Chapter 31
TRISTAN
“Iwant to show you something.”
I eye Grandfather over my cup of coffee on Thursday morning before I slowly set it down. “You want to show me something?”
He nods and taps a small silver spoon on the top of his soft-boiled egg in its engraved silver egg cup.
Since Aiden announced to the family that he wanted me to step up, Grandfather has demanded weekly breakfasts to “ease the transition.” Really, it just means he pays me the attention he never paid me as a kid.
He lives in the main house, where, as we eat, memories thicken into a dreadful mantle on my shoulders.
Everything at Crownhaven has a long history, from the engraved crystal drinking glasses to the portraits on the walls to the meals that are always taken in the formal dining room.
When we were kids, Dad sat where Grandfather sits now, and he watched us all eat.
I have distinct memories of kicking my feet against the too-tall chairs and being yelled at for denting the wood. Crownhaven was not made to accommodate children, and neither was my father.
Grandfather, however, appears to be making an effort in his own way, so when he gestures to follow him out of breakfast, I do.
The dining room sits closest to the ocean, and we have a long hallway to take before we get to the ballroom, where we detour, past the study, then the massive library, and then the door that leads to the downstairs kitchen that the caterers use.
Grandfather turns the handle and starts down the worn stairs.
“Really? Here?”
His steps are slow and stately. “Really,” he says crisply.
When we get to the gilt-inlaid door at the end of the downstairs hallway, I’m confused. “I thought this was a wine cellar.”
He fiddles with the signet ring on his right hand, where it rests on his cane.
“It is a cellar. Of sorts. Your brother has never been here. Only the CEO of Prince Bourbon has access.” He pulls the ring off and holds it up.
It gleams dully in the downstairs lights.
The crest of House Prince is stamped in gold on the front.
Sparks flare to life inside me as he sets the ring into an indentation in the door, then presses. This is what it means to be a Prince, I think. This is our legacy.
The door is almost four inches thick, and it still swings silently.
“It’s fireproof,” he says before he steps into the cool space and flicks a light. Muted, recessed lighting flickers on, and my mouth parts in shock.
Aiden would cry if he saw this.
And then, on the heels of that thought, Dad would never want me here.
I turn slowly in the square room. There are low couches in the middle, a single table, and a dusty decanter with a glass next to it. Almost like Dad was just here, drinking a glass of whiskey. My heart seems to squeeze inside my chest.
“How old are these bottles?”
“These are fifty bottles of the first bourbon that Prince Bourbon ever made. Distilled the year after we split from the Hunters and bottled in 1934.” Grandfather gestures to the bottles that are displayed under recessed lighting like the Crown Jewels.
The writing on their pale, age-worn labels is spidery, and the whiskey is a deep amber color.
“Your father’s tasting notes are here,” he says suddenly.
His knuckles are white on the top of his cane.
“Where?” I croak.
He indicates a leather-bound notebook on top of one of the low tables. A pen is capped and set haphazardly to the side.
Oh god.
I don’t think I can do this.
“This should be Aiden’s,” I croak. “You should show Aiden.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Grandfather’s gaze narrows an infinitesimal amount. Like all good wealthy men raised in New England, he keeps emotion off his face and out of his voice.
“How is the spouse hunt going?” he says instead.
Subtext: Marry someone suitable and this is yours.
“Fine.” I shrug. I can’t keep track of the dates anymore. I’ve met ten candidates. No, twelve.
“And your bodyguard friend is not distracting you?”
I can’t control how my jaw clenches, how my shoulders tighten.
Another mistake. It shows him I care. I force myself to walk to one of the bottles and trail my fingers idly over the label.
My heart beats in my throat. Grandfather has never liked Katie, and I don’t want her in his sights.
He’s the one person I can’t protect her from.
“Why would she be distracting me?”
“You go gallivanting about the property. I see her with you at all hours. I want to make sure you are focused on your responsibilities.”
I meet his heavy stare and shift on my feet, just like I did as a teenager.
He still manages to make me feel untethered, like I am flapping in the wind and searching desperately for something to grasp on to.
A flag looking for a flagpole, wanting nothing more than to proclaim to the world that here is where I belong.
“I’m focused,” I say firmly.
He nods. Proud, I think. An emotion so rare that I have trouble recognizing it. “Good.”
I sit at the bar that night and watch Katie flirt with guys.
She is adorably determined to make this work, from her carefully chosen black tank top to her painted-on jeans that keep drawing my eye.
She even told me in the car that she wanted to level up by going somewhere a bit nicer.
She also insisted Nour attend, in case she wanted to have a drink.
Nour watches us from across the bar, where her leg is kicked up against the wall, somehow threatening even in a blouse and slacks.
Katie smiles at something this dark-haired guy is saying. They’ve been chatting for fifteen minutes. Every time his hand so much as grazes her arm, my hand tenses on my thigh.
Like I can do something to stop it. I can’t and I won’t.
Even if I can’t stop thinking about that kiss against the wall. The texts. The ones that made me think she likes this more than she’s letting on. There was something there. I know there was. And yet, she’s here, smiling up at that guy as if he could kiss her as thoroughly as I did.
Like he knows her well enough to read every sigh she makes. He doesn’t even look like he could carry her home.
He wanders to the bar to order another drink and her eyes immediately find mine.
Her nose wrinkles. I don’t know about this one.
I tip my head. You want me to intervene?
An eye roll. I don’t need you fighting my battles, rich boy.
I raise my brows. Try me, Bailey.
She’s fighting a smile as he walks back toward her, but her eyes are on me. Her smile is for me, our bond pulling taut between us.
I’ve felt this before. April, one year ago.
We went out on the anniversary of my father’s death.
Sienna insisted, but she was the one who ended up crying in the car on the way home.
I spent my night making sure my siblings were okay.
Goofing off, buying drinks, making jokes.
And every time I looked up, Katie’s gaze would find mine and she’d tip her head.
Okay? she seemed to be asking. Want help?
It’s the exact thing she offered the first month we met. Who makes sure you’re okay, Tristan? Could be me. If you want it.
The guy passes her what amounts to her third beer of the night. She’s not keeping track, but I’ll keep track for her.
He brushes a strand of hair out of her face. I feel like I’ve been shoved in the chest. The feeling is so potent it makes my vision blur as I watch her smile back.
What in the holy hell is happening to me?
“You good?”
I flick a glance at Amara, the bartender who’s seen me on at least five dates at this bar.
She’s fifty and she should stick out like a sore thumb with her art teacher clothes and her quirky blue glasses.
She can throw down with the best of them, though.
I’ve seen it. She even has a bell behind that bar that she rings when she needs the bouncer to back her up.
I shrug. She refills my water with a smirk. “You have some admirers.” She tips her head toward three women clustered at the end of the bar. They’re darting me furtive glances, then giggling. I grimace, praying they don’t come over to talk to me.
“Not tonight,” I mutter.
She leans on the bar. “What’s your deal? You come here on all these dates. You turn it on for them. And then when no one’s looking, you drop the act. You seem lonely.”
“I’m not lonely.”
She pokes her tongue at the inside of her cheek. “Seems it. And you keep staring at the girl over there. If you want her so badly, ask her out.”
I snort. “She’s my best friend.”
“Ah.”
“What?”
She smiles at me before she grabs a beer, cracks it, then takes the proffered cash from the guy next to me. “You just figured out you like her.”
I blink. “Like her?”
Amara bursts out laughing. “You seem like a smart guy. Of course you like her. You’re sitting over here staring at her date like you want to beat his head into the table. And you think you don’t like her.” She snorts, shaking her head.
Like Katie.
What if I did like Katie? Like that? Would I act on it?
“How would I know?”
Amara squints at me. “How would you know what?”
“If I, ah…If I like her.” I rub a hand down my jeans, wishing this water were a beer, or maybe a glass of Old Kingdom.
“Mind you, I’m not speaking from recent experience,” she says. “Husband number two did a doozy on me. But in my experience, liking someone is like being continually knifed in the heart and hoping the next stab heals the hurt.”
I slide a finger through the condensation on the outside of my glass. “I don’t particularly want to feel that way.” I chance a glance at Amara, who is looking over my head. “In fact, I’ve done a pretty damn good job of not feeling at all.” I tap the wall of my chest.
“Might not have a choice there, buddy.”
My hand tightens on the water. “I proposed to her.” The words fall from my lips, and Amara stills before she grabs another beer. “She said no.”
“Ah.” She cracks it.
“That was a weighted ah.”
My heart seems to pause while she gathers her words.
“It’s unrequited, then.”
My heart starts again, settling into rhythm. “Not at the time. At the time it wasn’t—” Amara is giving me a knowing smirk. “Yeah. Guess it is.” I take another sip of water. “It’ll go away, right?”
Her face falls. “You can’t be with her?”
I think back to the conversation we had that day in the grass.
Katie’s irritation at me for proposing, her insistence that I deserved love and she did too.
And pulsing behind all of that, like the pump of a dark heart, the implication, the absolute fucking certainty, that I wasn’t someone she could find that with.
“Not a chance.”
Amara’s dark eyes are sad when I look back at her.
My lips twist. “It’s all good.”
“You want a drink? A real one. On the house. I even have some Prince whiskey.”
My eyes flare, and she chuckles.
“Secret’s safe with me, kid, don’t worry. I won’t send the paparazzi your way.”
“I’m okay. I’m driving her home later.”
“Christ,” she mutters. “You might be too dumb to help.”
I smile faintly. “I’ll be okay. I think if I’m very, very careful, things will go back to the way they were.”
“That’s what you want?”
“Of course that’s what I want. I don’t want to feel like I’m being stabbed in the chest every time I look at her.” I hunch forward on the bar and avoid the stare of a man two seats down. “You don’t know me, but historically, I’ve excelled at managing my emotions.”
She snorts and swipes a rag up from the edge of the bar. “You’re holding your heart in your hands like it’s a bomb, hoping it won’t go off, if only you tread carefully enough.”
I startle, blood rushing in my ears.
“In my experience, it always does.” She shrugs. “But maybe you’re different, Tristan Prince.”
“I’m very special.” I smirk.
“I bet that line works a lot,” she says, grinning.
We laugh, and I watch Katie, and I promise myself that I won’t let this get any worse. Katie is my friend. I’d rather die than hurt her. And if I know one thing from experience, it’s that when I care deeply about something, I always find a way to ruin it.