For a second, Tristan took in the indescribable change that occurred in the room without her presence. It was the same as it had always been, but when Ellie had been here, there had been more energy, more vibrancy, more emotion…just more; while she had been in the apartment, there had just been more.
It was your attraction to her. You need to get that shit under control.
He was a mess around her and he couldn’t afford to be. There was a lot riding on how he handled his relationship with her, he couldn’t afford to blow it.
She was just such a fucking enticing enigma. And she wanted him.
Which meant he was going to change how he had to approach her. He hadn’t expected her to be craving to break the rules and wanting to give in to her emotions. When they met yesterday, he’d seen the ‘reserved’ Elsa – nervous, unsure if she should be there, properly dressed, and shocked by his actions. Sure, he’d seen the sparks of boldness, but he hadn’t realized that she was so willing, so wanting to embrace them.
No, this was going to be even easier than he’d expected.
Although, he felt that even after her impassioned confession, she was still holding something back – a key piece, the impetus for her change of lifestyle. It didn’t matter now though; it was only the first day. He’d find out what it was eventually.
He’d find out everything eventually.
Realizing that he wasn’t going to have to persuade her to act on her emotions, that she already wanted to act on them, even if she was hesitant about it, was a pleasant development though. If only Jack Carter knew just how much his daughter was asking to be taken advantage of, he would have thought twice before setting all of this into motion.
Now, you just have to worry about controlling himself.
If he’d learned anything from this afternoon, it was that he couldn’t move too fast without risking her complete withdrawal. She was still unsure if going outside of her comfort zone was the right thing to do, no matter how confidently she insisted of her surety. One wrong move, one touch too far, could tip her in the opposite direction and that would be devastating to every plan that he had in place.
No, he couldn’t have her question her choices or start to see them as reckless or improper, which meant that all he had to do was gently encourage her emotions - her brazenness, her craving for him, and let her personal desire to pursue those emotions take over; all he had to do was make her want him so badly that her need for him would completely obliterate all of her apprehensions – and that wouldn’t be a problem.
You should probably start calling her Ellie, then.
His jaw clenched at the thought. Ellie associated ‘Elsa’ with the old version of herself, the version that she was trying to forget.
Which means that every time you use it, you’re reminding her of the part of her personality that would disapprove of her actions, that would disapprove of you.
Fuck. He’d done it to try to maintain his distance, keeping that last barrier as assurance that he wasn’t getting in too deep with his own emotions; he didn’t want to be that comfortable, but he might not have that luxury if he wanted to completely seduce her. If this was going to work, he needed to put every effort into drawing out her wild side, encouraging her to want him, to need him, to fall for him – and the only way to do that was for her to believe that he felt the same way about her; calling her ‘Elsa’ was not going to give her that impression. Tristan had lucked out since she’d already decided that she wanted to make those emotionally daring and exciting choices, he just needed to reassure her that they were right ones.
And they were – for him, at least.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, pulling him from his plotting.
“What do you want?” his voice hard and foreboding.
“Is that really any way to greet your friend?” Pierce replied from the other end, a distinct sense of enjoyment evident in his voice. He’d apparently moved on from the upsetting recollection of his unfortunate incident involving a lost painting.
“You seem to have a very loose definition of the word ‘friend’ right now, Pierce,” Tristan responded sarcastically.
“Why do you have to be so damn uptight about everything, Tristan? Just calm down. You’ll get your precious drawing back, I’m sure,” Pierce replied, his enjoyment morphing into annoyance, “just after I win the competition.”
“What do you want?” Tristan asked again, his annoyance mimicking Pierce’s.
“Not much,” Pierce taunted for a moment before finally revealing the purpose of this call. “I just ran into Morgan. He had a pretty interesting story to tell me about an audition that you held yesterday.”
“I’m sure it was fascinating.” Fucking Morgan. What the fuck.
“I heard that I missed a good show. Seems like you found yourself a mousey ginger to play with.”
Tristan’s fist clenched instinctively at his friend’s subtle dig at Ellie, feeling like he wanted to punch Pierce in the face for the second time in a week; the thought startled him.
Since when did he care about what other people thought of Ellie?
He was only using her, too. Tempering his reaction, Tristan took a deep breath, bringing rational thoughts back into his brain. It was obvious that Pierce was toying with him, baiting him for more information. He knew more than he was saying but he wanted to gauge Tristan’s response to his provocation. Pierce thrived on finding and exploiting abnormalities to suit whatever ends he decided he wanted – end that were usually harmless. Usually. In this case, it was trying to ruin every chance Tristan had winning the stupid competition that he should have never agreed to in the first place. If backing out of it wouldn’t create negative publicity for the Guild, now that everyone knew that they were participating, and wouldn’t imply his defeat by forfeit to Pierce, he would have rescinded his consent by now.
At any rate, Tristan knew Pierce was fishing for information on the woman that he would be using for the competition. Pierce wanted the upper hand, one of the reasons why he’d auctioned off Tristan’s mother’s portrait, and now he wanted to see how Tristan was going to top that. Or, more appropriately, he wanted to see who was going to top that. They thrived on getting women to fall for them, but to capture that depth of love would require a lot, and for some reason Pierce found that idea entertaining.
“Yes, I did find a new subject for my piece since my original work was stolen from me. Is that all you called to ask?” Tristan tried to make his tone seem as bored and bland as possible.
“Morgan said your reaction to her was…unexpected,” Pierce hinted again, the smile on his face reflected in his voice, “I’m very intrigued but, yes, I guess that’s all. For now.”
Ah, Christ.
“Yes, well someone had to act like a fool since you weren’t there to put on your usual show. Plus, if I did what you expected, I wouldn’t be prepared to win so easily, now would I? Can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with. Probably something involving your typical over-the-top, just-wants-to-sleep-with-you garbage. I hope that works out for you…but hey, nice talking to you, man. I’ll see you around,” Tristan said, smiling with satisfaction at his response before hanging up on his obnoxious friend.
He knew what he had said would annoy Pierce. Which was probably not the best thing to have done, if losing his mom’s portrait was any indication. Not to mention, it would only provoke Pierce to looking into Ellie further, and boy, would he have a field day when he realized that Tristan’s model was Jack Carter’s daughter. Even if he didn’t find out about the blackmail, which at some point was inevitable, God only knew how he would try to use and manipulate the situation to his advantage or to his entertainment.
What had Morgan been thinking?
That was what Tristan wanted to know. Although he had a feeling that Pierce had weaseled the information out of him; he was good at that.
Tristan tossed his phone down on the kitchen counter in frustration with how the whole afternoon had gone. First, he had let hi
s lust for Ellie get ahold of him and almost blew his entire plan and then, to be plagued by Pierce about the whole situation. He knew that fucker wouldn’t give up either; this wasn’t the last he was going to hear from him about his new ‘mousey ginger’; this was just the beginning.
Chapter 7
What just happened? What had she been thinking?
She had just kissed one of the richest men in the country as if she did things like that all the time – NOT. Ellie shook her head at herself, her hand coming up to touch her tender lips again after hailing a cab to take her home.
This was not at all what she had expected.
She should have seen it coming, in all honestly, after seeing how he acted with that other model in the audition yesterday. Surprisingly, it had been the pang of jealousy she had felt in that moment that had stunned her; it outweighed the shock of watching something like that happen right in front of her when she realized that she had wanted to be that woman, that model. She’d wanted to be the one that he desired and craved, and somehow, today she had been.
She’d never felt anything like this before. Her attraction to him, her desire to want him to feel the same. At the start of the audition, she had felt like less; she’d felt like the old Elsa – meek, timid, shy, always thinking that she never deserved that kind of attention, all symptoms of her illness aside, because she wasn’t gorgeous enough or enticing enough. Which, for some reason, she’d let herself be ok with for most of her life.
Until yesterday.
Sure, she’d gone to the audition with the goal of doing something that she never would have felt comfortable doing, the goal of doing something to make her feel beautiful. She never expected her reaction to him. The moment she saw him - a golden God sitting behind the table assessing the options before him, he had captivated her and not just with his looks. His presence in the room was overwhelming, so confident and in control; it was intoxicating.
Maybe because so many things in her life had been out of her control.
It didn’t matter. She was positive that he wouldn’t choose her, especially after seeing how the other women looked and how he had responded to them. Sure, he had singled her out from the very beginning, but she assumed it was because she stuck out like a sore thumb; she had been nothing like the rest of them and they’d made sure to let her know it.
But, in spite of herself, Tristan had picked her. She couldn’t believe it when he had told her to stay. For a second, she thought she’d been hallucinating, that it had been a dream for sure.
Why? Why me?
She still wondered. Maybe at some point during this process she would have the guts to ask him that, but for right now, it was taking all of her effort to not be completely overwhelmed by him.
And his kisses.
Dear God, they had been incredible. No, incredible didn’t even begin to describe what she had felt for those all-too-brief moments: amazing, unbelievable, and consumed. Ellie hadn’t dated in a while, with being sick and all, but from what she could remember from the time before cancer hadn’t taken over her life, nothing could compare to this. The fire that burned through her, her desire to be consumed by him, it had awoken every cell in her body. Like cancer, her need for him, to kiss him, to touch him, to connect with him, spread invasively through her entire body, affecting every organ and cell; she’d had no power to stop it.
Only this cancer wasn’t one that she wanted to be cured of.
It was hard not to acknowledge her concerns – the secrecy, the contract, the potential physical requirements; it was a lot to think about – a lot that would have sent the old Elsa running and cowering in the safety of what was known and normal for her.
But no more.
She pushed her doubts and reservations to the back of her mind; she’d had enough of them to last a lifetime. What did it matter if he didn’t feel exactly the same? So what if this is how he treated every woman who modeled for him before?
It’s not like she was falling for him.
No, she wasn’t falling for him. She didn’t need that kind of seriousness in her life right now, especially not with him. As if that was even possible. For whatever reason that she couldn’t fathom at the moment, Tristan Black, one of the richest, most eligible bachelors in the country, was attracted to her, wanted her, choose her. No, she didn’t understand it, but she certainly wasn’t going to question it. She was going to enjoy this, whatever it was, whatever it led to; she was going to relish it and not let herself get in the way of experiencing life any further.
For the first time in a long time, she felt excited, albeit a bit nervous too, about what was happening in her life, about her future; a future that was finally going to be decided by her and not by her disease.
Chapter 8
Tristan wished he could ignore Morgan’s call, but it would have been for the second time today; ignoring it again would raise red flags.
“What’s up?” he answered, not bothering with pleasantries.
“You alright, man?” was Morgan’s response.
For all his good looks and particular tastes, Morgan was a genuinely nice guy. He’d joined the Guild after their second year, hired to be the face of the organization, to give their fans someone to associate the group with. He’d gone to college with them and was somehow distantly related to Sloane, even though they looked nothing alike. Morgan had hair similar in texture and length to Tristan’s, except it was a rich mahogany. He was, by far, the most muscular of them all, always going to the gym and lifting. Tristan used to try to go with him, but he was way too crazy with his workouts for Tristan to keep up, not to mention that he went at all hours of the night.
Morgan wasn’t quite a loner like Sloane, but he had his fair share of secrets even though he liked to pretend that he didn’t. He was a very adept businessman, which is why the Guild paid him very well for his work; he liked what he did, especially all of the little bonuses that came along with it, like consoling models who weren’t chosen for the pieces. He definitely enjoyed the perks to the point where Tristan almost had to say something to him a few times, but thankfully he was pretty good at knowing when he’d crossed a line, unlike Pierce.
“Yeah, just a busy day at the office. Trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends so I can focus,” Tristan replied, the irritation in his tone clear, not that that would stop Morgan from prying.
“Alright, I just wanted to check in after the other day. Is the woman you chose ok? Did she sign the contract?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” he said, unwilling to elaborate.
“Great, I wasn’t sure about that one with how quickly we had to pull the audition together. Plus, that girl looked like a deer in headlights for basically the entire time she was there; I’m still shocked that you picked her over the others and even more shocked that she agreed to the contract once she read it, especially after how you acted.”
Tristan knew better than to be fooled by the fact that there was no question in his friend’s last comment; Morgan wanted an explanation.
“Yeah, nope, she signed. Figured I needed to switch things up if I’m going to beat Pierce.”
“Seriously, you have to tell me what is going on. You asked for the audition and I set it up, didn’t ask any questions, let you go act all weird and shit. Now, you keep talking about winning and beating Pierce. I know he lost your mom’s portrait but what the hell is going on?”
“Pierce signed us up for a competition at the Met; I thought you heard when Bernie announced it at the exhibit – portraits depicting love or some shit like that. The ass thinks he has a legit shot at beating me, which would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad.”
“No. I did not hear that announcement; I must have been out dealing with the winning bidders. Ahh, shit, Tristan, I thought we sorted out all of this competition between you two years ago,” Morgan replied with a new frustrated understanding of the situation, “so, that’s what this is all about.”
“Yeah,” Tristan laughed, “that is what all of this
is about; there’s a competition and I’m going to win it.”
“Goddamn it. What is the matter with you two? I expect this from him, Tristan, but not from you.”
“I know, it was a mistake. One that I would have remedied, except that Pierce lost my mother’s portrait to that jackass Carter so that I specifically wouldn’t win the competition with it, which means I now have to; I’m not going to let him get away with that shit,” Tristan swore.
“You two are fucking dickheads, you know that, right? I swear to God, if you two screw up what we’ve got going on here with your asinine need to best one another, I will kill both of you.”
“Yeah, well, that’s only if I don’t kill Pierce first.”
“Ahh, fuck. That’s why he jumped on me with questions when I mentioned I was surprised that you had an audition without him,” Morgan said, realizing the bigger picture of what had been going on. “Now that I know what the fuck is going on, I’m not being dragged in between you two. I’m not picking sides, and I’m going to make sure Pierce knows what will happen if he tries to use me for information again.”
“Yeah, he’s trying to get another one up on me; as if losing my mom’s portrait wasn’t enough.”
“Aren’t you getting it back?”
“I’m working on it; it just won’t be back in time for the competition. Anyway, I have to go. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”
“Alright, later,” Morgan said darkly, hanging up the phone.
Of course, Pierce didn’t mention to Morgan about the competition that he’d enrolled them in even though Morgan was supposed to be in charge of scheduling and coordinating all that type of stuff. Tristan shook his head as he dropped his briefcase down by the couch and walked into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water.
At least the whole notion of the competition had completely either explained or distracted Morgan from the original purpose of his call which was to figure out what the hell was so special about Elsa Carter.
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