Chapter 52
TRISTAN
The world inhales. I don’t. I’m balanced on a horrifying precipice. A potent cocktail of nerves and adrenaline is racing through my veins, making my hands shake as I skim them up her spine. I’ve never done this. Never gone after something that feels so essential to me.
Did I just say that? Did I really just blurt that out? Am I that stupid?
“What did you say?”
No, wait. This is a great idea. Fuck taking it slow. Fuck scaring her. I can’t live without her. I’m not willing to.
“You should marry me.” I say it again, just to feel that shot of giddiness. Turns out, being honest is better than drugs. Is that what feelings are like? Because if so, I’m doing it all the time.
She pushes to sitting, and I lounge back on the cushion. I prop my arm behind my head. She blinks furiously, then blushes. She has my love bites on her neck. I just came inside her. I mussed her hair and I made her gasp and there’s absolutely no way I’m letting her go after this.
“I can’t marry you.”
Her words are unsteady. They’re shaky and choked and terrified.
And before I can let my fear drown me too, I pause.
I take in the tension in her shoulders and the flare of her nostrils.
I know this expression of hers. It’s the one she made when I offered her a birthday present that first year.
She wants it, but she won’t let herself have it.
Oh, Katie.
Good thing I’m cunning and confident enough for both of us.
I run a hand over my stomach, flexing in that way that the Prince PR team always asks me to do when they take photos. I never thought forty-seven hours of media training would come to this—trying to get my best friend to marry me.
She bites her lip.
“Katie,” I say, every ounce of coaxing I possess in my voice. “You should marry me.”
“Oh god.” She pushes off the cushion and jogs up the two steps from the sunken seating area. I slowly stalk her, my eyes on the taut curve of her butt and the gentle swell of her small breasts. We end up facing off on the deck, with the late sun behind her head, haloing her in light.
“I can’t marry you.” Her arms are tight against her chest.
My heart lurches briefly before my vision sharpens. I try not to want anything, but this, I want. More than anything. My fingers clasp around her wrist, feather against her racing pulse. “Give me a reason.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am. I’ve never been this serious in my life.”
I reel her toward me until her posture eases and her hands go to my chest, like she’ll push me away. She won’t. I know everything about Katie Bailey. I know she wants me. I know she’s scared.
“A reason, Katie.” I drop a kiss against her neck, picking up the salt and Katie taste of her skin.
“You would break me.”
Her voice trembles. My chest aches.
“I would never break you,” I vow. I ease her bottom lip between my own. Before, it was fumbling, fast. This—I suck gently on the sweet curve—this is everything.
“Yes,” she says miserably. “You would. You wouldn’t even mean to.”
“Tell me.” I nip at her lip. My hand lands on her waist and squeezes.
“You are everything to me,” she breathes.
“You’re everything to me too,” I say huskily.
Her lids flutter briefly before her mouth sets. “No, Tristan.” Her fingers dance over my lips. Her smile is small. “I’m not everything. You have your family and your distillery and a future wife and so many friends.”
“You have that too.” Panic starts to swell, the first tremors shaking inside me.
“I don’t.” Her fingers skate over my jaw. “I just have you and your siblings. You provide my home and so much of my happiness. Imagine if I let you provide 100 percent. Imagine if I depended on you completely.”
That tremor grows. “I would protect you.”
“I know.” She reaches up to kiss me, and I turn my head to chase her lips, wanting more than she’s willing to give. “You would try.”
“Say yes,” I plead.
“No, Tristan.”
I pull back, try to settle my racing heart. I can see her pulse feathering at the base of her neck in quick bursts. It’s as fast as if she’s just run ten miles.
It costs her something to say no to me.
The thought makes hope burst in my heart. Cunning, not force. I can do this.
“What are you afraid of, Katie Bailey?”
Her eyes widen. My hand clenches on her hip.
“Ah, you won’t tell me. I’ll have to figure you out, then.
” I set my lips to her ear, tug on it with my teeth.
“You told me you were scared of being seen.” Her breath hitches.
I let my lips drop to the crease of her neck.
“Scared to lose control.” She makes a sound in the back of her throat.
“But I see you. And I know I can make you lose control. So what is it?”
She makes a frustrated sound, the same one she makes when I run faster than her, the one that says she knows I have her but she’s not willing to give in. I love that little sound. “This isn’t that. Bodyguards don’t marry billionaires.”
“Katie, baby.” My voice is a harsh rasp and she shivers. “I don’t want you as my bodyguard. I want you as my wife.”
Her sharp inhale rockets through me.
“I think you like that,” I whisper. My lips are on her ear, picking up every tremor of her body.
“Hate it,” she gasps. “You should give up.”
I smile and bury my face in her neck.
“You’ll get over it, Tristan. You’ll marry someone else. Someone right for you.”
I hum against her skin, then dip her gently back. “You’re right for me.”
“I’m not,” she pleads. “I didn’t go to college.
I don’t know the first thing about being in your world.
They’ll never accept me, Tristan. They’ll laugh at me and the media will descend on me, and it will ruin everything.
Our friendship will go up in flames and I’ll have nothing and it will break me.
I don’t want things to end like that. I can’t handle it.
It’s too much. Too risky. I don’t want to hope. ”
My lips land on hers, my heart swelling inside my chest at her words. “I can hope for both of us.”
There are tears on her face. “Tristan, no. You have to give this up. Promise me. Promise me you’ll give this idea up.”
“You’ll see, Katie.” I turn us slowly on the deck, my chin pressed to her head, her chest heaving against my own. “This game we’re playing? I like it. But I’m ten steps ahead of you. And I intend to win.”