Chapter 9
KATIE
Tristan misses our run the next morning. It’s five a.m. and I’m doing a circuit of the property alone and trying not to resent him for being in his warm bed when I’m out here freezing and checking for paparazzi.
There were photos posted last night that could only have been taken by a photographer with an amazing telephoto lens or from someone who had access to the property. As my feet slap the pavement, I think about those photos for the hundredth time since I got the notification at four a.m.
They featured Tristan emerging from his black sports car, and then another shot of him walking into the garden. The garden isn’t visible from the gates, and the thought of an intruder, here, makes my fist clench.
I force my shoulders to lower as I run.
I hate failing.
Fear licks coolly up my spine before I force myself to relax. Nothing bad will happen. I’ll make sure it doesn’t. Nour and Gio have agreed to take the temporary work and will be starting soon.
I round the northwest corner of the polo field and duck into the trees.
The wrought-iron gas lanterns here flicker dimly under the canopy of American white oak that the family uses for barrel making.
Birds are just starting to chirp. I take deep lungfuls of cool morning air.
Salt and old leaves and the faint scent of damp earth.
The woods are just opening onto a grassy clearing near the property wall when I see it—a shadowy form dropping from the ten-foot height of the wall. It’s a man. Tall. Big. Wearing dark clothes. His feet hit the ground and he starts jogging down the path ahead of me.
Adrenaline pours through me. My vision narrows on his back as my feet pick up speed. I can outrun him in my sleep.
Fucker.
It takes me seconds to catch up, precious seconds when he doesn’t realize I’m on him, and then it’s too late. I lunge for his waist, wrap my arms around him, and drop my right knee, taking us both to the ground. He hits the grass with a soft grunt.
“Stay down,” I growl.
The man goes limp. “Katie?”
“Tristan?” I don’t relax. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Get off me.” He pushes up on his elbows, and I press my arm into his shoulder blades.
“Not until you tell me what you were doing.”
He makes a low sound in his throat and tries to throw me off. He has eighty pounds on me, and even my thighs around his waist can’t keep him from rolling me onto my back.
“What the hell, Katie?” He captures one of my wrists in his large hand and presses it over my head.
His face fills my vision, his jaw taut. The scent of crushed grass is in my nose. I blink slowly up at him. Tristan has never pinned me before. Not like this.
“Where were you?” I hiss.
“Out.”
He pants softly over me, his gaze furious.
My eyes skate unwillingly down his body.
Tristan looks—dirty-hot would be the word I’d use if I were describing someone else.
Faded t-shirt stretched over his broad frame, soft jeans that mold to his thighs.
Rumpled hair and stubble on his jaw. He looks like he’s been out all night.
He looks like the type of man who might be insatiable.
There’s heat in my stomach and heaviness in my limbs, and when he readjusts his grip on my wrist, I have the insane urge to arch under him.
Tristan shifts over me. I am suddenly and obscenely aware of the heavy press of his thigh between mine, the rasp of his jeans over my bare skin. His scent. A little smoky, a hint of whiskey, his expensive laundry soap. It winds through my nostrils and makes me flush.
The wanting hits me like a freight train. It’s a thousand times more potent than it was at the bar two nights ago and it shoots up my spine in a concentrated burst.
My eyes widen.
My breath comes in short pants.
There’s no ignoring this. No telling myself he isn’t that hot.
This is my worst nightmare.