Chapter 16 #7
The clock says four a.m., and I’m torn between sleeping on the floor next to her and sliding under the sheets to cuddle her, which feels like a dangerous, slippery slope.
“Palms sealed,” she signs, “because I could never recover from dancing in front of strangers. You?”
“Yeah, palms sealed too. I’ll bark orders and ask Nate to sign stuff for me.”
“Why not dancing in front of strangers?”
“My level of dancing is…um, beginner level.”
“I was expecting you to be a trained ballroom dancer. I’m very disappointed.
” She taunts, and I almost grin because, hell, this woman not only has my heart in a chokehold, but she is injecting joy into my veins like a drip.
“I said I was a beginner, not a total incompetent.” One day, I will show her that I may be rusty, but I can pull my weight to make a woman dance.
Especially if she is mine. A second passes as I stroke her cheek, a comfortable silence surrounding us as we relish in the closeness of the other.
“You made me laugh.” Her hands, which were on my arms, rise as she signs, a little yawn coming right after.
“Tristan?” she says silently, but I catch it nonetheless, the unique motion of her kissable lips, lips I have not dared touch again since we arrived, lips that have been tempting me like siren chants and oasis in deserts.
“Yeah?”
“Could you stay here tonight? With me?” She pats the place next to her, and I stop stroking her cheek.
“As much as I would like that, I am going to sleep there.” I point at the armchair next to her side of the bed. “I’ll watch over you.” She shakes her head.
“You can’t sleep in a chair. It’s your house. I… I’ll take the chair if you don’t want to…” She stops, realization hitting her, as if not sleeping next to her means I don't want to. Hell, no. Catching her chin gently, I raise it to meet my gaze.
“There is not a cell in my body that does not want me to lie next to you. But I am holding on by a very thin thread right now, Ella, and…” I wince, looking away before zeroing back at her pink lips.
“I could not live with myself if we were to indulge in something you were not ready for.” Her eyes land on my lips, her breathing catching, pupils dilating.
See? I knew it. Closeness, as comforting as it is, is too dangerous right now.
And I won't let us go too fast and burn our chance to become something more just because I cannot control myself around her.
Ella is ten years younger than me. She has never been with anyone before, and her existence, although difficult and tedious, has been quite sheltered.
Not to mention our economic and social disparities, which, even though I intend to correct that situation real soon, are enough to insert a power dynamic between us.
Not in the way that I would ever take advantage of her, but looking from the outside, I technically could.
Being in a position of power and control has always been second nature to me, but here…
it is different. Here, I am not the heir of the Ashford name.
I am Tristan, and she is Ella, both of us just being people.
A flash of her in a wedding gown, walking toward me, then with a belly filled with our kid, and her running in the garden, laughing silently while I try to catch her, is enough to get my shit together.
Ella is the most precious gift I have ever been given.
Life did not go easy on her, and she had to handle way too much shit for her young self.
This ends now. I will take care of her, correct what has been stolen from her, and make sure we move on together into more, in a way that makes her comfortable, valued, and in control.
We will go at her pace, her own tempo. Even if I have to strike a wall with my fist every night, I will.
Because Ella is becoming the moon and the stars and my whole universe all at once, and I am not planning on messing this up.
“But I need you,” she signs, frowning, her lower lip shaking.
“I’ll be right here, watching you.”
“But…”
“Ella, please, it is already hard enough.” Bracing for her next impossible plea, I try to focus. “I want you to trust me, to see that I am right here,” I swallow, “for the long run.”
Her lips part, then she signs, “The long run?”
“And everything that it implies.”
“But we hardly know each other.”
“Yet I knew it the moment I walked in on you in the office the first time we met. Didn’t you?” My feet are mentally above a cliff, waiting for her answer. She nods shyly.
“Have you ever kissed a man before me?” I ask, trying to sound casual when the idea itself burns me from the inside.
A shake of her head sets the fire down. I gave her her first kiss.
The caveman in me pounds on his chest, and I try to ignore the implication of that thought.
Whatever. I am the first and last man who will ever kiss Ella, and that is all that matters.
“Did you ever have a boyfriend?”
“No,” she says silently.
“That’s why we need to take it slow,” I say, even if I flinch at the end. When have I ever taken it slow with a woman? Relationships were never on my radar, so I didn't bother with that sort of thing.
“So you do not run away from me because we went too fast.” A small frown settles on her face.
“How many?” she signs abruptly.
“What?”
“How many women before…me?”
“You really want to know?” She shakes her head. Honesty. We need honesty, but telling her could hurt her, and that is the last thing I want to do. Still, I have lived ten more years of experience, which is a fact I cannot undo. Do not be stupid. Think.
“There have been other women. But it was never serious. In a way, we are both equal now, as in, this is the first time in my life that I feel this way for someone.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like the sun will not rise tomorrow if you do not talk to me anymore, kind of way.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” I shrug nonchalantly, whereas my heart pounds under my ribs at the admission, “I have never felt like this. Never brought a woman here, never had a proper date or tried to make anyone laugh. Does my past matter so much to you? If it does, I will tell you everything you want to know, truly, just shoot.”
“What if my pace isn’t fast enough for you? What if you get tired of being patient and leave me to fend for myself?”
“Never. Never,” I assure her. “It would be the opposite: you wanting to leave when you understand how obsessed I am with you.”
“How?”
“Promise not to run?”
“Tell me.” I sigh, jumping from the cliff.
“I have been watching you through the building cameras all evening. Ordered a complete report on your family situation, banking assets, medical records, and day-to-day habits. I have been putting into place a new security system around your dad and you for when it is safe to go out, and I opened bank accounts in your name to deposit money for your studies and your father’s care. ” Her lips part, speechless.
“And I have been wanting to put a tracker in your phone, but I was debating the ethics of it. I mean, no, not really; I just did not have time to do so. See? Obsessed does not even cover it.”
“Have you ever heard of the word, um…”
“Boundaries?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It is a concept I am aware of.”
“Tristan.”
“Ella.” She looks away as I eat the inside of my cheek, like I am about to sign the biggest contract of my career. “How mad are you, from one to ten?” I wasn’t about to start a relationship based on lies. Hence, if we are to go for the long run, she would discover that side of me soon enough.
“I have two requests.”
“Shoot.”
“Put the tracker in my phone,” she signs fast.
“And the second?” I swallow, bracing for impact.
“Kiss me.”
Ella
Have I lost my mind? Maybe. Then if I have, at least I can pinpoint the exact moment it happened.
When the man who encapsulated my prayers in human form admitted to crossing every moral line to get to me.
Not in the traditional romantic way I read about.
Nor the buying roses and texting goodnight kind of way.
In the obsessed, consumed, sliding-under-your-skin, stalker way.
And why my stomach churned with butterflies at his admission instead of telling me to throw up is, I gather, the proof that perhaps Tristan and I, as much as we try to say the opposite, are way more alike.
How could I reject his peculiar ways when his intention is always to care for me?
He gives me space and recognizes the obvious power imbalance between us, offering his neck and patience for me to set my pace, to hear the truth of who he is, and not who I imagine him to be.
Tristan is a businessman. A rich, ruthless one.
He’s also a devoted man. To me. Stalking my every move, digging into my family’s life, medical records, banking reports, without my consent, without authorization.
Simply because he can, that should be wrong, right?
Even I, twenty-two with no relationship experience, know that.
Only my heart catches as I let his words sink in.
Heat settles in my lower belly, and I sense a shiver on my nape. Why am I so hot all of a sudden? I am still in my work clothes, and I realize he did remove my shoes. Hundreds of words jam behind my lips, and I sign, following my gut.
“Put the tracker in my phone.” I am pretty certain no one ever made him look this way, because a startled Tristan seems like a rare sight to see.
Lips parted, head tilted, he swallows, as if he had been bracing for a refusal despite trying to hide his doubt behind his business composure.
My eyes glide over his forearms, the veins thick and visible, making me want to see them move around me.