by Shelly Bell
He shook his head and rubbed the ends of her hair between his fingers. “You’re so young.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It doesn’t work like that in the real world,” he said. “People hear you like to tie women up and paddle their asses until they bruise, you’re thrown in prison for abuse.”
“I’m not naive. I realize that society has misconceptions about the lifestyle.”
“You of all people should know that the legal system doesn’t always work the way it should. The guilty go free and the innocent serve twenty to life.”
She paused at the bitterness in his tone. “You sound as if you have personal experience with this.”
He turned away and put the car into drive, returning to the road. “We’re getting off topic. This is about you. What happens if we’re caught and you get expelled from Edison? Are you willing to risk your dreams for sex?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Why are you trying to demean what’s going on between us? Did I misinterpret it? Am I nothing more than a convenient piece of submissive ass to you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Fuck no. I haven’t had a committed relationship with a woman since—in a long time. I didn’t want one. No-strings sex with a trained submissive. That’s all I needed. All I wanted.” He lowered his voice. “Until you walked through Ryder’s door. One look. That’s all it took for me to change my mind.”
His words seemed to contradict each other. On one hand, he was almost pushing her to break up with him, and on the other, he said things that made her pulse race and her head swoon. There was something she was missing. Something he was keeping from her. She felt it down to her very soul. But she’d leave it alone…
For now.
“And is that what we are?” she asked. “Committed, I mean?”
He placed a hand on her thigh. “I told you before, I’m all in. I can’t make any promises or predictions about the future. You’ve got four years of college and a lifetime of opportunities in front of you. My path is already set. One year in Edison and back to the city and Novateur.”
And what happened then? Would he still want her when she lived twelve hours away? Her heart pinched in pain. Why couldn’t she help feeling their time together had an expiration date? “I won’t risk my education for sex. But I will risk it for you.”
* * *
Later that day, she lay on her bed and stared up at the ceiling as darkness fell. On the ride home, Tristan had created a studying schedule for her and had prohibited her from masturbating unless he ordered her to. Beginning next week, her weekends belonged to him, and she’d stay at his apartment from Friday night through Sunday night.
“Hey, are you okay?” Chloe asked, standing at the entrance to her room.
She hadn’t even heard her come home.
“Yeah, just tired,” she said.
Chloe started to leave. “I’ll let you sleep.”
“No, that’s okay,” Isabella said, sitting up. “I don’t have the energy for dinner tonight, but I want to hear about your audition.”
Chloe bounded into the room and plopped herself down next to Isabella. “I couldn’t believe it. There were amazingly talented people auditioning for the show. I thought there was no way I’d even get in, much less a lead. I’m the only freshman who got a speaking role.”
Her roommate’s excitement bordered on mania. She barely took a breath between sentences.
“The girl playing Maria is a senior and she told me that she’s never heard of a freshman getting a lead role. Everyone is so nice. We just hung out at her apartment last night and today, reading the scenes and learning the music.” She grinned, looking sheepish. “And there may have been a little bit of drinking too. I should be hungover and exhausted, but I’m just too happy.”
She threw an arm behind Chloe’s shoulders. “I’m so happy for you, and I’m not surprised at all that you got a lead. Forget what your music teacher and your mom said. You have a gift. You deserve the lead.”
“Thank you.” Chloe’s smile fell. “Oh, Isabella, I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to think I forgot about your phone call from the prosecutor. How are you holding up?”
If it hadn’t been for Tristan, she’d be freaking out, but she couldn’t share that with Chloe. Even though she was bursting at the seams to tell her.
“Surprisingly…okay,” she answered honestly. “I hope he doesn’t get out, but if he does, I’m not going to cower in fear.”
Chloe jerked back a little, her brows crinkled. “Oh, well, wow. I’m impressed with how calm you are about it.” She patted her thigh and stared at her mouth. “But if you ever need to talk about it, you know I’m here for you, right? No matter how busy I might get with the show, you can always count on me.”
She gave her friend a smile. “I know.”
Chloe stood from the bed and walked toward the exit before turning around. “Hey, why did you ask if I texted you Friday night?”
She tried not to make a big deal out of it. “I got a weird text from an unknown number.”
Chloe giggled. “And you automatically thought of me?”
“I was just checking.”
“What did it say?” Chloe asked, now serious.
Instead of telling her, Isabella handed her the cell phone and let her read it. Chloe’s eyes popped wide. “You don’t think it’s from Tony, do you?”
She shrugged. “He’s the only one who calls me Izzy. Yeah, I think it’s from him.”
“Then why aren’t you freaking out? You need to make sure his psychiatrist knows about this so he doesn’t get released.”
“I already filed a police report and left a message for Erin. That’s all I can do right now. Otherwise, I’ll obsess over it.”
Hands on her hips, Chloe seemed outraged on her behalf. “They won’t let him out. Not after he sent you the letter and the text.”
“I can’t prove the text was from him. It’s from an unknown number and there’s nothing incriminating in the message.”
“You said it yourself. He’s the only one who calls you Izzy.”
She understood Chloe’s confusion over the apathy of the legal system. After all, hadn’t she felt the same?
“It’s my word against his. He’s in the hospital being supervised by medical personnel. Mailing that letter was one thing, but even I don’t understand how he’d have access to a cell phone.”
“So you’re not going to fight his release?” Chloe asked, clearly surprised.
“I’m going to provide the information I have and see if Erin can get him charged for violating the restraining order. That’s all I can do. It’s out of my hands.”
Chloe stood slack jawed in the middle of the room. “Where did all your strength come from?”
She couldn’t help the smile. “I took a walk in the woods.”
Twenty
No one on campus had blinked when the first snowflake fell.
If it were the city, the local news would hail it as the next ‘snowmageddon,’ the prediction of six inches bringing everything to a halt.
But there in the Upper Peninsula, it was just another six inches. Students threw on their winter boots and trekked their way across campus to get to class on time. Professors cleaned the snow off their windshields and fought for closer parking spaces to their buildings.
Until today, Tristan had forgotten that winter lasted an extra three months in Edison. Back in the city, it was completely dry. They probably wouldn’t see snow for another couple of months. Just in time for a white Christmas. The Edison campus would have at least two feet of snow on the ground by then.
Thank goodness it was Friday. When the clock struck five, he and Isabella would leave the office—separately—and meet up a couple of blocks away, where he’d pick her up in his car and take them both to his apartment for the weekend.
After glancing at the clock, Tristan snatched his prized baseball off his desk and tossed it in the air.
Where the hell
is she?
Isabella was an hour late for her work-study. He’d already tried calling her but it had gone straight to voice mail. They were supposed to be together when she called Erin to find out what had happened at Tony’s hearing.
His gut burned with apprehension. What if she’d gotten the call earlier and had fallen apart? His fingers clenched around his baseball as he dismissed that idea. All week she’d been calm and prepared for any outcome, but even if she did break down, she would’ve reached out to him.
Maybe the weather had delayed her.
That had to be the reason. And he’d tell himself that until he believed it.
He threw his baseball into the air again, when a knock fell upon his door. It wasn’t Isabella. She wouldn’t knock. He swore under his breath. He was in no mood to listen to one of his students whine about their grade today.
“Enter,” he growled. He missed the ball, and it smashed down onto his desk and bounced off the wall beside him before zinging toward the door.
“Who pissed in your Wheaties?” Ryder said, strolling through the entrance and catching the ball with ease as if he’d been expecting it. Just like old times, he tossed the ball back to Tristan. “Or did you already hear the bad news?”
He frowned as he caught it this time. That was the last person he’d expected. “Ryder. I didn’t know you were coming.”
His friend lumbered toward him waving a thick document in his hand. “I didn’t either. But since I have that conference on Mackinac Island this weekend and some things shouldn’t be discussed over the phone, I figured, what the hell, I’ll just drive a few extra hours and check out my partner’s new office.” He surveyed the office, nodding in approval as he approached. “Nice decor, by the way. I really like what you’ve done with the place.”
It had to be really bad to have Ryder drive an extra five hours out of his way in the snow. The Michigan Innovators Convention was one of the largest trade shows of its kind in the state, and Ryder had been making plans to unveil their designs for Novateur there for weeks. “What bad news? Did you hear back from the bank?”
“No.” He slapped a document onto his desk. “We got served.”
“Served. You mean, we’re being sued?” He snatched up the stack of paper. “By whom?”
“Lucifer,” Ryder deadpanned, dropping into the chair in front of Tristan’s desk and slouching, his legs spread wide. “Excuse me. I mean, Morgan.”
He should’ve known she had something up her sleeve when she’d come up there the first week of school. “She’s suing us? You and me?”
“You, me, and Novateur,” Ryder clarified.
“For what?” he asked incredulously.
“Fraud. She’s alleging that not only did she come up with the idea behind Novateur, she’s claiming she has an interest in all of our business assets, including both company shares and the patents.”
Damn it. Between Tony’s hearing, Isabella missing, and this, could the day get any worse?
He could wring Morgan’s damned neck.
Why wouldn’t she just leave him the hell alone?
She’d already taken everything he owned, and now that he’d finally begun climbing out of the trenches, she wanted more?
Did one of them have to die before it ended?
Frowning, he quickly flipped through the causes of actions laid out in the complaint. “She was long gone before you and I gave up our consulting business and turned our attention to kitchen automation.”
“You don’t have to convince me, remember? I was there.”
As Tristan read over the stated facts of the case, his chest tightened as if a ton of bricks had fallen on it. He shook his head and pushed the document away from him.
The woman may be the devil incarnate, but she had the memory of a steel trap. “Over dinner one night at our favorite bistro, we had a conversation about automation replacing chefs. She suggested the food would taste better without human intervention tweaking with the recipe.” He snorted in derision. “Then again, she also expressed the need to replace the waitstaff with robots. But that was it. Certainly nothing about designing and implementing small kitchen automation systems was discussed.”
“Keep reading,” Ryder said, almost sounding amused. “You haven’t gotten to the part where she claims you fraudulently induced her into signing away all rights to any of your future earnings.”
“She’s claiming fraud? After she fucking blackmailed me into giving her all the money my mother left me? She fucking took everything, from the house to the damned outdoor grill. And she doesn’t even barbecue.”
“She must have found out that we’d applied for a loan to expand our business. Now that it’s on its way to becoming profitable, she realizes she divorced you too soon.”
As much as it pained him, he punched her number into his cell. It didn’t even ring once before she answered.
“Tristan,” she crooned. “What a surprise.”
“Cut the bullshit, Morgan. You knew I’d call the minute you had Ryder served.”
“Oh, you mean the lawsuit?”
He gnashed his teeth and growled a warning at her. “Drop it, Morgan. I’m warning you. You have no rights to Novateur.”
“My attorneys say otherwise.”
“Novateur isn’t worth a fraction of what it’s going to cost you in attorneys’ fees,” he pointed out, attempting to reason with the unreasonable. Even if she won the lawsuit, he and Ryder would stop working on behalf of the company, and its shares would be worthless. Sure, if she sold the patents, she could make a third, but the attorneys’ fees would easily eat the earnings up. So what was her angle?
“Good thing I’m not the one paying them then,” she said cryptically. “Oh shoot, someone is at my door. But I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon.”
She hung up before he could ask her who the hell was paying for her lawyers. He checked who she was using and was shocked to see two of the best litigators in metro Detroit, each from a different law firm. Was her position so strong that they’d agreed to be paid on contingency?
He quickly dismissed that possibility. These lawyers would at least demand a hefty retainer to get started. Morgan had already blown through the money she’d won off him. Which meant someone had to be bankrolling her.
And if she’d found someone with their own money, why in the hell did she need to go after Novateur, especially when the business wasn’t worth anything yet?
Who in the hell had she hooked up with?
Tristan ran his hand down his face. “We don’t have the money to defend this lawsuit, do we?” he asked Ryder.
His friend twirled a pen in his hand. “I’ve got enough to hire an attorney to at least answer the complaint and try to get it dismissed, but after that, I’m tapped out.”
“Doesn’t matter. She knows this will never be fought in court.” The woman was pure evil. “She must have been feeling things out when she came here last month,” he said, more to himself than Ryder.
Ryder’s brows shot up. “Morgan came all the way up here? What did she want?”
“To remind me she still has the photos.” He shook his head and sat back in his chair. “She’s blackmailing me again.”
“Actually, she’s blackmailing both of us,” Ryder pointed out. At Tristan’s glare, he put up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, but did you ever think you may be better off just letting her release the pictures?”
Was Ryder crazy?
“Why the hell would I do that?” he snapped.
“As long as she can use them against you, you’ll never get rid of her. I checked the laws in our state, and chances are, the statute of limitations for criminal charges have run out even if the district attorney wanted to charge you with something like battery. Same for the civil statute for battery, which is probably why she chose to allege fraud. There’s a six-year statute of limitations on that. Let her claim you physically abused her during your marriage. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Jesus, Ryder
had done his homework. But what did it matter when Morgan had Tristan by the balls? Not only would she do everything in her power to destroy him, she was going to make sure she took his best friend down with him. And it was all Tristan’s fault.
That was the problem with giving in to blackmail.
It never ended.
“Assuming I don’t go to jail?” Filled with nervous energy, Tristan drummed his fingers on his desk. “How about the loss of my reputation? My job here? Our business? Do you think Isaac could keep me on as an adjunct professor if word got out that I used to beat up my wife? And let’s face it, the defense that she consented to it would not fly with the students’ parents or the school’s benefactors. The stigma would follow me around for the rest of my life. I can’t allow her to get away with it. I won’t be blackmailed. Not again. Morgan is a dead woman walking, because the next time I see her, I’m going to kill her.”
“You’re being blackmailed?” Isabella asked from the doorway.
Tristan spun toward her. “Isabella.”
“I’m sorry.” She stared at him with what looked like disappointment in her eyes.
Exactly why he’d kept his past from her in the first place. Who trusted a Dom with the kind of baggage he came with?
He wanted to find out why she was late and if she’d heard from Erin, but that wasn’t a conversation for Ryder’s ears. When her eyes fell on Ryder, he reluctantly waved her forward to introduce them. “Isabella Lawson. This is Ryder McKay. Ryder, Isabella.”
Ryder stood up as if he was a gentleman. Which he wasn’t. “Ah, the infamous Isabella. How’s our favorite professor treating you?”
Tristan sighed. “You don’t need to answer him. He’s just fucking with you.”
“No, but I’d like to,” Ryder said on a wink.
“Behave yourself,” he warned his friend. “This isn’t one of your parties.”
Ryder gave him a little smirk.
“Who’s Morgan?” Isabella asked, setting her backpack on top of her desk.