t she? Did she hope to get into her brother’s good graces now that he controlled the purse strings? What did she know about real struggle, about truly fighting for something, anything, to call one’s own because the alternative was unthinkable?

  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.

  The city was a hectic blur of russet-topped stone buildings and narrow, medieval streets; the Tuscan hills rising serene and green in the distance, the gleaming waters of the wide River Arno welcoming and yet mysterious as it cut through the city. Yet the city seemed strangely distant for all that it was right there on the other side of the car window. It was the man beside her, she realized as she came fully awake. He was like some kind of electrical source, emanating heat and power with such force that even the jewel of the Italian Renaissance seemed to fade when he was near.

  You must still be dreaming, she told herself sharply now, as the car purred around a tight corner, low and muscular. Wake up!

  �
�How long was I asleep?” she asked, her voice sounding much too loud in the close confines of the car. Had she really fallen asleep in this man’s presence? She could only blame her sleepless night—surely, only exhaustion could possibly have allowed her to lower her walls so completely. Her hands moved to her hair involuntarily, as if smoothing it back into place might ease her sudden acute embarrassment that he had seen her in so defenseless a state.

  “I stopped counting your snores some time ago,” Nikos responded dryly. “Musical as they were.”

  She shot him a look, and saw that half smile of his playing over his mouth. She could not imagine what it might mean—or why she interpreted it as softer, somehow. She knew better. She knew any softness from this man was momentary at best, like a trick of the light.

  “I do not snore,” she said, her voice sharper than she meant it to be. She cleared her throat, and forced herself to relax, at least outwardly. “How rude!”

  “If you say so,” he replied. His dark gaze swept over her for a brief, electric moment, then returned to the road in front of him. “But I think it is far ruder to fall asleep in someone else’s presence. I am wounded that you find me so profoundly boring, Tristanne.”

  Intuition—and the suicidal urge to poke at him—made her smile like a cat with a bowl of cream. Perhaps she thought she was dreaming, and that he could not harm her. Awake, she should have known better.

  “Poor Nikos,” she said with bright, false sincerity. “This must have been a new experience for you. I am sure the women of your acquaintance normally go to great lengths to pretend that you are so captivating, so interesting, that they can scarcely breathe without your express permission. Much less sleep.” She made a show of yawning, and stretched her feet out in front of her, as if she was not in the least bit captivated, interested, or even aware of his brooding presence beside her.

  She was dimly aware that the car stopped moving, but she could hardly concentrate on something so minor when he was turning toward her, his big body dwarfing the sleek confines of the car’s leather interior, his dark eyes glittering with something edgy and wild that she could not identify.

  Though her body knew exactly what it was, and hummed in sensual response, her breasts growing heavy and her nipples hardening beneath the simple green knit sheath she wore.

  “Once again,” he said, his voice smooth and dangerous, “I am astonished at how little you seem to know about being a man’s mistress, Tristanne. Do you truly believe that my former mistresses taunted me? Mocked me?”

  Some demon took her over, perhaps, or it was that restlessness inside of her that made her ache and burn and need. But she did not—could not—cower or apologize or back down at all, despite the clear sensual menace in his voice, his gaze, the way his arm slid along the back of her seat and hemmed her in, caged her, reminded her of the role she was supposed to be playing.

  Whatever it was, she met his gaze. Boldly. Unapologetically. As if this was all part of her plan. She raised her brows, challenging him.

  “And how quickly did you tire of them, I wonder?” she asked softly, directly. “So accommodating, so spineless. Do you even remember their names?”

  Something too primal to be a smile flashed across his face then. His eyes turned to liquid gold, like a sunset across water, and Tristanne forgot how to breathe.

  “I will remember yours,” he promised her. “God help you.” He let out a sound too harsh to be laughter, and nodded toward her window, and through it toward the covered archway that led to the imposingly large door of the ancient-looking building before them. “But there is no time for this now. We have arrived.”

  She could not say if she was relieved or disappointed when he left her scant moments after he ushered her into the sumptuous foyer of the sprawling flat. It commanded the whole of the top floor of an old building tucked away on an ancient side street in the city center. Tristanne did not realize how central it was, in fact, until the door closed behind Nikos and she turned to gaze out the floor-to-ceiling windows that comprised the far wall. She was staring directly at the famous red and marble dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore itself. Brunelleschi’s world-renowned Duomo was the whole of the view—filling the wall of windows and so close she felt as if she could very nearly reach out and touch it.

  Naturally this would be where Nikos Katrakis kept an extraordinarily sumptuous flat he could not possibly use very often. It was an architectural feat—high, graceful ceilings and a loft’s sense of space inside a historical building dating back to the Middle Ages. Of course he simply kept such a place as his Florentine pied-à-terre.

  Tristanne had grown up with wealth; had been surrounded by it for all but the last few years of her life. And still, the cold calculation necessary to make and maintain such wealth remained breathtaking to her, even shocking—the reduction of everything, anything, anyone to little more than currency, items to be bought, hoarded, sold, or bartered. Tristanne’s father had been that kind of man. Cold. Assessing. Moved by money alone, and sentiment? Emotion? Never.

  Nikos had not even glanced at the stunning view that would no doubt transport the sea of tourists who swarmed the city daily into raptures. The Duomo was one of the foremost sights in Italy, in the world. It was internationally, historically significant. And yet he had given a few curt orders to his staff, informed Tristanne he had meetings he expected to return from no later than six in the evening, and had then left. Had he bought this flat because he loved this view and wished to gaze at it whenever he happened to be in Florence? Or had he acquired it simply because it made good business sense as an investment property—because it had one of the most desirable and thus most expensive views in the whole city?

  “You are leaving?” she had asked, surprised, when he’d turned to go. “And what am I to do for all of these hours?”

  He had looked almost affronted by the question. “What mistresses always do, I would imagine,” he had replied in that silken tone. He’d crooked his brow. “Wait. Prettily.”

  Wait. Prettily. Like a seldom-used property. Had that not been what Tristanne’s mother had done her entire life?

  She moved closer to the windows now, something like sadness seeming to suffuse her, to swallow her whole, though she could not have said why. She did not know how long she remained in that same position, staring unseeing at the glorious marble and distinctive red tiles before her. She felt a sudden, sharp pang of homesickness stab at her. She wanted to be back in her cheerful little apartment in the Kitsilano neighborhood of Vancouver, free again. She wanted none of the past few days to have happened. Or, for that matter, the previous month. Outside, the light changed; dark gray clouds rolled in, and slowly, quietly, it began to rain.

  Tristanne pulled out her mobile and called her mother, who was, after all, the reason she was standing in Florence in the first place instead of in her own living room, which she’d set up as a makeshift artist’s studio and from where she had a view of nothing more remarkable than the backyard she shared with her neighbor. She loved that yard, Tristanne reminded herself as the phone rang. She liked to sit out in it with a glass of wine when the evenings were fine. She did not know why she felt as if she needed to defend it to herself now, much less the rest of her life—as if it was all slipping out of her reach with every breath.

  “Oh, darling!” Vivienne cried into the phone when she answered. No sign in her voice of her illness, her persistent cough or her unexplained fevers. Tristanne wondered what it cost her—though she knew her mother would never complain. “Are you having a lovely holiday?”

  Which was, Tristanne thought when she ended the call a few moments later, really the most she could expect from her mother. Her flighty, fragile, unendingly sweet mother, who had spent her life being looked after by one man or another. Her father, her husband, her stepson. She was anachronistic, Tristanne often thought, with varying degrees of frustration—a throwback to another time, a different world. And yet she had always been the single bright light in T
ristanne’s life—the only thing that had made her childhood bearable. Vivienne had been a flash of bright colors and boundless enthusiasm in the midst of so much grim, cold darkness. And now she was unwell, and needed her daughter. Tristanne would do anything for her. Anything at all.

  Even this.

  “You must take pictures,” Vivienne had said, nearly bubbling over with her excitement—which was at least an improvement over her grief, or her weakness. “You must record your adventures for posterity!” Because a lady did not discuss the reasons for a trip like Tristanne’s, just as a lady did not discuss her debts, or her failing health.

  “I’m not sure this is the sort of trip I’ll want to remember,” Tristanne had said dryly, but her mother had only laughed gaily and changed the subject.

  What pictures should she take to capture the moment? Tristanne wondered now, her mind reeling. She pressed a hand against her temple. What would best express the Nikos Katrakis experience? What single image would conjure up the dizzy madness of the last two days?

  She did not—would not—think of his wicked mouth on hers, his hands smoothing fire and need into her skin until she’d shaken with it. She could not think of his devastating quiet on that darkened street, the way he had held her captive with only that dark, too-perceptive gaze. His cutting mockery, that beguiling almost-smile…She wanted none of those images in her mind. She had to remember why she was here—why she was doing this.

  She let her head fall forward until it touched the cool glass of the great window, and sighed. It seemed to take over her whole body.

  She would do what she must, but that did not mean she had to sit here like this apartment, empty and discarded until Nikos condescended to return and begin their little dance anew. A whole city waited just outside, brimming with art and history in the summer rain, the perfect balm for the heart she told herself did not ache within her chest, the tears she would not allow herself to cry; for the life she suddenly feared would never fit her again as well as it used to, as well as it should.