6. Tristan
Tristan
The private elevator doors parted with a low hydraulic hum, granting Tristan access to the top floor.
He stepped onto the landing, his leather soles scuffing against the marble.
The grueling tension of the Lancaster acquisition still throbbed behind his temples.
Navigating his father’s demands and the hostile proxy schedules drained the last reserves of his patience.
He tugged at the restrictive collar of his suit, needing room to breathe, and crossed the short distance to the front entrance.
“Finally,” he muttered to the security keypad.
He tapped his secure code into the glass panel.
The lock disengaged with a sharp electronic chirp.
Tristan pushed the door open and stepped inside the cavernous penthouse foyer.
In his left hand, he carried a small, white cardboard box secured directly from the estate catering staff before he left the dinner.
The sea-salt truffles inside were a simple, calculated offering designed to erase the evening’s friction.
He paused on the foyer runner, waiting for the inevitable confrontation.
Marianne usually paced the floorboards after a disagreement, ready to hurl accusations the moment he crossed the threshold.
If she wasn’t pacing, she wept loudly enough for the sound to bleed into the entryway.
Instead, a dead silence hung over the massive apartment. The stillness grated on his nerves.
She is forcing a standoff.
He clamped his fingers around the edge of the pastry box.
The cardboard buckled and crushed beneath his grip.
Indulging his wife’s theatrical silent treatment was a miserable drain on his stamina.
A ten-figure corporate proxy required his total focus today, and chasing a sulking woman through the spare suites offered zero return on investment.
He dropped his keys onto the console table and walked deeper into the sprawling residence.
Passing the kitchen island, he stared into the dark corners of the room. Not a single lamp burned in the living areas. He refused to play this game in the dark. He hit the wall panel, flipping the hallway track lighting on and flooding the corridor with harsh light.
“Marianne? I grabbed those truffles you like from the catering staff. Come out here so we can put this ridiculous argument behind us.”
Only the faint hum of the climate control answered him.
He bypassed the living room, heading straight for the master suite at the far end of the hall.
He hit the double doors, shoving them wide.
He stepped over the threshold, expecting to find her curled up on the mattress in a pile of scattered throw pillows.
The master bed was untouched. The white hospitality-grade linens covered the mattress, maintaining a stiff, undisturbed crease.
Not a single indentation marred the surface.
Her discarded clothes were absent from the velvet ottoman, and the room smelled only of sterile cleaning supplies.
The flawless order sharply contradicted his expectations.
She wants me to go hunting for her.
He scoffed at the unblemished bedsheets.
She was dragging out the drama, punishing him for the dining room incident by refusing to occupy their shared bedroom.
Let her hide. He refused to reward a public exit by indulging a ridiculous game of hide-and-seek.
He shifted the crushed box to his other hand and turned his back on the empty suite.
“All right, have it your way,” he called out to the empty hallway. “If you want to barricade yourself in the guest wing and pout until morning, be my guest.”
Tristan abandoned the hallway and pivoted into the master walk-in closet.
The scent of raw cedar dominated the enclosed space.
He stepped past the long mirrors, intending to check if she had retreated into the attached bathroom beyond.
Instead, a glaringly empty spot sat on the upper shelving.
He stopped short. The battered canvas weekender she refused to throw away was missing.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered to the empty wood.
Dragging luggage out into the freezing night elevated a standard argument into calculated theatrics.
He stepped deeper into the cedar-lined room and set the box onto the ottoman in the center aisle to free his hands.
He turned his attention to the expansive clothing racks lining the right wall.
Reaching out, he gripped a hanger holding an imported silk gown.
He shoved it down the rail. The harsh clatter echoed through the quiet space as he pushed a row of designer dresses aside to scour the lower tier.
Every single piece of high-end clothing hung in place.
The tailored coats, the evening wear, the cashmere wraps purchased with the Hawthorne accounts remained untouched.
He dragged his knuckles across the bunched silk, hunting for the gap.
He found it near the back corner. The small section dedicated to her faded, pre-marriage knit sweaters and practical flats was stripped bare.
She packed the cheap wool.
He sneered at the absurd choice. She deliberately bypassed a fortune in Italian fabrics just to stuff threadbare sweaters into an old canvas bag.
She was taking a cab straight to a five-star spa retreat, intending to punish him by racking up a retaliation bill on the platinum card.
Those faded sweaters were nothing but a prop for her performance at the luxury resort desk, designed to make her look like a neglected victim rather than a billionaire’s wife taking a very expensive timeout.
“Cancel the private flight to Milan, Tristan. I’d rather just lock the doors and spend a quiet weekend at home with you,” she had argued on their honeymoon.
“We have a penthouse suite booked at the Bulgari, Marianne. Stop pretending we belong in a studio apartment,” he had shot back.
She possessed a stubborn, exhausting habit of clinging to her working-class roots just to prove a point.
Let her order endless room service and drain the accounts for forty-eight hours.
Playing the martyr in a luxury suite always lost its appeal once the isolation set in.
He released the hangers, leaving the silk gowns packed at the end of the rail.
He would not chase her across the city tonight.
She would crawl right back into the penthouse by Sunday night once the temper tantrum burned itself out.
Tristan abandoned the cedar closet and strode back into the master bedroom.
The flawless crease of the linens only fueled his rising irritation.
He walked past the bed, heading straight for the communication panel mounted near the entryway.
The estate’s integrated security network tracked every vehicle in the Hawthorne fleet, sending the data directly to the ground-floor lobby.
There was no need to wait for a hotel charge to hit his accounts when the night staff logged every single departure.
“Let’s see exactly where you ran off to,” he muttered to the empty room.
He drove his thumb into the intercom button. It snapped downward under the stiff pressure. A burst of static crackled through the speaker grille. The sudden noise rang through the empty apartment. He leaned his weight forward, anticipating the routine efficiency of his payroll.
“Edward, pull the nightly logs,” Tristan commanded into the metal plate. “I need the immediate GPS location on the town car that picked up my wife.”
A long pause stretched over the open line.
The static hissed, echoing against the marble floors of the hallway behind him.
Tristan shifted his stance on the stone.
The night doorman always responded the instant the buzzer sounded, trained to prioritize the penthouse line above all other building operations.
The hesitation meant something was wrong.
“Edward,” Tristan warned.
“Mr. Hawthorne,” Edward stammered.
The tinny, nervous quiver of the man’s voice bled through the speaker grille. Tristan scowled at the panic in his tone.
“I… I didn’t put her in the town car,” Edward continued. “She forbade me from waking your driver.”
Tristan braced his free hand against the wall.
He pressed his knuckles hard against the cold edge of the panel.
The metal bit into his skin. His wife expected premium comfort, and she avoided the chaotic unpredictability of public transit at all costs.
The idea of her dragging a canvas bag out into the winter sleet instead of sinking into heated leather defied all logic.
“Forbade you?” Tristan demanded. “What the hell did she leave in, Edward?”
The speaker whined with a burst of interference.
“She hailed a regular yellow taxi from the curb, sir,” Edward said. “I tried to follow her out, but she was gone before I could catch the plates.”
Tristan lifted his thumb off the button. The connection cut out with a sharp beep. Silence settled back over the master bedroom. He stared at the blank panel, picturing his wife climbing into the cracked vinyl backseat of a street cab.
She abandoned the vetted driver just to hail a rusted sedan off an icy avenue.
The action made zero sense for a pregnant woman seeking a temporary luxury retreat.
It required deliberate, grueling effort to lug a canvas bag down a frozen sidewalk and flag down a stranger in the middle of a winter night.
The realization proved his initial assumption completely wrong.
The stunt was a vindictive move designed to ensure he could not track the driver’s GPS and dispatch a security detail to collect her in the morning.
Tristan left the wall panel and headed down the corridor toward the expansive kitchen, intending to pour a generous glass of scotch.
He walked past the living room, navigating the familiar layout of the penthouse despite the shadows.
The absolute silence amplified his irritation.
He reached the entryway of the kitchen and hit the wall switch.
“Fine. Play your games,” he muttered to the shadows.
The overhead halogens snapped on, flooding the room with a blinding glare. Tristan stepped onto the floor tiles, halting abruptly in the center of the kitchen.
On the edge of the granite island sat her smartphone. The dead screen reflected nothing but the lights above. Beside the dead device sat a tower of credit cards. She had stacked every high-limit bank card tied to the Hawthorne empire in a neat column directly on the stone.
Tristan stepped up to the counter. He stared at the corporate logos glinting under the lights.
Without thinking, he reached into his breast pocket. His fingertips grazed the platinum band hidden in the lining. He pulled out her wedding ring. He set the diamond down onto the granite, placing it directly beside the tower of credit cards.
“I didn’t marry you for a titanium card, Tristan. I just want my husband,” her voice echoed in his memory, a ghost from their first anniversary.
He picked up the top card from the stack. The titanium Amex was cold against his fingertips. Abandoning the financial lifeline was theatrical absurdity. A pregnant woman accustomed to private drivers and penthouse heating did not rough it in the freezing city overnight just to win an argument.
“Keep the black card in your wallet, Marianne. You married into this dynasty, so stop acting like a tourist and enjoy the privileges,” he recalled telling her.
He rubbed his thumb over the raised numbers, using the friction to steady his thoughts.
She was undoubtedly sitting in a premium suite at the Four Seasons right now, preparing to drop the Hawthorne surname at the front desk and stick him with a massive hospitality bill by morning.
She intended to prove her absence carried a steep price.
This display was just a highly orchestrated performance designed to extort a groveling apology.
Tristan opened his fingers, letting the credit card slip free. It hit the granite with a sharp clatter. He stared at the stack of plastic sitting beside the dead smartphone.
His secondary business line vibrated against his hip, sending a dull, repetitive buzz through his trousers. He dug the device out of his pocket and checked the screen. Genevieve’s name flashed across the display.
He accepted the call and put it on speaker.
“Genevieve,” he said. He tossed the phone face up onto the kitchen island. “Tell me the Lancaster files are secure.”
“The files are fine,” her voice replied. The speakerphone flattened her tone, replacing her usual sharpness with a hollow echo that bounced off the high ceiling.
She is managing the board while I chase shadows in an empty apartment.
He turned his back on the glowing screen.
He paced the perimeter of the stone counter, his shoes clicking sharply against the floor tiles.
He stopped at the silver tray resting near the refrigerator.
He wrapped his hand around the neck of the scotch decanter, pulling the glass stopper free.
He grabbed a crystal tumbler and tipped the decanter, pouring a generous measure.
“Checking in, Tristan,” Genevieve said through the speaker. “Has the dust settled over there, or is she still putting on a show?”
Tristan set the decanter down. He lifted the tumbler, took a long swallow of the liquor, and let the searing, peaty heat burn down his throat. He turned and walked back to the center of the island. He stopped directly across from the abandoned diamond ring he had placed next to the credit cards.
“She packed a bag and actually ordered a street cab,” Tristan said, staring at the platinum band. “She left her bank cards on the island, just to make sure the stunt registered.”
“Classic extortion,” Genevieve countered, her voice dropping with exasperation. “She’s baiting you to see if you’ll drop the merger and run after her. Don’t give in to that kind of toxic behavior.”
Tristan ran his thumb over the damp rim of the tumbler. Genevieve knew exactly how high-society games were played. Running after her like a lovestruck teenager rewarded the tantrum and proved the manipulation worked. He refused to play a rigged game.
Whenever they clashed over his family, Marianne sulked for twenty-four hours, cooled off in a spare bedroom, and eventually backed down.
Leaving the building was an escalation, but she relied on his infrastructure to breathe.
The cold reality of paying for a luxury hotel suite without his corporate accounts would snap her back to reality by morning.
“I’m not running anywhere,” Tristan said to the phone on the counter. “She knows exactly what this lifestyle provides. I’ll let her rough it for a few days until she gets the protest out of her system.”
He tapped the screen to end the call, letting the sharp bite of the scotch slide down his throat while he stared at the ring, content to let her stew.