Free The Skilled Seduction by Tracy Goodwin

reserved for him alone.
    Tristan could have resided in his ancestral home not five miles away, but he chose not to because that was the last place he wanted to be. It wasn’t because of the locale, for it neighbored his sister’s residence. Rather, it was because the manor held too many unhappy memories and harbored numerous family secrets.
    He’d grown accustomed to hiding from them, which came as no surprise to his family. After all, these secrets were the reason that Colin, who had inherited the property, gave it to Tristan in the first place.
    Colin had offered his share of excuses at the time. He wanted to live with his wife’s grandmother, he wasn’t Lachlan’s child by blood and felt uncomfortable keeping the estate, and the list lengthened from there.  
    Tristan understood the truth, though.    
    Colin didn’t want the damned estate any more than Tristan did. If Tristan had the choice he, too, would have pawned it off on someone else.
    He washed, choosing not to call for his valet instead reveling in the silence that now engulfed him. His niece and nephew were a whirlwind of incessant chatter and an abundance of energy. Tristan found entertaining them to be difficult work.
    Or perhaps it was entertaining the adults – his sister and brother-in-law? Add to that the toll Victoria’s presence was taking on him. Then there were the moments where he had no choice but to play nicely with Colin and Eve, on those rare occasions when he couldn’t avoid them.  
    Yes, Tristan went to great lengths, pretending that it didn’t bother him to see Colin and Eve together with their daughter. He expected that time would dull the pain.  
    It hadn’t.
    To the contrary, his grief had worsened with the knowledge that he was far from the life he wanted, and stuck with the life he’d chosen. Make no mistake, Tristan had elected this life he now lived.
    Initially, Tristan thought he would master his mistrust of women, his loathing for the institution of marriage. But he couldn’t. Marriage was an institution, after all, and most who ventured forth deserved to be institutionalized, in his opinion. At times like this, when he witnessed his sister and brother-in-law happily married, Tristan missed what he could have had … the family, the love, the happiness.
    In spite of his assertions to the contrary, Tristan failed to convince himself that the life he had chosen for himself, the poor reputation he had carefully crafted, was enough. Far from it, he found his life to be lonely, though he would never admit it to anyone, not even Gwen.    
    Regardless of his charade, coming home was still incredibly painful because, hidden deep within the crevices of his very being, Tristan wanted nothing more than for time to move backwards, allowing him to relive his choice to love Eve above anyone else. But that was impossible and the ugly truth remained that the events that followed were his way to ensure that he would never entrust his heart to anyone.  
    His choices rendered falling in love impossible. Through them, he had erected walls that couldn’t be eradicated.  
    So the happiness his siblings enjoyed, complete with their families and children, their puppies and teddy bears, bedtime stories and wide smiles, was smothering him. Tristan despised himself for it, knowing all the while that he should be happy for Gwen and Colin. A part of him was, though the jealous monster within him reared its ugly head more often than he would like.
    Tristan tossed his towel against the marble sink, disgusted by his most recent excursion to the land of never . Never will he do this, never will he have that.  
    For God’s sake man, toughen up! You survived much worse. You survived your father.
    Yes, he survived his father. There was only one person who knew a portion of the price Tristan had paid and what the man had done to him – his brother, Colin. No one else would ever know as Tristan planned to take that secret to his grave. True to