by Kalia Lewis
“Yes I can, especially when the deal is pivotal to the quality of my life.” Nothing was going to make him back down from his decision.
Trying a different tactic, Preston appeared to soften. “That’s just self-centred thinking son. Everyone is sacrificing something for the greater good of all.”
Tristan scoffed. “Don’t you mean for the greater lining of pockets, father?” Emotional blackmail wasn’t going to swing it.
Marshall chewed on his tobacco. “Boy, I don’t know what they taught you over in England, but I’m a Texan through and through, and us Texans don’t go back on a deal.”
Tristan looked Marshall directly in the eyes. “I will say this only once more. There is no deal. There will be no uniting of Boone and Hemsley-Ford, no marriage, no heirs – no nothing. I’ve had a lawyer look at everything and I’m willing to make a polite financial offer for any disruption my decision may cause.” Tristan wasn’t budging. There was nothing these people had that he would ever want. Since having Annabelle and April in his life, he felt he’d finally found that ‘something’ that had been missing. On a business level, Preston had handed over the reins of the oil franchise to him and the ranch was sub-divided into shares, so he had no power to make any demands.
The room went silent for a second as they digested the strength behind Tristan’s words. Annabelle had not been aware of any deal. It was dawning on her that Tristan had never actually loved Cara and even if April had not existed, he still wouldn’t have gone through with it. Warmth spread through her and despite the tense circumstances she wanted to laugh out loud. Taking a quick peek at Tristan, she saw his eyes were on her, a slight smile at the corner of his mouth. She knew he’d read her thoughts.
The silence was broken by Cara, who sat primly with that sickly smile still etched onto her face. “Come now darling, surely we can sort this out together. If the problem is April,” she took a swift glance in Annabelle’s direction, “then we can resolve it with a team of good lawyers.”
“Cara, what exactly are you implying?” replied Preston questioningly.
“I’m saying that if Annabelle had any love for her daughter she would allow her to stay here with her father and her new step-mother, that being me. It’s the best place for her.”
Annabelle’s heartbeat nearly stopped in shock. The marriage deal she knew nothing about, but some stuck-up rich bitch threatening to have April taken from her, well, that was something she could take action on.
Standing up, she marched over to Cara and put her face level with hers. “I will see you in hell before I let you take my daughter!”
“Is that a threat?” Cara purred back.
“Damn right it is!” she spat back, not dropping eye contact.
“Can you see what I mean daddy? That child is being brought up by a violent mother and you’re all witnesses to her threat!” Cara also did not drop eye contact and she smiled triumphantly at the effect of her own scheming.
Annabelle had been duped into a reaction and now she was seething. “You bitch, how dare you-”
“Enough!” roared Tristan. “I want everyone apart from Annabelle to leave. I’ve given you my final answer and I won’t be changing my mind. No-one but Annabelle and I will be raising April. We are her parents and there’s no room for anyone else to be putting in their self-centred, greedy ideas.” He looked pointedly at Cara. “Now, if you don’t mind I have a dining room full of people to get back to.”
They all stood to leave.
“I can’t believe that you’re sacrificing the entire business for her?” Preston angrily pointed at Annabelle.
“Father, you of all people should know that you can’t fight the matters of the heart with intellect. Nearly thirty-three years ago you lost the one thing that meant more to you than any business deal. Forced to give it up by my uncle, you’ve never recovered from that loss. I will not make the same mistake.”
Annabelle watched all the colour fall from Preston’s face and he seemed to shrink in size. She knew that Tristan was referring to her mother. A bubble of hope fluttered in her heart. Ten years ago he wouldn’t have fought for her. Today he implied that he will not give her up no matter what. The door that had opened a crack this morning swung fully open. The room started to spin. Grabbing the edge of the desk she leaned into it as the full force of her feelings for Tristan burst through every cell of her body.
She loved him utterly and completely.
From far away she could hear Tristan telling his father that he would be in touch about him meeting April.
It was the pressure of his arms around her that brought her senses back into the room. Turning to face him, she immediately felt faint at the intensity of the question that burned in his eyes. “Tristan, I –”
“Hush, it’s over. No-one will take April away from you, from us,” he soothed.
Closing her eyes, she breathed him in and felt the warmth of his body against hers. The kiss that followed wasn’t a passionate kiss; it was a type of request – a question of trust. In her heart she knew he was asking her if she was ready to surrender.
Sighing, she pulled away and rested her head on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart. Was she ready to let go of her doubts? She knew she loved him with every fibre of her being, but was she ready to show that love again, to be open to being vulnerable? A lone tear trickled down her face and before she could catch her breath a deep desperate sob began to rise up from the pit of her being.
For ten years she’d felt so alone. Yes, there had been her family and Katie, but she'd felt alone at her core, without the father of her child to share what they had created. Not all of it had been Tristan’s fault. Ten years ago she could have picked up the phone and told him about their daughter. If the truth was known, fear is what stopped her, the fear that he would want their daughter, but not her. After six years of loving him, she couldn’t have taken that ultimate rejection. Gulping, she pulled away as the sob erupted. “I…I…have to go and see April.”
Tristan pulled her back into his arms. Allowing her to run now would give her time and space to build her walls back up and there was no way that was going to happen. Holding her against him, he could feel her body quivering from head to foot as pent up emotion flowed out.
Sob after sob racked her body and then she began to pound on his chest with her fists. “Where were you? Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you come back? I needed you!”
To stop her would have been futile, she needed to vent all of the frustration that were the bricks of her walls, so he let her and when she was empty he swung her into his arms and carried her to her room.
Placing her on the bed, she continued to sniffle and hiccup whilst he took off her shoes and dress. Sheer exhaustion was beginning to penetrate her bones. As he tucked her in she grabbed his hand. “Please stay with me?”
“I can’t Ma Belle. I have to see to our dinner guests.”
“Can you come back? I just need you to lie with me and hold me.”
“You’re asking a lot of me. I don’t know whether I can lie next to you without touching you,” he whispered.
“Please?” she begged.
He nodded.
Later, when everyone had gone, he returned to her room and lay down on top of the covers fully clothed. The moonlight reflected upon her sleeping face and he stroked her cheek, so soft and creamy. It would be easy to kiss her and rouse her from her sleep and make sweet love to her, but so many issues needed to be sorted out first. One of those issues was Daniel. If it came to the crunch, was he willing to sacrifice his own happiness for hers and let her go? He sighed. It would be the hardest thing he’d ever have to do. Hand her over to another man. Pain hit him hard in his chest and he gulped down a sob of his own. There was still time he thought. Time to make her see that it could work between them, that they had something rare.
“Goodnight Ma Belle.” He stood and quietly left the room. The temptation to hold her, kiss her and love every inch of her was just too much
. If she still chose Daniel after he’d shown her how much he cared through his touch and bared his soul, it would kill him.
Chapter 11
The next morning she awoke to the sunlight filtering into the room. Moving her arm, she tapped the mattress behind her, but the bed was empty. Disappointed, she rolled over and found an indent in the pillow next to her; so he'd been here. A flicker of excitement stirred in her abdomen, which quickly turned into embarrassment when she thought about how she’d pummelled his chest and then asked him to stay. Groaning, she held the pillow to her face. How was she going to face him this morning knowing how she felt about him?
There was no other choice. It was time to come clean and tell him about Daniel. There was also the issue of Wade and how they were going to deal with him. For her, facing these obstacles meant that the last of her barriers would fall, leaving nothing between them to fight over. She shivered at the thought. There would be no stopping them then.
Flying out of bed, she threw on her bikini, shorts and t-shirt. She’d promised April a trip to the lake this morning and it would be the perfect time to speak to Tristan. Yesterday, she hadn’t had enough time to invite him along. It annoyed her how he thought she was hitting on Niall, when all she wanted to do was set him up with Lucile. She would need to clear up that little misunderstanding as well.
Finding him in his office, he agreed to go with them and they had spent a good hour touring the other side of the ranch in a jeep, before making their way towards a house on the banks of a vast lake.
Although Tristan had been attentive and polite during the journey, he seemed to have erected some unspoken wall between them and quite frankly, it was driving her mad!
Every time she asked him a question he answered in short syllables, refusing to even look at her. How was she going to bear her heart to him when he was being so aloof? Determined to find out why he’d put up this cool façade, she smiled slyly. Well, if her tiny bikini beneath her t-shirt and skimpy shorts didn’t rouse a reaction from him, then nothing else would!
Jumping from the jeep as it came to a stop on the edge of a gorgeous lake she grabbed a blanket and purposely swayed her hips as she walked away to a flat grassy spot. Take that!
Tristan watched her rocking backside from behind his shades. The woman was a witch. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to communicate with her. In fact, he’d sat with an uncomfortable hard-on for the last hour, and that was part of the problem. Each time he turned to look at her the expanse of leg showing from those shorts made him hot under the collar. Even when he stopped looking the scent of her next to him was driving him crazy. Today he was going to ask her to make a choice between him and Daniel. It was time they stopped pussy-footing around with all the games and just got down to some serious business.
Slamming the door of the jeep he turned around to find her slowly, oh so very slowly pushing down the scrap of material called shorts, to reveal tiny hot pink briefs. Next, she wiggled out of the t-shirt, exposing two minute triangles that just about covered her nipples. His jaw dropped and one foot over-stepped the other one, causing him to stumble forward. Never had the sight of a woman in a bikini made him want to fall flat on his face.
April broke the moment by leaping from the back of the jeep and running forward to jump in the lake from the small jetty. “Come on dad!” she squealed, as she swam further out.
Tristan gathered his jaw off the floor and quickly pulled off his clothes. There was nothing he could do about the noticeable bulge in his pants, so he ran off the jetty and dived into the water. The cold liquid brought him some relief and dampened down the heat of his pulsating skin.
Coming up for air he watched Annabelle as she tentatively padded to the edge of the water. Silhouetted against the sun, her hair resembled a flame around her face. The sight of her made him ache in so many places. A few weeks ago she was a restless memory, and now here she was, threatening to be the centre of his world. He shook the water from his head and waded over to where she was paddling. “Will you be joining us for a swim?”
“I might.” Standing before her, he looked like a mighty Adonis with his tanned, muscular torso. Fascinated, she watched as rivulets of water ran down his chest and abdomen. Following the trails descent, she made a note of the large package straining at his black speedos. Utterly magnificent, she thought. Butterflies danced in the pit of her stomach and she clenched her thighs together as excitement pooled and vibrated in all of her erogenous zones.
Reaching out she traced her fingers across his collar bone and down his chest. It felt so good to touch him and she shivered as she felt her nipples tighten in response. Licking her lips at the thought of running her tongue across those water grooves and following them down to the sprinkling of dark hair as it disappeared beneath the band of his trunks, almost brought her to her knees in longing. In the background, she could hear April doing bomber jumps off the jetty and into the water. Breathing in short puffs she removed her fingers – right place, wrong time.
“Don’t start what you can’t finish,” he growled out before pulling her into him by her waist.
Skin to skin contact made her breath hitch in her throat. “What makes you think that I won’t finish it?” she said haughtily.
“Don’t play with me Annabelle. There are some jokes that I don’t take too kindly to.”
“I’m not playing anymore Tristan, but first we need to talk about Daniel.”
Hearing his name made his teeth grind together. “Before we go any further, answer me this. Do you want me like I want you?” He watched as the desire in her eyes sparked into a burning intensity.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Pulling her even closer into him, he whispered in her ear, “Then come to me tonight and be mine? Let me love you so completely that Daniel will be forgotten.” It pained him to say his name, but this moment would be her deciding factor. He held his breath, waiting.
A deep yearning flipped over her stomach. If she agreed there would be no turning back. The door to her heart was wide open and she stood to have it broken by the very man she loved, but she couldn’t fight him anymore and deny this intense chemistry between them. “Yes,” she purred blissfully.
A pained groan sidled from his chest and he lowered his head and placed an almost whisper of a kiss across her lips as he murmured, “I have to leave for an emergency meeting in Houston this afternoon, but I will be back by late evening. Please say you’ll be waiting for me in my bed and we’ll do all the loving and talking there?”
In answer she pulled his head further down towards her and kissed him hard, only stopping when she heard April call out, “Hey, are you two kissing?”
Later, as she showered in her room, she could hear the helicopter arriving to pick up Tristan. Smiling to herself she recalled the last hour. After she’d said yes to tonight he couldn’t keep his hands off her, touching her in the lake, in the jeep, helping her to the door, whispering sweet promises in her ear. The excitement was almost too much to take and she felt like she would spontaneously combust at any moment.
A shout of male voices broke her dream state and she looked out of the bedroom window. Two males were rolling on the ground throwing punches at each other.
What the - !
One was definitely Tristan, but who was the other man? Crap! Is that Wade? He must have come via the helicopter! Quickly, she flew from the room, down the stairs, out the front door and ran around to the back of the house. “What on earth is going on?” she shouted, but neither of them heard her. They were now off the floor circling each other like wild animals.
“You screwed my sister, left her pregnant and then walked away!” Wade spat on the floor. “You were like a brother to me and you went behind my back and lied!”
Tristan’s chest was heaving with anger and a trickle of blood was running from his lip. “Not all of that is true. I didn’t know about April until two weeks ago!”
“I don’t believe you. All these years you’ve kept silent and I
thought it was me you didn’t want anything to do with. I stupidly believed that we weren’t good enough for tycoon Tristan, but all this time you were hiding in shame!” Wade's right eye was beginning to swell from the contact with Tristan’s knuckles.
Tristan stalked around Wade like he was prey. Overwhelming joy at seeing him again and black fury at being taken by surprise on his own property were at war within him. As soon as he’d opened the helicopter door, Wade had pounced on him like a mad man. “Like I told you, I didn’t know.” Catching the outline of Annabelle from the corner of his eye, he added, “In fact, let’s ask the one person who can explain everything.” He nodded his head towards where she was standing.
Wade dropped his fists slightly as he turned to look at Annabelle. “You…you, have some talking to do! All this time he was the father!” He made a thumb towards Tristan. “And you didn’t even have the decency to put me out of my misery and tell me the truth.”
She hung her head in shame.
“All those times I asked why he didn’t want contact with me and you never once said anything,” he angrily threw at her.
The bottom of her world was threatening to fall out. The look upon her brother’s face was a mixture of denial and disbelief. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Sorry! Sorry won’t bring back ten years Annabelle! It seems that out of the three of us, I’m the one who’s been kept in the complete dark!”
Tristan scoffed. “At least you had the presence of my daughter!”
Wade swung around to face Tristan. “Well, if you’d stayed in contact you might have put two-and-two together when I mentioned that my sister was pregnant. Did you ever think of that?”
Tristan gulped. It had never crossed his mind. “No, I was still too caught up in my guilt to think clearly.”
“You should have told me. You owed me that much. I might have been angry for a while, but ten years…” Wade shook his head disbelievingly.