Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
TRISTAN
Istartle awake at the sharp ring of my phone under my pillow. I feel for it and blink at the screen. Freaking hell. Eight in the morning. I’m on land, for fuck’s sake. But it’s Dad, and I have to take it; he’s doing me a helluva favor.
“Yep. Dad,” I answer as I rub my eyes.
“We got the retainer from Alexandra last night, so we’re good to go,” he begins. “The one thing we never discussed yesterday is our fees.”
“Yep.” Still don’t know how I side-stepped that conversation, and it’s a bit early in the morning—
“Because we don’t do this type of shit for free.”
“Yep. I know.” There’s a short pause, and I haul myself into a sitting position.
“How’s filming going?” Dad asks.
We didn’t discuss that yesterday either. Dad’s always short on time—less so on money—but everything has a price tag, and everybody has their price. “It’s going.” I’m not begging until I’ve exhausted every other viable option, which currently is Ne’emba Island.
“Run out of money yet?” Dad prods.
How the hell does he know? It’s as if he’s waiting for me to tell him I’ve failed, and I’m not going there right now.
Best I steer the call back to business. “I’m okay,” I say.
“Lexi must have personal liability insurance of sorts, and the hotel will be covered for every eventuality, so I’m not worried.
” And thank you Matthew Simmons—a junior at Dad’s firm who is on a mission to impress me in the hope that I’ll sing his praises to my dad—for that information.
“Even if things go totally pear-shaped, I’ll take care of it. ”
“Yeah? Pear-shaped, you say? Let’s make sure we understand each other. You will stand surety to cover our legal fees?” Dad gives a dry chuckle. “This case involves a celebrity, Tristan, and St Chalamet is no small fry. I’d think twice if I were you.”
“Yep.” Fuck. He knows how to wind me up. “It’s fine.” It’s Lexi. I’ll figure it out.
“Still think going into fish was the right choice, Tristan?”
Now I have a pulsing vein in my temple, ready to pop. “Yes, Dad. I’ll use my trust fund, if it comes to that. Seems like a fair exchange. Listen, I’ve got to go. I have fish to feed. Catch you later.”
I cut the call before he can make any more comments about my career choices and fall back on my pillow. Tossing his trust fund back at him for his own legal fees will be fine retribution, and I’ll do it with a smile if it helps Lexi.
Lexi. I owe her proper face time. She must be on pins and needles.
Since I got back to Miami, things have been intense at the university lab, but at least we’re done now.
I crawled into bed at four this morning, feeling like roadkill.
And then I couldn’t sleep. Yesterday, on top of everything else, I got a call from my agent, Nick Mallett, reminding me that my deadline for submitting the rest of my documentary is coming up fast and wondering if I have new work for him to look at? “Where are you, exactly?” he asked.
“I’m at the corner of Fucked and Fuck Off,” I’d wanted to reply. “So pick me up on your way to We’re Screwedville.”
I managed to stall him with a short story of time-sensitive experiments and told him I’d call back later. And then the interview call came in and, I don’t know, there was hope?
I’ve yet to call Nick back.
“Tristan?”
A knock on my door follows, and I stifle a groan in my pillow.
“Tristan?” Lexi asks again. “Are you awake? I heard you talking.”
“Yep. Just gimme a minute.” I get up, pull on a T-shirt and some sweatpants, and drag my fingers through my bedhead.
Ideally, I would like to shower and all that before I see anybody in the morning, but life on a boat at close quarters makes you forgo formalities rather quickly. I’ve been in that zone for years now.
I find her in the kitchen, making coffee.
Oof… She looks hot in that business suit with its pencil skirt, form-fitting jacket, and white button-down shirt.
Her hair falls in waves over her shoulders, and as she glances up, I do a double take.
This isn’t the Lexi I have burned into my mind.
She looks professional and in charge. And older. Thank God for that.
“You had your interview?” I step up to the kitchen island and settle on a barstool. “How did it go?”
“It was good,” she says as she takes the half-and-half from the fridge. “Nathan Beaumont was there as well.”
“Uh-huh.” Lexi will clearly lick this guy’s ass if he offered it.
“Tristan! He’s the oldest great-grandson of Louis Beaumont, who started Beaumont Hotels between the wars. He’s the next-generation CEO and is expanding their business into the States!”
I hitch my eyebrows. “Making friends in high places?”
“Ha, I plan to,” Lexi says as she offers me a mug of coffee. “This is my one chance to impress.”
“I’ll hold your hand all the way, Lexi.”
She chuckles. “You might have to. Did he ask about us? About being employed as a couple? Whether we’re engaged?”
“Nope.” We stare at each other. The tension in the room twists tighter. “Somehow I don’t think that’s the deciding factor. Do you think they’ll offer us the position?”
“I’m not sure that’s true, but my position is easy to fill. I’m replaceable—”
“Don’t say that, Lexi.” Her revelation the other night about how she felt when I left still eats at me. How could this girl—this woman—who meant so much to me, think she’s beneath me and replaceable?
“It’s true. If we get an offer, it will be because of your skills, not mine. That was clear in my interview.”
“But they’ll want us both. The question is whether you want to do this.” I run my tongue over my bottom lip. “I’m feeling the pressure, Lexi. I need this.”
“You can solve your problem so easily. Just ask your dad—”
“No.” The word comes out snappy, and I immediately regret my tone.
I’m too tired to have this conversation.
My head’s hardly out of its sleepy bog, and to ask Dad for money after that phone call?
“Sorry, I…” Residual anger sits on my chest, and I shake my head, not knowing how to make her understand.
“I see,” she says softly. “You’re trying to prove something to him? And taking his money would be like—”
“Failure. Yeah.” I rub a hand down my face. “He never wanted me to go into marine sciences. He wanted me to go into law and join his firm. He doesn’t get my love for the ocean—or for conservation, for that matter.”
Lexi’s eyes are on me, weighing every word. “You mean getting a doctorate wasn’t enough for him?”
No. Nothing is ever enough. I avoid answering her question by taking a sip of coffee for courage, but don’t break eye contact with her over the rim of my mug. If we’re going to do this, I need to be honest with her.
“This documentary, Lexi,” I start, trying to find the right words. “It’s about capturing something that’s stood the test of time, something that’s bigger than all of us. It’s about a world we need to nurture and care for, instead of slowly asphyxiating it as we’re doing now.”
She doesn’t respond, and I might have revealed too much, but it’s too late now.
“Okay. I can totally get on board with that.” Lexi smiles, warm and encouraging. “I want that too. I want all of it. Only my angle isn’t so…unselfish.”
“Some people think what I do is very selfish. The lifestyle does have collateral damage.”
“Hmm…except this time you’ll be engaged,” she says, making quotation marks at the word “engaged.”
I smirk. “What could go wrong, really?”
She laughs. “We could be found out?”
“And then?”
“I don’t know? I honestly don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I can’t help feeling that this is the moment where I face the same choices my dad faced, and look where he ended up.”
That would be prison.
“Lexi, being engaged is personal. It’s between two people, and what goes on in anybody’s relationship is nobody else’s business.
” Jeez, just listen to me sounding like a relationship guru.
“Faking an engagement for three months is hardly defrauding a charity of millions of dollars.” Then being caught and landing on the national news for weeks as the criminal case dragged.
The consequences basically destroyed her family.
No wonder Lexi is freaked out about this whole Mia Reed situation.
She sees herself living through all that again, but this time, in the starring role.
“And trust me, no one would come to arrest you at home for faking an engagement.”
She pales. Oof. I did it again. Put my foot right in it.
“No, but it still feels wrong.”
“What would it take to make it feel right?” The question is so layered that even I have a hard time getting through all of them.
After a long moment she chuckles. “Let’s see if we bag it first.”
My phone rings in my room, and I get up to fetch it. I hope it isn’t Nick Mallett with his complimentary follow-up call. The number isn’t one stored in my contacts, but it is from Europe, given the area code. I answer before thinking too far ahead.
“Tristan Martinelli?” a woman with a French accent says.
“Speaking.”
“I’m calling to let you know we’ll be offering you and your fiancée the position at Ne’emba Island. We wrapped up the interview with Alexandra minutes ago. We hope to have you both on board soon.”
I hesitate, heart pumping wildly. “Okay.” I’ve never worked for a hotel before and have no clue about the protocol here. I need Lexi. “Thank you.” I walk out of my room and wave to catch her attention.