Inescapable

Chapter 21

“Iris is living with you?” Trystan asked, completely blindsided by Chance’s statement.

“Yes. She had nowhere else to go.”

“I didn’t think you knew each other that well,” Trystan said, not sure how to feel about this.

His sluggish brain was starting to finally put two and two together. No wonder Chance had been so uncharacteristically chatty and judgmental about Trystan’s treatment of Iris. No wonder he knew so fucking much about what was going on in her life right now. Trystan should have questioned that knowledge long before now, but he’d had his head stuck so far up his own arse for too long. He’d been unable to see anything clearly since that fucking article was published.

“We don’t,” Chance said, in response to Trystan’s absent-minded earlier comment. “But like I said, she was desperate.”

“How is she?” Trystan asked, his voice a hoarse whisper, eyes intent.

“Sad, exhausted, defeated… angry.”

“Angry with me?”

“What do you think?”

“I think…” Trystan paused and his brain stalled while his heart picked up the slack. “No. I know I hurt her. I know I broke her heart.”

He’d known that since he’d reread that article and seen the inconsistencies in the writing styles between the journal and the rest of the article. He knew Iris’s writing and that fucking article hadn’t been written by her. Not one fucking part of it. The only words he’d known for certain were hers were the ones drawn directly from her journal.

Trystan had no reason to believe Iris didn’t have a part in that story—she could have given that Evan bitch access to her journal—except for what his gut told him. And after recognizing how negatively this article had impacted her life, seeing how fiercely she’d clung to her privacy, her dignity and pride—Trystan had simply known that she was entirely innocent of any and all wrongdoing.

She was being so fucking brave in the face of overwhelming hatred and bullying. And Trystan, who had vowed never again to hurt her, to always give her the benefit of the doubt, had been the biggest fucking bully of them all.

He couldn’t fix what they’d had before. He knew that. But he could make this better for Iris. That’s what he was working on but he needed to speak to her first, to give her a heads up.

“Thank you.” His voice was shaky as he said those words. “For doing that for her. For protecting her when I didn’t.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” Chance said, his voice frosty.

“I know that. But thank you nonetheless.”

Chance didn’t acknowledge his thanks with so much as a nod, and Trystan knew he deserved the man’s contempt.

“Nobody knows she’s at mine,” Chance said. “So I guess it’s the perfect neutral spot for that meeting you’re so keen on. But we can’t just show up. I have to clear it with her first. And if she says no, that’s it. I won’t bushwhack her.”

“He wants to what?”Iris asked blankly.

“You heard me,” Chance said.

“I did but I was sure I must’ve been mistaken. You told him I was here?”

Chance’s sigh was a loud and noisy blast into the receiver. “I had no choice, Iris. He was dead set on going to your parents’ house to see you.”

“You should have let him,” Iris retorted, her voice dripping with acid. “My dad would’ve kicked his arse.”

The thought of her scrawny father kicking anyone’s arse was incongruous, but the man was angry enough at Trystan to give it a good go.

“Uh… maybe,” Chance said, the soul of tact and discretion. “Iris, you can say no.”

“What does he want to talk about?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Why should I trust him not to hurl all kinds of unfounded, hurtful, and unfair accusations at me again?”

Chance remained silent, giving her the room she needed to rant and rave and work it out for herself.

“Put him on the line, Chance.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said in her grimmest voice, happy that she sounded certain even though she was a mass of nerves and anxiety right now.

“Hold on.” There were muffled voices and sounds as the phone was handed over.

“Iris.”

Oh God, the sound of his voice damned near broke her barely healed heart all over again. And the pain of it merely confirmed that the decision she’d made was the right one.

“I don’t want to see you.”

There was a long silence at the other end before his voice taut and urgent replied,

“Please.”

The word was a whisper. So faint she nearly didn’t hear it, but it packed a punch. Because it was stripped raw of all Trystan’s legendary confidence. It was denuded of his charisma and charm. It was the broken remnant of a word and yet, its impact was profound. Because—despite all that the broken single-syllable word lacked—it was steeped in despair, desolation and desperation.

But Iris hardened her heart against it. He couldn’t do this to her. He couldn’t ignore her for two weeks, while believing the absolute worst of her and abandoning her in the wreckage he’d made of her life and expect her to be swayed by just one word.

“No.”

“Okay… you don’t want to see me, yeah?” His accent was back and she knew it tended to appear only when he was at his most vulnerable. “What if we just talk? Like this?”

“I have nothing to say to you. And I can’t imagine how anything you could say would interest me.”

“I know you didn’t write that article.” There was an expectant pause after that statement and Iris sighed gustily, hoping the sound adequately relayed her feelings regarding that statement.

“You expecting applause?” she asked, breaking the—by now—awkward silence. “An award perhaps?”

“Iris, I fucked up.”

She laughed at that, the sound harsh and bitter, but didn’t acknowledge the admission in any way other than that abrasive, curt sound.

“Don’t bother me again, Trystan. I’m trying to move on with my life. You can go back to being a remote, larger-than-life superstar and all of this can hopefully one day become a distant, unpleasant memory. I have nothing more to say to you.”

“I promise I’ll fix it.”

“I don’t care.” Why was she still talking? Why didn’t she just disconnect the call? Iris knew that was what she should do. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to sever what she knew would be the last contact with him.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, sorry I doubted you, sorry I was an arsehole. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“You keep apologizing, Trystan,” she said, a hot tide of bitter, acidic rage rising up inside her like a tsunami. And Iris discovered that she actually had a lot to say to him. And this was the last opportunity she’d ever have to get it off her chest. “That’s all you’ve been doing since the day we met. It’s a twisted, toxic cycle that pretty much defines our doomed non-relationship. You fuck up, you apologize, and I forgive you. But I’m breaking that pattern right now. I don’t forgive you. I’ll never forgive you. You hurt me, right after you promised never to hurt me again. Never to doubt me again.

“You gave me no opportunity to figure out what the hell had happened, no chance to defend myself. You literally kicked me to the curb, like I was a mangy dog you no longer wanted. No, you’d definitely treat a mangy dog better than you did me. I was expendable, easily disposed of, like so much garbage. You never trusted me, Trystan. You always believed I’d betray you somehow. You couldn’t look past the fact that Stanford Carter was my biological father, and that I had the absolute nerve to show up at your den of solitude and manly sorrow, in search of—horror of horrors—an interview.

“And after all your pretty promises of sheltering me from the craziness of your life, you threw me in the deep end without so much as a life preserver. I was drowning, I was trapped, I felt like I was dying and you left me there to sink.” The last six words emerged on a sob, as the angry tears she’d fought to keep at bay while she said her piece finally welled up and spilled over, adding a quavering thickness to her voice.

“God, Iris…” She heard the same thickness in his voice, but refused to acknowledge it. This was her moment and he didn’t get to ruin it by making it about him. Her finger was poised on the red telephone icon, seconds away from finally ending the call. “You’re right.”

The two words made her hesitate.

“You’re right. I let you down. I failed you and abandoned you. And it’s something I’ll regret to my dying day.”

“Goodbye, Trystan.”

This time she hung up without hesitation.

“Areyou sure they won’t mind?” Iris asked for the umpteenth time as she smoothed her damp palms nervously over her ’60s mod-style orange and yellow shift dress, with bright contrasting yellow and orange daisies printed all over the fabric.

The dress had a round neck, short sleeves, and a skirt that fell to mid-thigh., It was one of Iris’s favorites and she paired it with white platform shoes. She knew it complemented her dusky skin and thick, curly brown shoulder-length hair—now styled in loose waves—perfectly, which made the friendly, brightly colored dress a much-needed confidence booster.

They were outside the door of a flat in a swanky, upmarket Victorian mansion block in Hammersmith. Iris had walked past this building often over the years but she’d never set foot inside of it before tonight.

Colby gave her a sweet, reassuring smile, before saying, “They won’t mind at all. They’re going to love you.”

Iris wasn’t so certain about that. This group of friends was so tight they apparently called their monthly get-togethers “family nights” and Iris—the perpetual socially awkward outsider who didn’t make friends very easily—was extremely uncertain about gate-crashing, despite Colby’s sincere assurances.

Still, Iris had literally been trapped in one way or the other for over a month—starting in South Africa—with limited social interactions. While, she’d never been particularly outgoing, she’d also never had her movements so forcibly restricted before. She was longing for the company of other people even though she feared that this outing was going to be a complete disaster. Especially since she was particularly wary of strangers right now.

Colby rang the doorbell and it was almost instantly opened by a slender, good-looking guy about Iris’s age. He had wavy black hair, designer stubble, and his lovely dark brown eyes were outlined with black eyeliner.

“Thank God you’re here,” he whispered effusively when he saw Colby, enfolding both of her hands in his. “I swear to God I’m going to murder him tonight. You have to hold me back, Colbs! He’s being insuffera… oh, hello.”

This last as he finally caught sight of Iris hovering in the background.

“I know you,” he said, staring at Iris like he couldn’t quite place her. “Love your dress, by the way. Groovy, baby! But seriously, where the fuck do I know you from?”

Dismayed to already have been recognized and not at all sure how to respond, Iris stared back at him, her tongue tied in a knot.

“Oh, I’ve got it,” he said, snapping his fingers. “You were a server at my brother’s wedding last year.”

Iris laughed, relief and incredulity making the sound a lot sharper than her usual easy-going chuckle. She had no clue what event he was referring to as she often helped her parents out. But she was relieved the elephant in the room was in hiding for the moment.

“That’s possible. My parents are caterers and I sometimes help out. I’m surprised you remember anybody on the waitstaff at such a significant family event.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “I was bored out of my mind and you were noticeable. You kept swapping out our Uncle Jos’s vodka with water when he started getting loud and obnoxious. I was going to intervene before I realized you had the matter in hand.”

“Oh my goodness,” Iris laughed again. This time it sounded a lot closer to her regular laugh. “I think I remember that wedding. At some point he was grinding up against one of the bridesmaids.”

“He’s a gross old perve,” the man said with a grimace.

“Jazz, how about you let them in, instead of blocking them at the door?” a woman’s voice called from inside and the guy—Jazz?—made an oops face and waved them inside.

As Iris passed him, he draped a nonchalant arm around her shoulders, before confiding in a low voice, “I’m Jasper Cromwell, but everyone calls me Jazz. Well, everyone except that boring stick in the mud over there.” He pointed his chin at an outrageously handsome man, dressed in a three-piece suit, who was trying to take a laden tray from the heavily pregnant woman in the kitchen.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Iris?—”

“Iris Hughes, I know,” he said

“But…”

“Well, I knew you were Iris Hughes the moment I saw you standing out there, but I didn’t know where the hell I knew you from before all of this Trystan Abbott palaver. I always thought you looked familiar, but it didn’t really click until I saw you in the flesh, so to speak. Come on, let’s get you introduced.”

He led her into the living room.

“Everybody, this is Iris. Iris, everybody.”

There were five other people in the room excluding, Jazz, Colby, and Iris. They all looked mildly curious about her and they had warm enough expressions on their faces.

A chorus of greetings came her way before they went back to what they were doing before.

A massive guy was arguing with a lanky, slimmer one about whose playlist they should stream. The handsome man in the suit was still trying to persuade the short, curly haired pregnant woman to hand over the tray, and Colby joined them to add her protest to the man’s.

Another woman, a leggy, beautiful blonde made her way over to Jazz and Iris.

“Hi Iris, I’m Bella Weaver… soon to be Bella Weaver-Sloane?—”

“A ridiculous mouthful,” Jazz said, rolling his eyes. “Just keep your own name, babe.”

“Soon to be Bella Weaver-Sloane, when I marry that stud over there,” she said with a smug grin as she pointed toward the two men still arguing over the music.

Iris’s eyes immediately went to the big, gorgeous man with the serious handsome features in appreciation.

“Ooh no, hun,” Jazz muttered beneath his breath, when he saw the direction Iris’s eyes had drifted. “Wrong stud. The big guy is married to the tiny pregnant dynamo over there.”

Aah, okay. The couples seemed slightly mismatched, but a glance over at the gorgeous dreamy eyed blonde woman still staring at the two men confirmed that she’d locked eyes with the skinny, angular man in the ill-fitting suit and glasses. He was good-looking too, but in a less overt way than the other guys here.

“Excuse me,” Bella said, not taking her eyes off her fiancé. “I think I’ll add my voice to Pete’s. Ty can be such a bossy arse sometimes.” She drifted away, then paused to look over her shoulder with a smile. “It’s really lovely to meet you, Iris. We’ll chat more later.”

Iris returned her smile and then focused her attention on Jazz. “So, who are you going to murder tonight and why?”

“Oh. Hugh, the uptight twat in the three-piece suit. Would it kill him to unbutton his collar? Maybe loosen his tie a bit?”

“You’re pissed off because of the way he’s dressed?”

“No, I’m pissed off because he thinks he’s so much better than the rest of mankind. Mr. Perfect, never a hair out of place, lording it over the rest of us feeble-minded commoners.”

It seemed like an irrational rant from someone so convivial. And she wondered what the underlying story there was. He soon abandoned the topic of Hugh and took her around the room to introduce her to Pete, Bella’s fiancé, then the pregnant woman, Vicki, and her husband, Ty Chambers—their hosts this evening. Hugh, he ignored, and the man came over to introduce himself when Jazz left her chatting with Vicki and Ty to make a beeline for Colby who was pouring herself a glass of wine.

“Those two are thick as thieves,” Vicki confided in Iris after Hugh wandered off to get a drink as well. “They’ve bonded over the fact that they both have difficult relationships with a couple of members of the group. Specifically, Jazz with Hugh and Colby with Chance.”

“Chance and Colby don’t get along?” Iris asked in surprise.

She’d only been living in the house for four days, and she hadn’t seen them together much in that time, but Chance struck her as the type of man who’d get along with everybody, and considering their unusual living arrangement, she’d assumed they at least liked each other. Surely you had to like the person you shared a house—and a bathroom! —with.

“Oh, I thought you’d have picked up on that since you’re, uhm, staying with them…” Vicki’s voice trailed off. She was clearly uncomfortable gossiping about her friends and Iris, people-pleaser that she was, immediately steered the conversation in a different direction.

“So, when’s the baby due?” she asked.

The woman stared at her blankly.

“Baby? What baby? Oh my God, are you calling me fat?”

Iris’s mouth dropped open in horror and she could feel her eyes bulging from her head in her desperation not to drop her gaze to the woman’s protruding belly.

“Jesus, Vicki,” Ty berated her, in his twangy American accent. For such a big guy, he had a quiet voice, the timbre of it almost soothing. “Behave.”

Vicki snorted and then guffawed, and before long she was howling. “I’m so sorry, Iris, I couldn’t resist. The expression on your face…”

Iris joined in the woman’s infectious laughter after a few seconds.

“Fine, you got me,” she said, after the laughter had died down. “For a second there I was convinced I’d committed the absolute worst social faux pas.”

That set Vicki off again and when she finally stopped, she wiped tears from her eyes.

“In answer to your perfectly fine question, Iris,” Ty said, giving his wife a pointed look. She rolled her eyes unrepentantly. Iris liked her a lot. “She’s eight months along.”

“And she really shouldn’t be hosting tonight,” Hugh—who’d rejoined them just as Ty replied—inserted, with a censorious glare at Ty.

“It’s like you don’t know your sister, Hugh,” Ty scoffed.

“We entrusted her to you, Ty. This isn’t what I call taking good care of her.” Wow, Iris was starting to see why Jazz had said the man had a stick up his arse. Then again, he appeared legitimately concerned for Vicki, whom Iris hadn’t realized was his sister until now.

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me, Hughie,” Vicki dismissed with a nonchalant wave, before refocusing her attention on Iris. “Do you have any over-protective big brothers, Iris?”

“A younger one, and he likes to act all tough and protective, but he’s just a baby, really.”

“I have two. In fact, you stayed in the home of my older brother, Miles, last month with…” Her voice trailed off and her face paled.

And there it was…

That big old elephant came stomping right through the room to take a pachydermian-sized dump all over a perfectly good party.

Iris sighed. “So, I’m guessing everyone here knows about the Trystan thing?”

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Iris. You probably don’t want to talk about it. You don’t have to. I wasn’t going to mention it, but my pregnancy brain is a foggy bitch lately.” Ty palmed his distressed wife’s nape and appeared to give it a gentle squeeze. Vicki leaned against him gratefully.

“It’s fine, Vicki,” Iris said, keeping her voice gentle. Because it really was fine. Nobody in this room had any malice in their hearts toward her. She’d sensed that almost immediately, and she was so grateful Colby had persuaded her to join them tonight. “It’s impossible to avoid the subject and, really, this is the first time I’ve been out since… everything. And it’s unrealistic to think people won’t mention it, or be curious about it. I just hate that it’s probably going to be the most interesting thing about me from now for eternity.”

“Well, that’s bollocks,” Vicki said vehemently, and Bella and Colby—who had drifted over along with everyone else when the conversation had become awkward—made sounds of agreement. “You will not let what happened between you and that man define who and what you are, Iris. We refuse to allow that. You hear me?”

Iris’s eyes misted as the unexpected kindness from these lovely people threatened to completely overwhelm her. She inhaled deeply and said, her voice a little shaky, “So, Miles Hollingsworth is your brother? Small world, isn’t it?”

Iris had a wonderful evening.And when she and Colby finally left many hours later, everyone present had insisted she come to the next family night. Iris left feeling like she could become real friends with these people. It was an exciting, giddying prospect, and for the first time in weeks it felt like something in her life was going right.

Until it all came crashing down when—in the Uber on the way home—Iris’s phone started dinging repeatedly. Dread immediately started eating away at her stomach lining again, recent experience having taught her that when her phone started blowing up, it almost always signaled some new catastrophe or the other.

“What’s going on?” Colby asked and Iris shrugged.

“I’m not sure,” she whispered, digging her phone out of her handbag. At least twenty messages from her parents, Robbie, her former flatmates, and a few of her clients. In addition to five missed calls from her mother, one from Robbie and several from Chance.

This couldn’t be good.

Mum

Put on Mike Holmes. RHGT NPW!!

Robbie

ARE YOU WATCHING THIS?! ?? ???? ????

Nora

OMG, Iris. Are you watching H@H? Girl, this is epic.

The rest were of a similar vein. Not as awful as Iris had been anticipating but baffling nonetheless.

Colby’s phone started buzzing and beeping and pinging as well, and when she checked, she grimaced.

“I’m getting similar messages from Jazz and Vicki and the rest, and one from Chance, who says… and I quote—tell Iris to brace herself.”

“Iris,maybe we should wait for Chance to come home to fill us in, before we…”

“No, we’re watching it right now,” Iris interrupted her friend a little rudely—resolve and determination adding steel to her voice. Colby sighed, and sat down next to Iris on the living room love seat. She reached for the remote.

“It’s live, about half an hour into the show. Do you want to watch it from the beginning?” Iris hesitated and then nodded.

“Yes.” Her voice had lost all its resolve and now emerged on a nervous whisper.

Colby tuned in to Holmes @ Home and Iris tensed when the cheerful theme music came on as she realized that Colby was right. They should have waited for Chance to come home and tell her exactly what went down. Or at the very least, Iris should’ve returned her mother’s call before sitting down to watch.

That way she would at least be prepared for whatever she was about to see. Instead, she was a nervous wreck, an emotional mess expecting the absolute worst.

She was so preoccupied and anxious that she missed Mike Holmes’s usual hyper-enthusiastic opening chatter. She was staring down at the tightly clenched fists in her lap, barely recognizing them as her own, while she focused on her breathing in an attempt to remain calm.

“Iris?” Colby’s concerned voice penetrated Iris’s blooming haze of panic and jerked her back to the present.

“I’m fine,” she said on a soft exhalation of breath. “Just needed a moment.”

She shifted her focus to the large-screen TV.

The Holmes @ Home set was meant to resemble a cozy sitting room. That iconic, three-meter-long, dark blue crushed-velvet Chesterfield sofa had seated uncountable toned A-lister bottoms in the two-and-a-half decades since the show had first aired.

Mike Homes, with his affable, startlingly white smile, perfectly styled light brown hair that never seemed to gray, and his trademark velvet smoking jackets—complete with a brown pipe tucked into the breast pocket—was a household name and one of the most instantly recognizable people in the country.

He was staring into the camera as he spoke—a move designed to make viewers feel like he was speaking directly to them—his genial smile never fading.

“Tonight’s first guest is an up-and-comer. Someone not used to the limelight, but partially responsible for one of the most shocking and impactful celebrity stories of the year. Please join me in welcoming the supremely talented Miss Evan Brooks to our sitting room!”