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“Art?” He pronounced the word as if it was an epithet in some foreign language he did not know. His head tilted to the side as he looked down at her, arrogant and imperious. “Are you certain it was art that drew you into the streets, Tristanne? And not something significantly more prosaic?”
“Perhaps a man of your stature does not notice art until you purchase it to grace your walls, or to appear as a coveted view outside your windows,” Tristanne said tartly, before she could think better of it. “But there are people in the world—and I realize this may surprise you—who find art just as moving when it is displayed in a public square as when it is hidden away in private collections for the amusement of the very rich.”
“You will have to forgive me if I cannot live up to your rarified expectations,” Nikos said coolly, though his eyes narrowed. “There were not many opportunities for art appreciation classes in my childhood, in public or private. I was more concerned with living through the week. But do not let me keep you from feeling superior because you can tell the difference between medieval sculptors at a glance. I am sure that is but one among many useful skills you possess.”
“You will not make me feel badly about something that has nothing to do with me!” Tristanne threw at him, her cheeks hot with sudden embarrassment and a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach that she refused to acknowledge. “You loom here, oozing your power from every pore, dripping luxury items like yachts and cars and sprawling flats, and yet I am supposed to feel badly because of your past? When you have obviously overcome it in every conceivable way and now flaunt it across Europe?”
His dark eyes glittered, and his mouth pulled to one side. Tristanne knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she did not want to hear whatever cutting thing he was about to say—that he would shred her without a second thought, just to assuage whatever mood this was that had him in its grip.
“I am not the one with expectations,” she hissed, hoping to stave him off. “You are.”
“You expect me to believe you wandered around looking at art in the rain?” he asked after a long, brooding moment. There was an urgency in his tone, a certain intensity, that she didn’t understand. That she didn’t want to understand, because she didn’t want to feel the urge to comfort him, to soothe him, however unlikely it was that he might let her do such a thing. She wanted only to complete this task, to gain her trust fund. That was the only thing she could allow herself to want.
“I do not care if you believe it or not,” she said instead, confused by the direction of her thoughts. She raised her shoulders only to let them fall again. “It is what I did.”
“And why would you do this?” His dark gaze moved over her face, and she was afraid, suddenly, of the things he might see, the urges he might notice and use against her. She looked away, back toward the street, letting her gaze follow the shadows and graze the cobblestones. She crossed her arms over her chest, half to appear defiant, but half to hold herself still as well.
“I suppose you will tell me a mistress does not do such a thing,” she said softly, shaking her head slightly at the water coursing down the street. “I imagine the perfect mistress…what? Shops for outfits she does not need? Sits in a room and contemplates the state of her hair?”
He almost smiled. She could sense it more than see it, in the closeness of that archway, hidden away together from the falling rain and coming dark.
“Something like that,” Nikos said. “She certainly does not roam the streets in a wild state, dripping wet and looking primitive.”
She looked at him then, and something flashed between them, hot and intimate. Dangerous. Uncontrollable. Tristanne felt her breath catch, and released it, deliberately. Count to ten, she cautioned herself. Do not fan this fire—it will burn you alive. It will ruin everything.
“I only said I wanted to be your mistress,” she said slowly, her voice lower and huskier than she’d intended, as if it had plans of its own. “I never said anything about being perfect.”
Something about her undid him. Her wide brown eyes, perhaps, so clever and yet so wary. The tilt of that chin, so pugilistic, as if she wanted to fight him, hold him off, defy him at all costs when her very presence here as his supposed mistress should have ensured the opposite. That lush, wide mouth that he wanted to taste again, every time he looked at it. And the way that green dress clung, wet and heavy, to curves that he was beginning to believe might haunt him for the rest of his days.
It did not matter that he had deep suspicions about her activities this afternoon. Had she met with her pig of a brother? Had she received further orders, whatever those might be? He could not seem to get a hold of the searing anger he felt when he thought about such a meeting—and he had been unable to think of anything else since he’d arrived back at the flat to find her out, whereabouts unknown. He knew it made no sense. It was not logical, or rational. She had never pretended to owe him any allegiance, and he had known she must have ulterior motives the moment she’d walked up to him on his yacht. He knew why he was using her—why should he think she was not using him equally?
