Chapter Fifteen Tristan #2
He went to the door, closing his fingers around the handle.
Then he stopped.
Turned back to me.
For a moment he stared. Then he reached out and swiped the lapel of my coat, wiping away a spec that wasn’t there. A ghost-touch. An excuse.
“Before we…” He dragged a hand over his face, palm to brow, as if fighting with himself about whether he should even speak. “Can I ask you for something I know I shouldn’t? That you should tell me to fuck off when I do. That I don’t deserve and you shouldn’t give?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You answering for me before you’ve asked?”
His eyes met mine.
God, they were wrecked. Stripped. No armour left in them at all.
He chewed his lip, then, “Can you… not be with anyone else?”
The words were quiet. Bare. But they hit me harder than anything he could have said. I blinked, completely wrong-footed.
He shook his head immediately, as if trying to take it back.
“I know it’s a lot. I know I don’t deserve to even ask it.
I know I should tell you to go find someone clean.
Someone safe. Some posh boy who takes you to dinner and holds your hand down the street and fits into your life without burning it.
” He scratched his head. “But… while this is happening. While this case is hanging over me. I know it could be months. Longer. And I know that ain’t fair.
I know that.” He glanced down at the carpet, and his voice went very quiet.
“But…I don’t think I’ll survive this if I’m in a room with you knowing someone else has had their hands on you. ”
The honesty of it was brutal.
And my chest gave way completely.
I crossed the space between us and went into him, sliding my hands into his hair as I kissed him, and his arm came around my waist, holding me to him.
“If you’re asking me to wait for you,” I breathed against his lips, “then I’ve been waiting for you this entire time. That’s not about to change.”
He stilled. “Really?”
“Yes, really. Jesus, did you think…? I’ve not been with anyone else since all this started. Since…the fucking alley.”
“Fuck.” Razor closed his eyes, held me close to him. Then he opened his eyes to hold my gaze. “Me either.”
I smiled. Relief tearing through me.
“Alright. So we wait.” He licked his lips. “Both of us. Get through it then…see what happens, yeah?”
“Yeah. We wait.”
Razor gave me one last kiss, then reached past me and opened the door.
We went downstairs together. Lennon was in the kitchen, unloading shopping onto the counter.
He looked up when he heard us. Took us both in.
He lifted his chin. Razor met his eyes and nodded once.
I managed a small smile. But no one said anything.
There was nothing to say. Lennon knew. Razor knew.
I knew. And whatever had happened upstairs, whatever we’d allowed then taken back from ourselves, was done now.
At least for now.
Razor walked me to the front door and opened it for me.
The dusk had settled while we’d been upstairs. The air colder. The street quieter. I stepped out, turned back, and he was still there in the doorway, one hand on the frame, forehead resting on it, watching me as if fixing the sight of me somewhere permanent.
Then I went.
Across the path. Into my car. And I drove away with his house in the mirror until it disappeared.
* * * *
I got back to Baron’s Court with my head full of work I hadn’t touched yet. Not all of it was Razor’s case, but that was the one pressing hardest, the one I couldn’t set down even when I wanted to.
I parked, climbed the stairs, and my phone rang as I reached the landing.
Henry.
“Hey.” I unlocked the door as I answered.
“Are you busy?” His voice was thick. Not quite drunk. Getting there.
“I’ve just got in.” I shut the door behind me, tugged off my coat and scarf, hung them on the hook by habit, then dropped my bag on the sofa. “You all right?”
“No. No, Tris, I’m not.” He gave a short, humourless laugh. “Why are we still pretending these rules matter? Why do I even care about them? If a prince can marry a civilian, why can’t I?”
Zara.
“What happened?” I asked, though knowing the answer wouldn’t be small.
“She’s dating Barnaby Ashworth.”
I searched my memory. Came up blank. It had been a while since I’d kept track of that world. “I’m sorry, Hen.”
“Can I come over? We can drown in Chianti together.”
I glanced at the stack of files on the table, the notes I still needed to annotate. But Henry had done too much for me to leave him alone with this. “Yeah. Come round. I’ll order some tapas.”
“Thanks, Tris.”
The line went dead.
I moved quickly, tidying more out of nervous energy than necessity. I set out two glasses, opened a bottle of wine to breathe, and was halfway through deciding whether I could squeeze in a shower when the buzzer sounded downstairs. That was fast.
“Come in,” I said, pressing the intercom. “I’m going to jump in the shower, door’ll be open.”
I unlatched my door, kicked off my shoes, and headed straight for the bathroom. I couldn’t sit there smelling of Razor, not tonight. I scrubbed myself clean, then wrapped a towel around my waist and ran another through my hair as I crossed back into the living room.
“Sorry, Hen—” The words died in my throat.
Because that wasn’t Henry sitting on my sofa.
It was Lord Wolfe.
Turned slightly towards the lamp, one leg crossed over the other, a wine glass balanced easily in his hand, he perused my file notes spread across his lap, thumb marking a page as he read with idle interest.
My heart slammed so hard it hurt.
“Adrian.” I forced my voice steady. “How did you—?”
He lifted the wineglass, inspecting it as if I’d poured it especially for him. “You let me in. Did you not?”
Cold crept up my spine. “I wasn’t expecting you.” I glanced towards the door, absurdly hoping Henry might still walk through it. “Henry’s coming over. He’ll be here soon.”
“Will he?”
“Yes.” I gripped the towel at my waist tighter. “He will.”
Wolfe regarded me for a moment. “I’m sure he intends to.
I’m equally sure you weren’t leaving your door open for any such other person to walk in.
” He smiled. “You deserve an evening with friends, Tristan. You’ve earned it.
” He then lifted the wineglass in a small, almost congratulatory motion.
“Today went rather well for you, did it not?”
I hadn’t ever felt so exposed. Not just because I was standing there practically half-naked in my own living room, in the flat my father paid for, his influence stamped into every quiet, expensive corner of it.
But because Adrian Wolfe, who had been whispering into my father’s ear for months, who had wanted me and not been allowed to have me, was now sitting on my sofa while I was still damp from a shower taken to scrub myself clean of the man he despised because I chose him instead.
It was grotesque. Intimate. Deliberate.
“I think we should talk.” Wolfe leant forward to set his glass down on the coffee table, my file notes crumpling under his elbow. “Man to man.” He then sat back. Cocked his head. “You are a man now, aren’t you? I don’t need to ask your father’s permission to talk to you anymore.”
“No.” I stood my ground. “But you do need mine. And you don’t have it.”
“Then perhaps you should be more careful on who you allow into your space. Who you leave your windows and doors open for, hm?”
He held my gaze.
I didn’t move. Didn’t give him anything.
“I tried to warn you.” Wolfe adjusted his cuff as though discussing a missed appointment rather than the direction of my life. “Had you accepted my guidance when it was offered, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this particular configuration of events.”
“What configuration is that?”
He swiped something off his trousers absently. “The one in which your professional enthusiasm interferes with an enterprise operating well beyond your current visibility.”
I scoffed. “Are you suggesting my mind is too small to grasp the scale of corruption inside the CPS and government?”
“On the contrary, Mr Hale-Fitzroy.” He used my surname with care, each syllable a reminder of lineage and expectation.
“You’re exceptionally good at mistaking momentum for inevitability.
It’s a common error among clever young men.
” He held my gaze. “You identify a weak case and assume the law will do what it’s supposed to do. ”
I folded my arms, forcing my breathing even. “If you’re here to intimidate me—”
“I’m here to help you,” Wolfe cut in smoothly. “Intimidation would be inefficient.”
He stood then and crossed to the window at the balcony, looking out at the lights of Baron’s Court as if he were surveying a city he owned.
“This case you are inadvertently a part of,” he kept his back to me, “was never intended to survive scrutiny. It should conclude. Quietly. Before curiosity turns into investigation.”
“You framed my client.”
Wolfe smiled at the glass. “No. I positioned him.” Then he turned back to me. “Your client is useful, but replaceable. The system requires bodies occasionally. Ones that fit the shape of the story already being told.”
“And the story is?”
“Violence. Drugs. Inevitability. Disposable men who rise too fast and think they won’t fall back down where they belong. There is only so much space at the top, Tristan. Only so many chairs around the high rollers table. You know that.”
I swallowed. Knowing the truth of it too well. From study. From being in Razor’s bed.
“You,” he gestured to me with two fingers, “were not meant to interfere.”
“I’m doing my job.”
“And I respect that. Which is why I’m offering you a way to do it without collateral damage.
” He stepped closer. Not invading my space.
But close enough for me to feel his breath on my still-damp skin.
“You advise a global plea. Manslaughter. Conspiracy. A finite sentence. Your client lives. The court gets closure. The CPS preserves credibility.”
“And you?”
“I stop caring. Which is a rare gift.”