Chapter 43
TRISTAN
Tristan
Emergency family meeting. Brunch.
Sienna
Is this about the video?
Tristan
No. Important business.
Sienna
Last time you said that, it was because Alexis had created a new cake recipe.
Tristan
That *was* important.
Aiden
I’ll be there.
Whit
Petition to join by video call.
Sienna
Denied.
Whit
What gives?
Sienna
You scratched my car, Whittaker!! My favorite car!!
Whit
Oh. I thought it was the *other* thing.
Sienna
What other thing??
Whit?
I swear to god.
Whit
I’ll thank you not to take my name in vain.
“Open up,” I shout. I knock on Aiden’s door again, shifting from foot to foot. Dusty is barking, then comes bounding around the side of the house. He runs like it’s his first time ever running, and he nearly knocks me over when he skids to a stop. I crouch to scratch his fuzzy head.
“No wonder you’re so uncoordinated.” He licks my collarbone as I push his hair back. “You have too much hair. You can’t even see.”
“Apparently he can. Emory tells me the hair doesn’t get in the way.”
I look up to see my older brother leaning against the doorjamb. He’s in a t-shirt, of all things, and his hair is ruffled. His puppy, Charlie, noses between his legs.
“Am I interrupting?”
He looks down at her and sighs. “No. I suppose not. Come in. I saw your messages.” I follow him into the living room, where I see he’s already had catering drop off every breakfast food on the menu.
Cut fruit is arranged in spirals on a platter next to breakfast tacos and green juice, then tiny pastries and carafes of coffee.
Emory wanders in, yawning and tying her robe around her waist. I raise my brows at my brother.
It’s noon and they both clearly just came from bed.
Emory smiles sleepily and gives me a long hug that I don’t really understand, but then again, she is all about hidden softness and big emotions under her prickly facade.
“Food. Bless you.” She sinks into the couch. “Better not get used to it.” She gives Aiden an amused look. “You’ll be on a hardtack and water diet soon enough.”
His eyes simmer as he passes her a cup of tea. “Yes, luxury yachting to the Caribbean is terrible, or so I hear.”
They share a small, secret smile and my chest throbs. They’re so painfully happy, so deeply themselves, and somehow more when they’re together, like they’re in on a secret the rest of us can only guess at.
Sienna bursts in, her purse slung over her shoulder, complaining about some assignment she has to complete and then moaning with happiness when she sees the food.
“You,” she says, grabbing my face and planting kisses on my cheeks until I shove her off me. “You’re the best brother a girl could ever hope for.”
“Last week you told me you wanted to flat iron my thumbs.”
She sinks onto the floor next to the coffee table, where she prefers to eat, and starts grabbing breakfast tacos. “Theesh chaish,” she says around a massive bite of egg soufflé, which I take to mean things change.
“Missed you too, sis.”
“So what’s the news?” Aiden is sipping a coffee and Emory is tucked against his side.
I slip my phone out of my pocket and dial Whit, who answers, blinking sleepily into the camera, then scrubbing at his face.
“Napping, old man?” Sienna taunts. Whit is four minutes older than her.
“Big game tonight.” He yawns, then sits all the way up. “I’m here. What’d I miss?”
“Tristan was about to tell us something important.”
Emory squeezes Aiden’s hand, then gives me a smile. “I’ll let you have sibling time. I’ll be upstairs when you’re done.” She disappears, the dogs bounding after her.
All heads swing my way. Whit’s dark gaze is trained on my face, his lips quirked like he knows what’s about to happen. The blood rushes in my ears. I’m about to fuck things up. For good. They may never forgive me for this.
“I’m not marrying a stranger.”
There’s stunned silence from my siblings, then everyone speaks at once.
“Oh my god,” Sienna is saying. “Grandfather is gonna freak.”
“He’s going to exile you,” Whit agrees, not sounding mad about it.
“He might,” I agree through a tight throat.
Aiden gazes steadily at me, his eyes shimmering with the same thoughts I’ve had—that I can’t be CEO without the shares. That it will be on Aiden again.
And then thoughts I know he hasn’t had, because he’s too good, and against all odds, he believes in me—I ruin everything. If I don’t find a way to fix things, it will all be my fault. Again.
I’ve been here before.
When I was so determined to spend time with Dad and Aiden that I stole one of the family cars at fourteen and crashed their special time together. Crashed the car too, and Aiden pretended it was his fault.
When I was fifteen and got sent to boarding school.
When I was sixteen and got kicked out.
Don’t be selfish, Tristan.
Sienna is frowning.
“What happened? Last time we talked about this, you were all—I don’t care. A business arrangement is what I need. I don’t want love.”
I feel my face heat, but I don’t say anything. Sienna is way too observant and as persistent as I am.
“Tristan.”
The whole family seems to lean forward.
“What did you do?”
I shove a forkful of egg soufflé into my mouth, then whimper at how hot it is. Sienna must have no taste receptors left on her tongue.
Her eyes are narrowed. “You don’t want a business arrangement anymore.”
Whit lets out a laugh. “You want love.”
“I don’t,” I rush to say. I might. I scrub the back of my neck. “Fine. The thought crossed my mind.”
How embarrassing. I spent my whole life avoiding emotional entanglements, only to want one with the one person who I’m not sure likes me back. Who I’m not sure I can make happy. Who I care about too much to hurt.
I am a fool.
I take a long inhale. “I’ve been hooking up with Katie.”
There’s a long, tense moment of silence, then Sienna laughs and the tension breaks.
“We know, dummy. The whole world saw it.” Her eyes are sparkling.
“More than once.”
Sienna’s smile grows. “I figured.” Whit looks like he predicted this months ago and bet on the results. Aiden is typically unreadable.
“Stop looking like that,” I say irritably. “I don’t like this.” I gesture toward my family. “This is my job. I’m the one who knows things. I do the scheming. This is—uncomfortable.”
Aiden solemnly passes me a glass of water. Sienna pats my knee.
Whit barks a laugh on the video chat.
“So you want Katie?” My sister’s eyes are fever bright.
My heart seizes in my chest. “I do.” My voice is thick.
“Finally,” Sienna says, flopping back against the couch. “Finally.”
“What do you mean finally?” I slide her an annoyed look. She’s smiling at the ceiling, with her eyes shut.
“Just that you’re meant to be with her and it’s incredibly obvious to everyone,” Whit says smugly.
I glance at Aiden, who nods. His eyes are warm. “I thought I saw this coming. I can get behind this.”
“Doesn’t change the consequences,” I mutter, unsure of how to handle this shift in mood.
“No,” Aiden says slowly. “It doesn’t. But I’ll help you. We’ll think of something. We can run interference with Grandfather until we figure things out. We’ll—”
“Does she know?” Sienna asks.
I shake my head, my throat feeling too small.
Whit is giving me an assessing look through the phone. “Does she like you back?”
“I’m not sure.”
I can feel the mood shift in the room.
“What happened?” Aiden’s using his older-brother voice, the one that says he’ll fix everything, but this isn’t something he can fix.
I steel myself. “We’ve been hooking up. There’s something there.
At least I think there is.” The words are rushing out of me, and I shove off the couch, too itchy to sit still, not interested in eating.
“It feels like it might all be in my head, you know? But then I watched that video and it looks like she’s just as into it as I am.
I think she felt it too. And I think she might be scared.
Or maybe I’m misreading everything.” I run a hand through my hair as my siblings eye me.
Sienna is fiddling with her fork, looking thoughtful. Whit is silent. “Some help would be nice,” I mutter. “Don’t all jump in at once.”
“Well, presumably she already likes you as a person,” Sienna says.
“Thank you for that.”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “Despite all odds, Tristan.”
“It’s not enough.” I drag my hands over my face.
“It’s not—I don’t know what to do. I can’t just blurt it out.
She’ll run. We’re not there. This is so—new.
And maybe she doesn’t feel the same way.
Maybe she doesn’t like me that way.” The thought has my stomach trying to climb up my throat.
Maybe I can’t make her happy. Maybe I hurt her and she won’t forgive me.
I start pacing. “Maybe I should tell her. Honesty is the best policy, right? I should go—”
“Tristan. You need to calm down.” Whit’s voice comes through the phone, muffled by the roaring in my ears and the racing of my thoughts.
Sienna’s hands land on my shoulders. “Relax. We’ll help you. We’ll make a plan.”
I let my sister press me onto the couch. “You’re right,” I say. “A plan. That’s good. Plans are—good.”
“Right.” Sienna gives Aiden a wide-eyed look.
“Whatever we decide to do, all of you need to play along.” All heads swing my way. “You’re sworn to secrecy. Got it?”
Everyone nods and I wipe my damp palms on my pants. “Let’s do this.”
“How did you win Emory over?”
Aiden smiles at my question, turning the coffee mug in his hands.
Sienna left to study, Whit hung up to prepare for his game, and Emory is on the lawn with Dusty and Charlie.
Aiden keeps looking out the window at them where they’re playing on the grass.
I catch Emory looking too and waving. Against all odds, my brother, the most closed-off man in existence when it comes to people outside the family, got his wife to fall in love with him.
“I mean, you started from zero, right?”
He snorts. “Worse than zero. I started from negative. God, she hated me when she got here. Remember that first day in the gym?”
I chuckle, remembering how Emory’s eyes practically spat fire at him that first day. “And yet.” I tip my coffee toward him.
“And yet,” he agrees with a smile. “I did the usual things, I guess. I’d probably tell you it was the library.
But she’d probably tell you it was when she started to learn my secrets.
” He looks out the window, toward the ocean, his gaze faraway.
“Emory knows everything about me, Tris. Even the things you don’t know.
Even the bad things. The things that I don’t like about myself.
” His gaze drifts back to mine, a smile still playing on his mouth.
“Against all odds, it made her like me more, not less.”
I swallow, nodding like this makes sense. I can’t imagine Katie liking me more if she knew everything about me. The thought makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of the cliffs along the water, where one wrong step could send me hurtling to my death.
“So I should just…be honest, and that will be enough? I don’t possibly see how that will work.”
Aiden snorts. “Try it, Tristan.”
I frown and turn the words over in my head. I’ve never been enough.
“Frankly, the thought of even admitting that I have scars makes me want to hurl myself bodily into the ocean.”
Aiden is chuckling. “I know. But the way you’ve been doing things isn’t working, is it?
” He raises both brows and I make a face at him because it’s my job as the younger one.
“Now come on,” he says. “Let’s figure out how to keep Grandfather from exiling you.
Because I sure as hell don’t intend to be CEO anytime soon. ”