19. Tristan
NINETEEN
TRISTAN
And there went my attempt to last this one night without a single drop of alcohol. Initially, I suggested something to drink because Haelyn seemed so stiff it made me tense. Now, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Maybe it was because neither of us said a word since we got inside. I felt the urge to put my lips to use, if not to talk about what she seemed so thrilled to communicate that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
Now she had a zipper on her mouth—that beautiful mouth, with rough edges and plumped lips, begged to be bitten. Even her dark skin smoothed under my eyes, a temptation that implored me to be experienced.
If it wasn’t for the circumstances of our relationship—which was entirely professional—I might’ve allowed myself to give this attraction between us a chance. Because I knew she was attracted to me. She might’ve not said it, but her eyes told me more than her mouth ever could.
I knew right there that the promise about not mixing work with pleasure was going to be hard to keep with her around. It would’ve been a lot easier if she was beautiful and nothing more, but Haelyn was different. She was smart, devoted, and unlike any other woman I spent my time with, a comfortable presence.
Bringing her to Yora ruined any ease between us and I knew I shouldn’t have when I looked at her. Haelyn’s gaze was in her lap as her teeth sank into her bottom lip, constant stress touching every feature of hers.
In all honesty, I didn’t give much thought to where to take her because most of my employees would’ve been over the moon to join me in a restaurant like this one. I was sure Haelyn would as well.
The last thing I wanted was to unintentionally insult her which I think I did by simply walking into this place.
I got up to my feet, buttoning my coat. “Let’s get out of here.”
Her round eyes snapped to mine as her mouth parted open. “What?”
“Come on.” I took out my credit card and glued it to the table, the beeping sound going off as the payment was done. “Wait for me in the car, I’ll grab something from the kitchen.” My hand stretched to her with the car key in it.
“Um…” She rolled it between her hands, probably looking for a button.
“It’ll open when you get close to it.”
“Got it.” Haelyn took her purse and marched to the exit, clearly eager to get out of this place.
I sighed, then walked to Sebastian’s office, stopping by the kitchen to order two meals. “Paulo.” I lifted a hand, and the chef looked at me. A warm smile instantly brightened him and Paulo walked to the small window.
“Tristan, what can I help you with?”
“Two of my favorite.”
“Coming right up.” He turned around and got to work, while I continued my path to Sebastian.
As soon as I reached his door, I knocked, and when his voice reached my ears to let me know I could enter, I didn’t hesitate to press down the doorknob and face my old friend.
“Tristan,” he said, surprised. Sebastian stood up from his chair, then rounded his desk and stopped in front of me. “How’ve you been? We didn’t have time to catch up after my honeymoon.”
My insides twisted with guilt. His wedding was three months after my father died and even if I cared about Sebastian, not coming was most likely an insult, and I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate anything. So instead of showing up, I sent him two new cars and a note with “Congratulations!”
Him and his wife, Nadia, have been together since high school, but they didn’t get married until this year.
They were great people and yet I still pushed them away.
“I’ve been busy,” I half lied.
“You’re always busy, yet that didn’t stop you before from responding to my calls.” His brow lifted, the tone of his voice bitter.
“Seb.” I threw him a look. “I’ve been through a hard time. We’ll catch up soon. I stopped to ask for a favor before leaving.”
His arms crossed over his chest. “Shoot.”
“Who’s that girl at the entrance? Dark hair. Short.” I estimated her height with my hand and recognition flashed on Sebastian’s face.
“Aleena, why?” His eyes squinted as his legs crossed over each other.
“Fire her.”
“What?” From the comfortable position, he switched to his arms next to his body, a deep frown on his forehead. “Why the fuck would I do that?”
“She’s judgemental and ruined my business meeting. As I said, I’m asking for a favor and that means I owe you,” I said, knowing I had no time for argument or to explain what truly happened.
Sebastian laughed, threading a hand through his short blond hair. “You owe me a lot, Tristan, and I never asked for anything back. But ”—he accentuated the word—“I’ll fire her, no question asked if we do something this weekend.”
“Done,” is all I said before I turned around to walk out.
“You better answer your calls this time!” he shouted after me, and I shook my head with a smile.
I missed the douche. With him it was easy, it was his wife who wouldn't take me back or was going to make me work my ass for it. The three of us had been a great trio for the past few years, we used to do everything together and she made it very clear that once someone walked out of her life, there was no way she’d let them come back.
A weekend spent together sounded a bit terrible, to say the least.
Once I got the food from Paulo, I followed to the exit, hearing the name Aleena being called. A pleased smirk stretched on my lips and it didn’t disappear until I got inside my car which was a lot fucking colder than it was outside.
I looked at Haelyn. “Why didn’t you start the car?” I asked, placing her food on her legs. My fingers skimmed the slightest bit on the material of her leggings and I pictured it as being her soft skin.
Her fingers touched one of her curls as she avoided my eyes. “I wasn’t cold.”
“You’re shaking and you’re telling me you weren’t cold?”
She groaned, throwing her head back. “I didn’t know how to start the stupid car and I’m not nosy enough to search through it all to find a goddamn button.”
Without taking my eyes off her I pointed at the button in front of the console.
Haelyn huffed. “Whatever.”
I started the heat and unpacked my food while Haelyn sat still next to me. “So, what’s your idea?”
“It’s nothing well-rounded yet, but I don’t think you should bring profit charts to the meeting. If you do, leave them forthe end to show that’s not what matters most to you.”
The knife I was holding sliced through the pork and I took a bite, still chewing when I asked her with a tilt of my head. “Isn’t profit the most important thing for all companies?”
“No.” It was all she planned to say but when she saw me staring, she continued. “At least not for Gorig who’s high above everyone on the market. Show him secret projects first, bright ideas, and future releases.”
I couldn’t help the frown. “Secret projects?”
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me there’s not something you’ve planned for ages, but you don’t know how to get started.” She rolled her eyes in her head, laughing.
“Well… there is something, now that I think of it.”
“Like what?”
I leaned back, finishing my second bite. “I always thought about making some racing cars to promote our company, but for that I need the best people in the world to be an actual competition next to the other car brands. If we don’t do this right, we won’t even get to an important race that will actually get broadcasted.”
“See? Brilliant.” She clapped her hands. “If you present this to Gorig, I’m sure the rest of the conversation will go smoothly as you guys consider this. You both have powerful connections in the market and this could also come as a challenge to him. We have the design and they have the car parts and all.”
She did have a point.
If this was what was going to get me a partnership with Gorig, it might’ve been the best thing that happened to me. A collaboration with a highly appreciated man, with experience in the field and also the chance to make one of my dreams become reality.
It was probably going to take us more than a year or two to build up a car worthy enough of competing, but if we did this, we stood a chance to occupy one of the first three places.
An image of a racing car flashed through my mind and I knew without a doubt that Haelyn was right. I couldn’t show up at Gorig and present what our company could do—because he already knew that—what I needed to prove was what we’d do and convince him that he’d want to be on our side when that happened.
“Still, get a slideshow ready and a file so we’re prepared,” I instructed, a part of me brightening so hard I remained out of breath.
It’d been so long since I had a purpose and this project… could bring me a change that was going to take me back to the person I used to be.
“I’ll have everything on your desk by Monday. That gives us two days to revise it before the meeting.”
My eyes remained pointed at her. She looked gorgeous and she wasn’t even trying. Haelyn was naturally beautiful.
“You look beautiful tonight,” I told her because what the fuck, since I thought it, I might as well tell her.
“Excuse me?”
If I expected her to be flattered, I was wrong. She looked insulted.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I told her. “They’re just the only words I can think about when I’m around you.”
Liar.
How about smart? Devoted? Stubborn?
She cleared her throat, her cheeks flaring. Jesus, it was like she had never gotten a compliment before. Because I saw sure she was nervous, I changed the subject.
When I looked at her, her meal was still packed and she didn’t look like she was planning to eat any of it.
“What happened? You don’t like pork?”
She glanced at me, biting her lip. “I told you, I’m not hungry.”
My eyebrows dragged over each other as I made a summary in my head of how many times I’d seen her eating. It didn’t take me long to realize since I had met her, the only time she ate was when I used Chad’s profile to convince her to eat on her first day at work. Even then, she took two bites of her sandwich before throwing the rest in the trash.
At the company, she never left her office, and during breaks her windows had the transparency option off. I lingered my eyes on her door many times as I was getting ready and the only reason I didn’t intervene was because I thought she had her meal and didn’t want to be disturbed.
Yet now I was starting to question whether she ate at all.
Could she starve herself? But why?
From what she told Chad, life had been tough on her and that was exactly why she wanted a job at the Graves Company, to make it better. Shouldn’t she afford more now?
I put my food to the side, turning to her. “I’m sorry if this might come out as rude,” I warned her. “But I need to know. Are you not hungry just now or do you tend not to eat?”
Her lips parted in shock and her eyelids lowered in several blinks as if she couldn’t believe I asked that question. On clue, her stomach grumbled in protest and she snapped a palm over it, that judging expression still present on her face.
“If you are so eager to know, Mr. Graves, I haven’t had time to eat anything today, but with all due respect, that’s none of your concern. If anything, I assure you I’m well fed and I don’t make a habit of starving myself,” Haelyn spit the words out, poison hanging on each of the sentences she just said.
She breathed harshly, and I took a second to analyze her. If she was telling the truth, she wouldn’t have been so quick to jump to her defense, maybe she would’ve even laughed it off as if what I was suggesting was nonsense. Instead, she was looking at me with an intense stare, raging eyes, and lips pressed together packing her anger.
“I’ve learned to read people, Haelyn. I’d like you to know if you are facing any problems, you can count on me.”
Haelyn choked on her words, her hand flying directly to the handle. I placed mine on her elbow, wishing to stop her and tell me all about what was going on in that head of hers. She glanced down at where our skins met and a flicker of disgust painted her face.
“I’m going to blame everything that happened tonight on you being drunk and believe that if you were sober, you would’ve never asked such an invasive question to one of your employees, let alone the inappropriate joke and compliment.” She hummed the words, her teeth gravely pressed on each other. “Mr. Graves, as a reminder, I’m nothing like your old assistants. I’m not looking for you to care for me, I’m simply doing my job—which I happen to love. I hope I won’t be put under the circumstance again of rethinking Gorig’s proposal.”
This time, it was my mouth that couldn’t stay locked. If I knew a question that was ultimately about her health would bother her so much, I would’ve glued my lips shut and drove her back to her house.
I’d crossed a boundary tonight.
“Haelyn, I’m not drunk, and again, I’m sorry if I offended you in any way,” I said, my voice softening as a way to make my way out of the shit I just got myself into. “I—I don’t even know what to say.”
She opened the car door, got out, and leaned down to look at me. “I know you’re not drunk, Mr. Graves, and I admit it scares me even more. Those who don’t get at least tipsy from three glasses of rum clearly have a history of drinking. Good night, Mr. Graves.” And with those last words, the wind whooshed inside from the hard slamming of the door behind her.