Chapter Eighteen
J ennifer
Tristan is nothing like I thought he would be. He hasn’t tried to touch me—at least not in that way. He is mind fucking me instead. Honestly, I think I would prefer the physical fuck. At least the physical fuck I can process through. What he is doing to my head is something completely different.
I turn on the shower, reaching my hand out touching the water, waiting for it to become hot. Tristan told me I could do whatever I wanted as long as I stayed in my room. He is completely in control and calm.
He acts as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. He will think differently when Ethan and the others come for me. I know Ethan is coming, they all are. I just can’t promise I will be here when they do.
Tristan tells me his plans for making me his wife.
Telling me that he loves me has me all fucked up.
All I can think about is Ethan and our unborn child and what will happen when I give birth.
Tristan is a proud man. I don’t think he will just raise a child that isn’t his and everyone will know that it is not his.
Tristan likes being both feared and respected and if he keeps me and the child, he will lose the respect of his clients and his men. I know he won’t stand for that, no matter how much he tries to convince me that he loves me.
He thinks he can give me what I want if I just give in to him. But the truth is he has nothing I want. Everything I want comes from Ethan, is Ethan. Tristan can never make me feel the way he did. No matter what he gives me or promises me, he isn’t Ethan.
I can only imagine what Tristan is up to now. He had to leave in a hurry, which makes me nervous and hopeful that maybe, just maybe, something is not going the way he wants it to.
I pull back my hand and slowly remove the black nightgown.
Tristan has always liked fancy things. He’s always enjoyed his money and having things that normal people could only dream of having. But money has never been something I have worried about. I have never cared about fancy things, probably because I’ve never had them.
When I was living in the studio, the only thing I wanted was freedom, having a choice in what happens to me. And now, even now, that choice has been taken away from me.
I look at myself in the mirror and see Tristan standing in the doorway. For the first time his breathing is unsteady. There is rage in his eyes, eyes not deadlocked onto mine. I can tell he is looking at my back.
The one place that holds the most scars from my father and the other men. I have learned that men like to torture to get off. The more pain they inflicted on me the more turned on they became.
I have lost count of how many scars I have that cover my body. But I do know the ones on my back are the worst. Scars on top of scars.
I take a deep breath as he pushes off the doorframe and closes the distance between us. I wrap my arms around myself even though he has seen all of me before.
He stops behind me and lifts his hands, gently touching the scars with his fingertips. I see sadness in his eyes, something I never thought I would see from him.
“Your father did this to you?” Tristan asks in a low voice.
“Yes, and the others, too.” I look at him closely. I can see concern and anger in his eyes. Which honestly makes my heart race. This Tristan I don’t know. He is not normally like this.
Tristan has always been good at fucking with people mentally and emotionally. He has done it to me for years.
Even the heroin couldn’t take away all the pain of the torture my father and the others did. I wish my father gave me more drugs, but he didn’t—he only gave me enough to not fully fight the men and him off. But my father was a horrible, sick man, and I knew he wanted me to feel the pain.
Tristan gently places his hands against my back, making my heart stop. He slowly looks up my back then locks eyes with mine.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“You didn’t do it,” I snap back. I don’t like this Tristan. I want the other one, the only one I know so well. The Tristan I have prepared myself for. Not this Tristan. Not the man showing hurt and sadness.
He doesn’t get to fucking do this. He doesn’t get to come in here after kidnapping me, after taking away my choices, and say he’s sorry like this. He doesn’t get to come in here and make me see a side of him that I never wanted to see.
This doesn’t change that I hate him, that I want him to die. That I want to die for what he is promising me. He wants to make me his wife, keep me locked away from the world. The world I want so badly to be a part of.
“No, but I didn’t stop it either. I tried. I really did try,” he states in a softer voice, the pain coming through making my heart race.
What the fuck is happening?
“I know.” Are the only words I can say. I don’t know what to say to this Tristan. I don’t know what the fuck is going on.
He takes a deep breath and drops his hands down. I slowly turn around and face him, tightening my arms around myself. He is close enough that I can feel his body heat.
He locks eyes with me again. “I promise no one will ever touch you like that again.” He has so much confidence my heart stops for a moment.
It stops because I know his words are true.
I know that he wouldn’t let anyone touch me like that or at all because now he believes I am his, that I belong to him.
What he feels for me is not love. It is ownership, that’s all it is, which makes my stomach twist into knots.
I tilt my head to the side and search his eyes. He is telling the truth. I believe his words. He is a horrible man, a fucking gangster for fuck’s sake, but in this moment he just looks like a normal guy saying words that any normal guy would say.
But we are not normal. I am not normal. He is not normal. And no matter how much I fucking want to be it will never come true. Tristan has proven that to me because normal people don’t buy and own someone they love.
“Why do you care, Tristan.?” I ask, continuing to search his eyes. I want the fucking truth. I don’t want the games. I just want the truth from him.
“You know why.” His voice is no longer shaky. The shame and guilt are starting to fade, being replaced with calmness and desire, a desire that scares the fuck out of me. He will be disappointed with me. I am not who he thinks I am.
There is nothing special about me. There never has been.
I feel my fear slowly turning into burning rage, his answers making me angry.
They make my blood boil. He acts as if he’s so much better than Ethan, so much better than the other men who have touched and tortured me.
He is no better. “You are no better than those men. You might not have tortured me like them, but you have raped me, claimed me, kidnapped me. What makes you think you are better than they are?”
His eyes continue to search mine, and I know he can see that I am guarded about everything he is trying to say to me. Why the fuck would I ever want to be with a man like him?
He thinks he loves me, but you don’t kidnap, rape, and hold someone against their will when you love them. What he believes is love is a fucked-up version that I want nothing to do with.
“I’m not better, Jennifer. But I plan on trying to be.” Man, he is good.
His words catch me off guard. I take a step back, the mirror stopping me from making more distance between us.
I don’t like this. I don’t want him this close, acting like this.
It makes me nervous. I can feel myself becoming a little more unhinged inside.
There are so many things that are uncertain right now.
And his acting like this makes me feel like there are even more things becoming uncertain. That maybe I don’t know Tristan at all.
I feel the cold glass against my skin. Tristan takes a step towards me. I tighten my grip around myself.
He slowly lifts his hands and cups my face.
He doesn’t say a damn word, he just leans in and connects his lips to mine. My entire body stiffens. I hate that my body reacts to him the way it does. It goes against me, too, doesn’t give me a choice.
I want to fucking scream. And cry and run. I want to show Tristan that no matter what he does or says it doesn’t change anything.
But just like before when he is around me, when he touches me, I am frozen, unable to do anything but take what he wants to give me. I feel weak, broken, and vulnerable.
I feel more naked now than I did a moment ago and it has nothing to do with actually being naked in front of him right now. His body is starting to lean into mine. I can fucking smell him, taste him, feel his warmth spreading against my skin.
It is the fact that he can get inside my head, mind fucks me with simple words, words that shouldn’t affect me, but they do.
And it pisses me off because I know him.
And I understand that the Tristan I know so well will come to the surface sooner or later.
And whoever this is right now against my body will disappear.
He can try to change. He can make me all the promises his wants. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’d rather take my own life than be his fucking sex slave wife for the rest of my life.
This Tristan I don’t know. This Tristan is nothing but a liar. This is not who he is. I have seen the real him and this is not him. It can’t be.