4. Tristan
Tristan
Tristan planted his palms flat against the table. He pushed against the wood to rise. His shoes scraped against the rug. He needed to follow her out the doors. He needed to drag her back into the room and stop the impending scandal before it spread beyond the staff.
Before he could clear the edge of his seat, Genevieve stopped him. Her fingers clamped tight around his wrist. The pressure of her painted nails dug right through his jacket. She pulled his arm downward, stalling his exit.
“Sit down, Tristan,” Genevieve said. “Everyone is watching.”
Tristan halted. He scanned the long dining table. Dozens of Hawthorne cousins leaned forward in their high-backed chairs. An eager hiss of whispers erupted across the table. The extended family treated the empty space beside him like evening entertainment.
Her silence is unnerving. Usually, Marianne threw a fit over these dinners. She broke down in tears or demanded an apology in the hallway. Walking out without a single word defied her routine. Chasing her into the grand foyer would offer the cousins exactly what they wanted.
It would guarantee a public, humiliating spectacle. He let his weight drop back, the chair forcing him upright against the backrest. He refused to look toward the archway where his wife had vanished. He pointed at the hovering catering staff instead.
“Shut the foyer doors,” Tristan said. “Keep the noise contained.”
The catering staff scrambled to obey the command. The doors swung shut, sealing the dining room off from the entryway. Genevieve leaned inward. She slid a freshly poured scotch across the table, the liquid sloshing against the rim.
“Leave her be,” Genevieve said. “Chasing a tantrum is a terrible look, Tristan. You played that exactly right.”
He stared at the glass. The peaty scent of the scotch masked the smell of the roasted game bird on the silver platters. Running after Marianne like a desperate teenager would reward this ridiculous theatrical stunt. Let her retreat upstairs to the penthouse. Let her cry it out in the guest wing.
The Lancaster buyout required his unyielding focus.
He had spent the afternoon navigating a hostile boardroom and enduring his father’s temper to secure the multi-billion-dollar acquisition.
This dinner was a mandatory victory lap for the holding company, a critical performance he refused to compromise.
He refused to let a domestic meltdown derail the momentum.
He clung to the reasoning, forcing his annoyance back under control. He reached out and wrapped his hand around the tumbler. The cold condensation chilled his skin.
“She ruined the evening,” Tristan said. “I asked for one civilized celebration, and she intentionally set my father off in front of fifty people.”
Genevieve kept her hand resting near his on the table. Her vanilla perfume drifted over the scotch. She offered a sympathetic nod. He took the gesture as permission to leave Marianne upstairs alone.
“It’s just the pregnancy talking,” Genevieve said. “You know she always overcompensates when she feels out of her depth with your relatives, so just drink your scotch and let her burn it off.”
The excuse washed away his unease. The pregnancy warped her perspective, distorting a standard dinner conversation into a personal attack.
She lacked the stamina to handle high-society friction, and she misdirected that stress onto his father.
It was an exhausting cycle. He lifted the glass, choosing the path of least resistance.
His gaze drifted to the untouched setting on his left. Marianne’s diamond wedding ring rested right on the edge of the plate.
The gemstone caught the glare of the chandelier, practically announcing that she had walked out. Stripping the ring off in front of the dynasty constituted a cheap stunt meant to make him chase her.
Chasing her now would only validate it. He would ride the elevator up to their floor after dessert. He would drop the metal back into her palm and demand an apology for the spectacle. He wrapped his fingers around the tumbler, letting the scotch burn away the unnatural quiet she had left behind.
Tristan lowered the glass. The sharp, smoky bite of the alcohol lingered on the back of his tongue, doing nothing to dull the suffocating tension in the room.
A dozen caterers moved through the space, their polished shoes scuffing against the rug.
Just a few seats down the table, Winston picked up a carving knife, pressing the blade into the bird sitting on the center platter.
“Clear the spilled sugar and serve the game,” Winston told the server. “The kitchen is stalling.”
Winston sliced the bird, the clean strokes of the knife echoing through the quiet space.
He did not miss a single beat. He did not cast a single glance toward the foyer, through which his pregnant daughter-in-law had just fled into the freezing night.
Winston’s utter indifference drained whatever energy Tristan had left.
His parents were ruthless. They treated a public humiliation like a minor scheduling delay, slicing into their catered dinner with cold precision.
Starting a screaming match at the table would only make things worse.
The Lancaster buyout rested on his father’s volatile confidence, and a public spectacle in front of the extended family guaranteed a corporate disaster.
Marianne understood the fragility of the proxy votes. If she had just swallowed her pride and played the high-society game for one single evening, they wouldn’t be dealing with this miserable spectacle. Now he was the one left to manage the fallout.
To his right, Eleanor signaled a nearby waiter with a flick of her hand. She adjusted her posture against the high-backed chair, making sure she had the extended family’s attention.
“Pour a fresh glass of the Bordeaux, please,” Eleanor said. “Let us wash away this unnecessary disruption.”
Tristan picked up his fork, striking his plate a bit too hard. The sharp clatter cut through the hushed gossip of the cousins. He forced himself to take a bite. Joining the charade was the fastest way to kill the gossip.
If he ate, the family would eat. The public image of the holding company required calm. He needed to finish this course, finalize the proxy timeline, and go upstairs to deal with his wife’s protest in private.
“Walking out on a catered service just to pout,” Winston said, scraping the carving knife against the platter. “I told you a woman with zero social stamina would eventually embarrass you, Tristan.”
Tristan gripped his fork hard enough to dig into his palm. Defending her meant acknowledging the disruption, giving his father more ammunition to use against the merger.
“It is a matter of pedigree, Winston,” Eleanor said, taking a sip of her dark wine. “We always knew she lacked the refinement for our echelon, but carrying the child has thoroughly eroded whatever fragile composure she had left.”
The polite tone of his mother’s insult grated against the hushed tension of the dining room.
They reduced the mother of his child to a defective asset, analyzing her flaws over roasted meat.
He pushed his fork into a slice of the bird, determined to kill the personal insults and focus on the merger.
“Let’s drop the commentary on her background,” Tristan said. “My only concern right now is keeping the catering staff quiet so this domestic meltdown doesn’t hit the financial blogs before our proxy vote.”
His parents nodded in agreement, satisfied that the buyout was back in focus. He cut into the roasted meat, keeping his movements as calm and deliberate as his father’s.
Tristan lowered his fork. The tines clinked against his plate, a dull sound that vanished beneath the low hum of fifty dinner guests.
A nervous caterer hesitated beside the empty chair to his left.
The young man shifted his weight, his feet shuffling against the rug.
The server stared at the untouched porcelain dish and the cutlery bracketing the abandoned china.
The staff’s hesitation was an open invitation for Winston to launch another blistering lecture on household discipline.
“Stop hovering,” Tristan ordered the server. “Clear the space.”
Before the young man could reach for the plate, the estate’s head butler stepped forward, leaning toward the gap between Tristan and Genevieve.
“Pardon the interruption, sir,” the butler said. “Would you prefer the kitchen to hold Mrs. Hawthorne’s course under heat, or shall I strike the setting entirely?”
Tristan stared at the place setting. If she wants to forfeit a ten-thousand-dollar meal just to make a dramatic point, fine.
Leaving the abandoned china sitting there was petty sabotage.
Clearing the setting was the only way to silence the cousins and keep the evening moving.
She would be pacing the upstairs guest room right now, expecting him to halt the service and bring a tray up to her.
“Take it all away,” Tristan said. “She isn’t coming back down, and I refuse to stare at an empty space for the rest of the service.”
The butler nodded once before lifting the porcelain rim. As the plate tipped upward, the ring broke free.
The ring slipped from the edge and dropped. It settled onto the tablecloth, leaving a glaring sparkle. The butler hesitated, eyeing the jewelry, but Tristan issued a sharp flick of his wrist. The servant retreated through the dining doors, carrying the plate into the kitchen corridors.
Removing the setting only made her absence more obvious. The gossip of the cousins seemed to flood the sudden emptiness.
Tristan gripped the arms of his own chair. He braced his shoulders and leaned to the left. The legs dug hard into the rug as he pulled his seat over, shifting his posture to block the empty space from view.
Eleanor took a measured sip of her Bordeaux, setting the glass beside her knife.
“Quite right, Tristan,” Eleanor said. “There is no reason to let her pedestrian little tantrum ruin an otherwise flawless menu for the rest of us.”
With the porcelain plate gone, only the diamond remained on the linen, throwing a defiant sparkle right in front of him. He stared at the platinum setting.
Winston tapped his knife against the platter, breaking the low hum of the room.
“I expect you to leash that woman before the market opens tomorrow,” Winston said, leveling the silver blade toward his son. “A Hawthorne CEO does not allow a sulking wife to derail a massive proxy schedule.”
Tristan reached out and snatched the diamond off the tablecloth.
“Keep your voice down, Dad,” Tristan warned, glancing toward the foyer doors. “The catering staff is still in the hall.”
He rolled the ring between his thumb and forefinger. The edge of the platinum setting dug into his thumb. Indulging this hysterical behavior would only reward the tantrum.
Hiding the ring was the quickest way to end the spectacle. He would confront her in the penthouse after dessert and demand an apology for the scene. She was brooding in the guest wing anyway.
“My household is under control, Dad,” Tristan said, holding his father’s gaze. “She’s throwing a temporary fit and will be fine by morning. Let’s focus on the acquisition.”
He shoved the jewelry deep into his breast pocket.
Genevieve shifted in her chair, leaning into the space between them. She offered a small, silent nod of solidarity.
“Good, let’s leave the tantrums upstairs where they belong,” Genevieve said, turning her attention to the approaching service carts. “The dessert course is ready anyway, Tristan, and the pastry chef made those dark chocolate tarts you love.”
A line of caterers flooded the dining room, distributing the dessert course. A server quickly lowered a dish toward the table before Tristan could issue another command.
“Put the plate down and move out of the way,” Tristan commanded.
The server jumped, sliding the dish onto the linen before retreating toward the archway. Tristan cut into the crust of the pastry. The dense, velvety ganache coated his palate. He buried himself in the acquisition details, grateful for the distraction.
The numbers made sense. Navigating the exhausting minefield of Marianne’s emotional outbursts yielded zero return on investment.
Winston leaned over the table, sinking his own fork into the tart. “If we keep the Harrington capital off the radar, the Lancaster executives will walk right into the slaughterhouse tomorrow. We are locking down a fifty-year dynasty with this single stroke.”
Tristan swallowed the chocolate, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “They have zero visibility. I instructed our legal team to bury the joint venture clauses deep inside the shell filings until the ink dries on the closing contracts.”
Genevieve smiled, tracing the rim of her wine glass. “The trading floor is going to hemorrhage tomorrow morning, and we will swallow their hospitality wing whole. The Harrington board is already toasting your projections, Tristan.”
A sudden vibration erupted inside his jacket.
The mechanical buzzing pulsed against his chest, the phone trapped in his breast pocket. Tristan dropped his fork, gripping the edge of the table. He left the phone alone, letting it buzz against his ribs. Answering it in front of his father would only validate her tantrum.
I will dispatch my assistant to a high-end jeweler tomorrow afternoon. He would purchase the platinum tennis bracelet she had admired last month. A luxury gift and twelve hours of space will reset her mood.
The vibration finally sputtered and died, leaving a sudden stillness in his pocket. Tristan grabbed the tumbler, the ice clinking against the glass.
He took a long sip of the scotch, staring down the length of the table as he assured himself her empty chair meant nothing at all.