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“I will decide what I need, Tristanne, thank you,” he snapped. His gaze narrowed, and an insinuating smile played on his thin lips. “What’s the matter? Afraid you don’t have what it takes to keep Katrakis’s interest? I have heard his tastes are…earthy.”
“I want my trust find,” she said again, more succinctly. She did not know what Peter meant by that comment, nor wish to know. Though her imagination could not help but supply vivid images to suit the word earthy, each more devastating than the last. Nikos’s hot, tender mouth upon her flesh, his strong, capable hands lifting her, his whipcord strength all around her, above her—
“It will take a month,” Peter said, snapping Tristanne back into the courtyard with a jolt. Peter’s cold eyes bored into her. “But if it makes you feel any better, I think it is clear that you have found your life’s work.” He laughed, unpleasantly.
He thinks I am nothing but a whore, Tristanne thought dully. Yet she could not seem to summon up any outrage on her own behalf. After all, he always had. The only difference was that now, if she peeled away the shocking heat that consumed her whenever she thought of Nikos, she feared that Peter might be right. And worse, that she might like it where Nikos was concerned—but she could not allow herself such incendiary thoughts!
“I want to see the paperwork regarding the transfer of my funds by next week.” She gazed at him coldly, determined to look unafraid. Unaffected. “Is that clear enough? Do we understand each other?”
“I understand you better than you think, sister,” Peter hissed at her, the word sister sounding like a vicious insult, like the hard slap he no doubt wished to give her. But Tristanne did not recoil. Not even when he smiled that horrible smile. “All the years you spent spouting off about your principles and your honor, and all the while you were no better than a whore, just waiting for the right price.” He waited, letting that sink in, and then his nasty smile deepened. “Exactly like your mother.”
Each word, she knew, was carefully calculated to maim, to wound. To prey on her feelings for Vivienne and force her to reveal herself. But she would rather die than give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d been successful. She would keep what she felt locked down, hidden away. She would not react. She would not.
“Next week, Peter,” she said through her teeth. “Or you can forget the whole thing.”
His eyes narrowed, that malevolent gleam flaring to sickening life, and she braced herself for whatever he might say next.
But instead she felt her body thrill to a sudden heat beside her, and knew without looking that Nikos had returned. Was it absurd that she felt as if he’d saved her, simply by standing beside her? It is certainly foolish, she admonished herself. Nonetheless, relief—thick and sweet—flooded through her. She had the insane urge to move closer to him, to burrow against his hard chest as if they were truly lovers, as if he would care for her in that way, protect her, but she shook it off.
“Katrakis.” Peter nodded in greeting, looking at Nikos with ill-concealed distaste.
Nikos smiled. It was that wolf’s smile, far too dangerous, and Tristanne knew that Peter was out of his depth even if he seemed to be unaware of that fact. She took a deep breath, feeling her spine ease its erect posture just a bit.
“Barbery,” Nikos said, his arrogant brows raised and his expression faintly amused. Tristanne could see how little Peter liked it. His gaze darkened.
“When my sister announced that she was spending a few days sailing to Greece, I could not imagine she meant with you,” Peter said.
As if there was some other Nikos Katrakis? What game was he playing now? Not for the first time, Tristanne wondered why Peter hated Nikos so much, when surely Nikos was exactly the sort of man Peter normally attempted to cultivate. All she had ever known was that Peter hated even the mention of his name, and always had.
“What, I wondered, could a Katrakis want with a Barbery?” Peter asked.
“It cannot be a mystery to you, surely,” Nikos drawled. Tristanne felt her skin prickle with heat. Nikos’s smile deepened, turned more mocking. “Buy me a drink sometime and I will clear it up for you.”
“My sister is usually not quite so charming as you seem to find her,” Peter said darkly, as if he was discussing a fractious mare or a disobedient hound. “I am amazed you have found her so…congenial.”
“No doubt your amazement is what caused you to lose your head and put your hands upon her,” Nikos said then, his voice smooth and deadly, like a whip. His eyes flashed dark gold fire. To Tristanne’s shock—and shame—he reached over and sketched the back of his fingers across the fading bruises on her upper arm, though he never looked away from Peter. “For surely you must know that I prefer that what is mine bear no mark but my own.”
