Tristan watched as his mother’s eyes floated down to where his arm was clutched around Rayne’s small waist. As her eyes came back up to meet his he watched as the feral rage in them turned to sorrow.
“Tristan?” Kate clutched her stomach as if in pain. “Are you and this woman…”
Tristan could feel the storm building in the room, the air was literally becoming thinner, oppressive, and he knew with soul certainty that if he did not stop it now things were about to spiral out of control.
“Mom, this is Rayne—not Monique. This is the woman I love. You can’t hold her responsible for the actions of her mother.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Ben said, still holding his wife against his side, “how did you two meet?”
Rayne spoke for the first time. “I own a nightclub. Tristan auditioned for my band.”
“So…you’re his boss?” Ben looked slightly taken aback by the revelation.
“Wait a minute!” Tracy’s high-pitched squeak came from across the room.
“Tracy, stay out of this,” Calvin said. “This has nothing to do with us.”
“Oh, hell, no!” She moved across the room quickly and Tristan instantly blocked her path. “Surely you don’t think this is some kind of coincidence?” She stared up at her little brother in amazement. “Don’t you see? She’s going to do the same thing to you that her mother did to ours.”
“Tracy, back off.” Tristan’s tone was low and held a warning, and the look on Tracy’s face told him she knew he was serious. “Please, everyone, let’s just calm down.” Tristan gestured to the white leather sofa.
“I’m not sitting on that thing.” Tracy glanced around the walls again. “Who knows what’s been going on up in here.” She turned narrow eyes on her brother. “And I’m more than a little surprised that you’re here, Tristan, sleeping with the enemy.”
“Cut the dramatic crap, Tracy.” He turned to face his mother. “Mom, Rayne and I are in love. I understand your history with her mother, but that’s just it…history.”
Katherine shook her head with something resembling pity. “You don’t understand anything, son.” She turned to the door. “I have to get out of here.” She opened the door and hurried out with Ben following close behind.
He paused in the doorway, a troubled expression on his normally calm face. “Just give her some time, son. This has all come as a bit of a shock to her system.”
As he left, Tracy and Calvin followed, saying nothing. Tracy simply stopped at the entrance to give Rayne one thorough dirty look and then they were all gone and the apartment was quiet once again.
They left the door standing wide-open, so Tristan crossed the room to close it. When he turned back, he saw that Rayne had returned to the bedroom.
He followed her in and saw her sitting on the side of the bed. He sat down beside her, taking her small hand in his. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“What are the chances?” she whispered.
“That the son and daughter of two rivals would fall in love?” He chuckled, trying to make light of the situation. “I guess we are a real live Romeo and Juliet.”
“And you see how that story ended.” She pulled her hand away from his. “But that’s not what I meant. It seems like every time I get something good, my mother finds a way to destroy it for me, even from the grave.”
Something about the word destroy sent a chill down his spine. “I wouldn’t go that far. I mean it was a bit awkward but nothing we can’t handle.”
She gave him a shocked expression. “A bit awkward? What planet are you living on?”
“Hey, I love my family, but they don’t determine who I love.” He lifted his hand and cupped her chin. “And I love you.”
Rayne turned to look at him as she felt the emotional blockade fall into place with those three simple words. This was exactly what she had worked so hard to avoid all of her adult life.
Pain. Hurt. Fear.
She hadn’t felt these emotions since she was a child and the decisions about her life were beyond her control. But she’d taken the reins at fifteen and never looked back and this was why! Those emotions were no less intense and debilitating today than they were all those years ago. How had she let things get this out of control?
She would never forget the hurt look on Tristan’s face as his mother rushed out, or the paralyzing fear she’d felt believing he would follow. The hollow ache in the pit of her stomach in that moment was exactly the reason she avoided this kind of entanglement. After all, there was no fear of losing what you don’t have.
“Did you hear me, Rayne?” Tristan held her stare, wanting her to see the truth in his words. “I said I love you.” Tristan meant everything he’d said. He loved his family, but Rayne… Rayne was his future, his muse, and he wasn’t about to let anything come between them. Not even a thirty-year-old feud.
Finally she smiled, but it was a stiff smile. “Hey, you’re getting a little deep on me. I mean, this was fun, but love?”
He frowned. “What?”
“Come on, Tristan. I told you in the beginning that this was just a thing.” She leaned forward and quickly kissed him. “A good thing, a hot thing, but just a thing.”
Rayne stood from the bed and quickly wiped her eyes as if he were not supposed to see the tears forming there.
He stood, as well. “What are you doing? Are you trying to make this something little? Something that means nothing? It’s not going to work, Rayne. It’s too late. I love you and you love me. Don’t deny it.”
He tried to pull her into his arms but she backed up, putting her hands up in a defensive gesture.
“I told you in the beginning, I can’t handle possessive men. I think you should go.”
“Go? Go where? I live here, remember?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Not anymore.” She folded her arms across her chest. “This was a mistake. You need to go.”
Tristan simply stared at her dumbfounded, feeling as if he had somehow wandered into the twilight zone. “Okay, I admit, that was a bad scene.” He gestured to the living room. “But they’re gone now. It’s nobody but you and me here. And up until about an hour ago, you and me were pretty damn good. Now you want me to go?”
“I’m sorry. If I had known you were getting clingy—”
“Clingy?”
“I thought you understood the rules.”
“The rules? Woman, I love you! There are no rules in love!”
“This isn’t love! This is hot sex and friendship. I don’t do love!”
He could only laugh at the ridiculousness of the statement. “Well, you do a damn fine imitation of it.”
“Get out, Tristan.”
“So, you’re throwing me away like all the others?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What made you think you were different?”
Tristan felt a sharp pain in his stomach as if she’d just plunged a knife into him. And in a way, she had.
“Okay…okay.” The one word was all he could manage in his shocked state.
He turned to leave the room and stopped long enough to grab the jeans and shirt he’d worn the night before from the floor.
He crossed to the bathroom and dressed. When he came out, Rayne was gone. On the bed was her green robe, and he could see that she had hurriedly dressed. He wondered only briefly if his family had piled up and headed back to Albany. It didn’t matter if they’d stayed in the city or returned home right away, the damage was done.
In the living room he walked over to the window and looked down on the street for any sign of her. She was nowhere to be found, but he did see it had started raining. Pouring actually. Perfect weather, he thought, just perfect.
Chapter 7
Rayne rushed along the busy avenue, feeling the pouring rain work its way beneath her thin jacket and plaster her hair to her skin and face. She had no umbrella and she didn’t want one. She needed the rain to wash away the pain and anguish in her heart. She needed the rain to hide the tears t
hat would not stop flowing down her face. Why did she always have to feel everything so intensely?
She ignored the curious stares of passersby and walked and walked and walked with absolutely no direction or destination. She walked wishing she could somehow walk through time and undo the past three months.
She wished she’d gone with her first instinct and rejected the sexy bass guitarist the minute he began to play. No, that wasn’t true. Her time with Tristan had given her some of the best memories of her life. Memories she would always cherish and hold as precious jewels. But those times were over now. They had to be.
She thought back to the confrontation with his family that morning. Tristan was in the room, but apparently he’d completely missed the significance of what had occurred. His mother, whom Rayne knew he loved dearly, had rejected her as surely as if she’d said the words. And how could she not? This was the daughter of the woman she felt had ruined her career. And unfortunately Rayne looked so much like her mother that the memories of that betrayal would always be there between them. At every family gathering.
Pushing wet hair up off her forehead, she shivered with a chill. What was she thinking, family gatherings? There would be no family gatherings for her…ever. Family gatherings meant long-term commitment and that was a definite no-no. She never got attached, and when the men she dated did, she knew it was time to let them go.
Tristan was different, she’d known that almost from the start, but the rules she established for herself years ago had been set up for a reason. She laughed to herself. That reason had been to avoid situations like this. Finding herself wandering aimlessly through the city in the rain like a brokenhearted idiot. Until now, she’d always felt a slight contempt for women who allowed themselves to end up in this position. Crying over some man. She had never understood what could be so special about one man that could make a woman completely lose herself.
She got it now.
Growing up with a mother like Monique, Rayne had always been taught that the one with the vagina ruled the game. That was how Monique looked at relationships. A game.
But at the time Rayne was too young to understand that, and with the innocence of a child she developed filial affection for many of her mother’s lovers. Most simply ignored her, but others were actually quite kind. And it was the kind ones she pinned her hopes on. Just when Rayne would begin to believe that maybe she could have a normal family with a mommy and daddy that lived in one place and did not travel around so much, the men would suddenly disappear.
Over the years, Rayne had watched her mother use and toss away man after man. And each one had served a purpose. Monique never did anything without purpose. Every affair, every affiliation, every step of her life had been a calculated plan to get ahead. Rayne couldn’t help wondering what her mother’s original plan had been when she’d betrayed the unsuspecting Katherine.
Even Rayne’s birth had been part of a plan, a plan that went awry, but a plan nonetheless. Rayne was meant to be the bait to lure a naive but responsible banker to the altar all in the pursuit of doing the right thing.
It would’ve worked, too. All Monique’s plans worked. But fate had intervened and Rayne’s father had died before she ever had a chance to meet him. His small private plane went down off the coast of Maine before he’d ever had a chance to say “I do” to Monique.
Rayne never shared it with anyone, not even Tristan, but she was almost certain her mother would’ve found a way to get rid of her if she hadn’t been eight months pregnant. At that advanced stage, any abortion attempt would’ve endangered her life, as well.
But it all worked out because Monique found another use for her beautiful child. Meal ticket. Rayne would never forget the first rule she’d made, the when and the where. That first rule had been the beginning of her liberation from Monique and her conniving ways, and it had set the tone for her life. It happened when she was fifteen.
She’d just finished the final shoot for a cereal commercial and the crew was going out to celebrate. Being underage, she’d not been allowed to go, so the stage manager called for her car to take her back to the hotel she was staying in. The car service refused to pick her up, explaining that her last three checks had bounced.
Someone on the commercial set ended up giving her a ride to the hotel. As soon as she could, she called her accountant and discovered that her mother, the so-called guardian of her trust, had emptied her account almost six months prior. Her incompetent accountant swore that he thought she knew. Of course he—like everything else in her life—had been handpicked by Monique.
The next few days Rayne felt as if a veil was being slowly lifted from her eyes. All the misery her mother had caused. Unlike most, Rayne knew that for all her mother’s scheming she’d reaped as much as she sowed. Rayne could remember all the times she heard her mother crying in the night. There was something to be said for karma.
Later that week when she returned to Los Angeles and confronted her mother, Monique had shown not even the slightest bit of remorse. Out of everything that was said between the two of them that night, Rayne would never forget her mother’s last words to her: “What’s the big deal, you’ll make more.”
Looking back, it seemed like some kind of omen, because that cereal commercial turned out to be her last commercial. In fact, it turned out to be her last acting job.
She had found herself in that awkward stage, somewhere between child and woman, and no one wanted to use her in their ads. She should’ve been okay because she had a lifetime of income to fall back on. Except the person who was supposed to take care of her and protect her interest had done neither.
Shortly after that, Rayne bought a ticket to New York and never looked back. On the plane ride to New York, she’d come up with her first rule: always control your own money. It was a simple rule and would appear self-evident, but it was a lesson she’d had to learn the hard way and one she would never forget. That day, Rayne Phillips took control of her life and her destiny and she vowed never to surrender it again to anyone.
Somehow, Tristan had made her forget that. He’d gotten under her skin and made her hope for the impossible. He made her want and in the moment she hated him for making her want. He was so beautiful, inside and out. His music was like magic; it touched every part of her being. He understood her on a level that went beyond anything she’d ever experienced. And he was real. She’d never met anyone like that…ever.
Someone so secure in himself that he felt no need to hide any part of himself from people. She loved that most about him, how he opened his heart and invited the world in.
It was such a warm heart, such a comforting place to be. She loved being in his heart. But like everything else, there was a price to be paid. And she was just beginning to understand how high that price would be.
She came upon a music store and stopped when she saw a poster for Optimus Five in the window. Ronnie, Dex, Toby and Steve all giving their best I’m-the-man stances for the photographer.
There in the middle of them stood Tristan, confident Tristan. He didn’t need to show the world that he was the man. Anyone looking at him could already see it.
“Sweetheart, are you all right?” An older woman holding an umbrella was staring into her face with a concerned expression.
Rayne looked at the woman briefly, wondering what would cause her to look so troubled. Then glancing back at the poster, she saw her reflection in the store window and fought the urge to burst into laughter.
The mascara on her eyes that she’d neglected to remove the night before was now running, giving her a crazed raccoon look. Her hair plastered to her head looked matted and her clothes were soaked through and through. She looked like a hooker having a bad day.
The woman probably thought she was a derelict because she looked nothing like the successful entrepreneur that she was. The woman proved her suspicion with her next words.
“There’s a shelter at fortieth and nine. Would you like to go there?”
&nbs
p; Rayne looked back at her reflection and this time she could not stop the laughter that burst from her chest. It was such a wonderful release, and she laughed and laughed, letting all the tension and stress of the morning flow right out of her body.
The woman slowly began backing away from her and by the time Rayne finally got her laughter under control, the woman was gone.
So much for Good Samaritans, she thought. She wiped at her face and only managed to smear the makeup even more, making her look even worse. But that was okay, she decided. Because the laughter had managed to do what nothing else could, she’d finally stopped crying.
With a heavy sigh, she shook her head at the troubled mess of a reflection looking back at her. “If this is love,” she spoke to the woman in the glass, “I want no part of it.”
Realizing she did not have a purse with her, she checked the pocket of her coat to see if she’d maybe stuck a fell dollar in there as she sometimes did, but it was empty.
With another heavy sigh, she turned and headed back the way she’d come. It took her a minute to get her bearings and troubled her a little that she’d been in such a state that she really had not paid attention to where she was going or her surroundings. No smart New Yorker ever made that mistake.
When she reached her apartment she stopped outside the door, wondering what she would find on the other side. Now, she was more determined than ever to get Tristan out of her life. She was beginning to feel like herself again, the take-control woman that felt as familiar as her skin. And it was time for this relationship to come to an end.
She opened the door thinking she might be greeted by a confrontation, but the apartment was empty. No sign of Tristan. She went into the bedroom and straight to the closet. His two suitcases and few belongings were gone.
She felt slightly guilty knowing he was a stranger in the city and really had nowhere else to go. She wondered if he would try to track down his family and go with them back to Albany.
“Stop it,” she scolded herself. “He’s a grown man, he’ll be all right.”
Rhythms of Love Page 15