Katrakis's Last Mistress. Caitlin Crews

though perhaps the least interesting truth.

      “I do not think you have the slightest idea what it means to be a man’s mistress,” he said from behind her, his voice soft, but with that dark current beneath.

      Tristanne could not bear to look at him. She could not understand the wild tumult of emotion that seized her, that filled her eyes with tears she would rather die on the spot than shed, but she knew with perfect clarity that she could not look at him now. She could not.

      “I am a quick study,” she heard herself say, because she had to say something.

      She heard a soft sound that could have been a low laugh, though she could not be sure.

      “Turn around, Tristanne.”

      She did not want to. She did not know what he might see on her face—and she was certain it would only expose her further.

      But this was not about her. This was about being a good daughter, for once. This was about protecting Vivienne. If she had not run off to Vancouver when her father revoked her university tuition…If she had not abandoned her mother to the tender mercies of both Gustave and Peter…But then, she had always been stronger than her mother. And now she would prove it.

      She turned. He was dark and dangerous, and still as breathtaking as when she’d been seventeen. He watched her with eyes that seemed to know things about her she did not know herself, and that ever-present hint of a smile. As if she amused him. She lifted her chin, and waited.

      She could do this. She would.

      “This boat sails in the morning for the island of Kefallonia, my home,” he told her, his velvet and whiskey voice a rough caress. His eyes gleamed with challenge. “If you wish to be my mistress, you will be on board.”