by K. M. Scott
Pressing my lips to his, I kissed him tenderly, feeling his sadness. I didn't know why he was so tortured, but it tore me up to watch him like this. Those brown eyes that spoke volumes were crying out in pain, despite his ability to hold back the tears.
"Nina, are we just putting off the inevitable?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper, as if merely saying the words scared him as much as they did me.
I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to his. "No. I'm not leaving you, no matter how fucked up you say you are. I love you, Tristan Stone. You better just get used to it."
He let out a huge sigh and I wrapped my arms around his neck, wishing that a hug would give him even a little comfort.
"Promise me something?"
"Anything, Tristan."
"Promise me someday when this is all over you'll forget all the bad and just remember I loved you."
Taking me in his arms, he kissed me, pulling me into him like he couldn't get me close enough. There was a desperation in him that I wished I could reach to prove that I loved him and vow that I would never leave, no matter what he tried to do to tear us apart.
When he was like this—so raw and vulnerable—I had a hard time reconciling the man who said so little and could be so cold. As we made love, we clung to each other, Tristan taking the strength I offered, as if nothing and no one could come between us.
I just prayed to God that was true.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tristan
The low beat of a techno song from a room on the other side of Top reverberated through the building, making the floor beneath me vibrate as I sat staring up at the TV on the wall across from me. Some movie about a mobster played, but I wasn't paying attention.
I'd been at Top for two nights, unable to go home and missing Nina more than I could handle. I couldn't be around her, though. Not now.
Each night I laid in bed afraid to close my eyes, afraid of the nightmares. A new one had taken over my nights since coming back from Atlanta. I saw my face hovering over the body of a naked girl smiling up at me. She reached out for me, and my hands grabbed at her breasts, pinching and tugging until she cried out in pain. Each time, she screamed a single word over and over. Taylor. I knew that wasn't my name, but I couldn't stop myself from wrapping my hands around her throat and slowly squeezing the soft flesh until there was no more life left in her. Gentle brown eyes stared up at me in surprise that I could hurt her as I backed away into a someone who stood behind me.
My father.
He patted me on the back all the while wearing a smile. He said nothing but stared at me like he admired me for what I'd just done to the girl.
Pouring myself another glass of scotch, I leaned back against the leather couch and closed my eyes, letting the alcohol slide down my throat. I didn't know how much more it would take, but I needed it to make me numb. I didn't want to think anymore. I wanted to not care anymore. To not miss Nina like someone had cut out my heart and left a painful, aching hole in my chest.
Karl's announcement that morning that he'd gotten copies of Joseph Edwards' notes from Nina's sister had given me a second's peace and made me believe for a fleeting moment that all the terrible events put in motion by my father would finally end. That we'd finally be free to live without the past haunting our every step.
But Karl wasn't a man to let things go that easily. Kim's copies were just that. Copies. He wanted the actual notes Joseph Edwards took as he dug into the horrible world of Stone Worldwide and knew I had them.
You didn't think I wouldn't have you followed, Tristan? Did you? For God's sake, I had your father and brother followed, and I trusted them. I know where you've been and I know what you have. If you're smart, and I think you are, just give it all up and never tell her what happened and you'll be fine.
Are you threatening me now, Karl?
Son, I'm not the man to play with. This shark doesn't care if your father thought you were a piranha or not.
At least I now knew why Kim hated me from the moment she met me in Nina's hospital room. She'd judged me to be the same kind of man my father and brother had been. Could I blame her? Two Stone men nothing better than lying murderers. Who would want their sister to be involved with a man like that?
Was I truly any better? I'd brought Nina into my world believing I was keeping her safe, but it had been my own selfishness more than anything else. I was no different than I'd ever been. I wanted something and used my money to get it. Typical Stone behavior.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the door to the private room open. "Get out! I told you I didn't want to be bothered, Chase."
"It's not Chase. It's me, Tristan," a woman's voice said quietly.
I turned to see Brandi standing with her back against the door, frightened by my barking. I wasn't in the mood to hear her sad stories about that asshole ex or current or whatever the fuck type of boyfriend Chase was to her now.
"I want to be alone, Brandi."
"I know. I just wanted to check to see if you needed anything."
She moved cautiously from the door as I turned back to stare at the TV. Taking a seat next to me on the couch, she touched my arm softly. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I lied. "Just want to be alone."
"Sometimes when things are bad it's good to talk to someone. You've done that for me more than once. Maybe if you talk about it you'll feel better."
I drank the final gulp of scotch in my glass, enjoying the warmth as it sat in my mouth for a moment before I swallowed. "There's nothing to talk about."
Brandi shifted herself to face me and took my hand. "I hate to see you like this, Tristan. I can't believe someone who has so much could be so sad."
"Well, believe it."
I felt her squeeze my hand and looked over to see her grinning at me. "I have something that I think might make you feel better, at least for a little while."
"Brandi, don't," I said flatly as I pulled my hand away.
"You know you'd feel better. Just a little. Chase said it could help."
I knew what she meant and I should have told her to leave. I knew that. But as I sat there thinking about Nina and what I knew I had to do, all I wanted was some relief from the pain. A tiny reprieve from my sentence.
Brandi slipped a small box from behind her back and spread out three lines of coke on the coffee table in front of us. She snorted the first line and sniffing, flopped back on the couch and pointed toward the rest of it sitting there waiting for me.
"Your turn."
Leaning forward, I looked down at the white powder that had given me so many nights of good times. Clean since the crash, I hadn't even thought of getting high, but now as it sat there waiting to give me the relief it always had, I could think of nothing but the feeling I'd have in just a few minutes.
Blocking my left nostril, I inhaled a line and closed my eyes. A rush coursed through my head and instantly I remembered why I loved coke all those years ago. In minutes, I was on top of the world—powerful, free, and happy. Truly happy, like the way I felt every time Nina told me she loved me.
One more line and everything that had tortured my mind for weeks was gone, replaced by pure bliss. My heart raced and my body felt like it could run a marathon. Brandi was a novice, so it didn't take more than a line for her to be bouncing off the walls. She seemed to be talking a hundred miles a minute about how she wished Chase was like me, but I wasn't listening. I didn't care about her problems.
All I cared about was that mine had vanished, at least for the moment.
Brandi's hand fastened on my crotch, and she licked her lips in an attempt to be seductive. "Tell me you don't love fucking when you're high, Tristan. Nobody would have to know. You know it would be great."
I didn't want to fuck Brandi. That would only make me feel worse. I had someone I loved already. It didn't matter that I couldn't be with her. I still loved her.
"Get your hand off your boss's cock, Brandi. If Chase doesn't fire you, I will. You're ru
ining this."
She wasn't going to be that easily convinced. Sliding her palm up and down my zipper, she cooed, "You're not my boss, Tristan. You only own the place. I guess that makes you my owner. Oooh, I like that."
"You know he's got cameras all over this place. Look around. At least smile for your boyfriend as you try to fuck someone else in front of him," I snapped, already hating how this was turning out.
Brandi rubbed her body up against my arm like a cat in heat. "Mmmm, that would be hot. Come on, baby. It will help you forget whatever's making you so sad."
Her lips pressed against mine, and all I could taste was the flavor of her spearmint gum. She jabbed her tongue into my mouth as her hands attempted to pull my shirt out of my pants, but I didn't want any of what she had to offer. I pushed her off me, and she fell back against the arm of the couch, her legs wide open.
"You know you want it, Tristan. Just let it happen. Don't fight it."
The door flung open before I could repeat that I didn't want her, but it was too late. There in the doorway stood Nina watching Brandi rub her pussy through her shorts as she did her best to convince me to fuck her.
"What the fuck is this?" Nina asked, her voice full of hurt.
Brandi leaped off the couch and began explaining how she had just wanted to help me feel better. It only made things worse and made me look guiltier.
Nina turned to face her and put her hand up in front of Brandi's face. "I so don't want to hear another fucking word from your mouth. Get the fuck away from me right now before I totally lose my cool."
Brandi was cheap, but she wasn't stupid. Nina had barely finished speaking and she was running from the room, nearly getting her four inch heels stuck in the door as she slammed it shut behind her.
"Tristan, what is this? Why haven't you been home in two days? What's going on here?" Nina rightfully demanded to know.
I leaned forward to pour myself another drink. "Nina, go home." I couldn't explain to her why I was sitting there with a woman I didn't give a damn about instead of lying in bed with the woman I loved more than anyone or anything in this world.
She wasn't going home, though. That wasn't her style. My mind was still racing as she sat down next to me, but my high was quickly fading, leaving the reality of what I had to do pressing down on me like a weight on my chest.
"I'm not going home. I know we've been dealing with some things, but I can't believe you're just planning on never coming home again. Have you been here every night?"
I looked away, unable to face her when I saw the tears in her eyes. First, I'd been a selfish prick and fallen in love with her, all the while telling myself I'd been keeping her safe. Now, I had to tell her the truth. It didn't matter if she left anymore. Whatever I'd thought I could give her was over now.
"Have you been with her?" she asked quietly.
I shook my head sadly. "No. I wouldn't do that. I never meant to do any of this, Nina."
She took my hand in hers and held it to her heart. "Tristan, what's going on? Why would you stay here instead of coming home to me?"
I couldn't continue like this. I'd kept what I'd found out about her father's death and my family's part in it a secret for weeks, and I couldn't do it anymore. Every day I worried that her memory would finally return and she'd know the ugly truth and leave me again. At least now, I knew that she was safe from Karl and his friends on the Board.
It wasn't her they wanted out of the way. It was me.
"I'm sorry, Nina. I have something to tell you. I can't keep it from you anymore."
She touched my chin with her forefinger and forced me to look at her. "You can tell me anything. I love you, Tristan."
Bowing my head, I kissed her palm. "It's time you knew everything. Come with me."
I led her upstairs to the apartment above the club that I'd been staying at. It was nowhere as nice as our house or the penthouse, but it didn't matter. Telling her the truth as we sat on expensive furniture wasn't going to change what I had to say.
"What's this about, Tristan? Why are we here?" she asked as she looked around at the place where I'd been hiding from her.
"Sit down. I need to get his off my chest before it crushes me."
She sat on the edge of the grey sectional that took up most of the living room and looked up at me with eyes full of worry. I knew what she thought I was about to say—that I'd met someone else and didn't want to be with her anymore. Maybe she thought that I'd lied about Brandi and was actually cheating on her.
At least I wasn't that man.
I took out her father's notebook and held it in my hand as I finally confessed what I'd held in for far too long. "Before I tell you what I need to say, I want you to know that I never meant for things to get to this point. I wanted to tell you every day, but it just never seemed the right time. No matter what you think after this, I need you to know that I've never loved anyone like I do you."
Nina reached out to take my hand and squeezed it in sympathy, not knowing what I had to say would likely turn her away from me forever. Her blue eyes were begging me not to break her heart. "I know you love me. If you're going to tell me you've been with someone else, don't. I'd rather not know. Just let me go on thinking it never happened. I can live with that. I can."
I shook my head and dropped her hand. "I wasn't with anyone else. I wish it was that easy. No, there's no one else. That makes what I have to tell you ten times harder."
"Tristan, what is it? Tell me."
"I thought you'd remember by now, to be honest. I dreaded that every day I might come home and you'd tell me you remember everything and then leave me. Maybe it's better that you didn't. I should have to tell you this. It's the least I can do as the last remaining member of my family."
Her face telegraphed her confusion, and I continued, pacing as I began the story that I knew would be the end of us.
"My father was Victor Stone. I was never close to my father, so I never really knew what he was like. By the time I was an adult, I was too busy stuffing the shit you saw downstairs up my nose to be bothered to find out what Stone Worldwide was all about. My brother was the one my father wanted to take over for him. Taylor was all about business and following in my father's footsteps, so I didn't care about that world. It was for people like them. I was too busy having a good time."
I knew this probably wasn't making much sense, but I needed to get it all out. It was as if saying it out loud might finally exorcise it from my mind and give me some peace. I needed to believe that I wouldn't always be covered in the layers of guilt that covered me now.
"When Taylor was twenty-four, he got a teenage girl pregnant. She was only fifteen. Her name was Amanda. I don't know why, but he abandoned her and the baby she was carrying. He wouldn't take her calls or see her, so she became depressed and when she was three months pregnant, killed herself."
"Oh, my God...I'm so sorry."
Nina's sympathy only made this worse. Shaking my head, I continued on. "The girl's father was a judge who my father's company ended up in front of for a sexual harassment case. It was a common civil suit that Stone Worldwide gets at least half a dozen times each year, but this one wasn't going to be one my father could win because the judge knew what Taylor had done. So my father had him murdered to be sure he'd win the case."
Suddenly, Nina's eyes narrowed to slits and she sat back with a heavy sigh. "Why does this sound so familiar? I swear I've heard something like this before."
My heart began pounding in my chest at the real fear that she was finally remembering. I wanted to stop, to push it all out of my mind and take her in my arms and never let her go. But I couldn't.
Now I had to say the hardest part. "No one would have ever known about all this if an investigative reporter hadn't begun checking into something about my father's company. I imagine he probably thought he was onto some real estate scheme or something like that, but he somehow found out about Taylor and Amanda Cashen, and from there it just snowballed until he had unco
vered everything my father had done, including the murder of her father."
"Who was the reporter, Tristan?"
I stopped pacing and looked down into her face. "I never knew what my father and brother were doing. I had no idea, Nina."
"What was his name?" she said again, louder.
"I didn't know, Nina. I need you to believe that."
Her eyes grew wide, and she covered her mouth with her hands. Behind them, she said with a sob, "Oh my, God! I remember. I remember everything. You knew when you met me. You knew who I was and didn't tell me until that night."
I fell to my knees in front of her and stared up into all that pain. It tore my heart out. "Nina, I'm not asking for forgiveness. I know what I did was wrong. I didn't know what to do. If I told you when we met, you wouldn't have come to live with me. Karl and his friends were sure you knew about what your father had uncovered. I couldn't let them hurt you. I wanted to stop the cycle of pain that my father had begun."
"So you lied to me from the minute you met me? I fell in love with you!"
"I fell in love with you. That's the only part that wasn't built on a lie. I love you. I never meant to hurt you."
"This is why you've been avoiding me? You didn't want to face me with the truth," she cried as she recoiled from my touch.
"I'm sorry, Nina. Karl was threatening you, telling me that if you knew anything of what your father had found out that he'd kill you to keep you quiet. I didn't know about any of what Taylor and my father had done to the Cashens until I met with Judge Cashen's daughter in Atlanta. Until then..."
She cut me off as she jumped off the couch to get away from me. "Until then, all you knew was that your father had my father murdered execution style in a parking garage in Newark and you weren't going to tell me."
I slumped against the arm of the couch and hung my head. "I didn't know how to tell you without losing you. I couldn't lose you."
"So you lied to me every day and night."
"I convinced myself that it was okay because I was protecting you. I thought if I could make sure you were safe that someday you'd understand."