14. Tethered
FOURTEEN
TETHERED
Ian
Life is good.
Leaning back in my oversized club chair in the corner of my home office, I prop my perfectly polished Brioni dress shoes on the ottoman, contemplating why being kicked out of my own bedroom feels so satisfying.
I came home twenty minutes ago to Trish getting ready for tonight’s fundraiser in my room.
Correction, our room.
Since Trish took over my exposure therapy, her stuff, previously strewn about the guest room, has moved into the master.
My bathroom vanity is covered with bottles, sprays, makeup, and a vast assortment of hair tools.
My closet (which I can no longer enter without getting a hard-on) is stuffed with the bright colors of flowing fabrics, numerous heels, and half-opened drawers of lingerie.
When I asked Trish how all of this fit in her trailer, she laughed, saying, “Why do you think I don’t cook? All my cabinets are for shoes.”
It makes sense why she is so tiny. The woman exists on coffee, sandwiches, and occasional takeout.
Shifting in my seat, I try to will down the semi that rises at the memory of Trish sitting on the previously unused upholstered vanity stool in the master bathroom that the interior decorator had insisted completed the space, her face clean of makeup, slightly shiny from the shower she just finished.
When she crossed her legs, the two sides of the dressing gown fell open, showcasing her short, slender legs.
The thin virgin wool of my Armani tuxedo pants leaves little to the imagination. And I’m pretty sure arriving at a black-tie fundraiser with a kickstand in my pants would be frowned upon. Speaking of.
“We need to leave if we’re going to get there on time!” I yell upstairs, not used to having to wait on someone but loving it.
“You’re not trying to rush me, are you?” Trish’s southern accent calls down, sounding even more lovely when she speaks in sing-song.
“Wouldn’t dream of it!”
“Good boy.”
And damn if I don’t preen under her praise like the dog I am.
It’s easy to be happy when you come home to a sexy woman waiting with a smile and a How was your day? I don’t even mind when that conversation turns to talk about my therapy sessions and claustrophobia. I’m in awe of how much Trish cheers me on. Of how much she cares. I’ve never had that.
I was supposed to protect her .
True, she still hasn’t opened up to me about what she’s really running from, but I’m a patient man. And when she feels safe, she will.
Hands behind my head, I grin up at the ceiling, where Trish is currently making us late. For now, I’m going to focus on being happy. As cliché as it might sound, she’s made my house finally feel like a home. The home I never had growing up.
I rise, smoothing down my suit jacket. As usual, when I’m in my office for any length of time, my eyes go to the large picture sitting front and center on the built-in shelves behind my desk. The one of my mother and me when I was six years old. Right before my father went into politics.
Politics had always been his goal; my mother knew that going into the marriage. After all, my father’s father was a mayor, his brother a councilman. But wanting to be in politics and actually being in politics are two different things.
In the picture our eyes are nearly squinted shut from the size of our smiles. My mother’s hugging me from behind, her arms wrapped around my middle, probably just after one of her notorious tickle attacks.
It might’ve been the last time she either tickled or hugged me like that.
Besides being a cesspool of bribery, lies, and corruption, a life in politics isn’t fair to the people surrounding the politician. The ones who vowed to love and honor until death.
I watched my mother go from a vibrant, playful young woman who’d drop everything to play hide-and-seek or lay out a game of Candyland on the foyer’s marble floor to a vacant, luxury-brand-draped shell who survives on Bloody Marys for breakfast and martinis at noon.
She never laughs, and she rarely smiles unless a camera is pointed at her.
She also doesn’t talk at public functions unless my father feels it’s appropriate.
To see Trish like that would kill me.
“How do I look, Captain?”
I swing toward Trish’s voice, her body poised under the study’s wide entry, and blink.
Trying to unswallow my tongue, I step toward her. “Wow.”
“Like what you see?” She Vanna Whites her hands down her body, showing off the tight, full-length white dress.
It only has one strap, which is topped with a floppy-looking bow.
It nips in at the waist, showing off her trim figure before flowing just slightly away from the body, enough for the fabric to move and open at the thigh-high slit on one side.
She holds her arms out, turning in a slow circle, purple-red heels poking out from beneath the hem of her dress. They’re a seductive wine color, a perfect match to her lipstick shade and nail color.
“You’re perfection.” The compliment isn’t adequate, and it’s probably cheesy as hell, but it’s true. Get it together, man.
But rather than cringe, she looks pleased with my choice of words.
“Why, thank you, sugar.” Using small, ladylike steps in heels that probably boost her up at least five inches, Trish sashays over to me.
She runs her hands across my shoulders and down my already smooth lapels (which does not help the fight I have going on to keep my hard-on at bay).
“You don’t look too shabby yourself.” Wide brown eyes blink up at me, innocent and provocative all at once, just like her dress.
“Uh—” I clear my throat. “Thank you.”
When my eyes meet hers, everything clears. The secrets, the manipulations, the worry. I just see Trish. Her fierce love for her friends, her smiling eyes, her driven spirit, her tinkling laugh.
“You’re everything I’ve ever wanted.”
Brown eyes soften, her smile widening. Then a shadow flashes across her face.
“Trish?” Did I finally get too cheesy?
Looking down, she turns one shoe toward the other, looking hesitant. “Ian, I?—”
“Walking on the Moon” blares from behind her. A giggle escapes her red lips. “That would be Jules.” She minces over to the banister, where a white clutch with red trim sits. She slides out the phone, bringing it to her ear. “Yes, oh mighty one?”
I can’t hear what Jules is saying, but Trish rolls her eyes, so it’s probably inappropriate.
“Yes, I know, I already cleared it with Rich at the bar. No need to get your panties in a bunch.” Closing her eyes and shaking her head at whatever Jules said, Trish responds, “I really didn’t need to know that, sugar.
” Laughing, sounding more genuine than before, Trish hangs up.
“Forget Bridezilla, Jules has coined a new term-MOHzilla.” When I frown, she laughs. “MOH is short for maid of honor.”
“Ah.”
“She wanted to triple-check that I have roped off a section at Big Texas for Jackie’s bachelorette.”
“You guys love that place.”
“Well, it is where it all began.” Her smile looks almost wistful before it falls, replaced by a look of regret. “Shall we go? Don’t want to be late.” As she asks me, her eyes are on her purse, as if slipping her phone inside requires her full concentration.
“What did Jules tell you that you didn’t really want to know?”
The light returns to her face, and I’m glad I didn’t push. “She said she doesn’t need to worry about her panties getting into a bunch because she isn’t wearing any.”
“Yes,” I deadpan. “I definitely didn’t need to know that.”
Trish laughs, and the good feelings from before come back. But I recognize other feelings too. Feelings that I haven’t admitted to myself since the moment I saw her at the trailer park, gun in hand, packing up to leave.
Impatience. Frustration. Fear.
I’ve always been the man in the room with the most patience.
It’s why I’m good at being a government employee when red tape and bureaucracy get in the way of projects, pushing back deadlines over and over again.
It’s why I’m good at outmaneuvering my father, because I can see the long game.
It’s why, despite always wanting to be armed with all the information well in advance, I’ve not asked Trish to explain the reason for a private eye to show up knocking on her door.
But I’m tired of that shadow in her eyes. I’m annoyed at her continued secretiveness. And I’m very much afraid that this woman, who holds everything I’ve ever wanted in the palm of her perfectly manicured hand, will disappear one day.
The sudden urge to say the hell with it and keep Trish home, keep her safe from… everything claws at me.
“Come on now, sugar,” Trish sing-songs, walking down the hallway, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “Don’t make me leave without you.”
The sashay of her hips under the textured white fabric of her dress makes all the blood rush from my head. My mind blanks as my crotch bulges.
It’s just a fundraiser. We’ll show up, get my father off my back, and leave. It’ll be fine. “Coming.”
And damn if I don’t wish I was.
Trish
You’re everything I’ve ever wanted.
Am I? I glance at Ian as he talks to a couple standing next to us and replay his words from earlier over and over again. We’ve only just joined the line to enter the ballroom, and I’ve lost count of how many people have come up to him, know him, from past functions.
The Ritz Carlton is a cacophony of sound, glasses clinking, polite conversational murmurs, and a display of wealth I’ve never seen up close before. Not even in the prestigious part of Atlanta, where just thirty minutes away my lower-income trailer park helped increase city tax breaks.
Normally I’d soak up the atmosphere, storing away tidbits of conversation to use later in my stories, taking mental snapshots of what everyone is wearing, how they stand and move in their glitzy environment.
At the moment, though, everything is blurry, like I’m looking in through frosted glass. And isn’t that a great metaphor for my life?