Chapter 7 – Tristan
TRISTAN
Waverly’s mini panic attack seems to be under control. The flight attendant gave her water, champagne, and some warm nuts, and she nibbled and drank and stared out the window as the plane went through its checks, roared down the runway, and lifted us into the sky.
But something happened during that time. Something… unexpected.
I realized the extent of the position I put her in. One she doesn’t want to be in, and my guilt hits me hard.
“I should call this off,” I murmur to Braxton.
“You shouldn’t. She’s fine.”
“I’m essentially blackmailing her to be my girlfriend.”
“Did you give her the option to say no?”
I move my gaze away from the back of Waverly’s head to scowl at my friend, who is sitting across from me in my cabin. “Of course I did. I’m not a monster. Just an asshole.”
“And if she said no, would it have affected her job?”
I glare. It’s not a kind glare either.
“Then chill out. She said yes. It’s her first flight, and she’s traveling to Paris and spending time with her bosses while pretending to be your girlfriend. It’s a lot. Give her space to work it through.”
I nod and return to her. The sky outside the window is dark, the city sprawling beneath us as we climb higher into the air, and Waverly is glued to it like a little kid. It sends the oddest sensation through me. It makes me want to show her the world just so I can watch how she experiences it.
“I’m going to have trouble,” Brax admits in a low voice.
He’s lounging in the recliner and sipping a scotch with his legs kicked up.
It’s getting late, and we’ll need to go to bed soon.
Waverly is now eating the first-class meal she was just handed like it’s the best thing she’s ever had and is on her third glass of champagne, and I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I want to crawl in bed with her and hold her all fucking night and kiss her like no one has ever kissed her before.
I’ve never allowed myself to think about what kissing Waverly would feel like, but now that she’s my fake girlfriend and I felt the soft skin of her cheek beneath my lips, it’s all I can think about.
“I know,” is all I can say, staring down at my vodka and finishing it off because I don’t want to think any more about kissing Waverly. Or what her body would feel like against mine. Beneath mine. Above mine. Fuck!
“We’re in your apartment,” he says and lets that end with a meaningful look.
“They won’t let her share that with us.”
He smirks. “Oh yes, they will. Your grandmother and mother have plans for you now.”
Shit. “No, they won’t. They just won’t. Regardless, I can’t…”
“I can.”
I shake my head. “No. We can’t. She wouldn’t want that with us. Not both of us. And then what do we do when we come back home?”
The thought of Waverly getting spooked because we’re two men with very particular tastes in bed who enjoy sharing the same woman isn’t for everyone. I wasn’t lying when I told him I can’t lose her, but the more I look at her, the more I’m starting to question if that goes beyond work.
If it always did.
I’ve been watching her and telling myself it’s because I have more questions than answers.
All week I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her, and it started when I realized how long she’s been silently dealing with all of this.
That realization kept me up half the night, and I still can’t fully figure out why.
All of this bothers me on a different level than I expected.
I feel… oddly protective of her.
Like in the airport when she was panicking. It was… endearing. Sweet almost, though I can’t imagine it was for her. It made me feel like her hero that I got it to stop.
I’m probably only feeling this way because she’s been my right hand for the last two years when no one else has made it longer than a couple of months.
But her secret makes me feel like I failed her in some way, and it’s been bothering me on a level I’m unaccustomed to.
Her problems are her own, and I shouldn’t give a shit.
But I do.
The more I get to know and see this side of Waverly, the more I want.
“Why would it have to stop?”
“She’s our assistant. We can’t have this with her and have that and have them be separate.”
He snickers. “You’re so fucking rigid. Everything to you is black and white.
She’s not Dianna. She’s not any of those women your mother is trying to set you up with.
If she were, she would have taken the five hundred grand without batting an eye.
You can have something real. We both can.
And maybe, just maybe, she’s the one we can have it with. ”
He stands, polishes off the last of his drink, and goes over to her cabin.
Both of our curtains are open, and I watch as he talks to her for a minute, smiling and laughing and touching her cheek and hair.
He says goodnight and kisses her forehead, and she blushes, her teeth sinking into her lip as he turns and walks away, only for her to realize I’m watching.
Her lips part, unlocking that plump bottom lip, and her eyes go wide.
“Are you good?” I ask, not addressing what I just saw or the fact that she knows I did.
“I’m good.”
“Are we good?”
She tilts her head. “I’m not sure I understand your question.”
I climb out of my seat and into her cabin and take the seat across from her, leaning forward and dropping my elbows to my thighs.
“Do you have questions for me?”
“So many I hardly know where to begin.”
I chuckle lightly, but it falls flat quickly. “I don’t know a lot about you.”
“Don’t worry. I know nearly everything about you. There isn’t a whole lot to my story. I grew up with my grandmother outside of Boston, went to school in Boston, graduated, bounced around between a few jobs in search of something that paid well, and found you.”
“What body lotion do you wear?”
“What?” she breathes.
“Body lotion. I know it’s not perfume. It’s vanilla, but it’s something else too.”
A light blush curls up her cheeks. “It’s called Sugared Fantasy.”
I smile. “I like it. Tell me something else.”
“I want your mom and grandmother to like me, but it would be better if they didn’t. I’m worried they’ll think I’m a gold digger and not good enough.”
My chest pinches, and I climb out of my seat and drop to my knees in front of her.
And because I need to get used to this and so does she, and fucking Brax just did it, I reach up and drag my fingertips along her cheek, taking in the beautiful lines of her face and studying her gray eyes and how they glow more silver in this light.
Her breath hitches, and I inch closer, wanting more of it.
“The women my mother and grandmother are trying to set me up with? They’re the gold diggers. Not you. They’re not a tenth of you, and you are more than enough. You’re incredible.”
“I’m worried this will get complicated.”
“I’m worried about that too. We’ll need to communicate with each other. Not as Mr. Ouest and Waverly, my assistant, but as Waverly and Tristan. I’ll need you to be honest with me always, and no matter what, nothing you say or do will hurt your job.”
My fingers slide down the slope of her neck to her delicate collarbones.
“We should get some sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow, and jet lag can be no joke.”
She gulps and nods, her voice tremulous as she whispers, “Good night, Tristan.”
I lean in and brush my lips along the corner of hers up to her cheek. “Good night, Waverly.”
I rise and head to my cabin, closing the curtain and getting myself ready for sleep. I even manage a few hours, waking before they come around with breakfast trays and coffee.
The office is officially closed, but Christmas Eve isn’t until later this week.
The Smithfield deal is under final arrangements, including our onsite visit to the lab and office.
My attorney promises to have the contracts ready for signature by January second if we give him the go-ahead by the twenty-seventh.
But once the deal is inked, that’s when all the work really begins.
It’s an enormous undertaking to take control of an entire company.
A large company at that. One that’s in Paris while we’re in Boston.
So I force myself to get some work done instead of thinking about what these next two weeks could be like.
The plane begins to descend, and Waverly’s eyes are once again glued to the window, taking in the sprawling landscape below with Paris in the distance as we circle it to land at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
“The city is so far away,” she remarks, wonder in her voice. “But I think I saw the Eiffel Tower.”
“Wait till you see it up close,” Brax tells her, an indulgent smile like I’ve never seen on him twisting up his lips. “We can go up it and dine there.”
“Really?!” she gasps in delight and immediately returns to the window.
I watch her, taking in the soft lines of her pretty profile as an awed smile tilts up her lips.
She’s been struggling all this time, and she never let on. Not once. She worked her ass off, and I was too into myself and what I was trying to accomplish to think it was related to anything beyond impressing me or doing her job.
She’s as tough as they come. I wasn’t lying about that. But knowing this has been her struggle, that she’s weathered it seemingly alone, and that it hasn’t diminished her smile, spirit, or kindness has my cold, dead heart warming in my chest.
But I want her to have more. She turned down three hundred thousand dollars, only wanting me to cover her current debt and nothing more. I’m struggling with that now. I don’t want her to ever have to worry or go without again.
And I’m finding I want to be the one to give it to her if for no other reason than to see the fire in her eyes and hear the heat in her words when I poke at her pride and stubborn resistance.
That feeling only grows the moment we get her luggage, which looks like it’s been through an explosion, and I see the coat she’s wearing is the same thin one she always wears.