Tryst

by Arie Lane

  TRYST

  Arie Lane

  Copyright © 2014 by Arie Lane

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and events are entirely fiction. Any resemblance to places, events, or persons dead or alive is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, mechanical or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be given away or re-sold. If you are reading this book without legal purchase or obtainment, please delete it from your device, and purchase a copy from a legal distributor.

  Acknowledgements

  I won’t pretend that this part is easy. In fact I have been mulling over it for weeks now, knowing full well that I will likely forget some pretty important people.

  First and foremost I would like to thank Tara Oakes. If I wasn’t your P.A., I highly doubt that I would be publishing this book right now. You’ve pushed me to try and achieve something, and I hope you’re proud of what I’ve written. It’s been one hell of a ride and we’re still going. Thank you for having my back.

  Next, I would like to thank Anne Jolin. If it wasn’t for you cheering on my crazy ideas and snarky snippets, I doubt this book would be half of what it is. You’re a great friend and one of my biggest cheerleaders. Thank you so much for being there, even when I was just whining.

  Thank you, Cory Cyr. You were the first person to give me feedback on this story. There were so many moments I felt like just scrapping it. When I read what you had to say about it, I finally got the confidence to share it with the rest of the world. Thank you so much for having faith in me!

  A big shout out and thank you to my P.A., Christy French. From the moment you read my first teaser, you’ve been pushing at me for more. I can’t even begin to thank you for all of the things you’ve done for me. Even when I question myself, you push me. Not to mention listening to all of my crazy ideas, and supporting me in every way possible. You’re an amazing friend, and I am so damn glad to have you in my life, and helping by my side.

  Thank you, Karen Morgan, for picking up my editing at the last minute and performing a miracle. Between deciphering my craziness and leaving little comments to make me laugh, you made editing easy. I really can’t tell you enough, how much I appreciate all you’ve done!

  A big thank you to my street team; you ladies are awesome. If it wasn’t for you guys I doubt my book would be nearly as noticed as it has been. Thanks for helping to get my book out there Laura, Alice, Michelle, Brenda, Christy, Olivia, Kaitlin, Jordan, Lynne, and Christina. I also like to give an extra thank you to Christina who made me some amazing teasers to help spread my book.

  Jordan Marie, I love you girl! For all of your insanity, and the time you give me even when you really can’t. Somehow no matter what you have going on, you always manage to spare a few minutes to help me with whatever I have happening. Thank you so much for being an amazing friend and helping me push through.

  Claire Richards, thank you for being my blogging guru. Even though I’m sure I could have eventually figured out all of the craziness, you made it easy on me and kept me from losing my mind. Thank you so much for all of your help with getting my book out to the blogs, and keeping my head from spinning off my shoulders.

  Lastly, I would like to thank the bloggers and readers. I have found so much support in the indie community, and I am so grateful to you all for allowing me to be a part of it. I am truly humbled by all of the bloggers who took a chance on me and my book and promoted it. If it weren’t for all of you, I might be the only one to ever read these words.

  As for all of my readers, I am truly thankful that you took a chance on my book. As a new author, there is nothing better than knowing I’ve written something that someone wants to read more of, and that even though I’m unknown, you’ve taken a chance on me. Thank you!

  Dedications

  For my mom. You have been by my side through everything. You always said I had a gift in writing, even if at the time it was just poetry. I’ve always doubted myself, yet no matter what you believed in me. Thank you for always being by my side. It took a while, but I’m finally starting to dance!

  For Deucalion and Xavier, my two beautiful little boys. When I decided to follow through with this book, I did it for the two of you. I watch the two of you grow every day, you are my greatest inspirations. I am so very proud of the two of you, and I love you with all my heart.

  Prologue

  I have been through a living hell. I lost my sister to a stalker who, to this day, refuses to say where she is buried. I lost my father to his best friend, Jim Beam, and my mother- well I never had her. Sure she was there. My darling mommy created the hell I endure every day. For as long as I can remember, the woman hated me. She enjoyed finding new ways to try and break me. The earliest recollection I have of my mother is her humiliating me.

  My twin Cora and I were celebrating our fourth birthday. Cora insisted she had to have a Cinderella party. I wasn’t much into princesses but my opinion hardly mattered when it came to my sister’s demands. Of course, my mother thought her idea was brilliant. There was a small consolation though. Mom said we could both be Cinderella. Cora threw such a fit at the idea that she wasn’t going to be the only princess.

  That is until she saw our outfits.

  Cora’s was a beautiful blue dress- a Swarovski crystal crown, and mother even had a pair of glass slippers custom made for her. When it came time for me to put on my dress, it turned out it wasn’t a dress at all. It was rags- dirty filthy rags. I was the standing joke of the party. That was the start to a long painful childhood.

  I tried to avoid my mother’s wrath as much as possible, especially since Cora had made it her life’s mission to see me miserable. I guess she didn’t like having a twin any more than my mother liked having a second daughter.

  My mother’s temper hit a boiling point when I was six. We were at a fair and that rotten brat kicked the dirty water from a mud puddle up at me. It was the first time my mother didn’t scream at me, and it irked my sister to no end that she hadn’t succeeded. She always went out of her way to make sure that I got in trouble. With her antics not getting the reaction she desired, she stepped up her game and tripped me.

  I landed face first in the mud puddle, destroying my Sunday dress. When I was recovered enough to stand, I could see that our mother was furious. It was the first time she’d slapped me hard enough to leave a mark. I had her hand imprinted across my cheek until the next morning.

  Demanding that I bathe as soon as we returned home, she ran the bath. I thought maybe her anger had somehow lessened because she seemed calmer during the trip home. That was until I realized she ran the bath with water that was just a few degrees shy of boiling. She pushed me and the ruined dress I was still wearing into the water. At one point, thinking she had left me alone, I tried in vain to add some cold water to the tub. She returned, poured a cleaning solution into the bath water while telling me to scrub with something akin to a Brillo-pad.

  The bleach-like cleanser was harsh, leaving my body covered in blisters.

  Stealing a chance to wash the mud from my hair during one of her moments of absence, I sank back into the tub to scrub at my submerged scalp. My eyes opened to my mother hovering above. The next thing I knew she was holding me under the water, drowning me. I must have had a guardian angel that night, because I somehow managed to slip from her grip. I left a trail of water as I ran from the room. I don’t recall what I was beaten with that night, but I remember I could hardly walk for two days.

  That was around the same time I started to shut myself away. It was when I
came to the realization that I was the only person I could truly rely on. The only person who would ever know the full truth of who my mother was, and what she was capable of. Many nights I suffered her wrath, both verbally and physically. This became the pattern of my life... abuse and degradation.

  Teachers often saw the marks, but usually overlooked them. Even when they did ask, nothing ever came of it aside from making my mother angrier. Because of that, I learned early on not to tattle. No one ever believed me over her anyway, especially not with Cora, the image of perfection, standing by her side. Instead, they believed that I was hurting myself for attention.

  The fucked up part was that the more she hated me, the harder I would try to make her love me.

  I was never good enough though. It didn’t matter that I had perfect grades. It didn’t matter how many people congratulated her on what a bright, well-mannered daughter she had. No, the only thing that mattered was that I couldn’t bring her into the limelight. That’s what she had Cora for.

  Beautiful, spellbinding Cora who could spin a web of the most beautiful lies, entrapping you within them. Cora was the only person I think Darla Celeste ever gave a shit about other than herself. But then, Cora was her ticket to grandeur. She planned to ride the heels of Cora’s modeling career straight to the top- while I continued to live my life in solitude, consumed by my studies.

  It remained that way for years, until just before our seventeenth birthday. That’s when Cora and I finally became what twins are meant to be. I was approaching graduation, and her modeling career was taking off. We knew we would be parting shortly and wanted to make the most of our time left together. Between my studying and her modeling shoots, we spent all of our free time attached at the hip. That is, up until the day she disappeared.

  October 25, 2007 was the day my life officially came to an end.

  Cora had been missing for several months and any hope of finding her or her body had dwindled to nothing. The police charged a man that had been seen following her around and who was later identified as her stalker, even though I know for a fact she had never mentioned a stalker to me.

  The police questioned the man extensively, but he refused to admit to her murder. He was charged with kidnapping, obstruction, and aggravated stalking. He took a plea deal to serve out a five year sentence.

  The day we laid my sister’s empty coffin into the ground something inside my mother finally broke. She had always been abusive and hostile, but her obsession with me had now turned to something deadly. Standing in the kitchen after the funeral, cleaning up the mess from the comings and goings of those offering condolences, my mother’s sanity snapped. It could be that it was never there in the first place.

  To this day I can still taste the chemicals she laced the plastic bag with, even though they never found the object that was used to strike me. Whatever it was, I was left with a mild concussion and a fractured skull.

  If my best friend, Dante, hadn’t convinced me to take self-defense classes with him, I’d likely be dead.

  Darla Celeste has a good seven inches on my frame, added to the five-inch stilettos she never took off. Getting out from under the bag was no easy feat, but I managed as I fought back like hell. Her only option was to tighten the bag around my neck, hoping to strangle, if not suffocate, me.

  It was the first time I ever filed a police report against my mother for her abuse. Even that didn’t accomplish anything other than feeding her rage. She successfully convinced a psychiatrist that she was suffering from P.T.S.D. due to my sister’s disappearance, and couldn’t recognize me in that moment. She claimed she was trying to defend herself.

  It was complete bullshit- but like every other time, they bought the lies as if she was simply incapable of telling anything other than the truth.

  It was in those moments my mother prepared me for a life of misery. It was in those moments I felt I would either live my life hidden away or die in whatever heinous fashion she deemed appropriate to garner the most media attention.

  Darla had decided that if she didn’t have Cora’s coattails to ride, the loss of her only surviving daughter would be devastating enough to garner her the attention and sympathy needed to throw her into the spotlight. She didn’t just want my disappearance and death. She wanted it in a media frenzied circus. She wanted a horrific spectacle that would launch her to the top of her social circle, no matter the cost. My mother was nothing if not a whore, and she was willing to trade my life for her fifteen minutes of fame.

  I chose to hide away from everyone. My only solace was in the knowledge that if I was alone, I couldn’t be hurt by another. If nothing else, my life had prepared me for pain and misery. It had prepared me for all the great disappointments I’ve endured.

  Nothing in my life, though, could have prepared me for him. I was at a loss when it came to the man who would wreck the safe little life I had built for myself. Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever conjured up a man like Tristan.

  People say that nothing comes your way in life that you can’t handle. Well I call bullshit, because those people have never met Tristan Reece, with his sexy smirk and hotter-than-hell body. No one could ever be prepared for the confidence and sexual prowess that he oozes. Of course, by no one, I mean me. I am average in every kind of way, yet somehow became the bulls-eye on his target.

  Chapter 1

  Bentley

  Stepping foot back in this town, I feel more claustrophobic than a prisoner. A prisoner on death row. In solitary confinement. Then again, I'm pretty sure right about now I’d rather the solitary confinement.

  I haven't been back in this wasteland in six years. Not since the day we laid an empty casket six feet deep. The memory still haunts me. I still see the anguish on my father’s face, and the despair and hatred painted on my mother's. The imprint of the memory weighs on my chest like an invisible ton of bricks, crushing against me with no chance for relief.

  As I pop a Xanax, washing it down with some water, I attempt to ease the shaking in my hands. It's no use. Before I can catch my breath, my mind returns to that horrid day.

  I arrived home late that night, riding an unfamiliar high. I didn't usually venture out into the evening, at least not by myself. I had always played it safe. That night though, I didn't have much of a choice.

  The recruiter would only be there until morning and if I missed that entrance interview I'd have to put my dream of attending Princeton on hold. So there I was, returning home almost two hours after I normally locked my door for the evening. I had eased my way through the interview and was walking on cloud nine. I hadn't even noticed the flashing light on my phone indicating the missed calls and voicemail, as my phone was on silent during the interview.

  I knew Cora wanted me to call her after, to celebrate, but I wasn't expecting so many questions. I was sure she would be up for her habitual clubbing the next night, so I'd just send her a quick text with the promise of a salted caramel muffin and a matching macchiato in the morning. I knew my sister well enough to know there is nothing she wouldn’t forgive for a sugar fix.

  Nothing could have prepared me for what I heard after entering my voicemail code. As her words sounded in my head, my ears rang and my heart tightened. The panic in her voice matched with the screams. She was out of breath, but I could hear her crying and begging for me to answer. It was the final scream and crunch of her phone smashing that re-plays itself over in my mind. I turn my memory to earlier that same day, as I think back on Cora as she was before that terrible evening.

  Cora was my twin, my other half (albeit completely opposite). We were two peas in our very own pod. Cora was vibrant. She was tall and beautiful. She was willowy and bordering rail-thin, although she played it in her favor. I, on the other hand, am short and curvy, usually awkward, and average in a very girl-next-door kind of way.

  She was always popular and had a line of boys waiting at her beck and call, yet the girl could barely make it through her freshman classes. Of course, that didn't
matter much since she managed to convince our mother to withdraw her from school so she could pursue her modeling full-time. She had been pretty successful small-time, and some big fish had even started scoping her out as she was about to sign a major modeling contract.

  The night of my interview was the night she decided to go out to commemorate her success. I was supposed to meet up with her and Electra but the interview ran late and I never made it. That voicemail is the last memory I have of her. The last time I heard my sister's voice was when she was begging me to help her, begging for anyone to help her. Those who knew Cora and me would find it hard to believe she and I had grown close.

  Once we turned seventeen something just kind of snapped in place. She realized we would both be going off on our own and she wouldn’t really have me anymore. Cora had also come to notice more and more of our mother’s hostility, even sticking up for me a few times. That was the start of mending our broken relationship. I remember those times and I miss her something fierce.

  As my mind crosses back to the present, I'm hit with a rather unpleasant reality. I truly am back in a place I swore I'd never return, mentally and physically. As I make my way through the snow-covered road, trying to see through the freezing rain pelting my windshield, I drive past my childhood home. I can’t help the pain building in my chest at the memories of a devastated childhood. I shudder at the thought of what would happen if my mother knew I was in town.

  Having spent the last six years doing my best not to be found, I speed up and continue to drive to the hotel. After dashing through the slush, and mucking up my shoes and pants, I get inside.

  I approach the counter, pretty sure it was built with giants in mind. Seriously, I realize at 5'2” I'm rather tiny, but holy hell, I can barely see over the desk. I give the girl my name for my reservation and start looking through my purse for my wallet. As I am rummaging through my endless waste-bin of a purse, some guy, clearly not paying attention to where he was going, damn near plows me over.