13. Tristian
Chapter thirteen
Tristian
The air in the office was thick with tension. Since Geoffrey had dropped me off, the world had narrowed to one thing: my father.
I wasn’t supposed to fucking be here. I did my part. I played the fucking troubled son at his event. But it wasn’t enough for him. Nothing ever fucking was. Which is why I’d had to cancel every one of my appointments, flip my entire fucking day upside down, because of one voicemail.
“Your mother’s next treatment cycle is coming up. Do yourself a favor and show up at the office.”
Calm and cold. Like he was telling me to pick up something on the way home.
Noah thought he owned me because he held my mother’s life in his hands. He thought he could cage me in this office to do his bidding, threatening the only person I loved to keep me compliant forever.
Well, I fucking showed up, all right.
I must’ve been seeing red, because when the world finally stopped spinning, I was standing in the middle of broken glass and splintered wood everywhere. Chairs were overturned, tables were shattered. I stared at the destruction, feeling a strange, hollow detachment.
Then, a soft, sharp gasp cut through the ringing in my ears.
I snapped my head toward the door. Ingrid stood there, her eyes wide as she took in the carnage of the room before landing on me.
The sight of her should have angered me even more. She was so stuck in my head, I couldn’t shift her. With her role as my handler, I should be angrier at her being here than ever.
Yet when my eyes fell upon her, I couldn’t help but feel myself soften.
Not completely—I was still enraged at what she had done—but I couldn’t deny my attraction to her, the way she’d drawn me in, even after everything.
And all I wanted to do, in that moment, was protect her from the world—her father, my father, even me, right now, in this state.
I breathed deep. “So,” I said through clenched teeth. “He sent you. To stop me.”
Ingrid gave a tremulous little nod.
I gestured around the room. “Fine. Done. Can’t do much more damage here now anyway.”
Ingrid assessed the damage. Softly, she said, “Your father’s cleaners will have a hell of a job.”
In spite of myself, I laughed. Ingrid smiled too, the smallest upward quirk of the corners of her lips—lips glistening with a faint sheen of gloss—lips that I couldn’t tear my eyes from, wanted to smother with my own—
I shook my head. Fuck. Even now she was pushing farther into my mind, embedding those hooks deeper and deeper when I knew she shouldn’t.
I turned away, picked up a chair that had somehow kept all of its legs, and planted it. Dropping into it heavily, I nodded my head to the door. “You can go now. Tell Noah that the bane of his existence has settled down. For now.”
She didn’t move.
I was going to have to tell her again. I opened my mouth to do it, maybe even raise my voice and tell her to get out of this room and out of my life and out of my fucking mind—but her face was pale, her wide-eyed gaze fixed low.
“You’re bleeding.”
I followed her eyes.
So I was. The knuckles of my right hand, heavy with bruises both fading from last week’s boxing match and today’s destruction, were gashed.
A flap of skin lifted away and in the tear blood pooled.
A small stream ran down the back of my hand.
Some had smeared on my shirt. More was dripping onto the floor.
It looked worse than it probably was… not so bad it would need stitches, but I’d certainly need to keep it bandaged for a while
“Looks like Noah will need to hire out for a carpet cleaner too. Poor insufferable bastard.”
“Let me help with that,” said Ingrid.
“No, it’s fine—”
But she had already moved. Snagging the first aid kit I’d ripped from the wall, she opened it up and withdrew a roll of bandages. Settling onto her knees beside me, she reached for my arm—and I let her take it, damn it.
The thrill of her touch was electric.
Her fingers worked. I watched her, engrossed, as she first wiped most of the blood away with a length of bandage she discarded, then took care along the edge of the gash.
It needed to be cleaned, so she disappeared for a while and came back with a bowl of warm water.
She guided my hand in, fingers gently working along the damage to remove any debris.
Then she dried my hand—the bleeding was down to a shallow ooze now—and used a couple of butterfly strips from the first aid kit to hold the flap of skin in place.
Finally, she wound the bandage around, pinning it tight.
All the while, she muttered to herself softly in Spanish.
And all the while, I watched her, fixated, entranced by her beautiful, doll-like freckled face, and those shining plump lips I was so desperately hungry to capture with my own.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t.
But damn it, I wanted to.
Finally, she was finished. She looked up at me, smiled. “You’re all set now.”
I nodded. All my anger was gone. I felt a strange, almost quiet calm with her now.
Despite that, I looked away. “You can go now. Noah hired you as my handler. Consider me handled.”
“Tristian, I… I’m not here as your handler. I know you think that, but… I’m really not. My father told me there was an internship available for me. I didn’t know until the party that it was going to be this… you.”
I met her eyes again.
Could I believe that? After everything my father had done over the years to try to control me, could I really believe Ingrid had no idea until that moment when I joined her side?
The suspicious part of me would never entertain the thought.
But I believed her, damn it. Her face was so earnest, a vulnerability to her that I had seen before.
I sighed, flexing my bandaged hand.
“Sorry,” I said.
“For what?” she murmured.
“The other night. And this.” I gestured to the destroyed office. “I lose it like this sometimes… You saw the walls in my place. This is another level. I’ve just been… losing my mind lately.”
Ingrid reached out, her tender hand warm on my wrist. “Why?”
“…It’s everything. Boxing. Work. My father. You.” I hesitated. “And then Amber—she tried to kiss me yesterday. It’s been messing with my head.”
Ingrid retracted her hand as though stung. Without a word, she packed away the first aid kit, rose, and headed to replace it in its bracket on the wall by the door. Her shoulders were already curled inward.
“Ingrid?” I called after her.
“I’ll tell Mr. Locke you’ve settled,” she whispered without turning around. Her voice trembled, and I felt something inside me break.
I moved. I was taller and faster and in two long strides and I was on her, cutting her path as she reached for the door. I braced one hand against the wood above her as she reached for the handle.
“Doll... Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she murmured.
I reached out, catching her shoulder and turning her to face me. She wouldn’t look up. I was going insane with the distance between us.
“What is it?” She didn’t speak. “Is it Amber?”
At the mention of her name, she took in a quick breath. Her lip trembled. She looked like she was about to cry.
“Ingrid,” I said, reaching down to place a hand on her cheek.
She closed her eyes. “Just let me go, please.”
“There’s nothing between me and Amber,” I said.
“Please—”
“Ingrid,” I growled, low. She opened her eyes, gazed up at me. “Amber came on to me. I pushed her away. I’m not interested in her.”
Her voice cracked. “You said she put your head in a spin.”
“Yeah, she did,” I sighed. “How couldn’t she? For weeks someone else has been stuck in my mind, and then she comes over and does what she does and puts it into fucking overdrive. I feel like I’m going crazy.”
Ingrid swallowed heavily. Her gaze flickered from my eyes to my lips and back again.
“Wh-who?” she whispered. “Who else…?”
She didn’t answer the question, her words hanging in the air.
I didn’t think. I grabbed her face in my hands, my thumbs brushing over her cheekbones.
I moved closer, closing every inch of space until I could feel the heat radiating off her skin.
Then, driven by an impulse so primal, I leaned down and kissed her.
Hungry, claiming, weeks of restraint detonating at once.
She froze for a heartbeat, a small intake of breath catching in her throat that I wanted to fucking swallow.
Then, her hands moved from my chest to edges of my jacket, gripping the fabric shakily as she pulled me closer.
I pressed her flush against me, my body aligning with hers, pinning her lightly to the door without a single ounce of force.
She kissed back like she’d been starving for it. Soft lips, trembling breath, a little whimper—Christ, the sound of it shot straight to my dick. I angled my mouth over hers again, deeper this time, her sexy little body arching into mine like she couldn’t help it.
My hand slid to the back of her neck, guiding her, keeping her exactly where I needed her. Her lips parted for me on instinct, and I devoured her.
And she let me.
My heart was pounding, thundering in my ears. The world outside this room ceased to exist.
It was just us… her taste and me losing my mind.
After a few breathless moments, she jerked herself away, her face a mask of pure shock. Realization flooded back into my mind—the weight of what I’d done, the mess I was in and that same reality crashed into her face all at once.
I opened my mouth to speak her name, but she was already gone, slipping past me and running out the door before I could find the words to make her stay.