Chapter 18
Last night Frankie was staring up at the ceiling downstairs while she was in bed with a different brother. Maybe she should feel guilty about that, but she didn’t.
That wasn’t true, she did feel guilty. She felt guilty that Liam had opened up his home to his dad, who he hadn’t spoken to for almost twelve years and who he’d never confronted about finding out that he was not his biological father, and he’d done it because of her.
She’d seen the look on his face when Tristan talked about not wanting to inconvenience Yaya and that he was allergic to cats.
She hadn’t been able to speak to him alone.
As much as she wanted to make an excuse and say that she was going to go downstairs and get some water, she was scared to be alone with Liam.
She didn’t trust herself. All she had to do was get through the next week, get her mom married, and not be the cause of The Sterling Men World War III.
“Can we please talk?” Tristan asked.
“Sure.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what’s going on?”
“If you were so concerned, why didn’t you come to California to find out?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if it was so important for you to know what was going on, why didn’t you show up before now to find out?”
“You said you wanted space.”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t say anything.”
“Exactly. Silence is very loud. And also, when I saw that you were at your grandma’s, I figured you just wanted to sort of, you know, reset.”
She sighed. This was exhausting. If they were going to spend the next week pretending to be a couple, she was not going to tiptoe around the fact that she knew he’d inserted his penis in other people.
“Cut the shit, Tristan. For once in your life, just stop. You didn’t follow me out here because you were happy I was gone. Admit it. You were relieved to have the townhouse to yourself.”
There were several beats of silence. She could practically hear the gears turning as Tristan came up with his strategy for rebuttal. It was draining being in a relationship with a lawyer known for his rock star litigation and mediation skills.
“Sometimes it’s good to have alone time,” he reasoned. “And space in a relationship can be healthy.”
“That’s not what I…you weren’t alone. I know about you and Emmanuelle.”
“Who said…” He turned onto his side towards her. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but—”
“I haven’t heard anything. No one told me anything.”
She could feel him staring at her, but she kept staring straight up at the ceiling.
“Well, then what are you talking about? You know I would never—”
Oh, for the love of…
“I saw—” She turned her head. “—with my own eyes.”
He was shaking his head. “Whatever you think you saw—”
She reached over to the nightstand, grabbed her phone, pulled up the screen recording she took, pressed play, and turned the screen towards him.
He stared at the X-rated video, and she watched him mentally scramble to come up with how he was going to spin this.
He was a master spinner, which was the reason she’d screen recorded the video.
She didn’t want to deal with him serving her a feast of lies.
This was irrefutable truth he couldn’t BS his way out of.
“I don’t know who sent that to you, but you know it’s crazy what they can do with AI. And Emmanuelle’s ex was so bitter.”
“Wow.” She stared at him in disbelief. The sincerity in his eyes was actually terrifying.
If she had been sent the video, and if things in their relationship hadn’t felt off for years, there was a really good chance she would have bought the AI story.
“You know, I’m actually sort of impressed. You are a really good liar.”
“I’m not lying. I love you, Mouse.”
She hated that he still called her Mouse. She didn’t mind that her mom did, or her brothers, even Zee did from time to time, but for some reason, it bothered her that he did.
“No one sent it to me. It was on our iCloud. It came up in memories while I was doing the Gonzales intake, so they also got an eyeful.”
Frankie saw a flash of defeat in his eyes before he closed them.
In one instant, his entire demeanor changed, and she knew she had him.
She wasn’t delusional to think his surrender had anything to do with a single video.
If she had to guess, there were most likely more videos.
She hadn’t mined for more infidelity gold, but from the look on his face, if she had, she knew would have struck it rich.
He slumped, falling to his back on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling.
“It didn’t mean anything. Me and Em. She just… I didn’t see her coming. It wasn’t serious.”
Em. She’s Em now?
It didn’t even matter. Frankie wasn’t jealous at all. She wasn’t even mad, not at the affair. She was upset that he’d been cheating on her for years. It was the lying she hated. Why hadn’t he just left her?
She sighed. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he repeated, his voice sounding hopeful.
What did he think she was going to do? Flip out. Scream and yell? Attack him? She’d known about it for over a month. Even if he’d said they were in love and getting married, she would have had the same response.
“Yeah, okay.”
He rolled over and slid his hand across her stomach in one practiced move.
She immediately pushed him off of her. “What are you doing?!”
He lifted up on his elbow, peering down at her. “You said okay?”
“And?”
“And you said okay,” he repeated, every word soaked in entitlement.
“That doesn’t mean okay, I forgive you. It just means, okay, I’m not going to argue with you because what’s the point?”
He flopped back down on the bed, behaving as if he were the injured party.
She was honestly so over this. It was taking every ounce of self-control she had not to go sleep in another room.
If she thought for one second that her mom wouldn’t catch on and sniff out trouble in paradise, she would do exactly that.
Frankie was so far beyond furious it was a miracle the bedsheets didn’t combust from the heat radiating off her body.
She lay rigid and awake, not because she could still feel the phantom touch of Tristan’s arm on her waist, but because she could still hear the echo of his words in her head.
It didn’t mean anything. Me and Em. It wasn’t serious. But the worse, I didn’t see her coming.
She knew if Zee was there, he’d say, um, I beg to differ, sir, you did see her coming that is the problem. She grinned thinking about it. This was why Zee was her best friend, even from halfway across the world, no matter what she was going through he could make her feel better.
I didn’t see her coming. That sentence kept spinning in her head like a blade on a ceiling fan.
It wasn’t about Em. Frankie would never blame the other woman.
But Tristan made it seem like she was a natural disaster, a force outside his control, and he was some innocent bystander.
He was taking zero accountability, and he knew what she’d seen.
He was acting as if Em, the femme fatale, was up against the wall totally naked and he just happened to be walking by minding his own business, also nude, but that detail didn’t matter, when she summoned hurricane force winds that pulled him between her mile-long, supermodel legs, then she wrapped around them around his blameless neck.
It was infuriating.
He’d done that, and yet he had the nerve to lie in this bed next to her and act like he was the one who had been wronged in this situation.
“You know what this is, right?” His tone was tranquil and loaded.
She wanted to puke.
She didn't respond because she knew it was a rhetorical question.
She forced herself to remain quiet and listen despite wanting to jump out the window.
Or throw his phone at his head. Or put a pillow over his face.
Instead, she lay there, remaining silent the only way she could, by imagining she had an actual zipper across her lips, while she allowed him to monologue.
“It’s the same thing you always do. You shut down. I make a mistake—in this case, a big mistake, yes, but still—” He took a deep breath as if he needed to keep his calm. “—it was just a mistake, and you punish me by freezing me out. That’s not healthy, Mouse. It’s not effective communication.”
In that moment, she wasn’t even participating in the conversation anymore.
She saw herself in the third person, a frozen statue of a woman, lips pressed together so tightly they were as good as sewn.
In some small part of her brain that was in charge of consequences, she was scared if she opened her mouth, she would say things that she couldn’t take back.
Horrible things that she didn’t want to say to someone who had been her friend for a quarter of a century.
Who, for better or worse, in some sick twist of fucking fate, was now going to be her stepbrother.
The mattress dipped, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tristan prop himself back up on one elbow and gaze down at her.
“I’m not saying I’m perfect, but there are two people in a relationship.
You never take responsibility for your part in anything.
Have you ever asked, ‘Why? Why did Tristan do what he did?’ Or did you just ghost?
Did you just run away to California?” Tristan pushed up so he was in a seated position and ran both hands through his hair in frustration.
“Look, I know I messed up. But how long are you going to keep punishing me?”
Frankie looked up at him, and for the first time, she saw that he truly believed this was temporary. Somehow, in his phantasmagorical mind, he was honestly under the impression that they were coming back from this. That he was in some sort of ‘time out.’