Chapter 18 Tristan
TRISTAN
She can’t get enough of me over the weekend—insatiable, matching my fervent desire to the point of melting into each other. Fucking for hours on end, on every surface of the house, with only a break when we go to the farm to ride.
I am aware of what she’s trying to do—soak up every minute as if it were the last. It is on the tip of my tongue to tell her that this is not goodbye, while her desperation only makes me wilder for her.
We will not end. She won’t have to miss anything, me, our togetherness, her horse. Everything I have is hers. I am entirely hers.
But sorrow lurks in the shadows, reminding me that my time is running out.
She won’t want me once she finds out the truth, but she will learn to accept it.
She promised, damn it, that she would love me, regardless.
That’s what I cling to like it’s my rope to sanity while misery stretches under me, threatening to swallow me.
The pendulum swings from euphoria to agony in an inflexible arc, tearing me apart.
I don’t stand on moral ground here. I can’t be mad at her for deceiving me when I’ve been doing the same thing.
She just has to play along, needing her to look at me as if she can’t stand me rather than gaze at me adoringly.
I have little desire to deal with the repercussions of playing the Syndicate.
The only time they lost a power game was when Calla and Enzo outsmarted them.
While I care little about casualties, it’s her family involved.
I want her to visit them if she wishes to, because the Syndicate and I are too busy sabotaging each other.
For the first time in my fucking life, I hope. Hope that our love will prevail. Hope that she will forgive me. Hope that her goodness will trump the hurt I will cause.
I earned her love once. I will do it again, even if it turns me into a beggar, even if it takes the rest of my life to earn her forgiveness and gain her trust back. I’ll turn winning her and her love back into my life’s mission, refusing to lose her.
Sipping my scotch, I lean into the armchair, watching the chessboard.
I always win, but I might lose everything that’s ever mattered to me. Her. This woman who has snuck under my skin, touched that black junk called a heart and lit it up, embedding herself into my damn marrow.
Closing my eyes briefly, I ponder how to diminish the impending betrayal.
I sense her long before she speaks up.
From the corner of my eye, I see her leaning against the doorframe, dressed in my shirt, riding up her thigh, exposing her unblemished skin. I’ve kissed, licked, and traced every inch of her, yet I’ve only gotten more ravenous, my hunger impossible to sate.
The corner of my mouth arches up instinctively, incapable of stopping my heart from reacting to her, greeting her like the whipped man I am.
“You stroke my ego every time you ogle me.”
“You could be a gentleman and pretend you don’t notice,” she sasses.
I chuckle. She makes me feel elated with such ease.
“I always fail at being a gentleman when it comes to you.”
“Yeah?” Licking her lip, she walks toward me.
Settling herself between my spread thighs, she picks the glass from my hand and places it down on the small table.
My hands automatically move to her hips, needing to hold her because she’s my anchor.
I can’t slip into pitch darkness to spar with my demons.
Without her, I’d lose myself—a sailor lost on an unforgiving sea.
That’s why I planned a quick marriage. One month without her in my life is already impossibly long. A day longer is unfathomable. She’s fundamental to my existence.
“I can’t sleep when you’re not next to me,” she murmurs.
I pull her down onto my lap. “Just a little while longer.”
Avoiding my eyes, she notices the chessboard intact. “You didn’t play?”
“Other things on my mind.”
“Did your father make you play?” she whispers, constantly trying to figure out the root of my issues.
My body pulls taut, not wanting to trouble her with the horrors of my childhood, but I also need to give her something.
We’ll be married. She’ll find out soon enough that behind the polished exterior hides a veritable monster.
I’ve killed many. Will probably continue to do that as the boss of the Irish American Mob.
I insist on that because my mother was American. I lead a legacy built on her abandonment and my father’s roots. My men had to accept the duality and embrace it.
I wave a hand through the air like it’s unimportant. “He wanted me to excel in everything.”
She eyes me with eyes brimming with understanding, letting me know she doesn’t buy my impassive act. “That’s a lot of pressure to put on a child.”
I shrug, feigning nonchalance. “I survived.”
She doesn’t buy my flippancy, casting me an intent look. “That’s not the thing, Tristan. Children need harmony, acceptance, and a safe place where they can grow.”
“I’ve turned out all right. I’ve become exactly the man I had to be to lead my world,” I grit out, the demons pummeling at my ribcage for acknowledgement.
“Is he the reason you don’t want children?” she asks softly, threading her fingers through my hair. Her touch is magic, curing my every ailment.
A sigh thunders in my chest. I am the worst for pushing her into a future where she won’t become a mother just because I refuse children that share my DNA, my father’s foul blood.
“I’m not a good man, Viviana. Something you felt from the very beginning, but it still drew you in. You, baby, felt the darkness and still danced with it.”
She bites her lip, not shying away from the conversation. Maybe she needs a reason to strengthen her resolve to end things. I could give her hundreds, yet it would be futile.
“You let a killer touch you.”
Her spine steels, a heavy breath stumbling out of her mouth. “Tristan…”
Digging my fingers into her waist, I look her dead in the eye. “You don’t want to hear this, but you need to. You don’t get where I am without tainting your very soul. My hands are bloody, my empire is corrupt.”
“Then what does that make me? A foolish, naive girl… a cliché? You want me to accept you for who you are. Love the man you truly are. Are you doubting my love?”
She squirms in my lap, about to move when my grip on her tightens. “Careful, mo run.”
A beat of silence follows.
She gulps, but her voice comes out steady. “How many?”
I cock my head, running my knuckles along her side. “Everything after one is one too many, Viviana. You lose your soul when you take a life. Afterward, you embrace it, getting drunk on the power.”
She places her cheek on my chest, which pounds a merciless beat.
It feels like absolution that she stays rather than runs. But where would she run to? It’s too late. For her. For me. I’d find her anywhere, crawl through hell and claw at heaven’s walls if needed, scourge every inch of every known world. I wouldn’t rest until I reunited with her.
I’d take her hate every day for the rest of my existence, but she won’t leave me.
I can’t breathe without her.
I can’t live without her.
“I think you’d be a great father. You survived horrors I can’t even imagine, and you’d never do that to a child,” she says after lifting her head to look me in the eye.
“So sure? You have more trust in me than is sensible.”
Her chest heaves with a sigh, and she palms my face. “Should I stop wanting one…becoming a mother? I’ve made peace with knowing my children will be born into a world that is bloody—filled with sinners.”
Resting my forehead on hers, I say above her lips. “We all end up becoming one. That’s why you chose to become a preschool teacher. To hold on to the innocence, forgetting that it doesn’t last. You’re a hopeless dreamer, mo run.”
Perhaps that’s why I fell in love with her to begin with.
She looks down at her lap, whispering, “Would you let me go?”
Cupping her cheeks, my eyes bore into hers so she can see how earnest I am, erasing any doubt. “I can’t.”
“Even if I asked to? Even if I need you to?” Her voice breaks, the despair clear.
I could lie to her. What’s one more on the already full plate we’ll choke on in a few days. Next week she’ll face my sins while cold realization wakes her up. I need her to accept that it could only have ended up like this. She fell for me—the worst man she could have.
Gripping her chin, I stroke my thumb along her cheek. “I can’t. I won’t.”
Her eyes burn up with a fierceness that could incinerate me. The part of her she keeps mostly contained has been ripped open.
She pushes herself off me, swaying on her feet. “You can’t say things like that, Tristan. It’s scary.”
I cock my head and let out a self-deprecating laugh before I shoot to my feet, towering over her. “Too late for that. I already have you, Viviana.”
“I am not a possession,” she snaps.
Wrapping my hand around the back of her neck, I press my forehead to hers. “You’re a treasure. My fucking treasure.”
She stabs a finger into my chest. “We can’t continue like this.”
“Don’t say something I will have to punish you for,” I grit out.
Her eyes round, but the spark of desire overshadows her apprehension.
We’re mad together, and it owns us. We can’t fight the connection.
We can’t outrun our feelings. Love is attached to our backs like a shadow, a constant companion neither of us can shake off—a permanent fixture, inherently part of us.
I gave up long ago fighting or trying to understand it.
The only reasonable thing is to accept. Fall deeper and ultimately accept fate.
Viviana will reach the same conclusion, or I will prove to her there’s no escape for either of us—embrace the madness or go mad.
She holds my gaze. “I can’t be with you any longer,” she says haughtily, but her voice shakes at the end, betraying her.
Such a clever woman, blaming my intensity. I am in awe of her, and my cock hardens behind my boxer briefs, saluting her determination.
Her chest heaves, and I let her stew some more in her delusion.