We rode across the endless stretch of flat lands to the lush oasis nestled where the trees speared down from the supple mounds of verdant hills. With the horses tethered, grazing on grass and sleeping in the dappled shade, Tristan spread out the blanket from the packed bag.

"Come here," he said, eyes glittering with a different sort of hunger.

Eager, breathless with need, I slid into his arms. My body so sensitive, so eager, so responsive to his subtle ministrations. His hands scored over me, wild, without restraint. We undressed in a hurry, wasting no time on anything short of focused and frenzied passion. Heat met heat, finally naked in each other's arms, his body stretched over mine. Reaching between us, I felt the delicious girth of him run along my seam—plunge. Fill. Stretch.

I cried out his name. Coming in the wake of that single, glorious thrust. His body, an arched bow forged of iron, every muscle straining for more. He rocked in me, over me, our bodies trained in a breakneck sort of dance that would lead us both to sheer, absolute ruin. Deep. So deep. My legs wrapped around his waist, taking more. Needing more.

"There, right there," he growled his approval against the skin of my throat, his teeth sinking in to lay claim. His hands cupped my thighs, his fingers tightening around firm muscle. The sinful wet, slap of flesh as he plundered harder. My pleasure rose within me, a violent wave casting all else in its shadow.

I sobbed his name, he urged me to scream it—louder. Headless of anything else but him, I did; coming apart in his arms—that wave crashing over me, over us both. The hot pull of him emptying inside of me, I rolled my pelvis, clenched my core—milking every glorious spasm from his gorgeous body.

Sated, Tristan sagged over me. I enveloped him in my arms, nuzzling against the curve of his throat, where his pulse leapt and raced and wondered if there was anything more amazing, more...satisfying, than knowing the man you loved was ruined—completely ruined and in your arms?

We lay that way for awhile, beneath an open, cloudless sky. The sun was strong and warm, tempered by a lusty, cool breeze. We lay with our limbs entwined, our hands slipping over our bodies in a lazy kind of way that makes me think of the afternoon breeze brushing through the tall grass. We say nothing for the long while, almost as if our grazing touches are speaking for us. Saying so much and yet saying nothing at all.

Could I tell him? The words burned in my belly, rose to my throat, but they never pushed beyond that point. Stilled by what, I couldn't know for sure. Maybe I was scared. Terrified, really, to say them aloud only for him to dismiss, reject or worse, decide things between us have gone far enough as is. To walk away.

I looked up to him, searching—trying to see some inkling, some hint of Tristan's mysterious soul. And slammed straight into that wall I could never seem to see beyond.

"What's this?" he asked, skimming a finger between my eyes where a line furrowed. "What's on your mind?"

"My nephew," I lied. Disgusted by the fact I completely chickened out. But it wasn't an entirely untrue, I was worried about Nate, and shared everything Collin had told me about his son, and tossed in the details I'd uncovered after the fact.

All the while Tristan listened, silent and without interruption.

"So Nathanial is the young and sombre youth I saw you speaking with earlier today?" Tristan plucked a long strand of tufted grass, running the feathery plumes between his fingers in thought.

"Yes," I answered, levering up on my elbows, wiggling restless feet. We were still naked and the sunlight felt wonderful on my skin. I couldn't recall a time where I'd ever enjoyed the outdoors like this—and wondered how something so foreign and new could feel so easy, so natural.

"Collin wants me to fix things between Nate and Helen when she gets here, but I don't know if I can, or even if Nate will trust me enough to tell me what's wrong."

"And do you think there is?" Abandoning the grass, Tristan rolled on his side and looked up at me, his silvers eyes cool as honed steel and full of secrets. As were Nate's, I realized. Perhaps not as hard to read, or difficult to see beyond, but secretive nonetheless.

"I do. Yes," I answered finally. "Can't put my finger on what, but something's there."

"If so, best to let him come to you. Pushing won't get you anywhere. And even then, he may choose not to. You'll have to accept that. Respect that."

I thought about what Tristan had said for the rest of the afternoon. We'd enjoyed the packed lunch of sandwiches and salad, rode the horses back in a steady run that had the mares happy and worn out by the time we reached Ronin Estates. Helping with the Tack, Tristan and I brushed them down and put away riding gear. He was a skilled hand with a horse, and clearly not a stranger to life in a stable.

"You've grown up around horses," I said as we walked back up to the main house. Tristan's eyes flickered to me and he smiled.

"My uncle had a farm outside of Dublin. Owned a stable of ponies he would breed for tour rides and the like. I would spend most of my summers out there when I was a lad. It was back breaking work, but I enjoyed handling the animals. For a time, at least."

"What happened?"

A muscle quirked in his jaw. "Place was sold when he died. His assets liquidated. Ponies sold off at market. My father wasn't big on sentiment. Eyes always on the bottom-line and what made business sense. The farm wasn't making enough in terms of profit to make the expense of upkeep a viable investment, in his eyes."

"And he didn't have any kids to contest the sale?" I wondered.

"No. He never married, so it was only every myself and Ailish who—" Tristan jerked a little straight as if it suddenly occurred to him that the conversation had veered towards the personal family territory.

And I knew, without having to say another word, that the topic of discussion was unequivocally closed.

#

The Devil arrived at Ronin Estates, draped in the finest of Hermes' Spring line and just in time for dinner. Helen Wolworth Weston Pierce was a statuesque woman, exotic, perhaps, thanks to her Mediterranean heritage of olive skin and ink-black hair. But her eyes had grown cold over the years. Probably a result of disappointment, I mused, having been hitched to my brother for the last twenty years.

I'd returned to the stable a little while after my afternoon ride with Tristan, to check on Stargazer, and reached the main house just as Helen's chauffeured car arrived at the doors.

If there had ever been a perfect representation of two people getting married for all the wrong reasons, it was Helen and Collin. She had thought to snare herself the promising son of dashing senator Harold Weston Pierce. The prized and coveted crown jewel, only to discover that his son, unlike the father, had not only no political ambitions, but no ambitions whatsoever.

And thus, Helen's dreams of being the picture perfect first lady went up on smoke, and so did the charade of playing the happy wife. However, as she was already six months gone with child, it was too late to retract from her useless marriage and hunt down a more suitable replacement. So Helen had done anything and everything she could manage to make Collin insufferably unhappy—payment, no doubt, for having stolen her better years.

"Laura," she sang out in a sickly sweet voice that contrasted the cool look in her dark eyes. "Darling, it's been ages." Reaching for me, she kissed the air above my cheeks as if skin to skin contact would result in corrosion or spontaneous combustion.

"Hel." I smiled. "I thought you weren't going to get here until tomorrow."

"Collin say that?" She arched a brow. "I distinctly told him—oh well never mind. I swear. If his head wasn't bolted to his shoulders it would flit off into the clouds. Always in a daze, that man. Honestly, what's he going to do without me? Did he tell you about the divorce?"

She looped a hand through my arm, roping me to her side and I knew I was trapped. Besides, there was no shaking her even if I wanted to after I'd promised Collin I'd help with swaying her from shipping Nate off to some military boot camp.

Resigned to my fate, I shrugged. "I'd heard, yes. But—"

"Awful, isn't it? Can you believe it? After all I've done for him—for us. Seems a horrible shame to toss it all away. And for what? As if he could do better. And no marriage is perfect, after all. You'll learn that soon enough if you ever settle down."

As Helen barked instructions to the driver about what to do with her bags, I gritted my teeth to bite down on the scathing retort blistering across my tongue. Barely.

I was tired of all the other women who'd elected to be wedded and bedded before their mid-twenties, like I was somehow in deficit for forging ahead with my life—my career. That I should want to rise on my own merit and earning rather than dangle from my husband's arm like a piece of custom jewelry?

That I should want more for myself—need more—than to simply be someone's wife?

"Helen," I said, carefully to match my tone to her sunny lilt. "I'm not going to pretend to know what is going on inside of Collin's head, but I'm sure he has his reasons. You never seemed happy together. Either of you. Ever."

Helen slid a baleful glance in my direction. "Darling, anyone who marries for happiness is either ill-informed, or poor. It's an important, imperative decision that should be based upon assessing key variables—no less vital than or strategic then...well, handling a corporate merger."

My blood chilled at the shift and I knew something was coming. Something bad. Helen's grip tightened on my arm as I led her up to the house.

"Tell me," she sidled in closer, all hush as we walked up the stone paved walkway, "are the rumors true?"

"Rumors?"

"Oh, come now, darling," she wiggled our looped arms, "we're family. Don't play so coy. You and Tristan Shade being more than just partners in the boardroom. Are the rumors true?"

And now it all made sense, I realized, with a sinking thump of my stomach wringing around my knees. Helen wasn't the sort to enter into idle conversation—the woman always had a goal, an objective. And had she elected to be more than a glorified trophy wife, she could have been a real force in the corporate world.

"I didn't take you for having much interest in my personal life," I said, dancing around the subject, though it was pointless to do so. She'd see Tristan in the flesh, soon enough.

"Oh darling, you wound me!" she laughed. "You know, Elaine Gibson and I are good friends," Helen tossed back her length of dark hair. "We go way back, as it were. Naturally, you can imagine how distressed she was when the news reached her ears. Nasty business, darling. Truly dreadful. You must feel so embarrassed."

Her eyes glimmered with enjoyment and I employed every ounce of control I had left to both keep my face neutral and to prevent my fist from smashing into her expensively maintained face.

"Embarrassed about what? We're both grownups."

"Darling," she said, hushed with conspiracy, hand to her chest with feigned concern. "You do realize he's still married, don't you?"

"Soon to be divorced," I corrected, "but it's alright. Given your predicament I can see how the distinct could escape you."

Her fingers dug into my arms like talons, but her face was all smile and grace. A consummate actress, if I ever saw one.

"There's a long road to cross between decision and divorce," she said, turned to face me. "And I think you'll discover that Tristan Shade's is a long ways off, just yet. Wouldn't surprise me if he has a change of heart. Men often do after spending themselves in a brief dalliance to make them come crawling back, tails tucked between their legs. Reconciliation is such an easier pill to swallow than a multi-million dollar loss to the bank account. And I think you'll find that for a man like Shade, it's not the heart that drives the man, but the bottom-line."

As Helen sauntered off, I waited until the door was shut behind her before lowering to the step. Any other time I would have had a dizzying comeback that would has smacked her flat on her smug little ass, but I was now a woman in love, and therefore ill-equipped to go to war with a heartless bitch.