Chapter 12 – Tristan
TRISTAN
Ihear the bedroom door open and close, and a strange flutter hits my chest. Fucking Braxton. That motherfucker. He knew I was listening. How could I not? He can play all the games he wants, but the truth is, she doesn’t want me the way she wants him, and it burns at me.
There is freedom for Brax that I don’t have.
It’s always been one of the things I’ve hated envying.
He has no family. I have an incredible family, but with them comes pressure.
Pressure to perform. Pressure to move back to Paris.
Pressure to marry and create heirs—not children, but heirs—and pressure to take over my family’s business.
Brax can have Waverly. But it’s not so simple for me.
I was married to a woman who proved that. I have a family with expectations that prove that.
I finish showering and shaving and towel off. I expect she’s grabbed whatever it is she wanted and left, but when I open the bathroom door, she’s there staring at the wardrobe filled with the things we bought her this morning.
Her gaze slingshots over to me, noting my wet hair and smooth jaw and trailing down over the lines of my chest and abs, stopping when she reaches the white towel at my waist. A heavy blush hits her cheeks, and I wonder if it’s from me like this or that she knows I listened as she orgasmed on my sofa.
“I don’t know what to wear tonight,” she says, her voice high and tight, and a smile somehow unfurls from my lips.
I cross the room and stand beside her, staring into the wardrobe along with her. “It’s just us tonight. Nothing too formal.”
“So… like a dress or pants?”
She’s breathing heavily, her body tense with the large bed behind us, and me only wearing a towel. My cock starts to thicken as if I didn’t just come listening to Brax get her off, but I will it down and clear my throat.
“I think you’d look pretty in the green dress,” I tell her, and she turns to me, her gray eyes on mine.
“You do?”
“You look beautiful in green.”
“I do?”
I smirk. “Yes. You do.” I reach into the wardrobe and pull out the dark slacks and navy shirt I was going to wear tonight. “I can get dressed out here if you want the bathroom.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
She was so against sharing a bed with me when the idea of sharing a bed with her made my heart race and my palms sweaty. It made me nervous and excited in the best and worst possible way, and I can’t remember the last time—if ever—a woman made me feel like that.
And she wants nothing to do with me.
Not that I blame her.
I’ve fucked up a lot with her over the years.
Made everything about me and nothing about her because she worked for me, and that’s how I operate.
I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know what this feeling is.
I’m sick and twisted up and edgy. All week I’ve felt like this whenever I thought about her.
Now it’s as if Braxton switched on the light inside my head. I see her when I never did before. Or maybe it’s more that I knew that if I opened myself up to her, even a little, if I gave her an inch inside me, she’d spread like a virus with no cure.
I don’t even know. I can’t separate it in my head anymore.
Part of me wants to retreat. To go back to the way things were before where I forced myself to be indifferent to her in every way other than work. It’s safe there. I know what to expect.
But a larger part of me doesn’t want to go back.
I want what Brax is offering. But I want more than that.
I want her to be mine. For real. And I don’t know how that works.
We’ve shared women in bed, but our hearts were never involved.
Brax is crazy about her, and she seems to share that with him.
I’m not sure where, or even if at all, I fit into that.
“I’ll let you get ready.”
I turn and give her my back as I slip on my boxer briefs beneath my towel. I hear the hanger click as she pulls it from the rack, and her feet tap as she moves toward the bathroom.
“Are you mad?” she asks softly, and I turn my head over my shoulder and look at her.
“Mad?”
“About what’s happening, whatever it even is, with Braxton. You and I have a contract, and you’ve paid me an insane amount of money, and I feel like I’m betraying you, which is kind of odd, and—”
“I’m not mad.”
Her eyes round. “You’re not?”
“No. I’m a lot of things right now, Waverly, but mad isn’t one of them. And you’re not betraying me.” Because she’s not actually mine.
She licks her lips and takes a small step back. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”
“I don’t want to fight either.”
“Truce?”
I grin. “Truce.”
I turn away and start to slip on my pants when she stops me. “Tristan?”
“Yeah?”
“You have a nice ass.”
I choke on a laugh, and she shuts the door to the bathroom. A moment later I hear the water turn on, and I finish getting myself ready. Refusing to think about the woman naked in my shower.
“I see you finally graced me with your presence.” My father’s voice comes from behind us after the butler lets us in, his French accent light as if he’s been speaking in English more than French lately. “And here I thought I’d have to stalk down to your flat to see you.”
I turn and take Waverly’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Hi, Dad.” I extend my hand, and he grips it like he wants to prove he’s still the man of the house, and I’m nothing more than an unruly child. That is until he tugs me into a giant hug and holds me.
“It’s been too long. And I had to learn about your girlfriend from your mother. Do you know the women they had lined up for you?”
He shudders, and I laugh, pulling back.
“Dad, this is my girlfriend, Waverly. Waverly, this is my dad, Alain.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He shakes her hand too, his expression stoic, but she lays her sweet charm on him.
“You too, sir. Tristan speaks so highly of you. I have to admit, I’m just a little in love with your hotel.
It’s magical, especially with all the decorations.
” She giggles, and my father softens like a freshly baked croissant.
I haven’t seen this much charm from Waverly before, but I can’t complain that she’s laying it on thick for my family because they’re eating it up.
To the point where my father throws me a surprised yet prideful grin and returns to her. “Yes, the staff always goes all out this time of year. It’s a special place to live.”
“Ah. There it is,” I quip. “I was waiting for it.”
My dad chuckles. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t try to get you to move back home.”
“Well, I have several reasons to stay in Boston.” I throw Waverly a side eye, and she blushes on cue. She’s better at this than I thought she was going to be.
“It sounds like you two are pretty serious?” he questions, once again glancing at me, and I can feel my mother lingering behind him, and my grandmother hardly taking a wheezy breath from the other room so she can hear.
Fuck. Just… fuck.
“We are,” I answer, and I feel like shit. Like such shit. But I can’t help but love how they love her. Even if it’s not real. Even if she’s… something with my best friend and dislikes me enough that we have to declare a truce.
“Good, because his ex-wife was a total disaster,” Grand-mère declares, and I sigh. I’d hate to point out how Dianna was their choice and not mine, and how I simply did what my family wanted and ended up with a vampire for a wife.
Waverly laughs, with her head thrown back and everything. “So I’ve been told.” She turns back to my dad. “Did you know that we’ve had a string of women trying to come up and see him since I started working there?” Waverly smirks at me. “I used to have to send them away in droves.”
“Har, har,” I grumble. “But then one day I couldn’t stop seeing you.
” And fuck if that isn’t true. A little late, but still true.
And now that I’ve seen her, I don’t know how to stop looking.
I glance over my shoulder at Brax, who just entered, and he gives me a look I know so well on him.
It’s one that says it doesn’t have to be two when it can be three.
“I think that’s only because I don’t fawn at your feet or care that you’re Tristan Ouest.”
“Maybe.” I smirk and step into her, my hand reaching around her waist. “You hate that part of me.”
“It’s the worst,” she retorts, her eyes daring me to contradict her. “You didn’t have to be the one who turned away all those women like I did.”
I laugh. “You did a better job than I would have. No one messes with you. No one is a match for your sharp words mixed with your sweet sass and pretty smile. Not even me. Though I certainly enjoy putting you in your place.”
She pinches my arm that’s holding her and stares up, letting me know this is war, but it’s me getting back at her for the women coming in droves comment.
Her gray eyes are so pretty, and her lips are soft and pink, and before I know what I’m doing, I dip my head and kiss her. Full on the lips. Right here in front of my mother, grandmother, father, and Braxton.
I kiss Waverly, and I kiss her good. I even dip her back a little and hold her tight, pressing her body against mine so she feels how fucking hard I am for her.
The irony of that? I never even kissed my ex-wife in front of them. The only time they ever saw us kiss was at our wedding, and I sure as hell didn’t kiss her like this.
I right our bodies and pull away, holding her gaze, a little shocked and a lot turned on. She looks about the same, and behind us Braxton whistles.
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Waverly,” my dad says, clearing his throat with a knowing grin and a glint in his eyes.
“That was some kiss,” my mother exclaims, fanning her face.
“It sure was. Save it for places your grandmother doesn’t have to see,” Grand-mère says in French.
“Yes,” my mother agrees. “Let’s go in and eat. Waverly, won’t you come with me?”