Chapter 62
KATIE
“You did it.”
Tristan twirls me on the patio. “I fucking did it.”
We both laugh, a little breathless, a little drunk from the bottle of champagne we’ve been splitting.
I’m in a dress. An honest-to-god ballgown, I think.
Sienna yanked it out of the back of her closet and forced it on me, and I have to admit, it feels pretty great.
I feel like a princess. I feel like Tristan Prince’s fiancée.
Tristan is overflowing with happiness. He’s giddy with it. He keeps toasting to Prince Bourbon and then grabbing his notebook to write something down.
“Actually, wait.” He does it again, and I laugh into my hands.
He looks up from the paper. “Something to say, Bailey?” His eyes simmer with joy.
“Never.” I shake my head and mime zipping my lips. He stalks toward me, slow and predatory, and I yelp. He’s on me in two quick steps. His hands bracket my waist, so warm and large and comforting.
“You’re so fucking weird, Tristan Prince.”
“And you, my darling, like me that way.”
I reach up and slip my hands through the heavy silk of his hair. “I might even love you,” I whisper in his ear.
“Yeah?” He grips the back of my dress. “Say it again.”
“One hundred percent. That’s how much I love you.”
He shivers before his mouth seals over mine. “One hundred percent isn’t enough. I want more.”
I wake in the car the next morning to bright morning sunlight on my face. I’m warm. So deliciously warm, and I smell like Tristan. I look down. I’m in one of his sweatshirts. An old college one, with frayed cuffs and faded lettering.
I blink sleepily at Tristan in the driver’s seat. His sunglasses are on. His hair is finger-combed but still manages to look just-fucked. His face is relaxed as he drives. For a moment, I watch him through my half-lidded eyes.
The way his arm flexes as he turns. His low humming to the quiet song he has on. I can’t believe this is my life.
There’s a flutter in my stomach as he looks at me and smiles. “We’re nearly there.”
“Where?”
I straighten and stretch my neck. Mid-summer blooms pass outside my window, along with young people with satchels and coffees, then large brick buildings. It’s beautiful here. Like a movie.
Tristan parks, then comes around to open my door. I yawn as he helps me out. “Where is here, Tristan?”
He kisses me on the forehead, then spins me to look at the grass expanse before us and the stately buildings. “Brown,” he murmurs. “We’re at Brown.”
“Brown?” I twist to look at his face. “The university?”
He slips his hand into my own. “Just go with it, okay?”
We start down the sidewalk, then turn onto the path that leads between the buildings. Students are clustered in small groups. It’s a warm day and they’re enjoying iced coffees outside. I hear someone complaining about a summer-school essay. One girl is kissing her girlfriend against a tree.
“This is the main academic quad.” Tristan points. “They have everything here. Liberal arts. Sciences. A huge library.” His fingers tighten briefly on mine.
My heart is in my throat as we wander and he continues to point out buildings to me. The coffee shops where students gather, the library that we peek our heads into, the dorms in the old brick buildings.
“What do you think?” he asks me when we’ve completed our loop. His eyes are shining in the morning sun, a serious, deep green.
“Tristan, I—what was the point of this?”
He passes a hand over his hair, mussing it. “Brown is the closest university to Crownhaven. It’s where I always wanted to go.” He smiles ruefully. “I couldn’t get in. But you’re way smarter than I am and a female bodyguard makes for a hell of an admissions essay.”
“I’m not sure—” My pulse is so loud I can hear it in my ears.
“Let me finish,” he pleads. His handsome face is twisted.
“I looked it all up, Katie. The deadlines. The tests. The transfer credits you’ll need.
My friend is a professor here and he’ll talk to you about picking classes.
It’s an amazing school. They have every major you could imagine, and so many resources—”
“Bodyguards don’t go to college,” I choke out.
His eyes soften. “But this one wants to, right?”
My face heats. “How did you know? I kept it a secret.”
“Of course I knew.” His mouth tips up at the side.
“I know you, Katie Bailey. I saw those magazines you stole. I saw how much you loved all the movies and shows about university. Even Animal House. You barely blinked when Rory went to college in Gilmore Girls. Every recommendation I’ve ever made for a book or an article, you’ve read. ”
There’s pressure behind my eyes, heat that threatens to spill dangerously over. “I want it so badly,” I choke. “But I thought if I wanted it too hard, it would destroy me. I never had money for this, or credits to transfer, or time to apply—” My voice cracks.
“Katie.” His hand cradles my face. “Baby. I’ll make it happen for you. I told you. It’s always been about what you want.”
I’m really going to cry now, an odd heart-wrenching mix of hope and longing filling my nose and heating my face.
I want so badly to have the future Tristan imagines for me.
One in which I live with him and teach self-defense and go to college and study dusty old books and everything looks like a movie.
Katie a year ago would have told herself not to hope for something so impractical. It would have been just a clipping on her fridge. But today? I feel rife with possibility, like all of Tristan’s confidence is mine to borrow whenever I need it.
“Okay,” I manage. “I’ll try.”
“You’ll succeed. I’ve never met an obstacle Katie Bailey couldn’t overcome with sheer stubbornness.”
I shove at his chest, smiling through my blurry vision. “You’re so annoying.”
He captures my hand and uses it to pull me close. He kisses my jaw, then my cheek, surely tasting my tears. His breath tickles my ear when he asks, “But am I the pineapple?”