by T. N. Cole
I still didn’t get what was going on, and my confusion must have been etched onto my face. “She still hasn’t told you yet, Tristan?”
I gritted my teeth, but otherwise didn’t answer her. I didn’t need any more lies from Nora Jessup. What I needed was for her to stop tormenting Kate
She continued anyway. “The only reason she went to go meet you was because I paid her to. She played the part of the girl in love with you perfectly because she needed the money. It was all a lie. She doesn’t love you—how could she if your whole relationship was built on lies? She’s using you. And hell, I bet if I didn’t give her the money, then she would have scammed you of yours.”
Nora’s words stunned me. And my brief moment of shock was enough for Kate to wriggle out of my arms and fly to the other side of the table. Before I could make it to her, she had tackled Nora to the ground and sat on top of her, wildly clawing at her. As much as I wanted Nora to suffer, I pulled Kate off her. Mel went to her mom’s side to help me separate them.
“You’ll pay for this!” Nora screeched as Mel held her back. She had scratch marks on her face and her hair was everywhere. As blood trickled out of her mouth, I felt a pang of pride in my heart at Kate’s ability to do so much damage so quickly.
“I thought I had no money,” Kate shot back. She wasn’t fighting me anymore, but I kept my arms around her waist anyway. “Oh wait, I do. I have more money than you do brain cells and not a single cent of it is going to you. I want nothing to do with you. With either of you,” she hissed at Mel. “I’m sick of your bullshit, your lies…hell, I’m even sick of looking at you two. Get the fuck out of my house. Now.”
Nora let out a hiss before she turned and marched out—the dramatics of her act was lost with the limp undoubtedly caused by my Kate. Mel had paused before she followed her mother. Her face was unreadable as she stared at me. Kate stiffened in front of me and Mel took her eyes off me to meet Kate’s. “I’ll text you,” Mel finally said.
“Don’t bother,” Kate coldly replied. Mel nodded understandingly before she gave me a small smile and left. What was that about?
Kate twisted around, but instead of addressing me, she turned her attention to the lawyer who seemed to be frozen on the spot behind us. “You,” she seethed. “I don’t care that you’ve been my family’s lawyer for years. You’re fired. And as soon as I get a new lawyer, you’ll be hearing from me. I’ll be suing you for helping Aunt Nora with this. Leave the papers and get the hell out of my face.”
He scrambled to pile his things together before he took off out the door. The fucker didn’t even try to defend himself. Pathetic.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that pissed off Kate was slightly turning me on. I tried to tell my cock that now wasn’t a good time, but the angrier she became, the more alert he got. Until she collapsed into the nearest chair, rested her arms on the table, and sobbed into them. I kneeled beside her and helplessly rubbed her back with one hand. The other hand tried to pull her arms away so that I could see her face. “Talk to me, baby. Please.”
She resisted my efforts and shook her head without lifting it. “I can’t. Go away, Tristan. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Not fucking happening.”
She was silent as she tried to stifle her sobs. I wasn’t going to let her push me away. Not because of this. “I’m not leaving, babe,” I promised.
“I don’t need you,” she said quietly. She finally raised her head to meet my eyes. The emptiness of her normally warm brown eyes sickened me.
“I’m not leaving you,” I repeated.
She stood abruptly and I slowly rose to meet her. “Why are you making this so difficult? I’m giving you an out! You don’t have to be here for this mess! Just get out while you can!” She pushed against my chest as her eyes turned fierce.
Instead of leaving, as she wanted me to, I stepped closer to her. “Don’t you get it? I can’t! I’m so damn in love with you that I can’t think about anything else! So you think I can leave you now? Or ever? You’re a fucking part of me, Kate! I guess I’m crazy for insisting on staying with someone who keeps telling me that she’s bad for me without actually telling me why. And I guess I’m an asshole for not being able to leave the person I love. Oh, and I guess I’m a huge moron for thinking that maybe, just maybe, you love me, too!” I yelled back.
“You are crazy!” Kate screamed.
“I know!” I roared back.
“You are an asshole!”
“I know!”
“And you’re a fucking moron!”
“I know,” I agreed quietly.
We stared at each other as our chests heaved from the shouting. The foot of space between us felt electric. I ran my hand through my hair, yanking at the ends. “Fuck this,” I swore. We reached for each other at the same time and our mouths slammed together, tasting of desperation and passion. She roughly pulled at my hair, and I forced her mouth open so that my tongue could swoop in and duel with hers. I fisted her hair in one hand using it to keep her in place as I ravaged her mouth. My other hand raked her body from her cheek, down her neck, stopping to squeeze her breast roughly, skimming her hip, and then pushed her dress up around her waist, as it continued its trek to the heat between her legs.
Kate moaned into my mouth as my fingers slipped inside her panties but not quite inside her. “Tristan,” she panted. “Someone might walk in and see us.”
“Ask me if I give a shit,” I responded hoarsely as I sucked on her neck. I impatiently tugged her lacy underwear down until they fell around her ankles.
Somehow, Kate had gotten the buttons of my black shirt open, and she ran her palms over my chest and abs, causing me to shudder. “I’m still furious with you,” I groaned as I slipped one finger inside her pussy, pushing in and out in the rhythm I knew drove her crazy.
Her head fell back as she undulated on my hand. “Then leave,” she breathed.
That was it. I withdrew my hand just as her moans started to increase. Her eyes flew open in shock. I grabbed her by her waist and spun her around so that she was facing away from me. “Hands on the table,” I growled as I unbuckled my belt and freed my cock from my restraining pants. “Spread your legs.” She slowly moved so that her legs were as far apart as they could go with her panties still restraining her ankles.
I had run my hands over the smoothness of her ass before I delivered a sharp smack to her left cheek. She yelped and arched her back in response. Before she could turn her head, I slammed my cock inside of her. She cried out in both pleasure and pain. Her arms buckled a little, but she caught herself before she could fall onto the table. I knew she wasn’t fully ready yet, but damn if I didn’t need to be inside her.
I started with long, slow thrusts. “Feel that, baby? If I leave, who will ever make you feel like this? Who would ever fill you—pleasure you—as I do?”
She let out a long moan. I stopped moving to grab her hair and twist it around my fist. “Tell me.” I wanted her to admit that she needed me as much as I needed her—if not more.
“No one,” she breathed. “Only you.”
I hissed as she tightened around me. “I’m going to fuck you now. And I’m going to fuck you as many times as it takes until you realize that I could never leave you—I’m going to make you come over and over until you forget how to ask me to leave.”
She shivered at my declaration and her only reply was to arch her back more, forcing me deeper into her. I started moving again—faster, harder. I released her hair to firmly grip her hips, afraid that the force of my thrusts would hurt her. “Touch me, please. I need more, babe,” she moaned. I reached around and teased her clit with my fingers. She screamed my name as her pussy clenched around my cock. I continued to pound into her through her release.
“Tristan, it’s too much,” she croaked.
“Like hell it is.” I pulled out so I could spin her around and set her on the table. I slammed into her once more as our mouths hotly fused together. I nee
ded to see her face before I could let go.
Her ass rested on the edge of the table as I continued to thrust, my movements becoming wild as I chased my release. I watched Kate bow her neck upwards as she leaned back on her hands. One tear slid out of the corner of her eye and I leaned forward to kiss it away. The moment seemed too tender for the raw fucking I was giving her. She opened her eyes in shock before she reached to pull me closer. Before our lips met, she whispered, “I don’t want you to ever leave me. I can’t exist without you.”
“Fuck, Kate,” I choked out before our mouths collided.
A few thrusts later, we shouted each other’s names as we fell off the edge together. I buried my face in her damp neck. We stayed like that for a while. Me inside of her, her trembling, our limbs tangled together. I didn’t want the moment to end.
Finally, I raised my head to meet her eyes. “We need to talk.”
She bit her lower lip and slowly nodded in agreement.
I WAS SCARED. AS much as I desperately wanted to tell him all my secrets and relieve myself of all my inner demons, I didn’t know how he would react. Which was one reason I forced us both to change into warmer clothes so we could talk in public.
Charles drove us into the city to the Eiffel Tower. I wasn’t a huge fan of the clichéd landmark, but it was a part of where I grew up. And I wanted to share that with Tristan—the man I so desperately loved. It was almost sunset and I wanted him to see the Tower both in daylight and in the moonlight.
We sat in near silence as we huddled together in the back seat. I rested my head on his shoulder and his thumbs drew circles on the back of my hand. The familiarity of the gesture caused me to sigh. He would occasionally press his lips to my temple as we sat through the traffic, and I relished the love I felt for the seemingly small gesture.
As we got closer, I tapped on Charles’ shoulder and asked him in French if he could just drop us off near my favorite crepe vendor and we would walk the rest of the way to the Tower He bobbed his head in acknowledgment and pulled over so we could climb out of the car.
I ordered us crepes—the common Nutella and strawberry combination was just what I needed to remind me of where I was and how I got here. I looped my arm through Tristan’s and we walked leisurely toward the Eiffel Tower. I loved watching him as he took in the foreign surroundings of the country I once called home.
He broke the silence first. “So if you speak French, why don’t you have a more prominent accent? Don’t get me wrong, you speaking French is one of sexiest things I’ve ever heard. I’m just wondering how I didn’t know you spoke French.”
I laughed. “Because I’m American. I just picked up the French when I moved here ten years ago.”
“I’m going to ask you to say many things to me in French from now on. Especially when we fuck.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me playfully. I shook my head in mock disdain, but inside, I was elated at the mention of a future between us.
“What did Aunt Nora and Mel already tell you?” I finally asked after a few more questions about Paris and the Tower.
“Does it matter?” he carefully responded after a pause.
“I thought it would be easier if I heard their version and then corrected it,” I admitted.
Tristan reached over to wipe Nutella from the corner of my mouth. He had sucked it off his thumb with a smile before he answered, “I would rather hear your full version. I don’t care what they said. I’ve already forgotten most of it because I don’t believe them.”
My heart swelled as I heard the confidence in his voice. He really did love me enough to believe me over them despite everything that he had seen while he had been here in Paris.
“I was eight years old when we moved here…” I decided to start at the beginning if he wanted me to assume that he knew nothing of my real story. “Before that, we lived in Arizona. I would visit my cousin at least once a year up until I turned five. We were close when we were younger. Not so much after about middle school, I think?”
He didn’t seem surprised that he and I could have possibly met when we were kids, so I continued. “We moved back here because my dad was some kind of royal descendant and he had duties to fulfill. He died in a boating accident when I was ten.”
With that last soft admission, Tristan motioned for us to sit down on a bench at the base of the Tower and took my face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Kate.”
My eyes stung with the tenderness of his gesture, and I scooted as close to him as I possibly could without actually being on his lap. Not that people would really mind the PDA—after all, we were in the City of Love. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago,” I reassured him. “Aunt Nora and Mel came to live with me and my mom when I was thirteen. I remember coming home from school in shock that my aunt was arguing with my mom in the dining hall. Mel was undergoing extensive medical care from a horrible accident, I was told. They also told me that she would be living with us from now on because Paris had better healthcare than the U.S. did.”
Tristan’s hands had slipped from my face to clutch both of my hands. I didn’t want to tell him this next part, but I knew I had to. “For the first year that Mel came to live with us, I would come home after school and go straight to her room every day. She was paralyzed from the neck down.” I paused as Tristan swallowed hard. “Every time I came home and ran up to her room, I would always be afraid that she wouldn’t be there anymore.”
“What would you do when you sat with her every day?” Tristan asked hoarsely.
My smile was brittle. “Talk. Sometimes I would talk to her and tell her about my day. Or read to her maybe. Most days she would do the talking.” My voice got soft. “And you were all she would ever talk about.”
“Me?” he whispered.
I nodded. “She was in and out of it a lot that first year. She doesn’t even remember that time. The damage to her head did a number on her, not to mention all the pain meds she was on. But yeah, she would tell me stories about you. Every single memory she had of you, I now have, too.” My eyes watered. “That’s why I knew so much about you. I knew the ins and outs of your relationship with Mel, and I took on some of those memories as my own and reversed the roles in some of them to make you wonder—to drive you crazy with all the memories and similarities.”
I sniffled. “It’s true what my aunt said. My mom was diagnosed with brain cancer when I was sixteen. She and our lawyer told me that we had no money for her cancer treatments. Aunt Nora told me that she would foot all the medical bills if I just did this one thing for her. So, when I was seventeen, I moved to the U.S. and started settling in so that I would be prepared to meet you the next year. After that first year of being in Paris, Mel went through some crazy surgeries and intense therapy that restored her to the Mel you see now. She just doesn’t remember anything before that.
“I didn’t want to do it,” I insisted as the tears began to fall faster. “As much as I loved my mom and as much as I loved my cousin, I didn’t want to mess with your head like my aunt wanted me to. She wanted me to destroy you—make you go crazy, mess up your med school applications, and just flat out ruin your life.”
Tristan wiped under his eyes and looked away for a brief moment before meeting my eyes again. “I’m so sorry, Tristan. I’m so, so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I never—” I couldn’t finish my sentence because I was sobbing now.
“Shhh.” He pulled me so I was huddled in his arms with both my legs on one side of his. I curled into him and sobbed. Usually his scent and presence was enough to calm me, but I just couldn’t stop.
“Don’t hate me,” I begged.
He tightened his embrace and pressed his lips against the top of my head. “You silly, silly girl. How could I ever hate you?”
We sat in silence as the sun set over the Seine River. I managed to get myself under control so that my weeping turned into deep, shuddering breaths. Just as I was about to talk, he interrupted me, “And I’m not sorry for what you did.”
I stoppe
d breathing. I pulled back just enough so I could look him in the eyes without leaving his warmth. “You’re not?” I breathed.
“No, I’m not. If you hadn’t done what you did, then I might have never met you.” The look I gave him must have questioned his sanity, and he chuckled. “I mean it sucks that we met how we did. But everything happens for a reason. And if it brings me to you, then in the end it doesn’t even matter. I don’t think our relationship and what we feel for each other is a lie. It might have started off as a lie, but I know that what we have is real.”
All I could do was gape at him. He couldn’t be serious.
“I mean, you love me right?”
I immediately confirmed, “For always.”
He smiled. “Right. And I love you. For always.” He kissed me then, a light brush of his lips against mine that was still enough to spread warmth through all my limbs. “If you take out those little details you lied about to make yourself seem like Mel, then everything else we shared was real—is real. I know you, what makes you laugh, what makes you moan, what makes you you. And you know me better than anyone in the world. That’s all that matters to me.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “It can’t be that simple.” I was too afraid to believe that it was. I couldn’t possibly deserve this beautiful, loving man whose lap I was currently sitting on.
“It can be and it is, baby.”
“But I lied to you!”
“Your mom was dying,” he reminded me gently. “I can’t honestly blame you for trying to save her, can I?”
I was out of excuses, and frankly, I really didn’t want anything else coming between us. He shrugged. “The way I see it is that yeah, I could be pissed that you lied to me about some things, but then what? I walk away? I can’t do that. The thought of leaving you—leaving my heart—sickens me. Especially with everything else you’re going through right now. So, nothing changes with us.”
I couldn’t say anything. I was sure I was gaping quite unattractively, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was too busy trying to wrap my head around the concept that I might be able to keep Tristan. Forever.