Daryl rolled his eyes and sighed. “So? I wasn’t feeling great about her friend there anyway. Too many players in the game makes this whole thing more difficult to manage.”
I thought about how angry Nina’s text sounded. I’d asked a lot of her, but losing her friend was too much to expect. “Jordan’s like a sister to Nina. She’s upset about her leaving the house. I didn’t want that to happen. Maybe you could remember how hard this is on her.”
“Tristan, I do understand the hardship of losing her friend, but losing her life or you would be infinitely worse, don’t you think? She and her friend can make up when all this is over. They can go shopping or do whatever women do when they make nice.”
It wasn’t up to Daryl or anyone else to make up for all this. I knew that. I was the one who’d have to make amends for the mess of all this.
“How did Varo take his new assignment?” I asked, trying to mask the jealousy that lingered inside me.
Chuckling, Daryl stroked his beard. “Considering how it’s a step up from his regular job, he wisely smiled and happily moved his things into the house. It’s not like it’s a chore, really. He’s just adding devoted suitor to protector. He’ll be fine.”
Devoted suitor and protector. I hated the way Daryl described Varo with those words. I was supposed to be that for Nina, not some bodyguard I’d only hired because of his size.
“He shouldn’t get too comfortable in his new surroundings. I intend on being back in my own house as soon as possible.”
My jealousy came through loud and clear, and Daryl knew it. He looked at me as if I were some lovesick puppy to be pitied. I didn’t care. He was just some cynical curmudgeon who thought little of love. So be it. I didn’t need his approval anyway. All I needed was his help to get back to the woman I loved and the life I’d left behind.
“Not to worry. Varo’s not Nina’s type. I suspect, if those muscles aren’t all from nature, he’s not her friend’s type either,” he said with a chuckle.
“What?” I asked, feeling the smallest relief from his words.
“Nothing. We have more important things to do than gossip about lovesick girls like hens. It’s time you returned to the land of the living. Get your stuff, but don’t bother shaving.” He looked me up and down and added, “You look like you’ve been sleeping with your head in manure. That’s good, though. The longer hair works for what we need.”
I hadn’t touched a razor to my face more than three times in the past months, even after I’d decided to quit losing myself in coke and alcohol. After the initial itchiness, I’d gotten used to the beard and seen it as yet another thing I didn’t have to bother with every day. Not that I had a lot to deal with other than cultivating my self-loathing and missing Nina.
The hair, on the other hand, drove me crazy. I’d kept my hair short since I became CEO of Stone Worldwide, and having it hang in my eyes was a pain in the ass.
“I look almost as bad as you,” I joked as I began to gather my things into a duffel bag.
“You wish you looked that good in a beard. You kids today don’t appreciate the fine art of the beard,” he said proudly as he continued to stroke the shaggy hair around his chin.
“Are you planning to tell me where we’re going or do I just get to be in the dark about my immediate future?”
“Sure. We’ll be flying coach back to the States so you get to experience the pain and suffering I’ve had to endure all these times back and forth to visit you here and from there we’ll be getting you settled into your new place where you’ll have to stay for a while. I’ve made sure it’s close enough for you to keep an eye on the house but far enough away to make sure you’re not seen.”
I stopped stuffing clothes into the bag and turned to face him standing next to me. “So I get to spy on my own house and Nina is what you’re saying.”
“Spy is such an ugly word in this case. I just think it would help to have another pair of eyes watching when we can. I don’t plan to live out in the middle of nowhere, no offense, so you can.”
I thought about all the time I’d spent out at the country house and smiled at Daryl’s description of it. After all this time away, it was the only place in the world I thought of as home. Far away from the hustle and bustle of the city, the house was where Nina and I had fallen in love. How many hours had we spent just lying in each other’s arms at that house, every second of our time together the most wonderful moments of my life? There was nowhere else I wanted to be, but if all I could have was somewhere close to Nina, then I’d take it and do whatever I had to in order to get back to my life with her.
“Ready to get your life back?”
“I am, and Karl better hope to God he doesn’t get in my way. I have too much to fight for to let him get what he wants.”
I took one last look around the rooms where I’d spent months hiding out from the rest of the world. I’d lost part of myself in this place, the one part that I couldn’t live without. Even though Nina had never given up on me all the while I’d been here, I’d given up. Now it was time to take the chance again to have the life I knew I wanted more than anything else.
Chapter Six
Nina
Jordan’s leaving sent me into an emotional tailspin, and for days I didn’t get out of bed. Nothing made me feel better, even texting Tristan. How could it? I felt like I was constantly sending out messages in bottles and although I knew he received them, since he never answered it was a one-sided conversation, at best. As the days dragged by, my unhappiness morphed into anger at everything and everyone.
I wanted answers. I wanted Tristan to finally send a message back, even if it just said that he received my texts. I wanted him to hear what my words were saying and come back, even if it wasn’t safe for him or me. I didn’t care for excuses. I wanted him back.
Our bed became the only place I wanted to be because it reminded me of him. No matter how many times the sheets had been washed, they still held his scent. Not of his cologne but
him
. Closing my eyes, I imagined him next to me, silent as a statue as I chattered on about something. Like he always did, he smiled when I looked up to see if he was paying attention, muttering, “I’m listening” when I gave him that questioning look because he’d said nothing for so long.
God, I missed him.
My phone still held months of messages to him, so I spent my time scrolling through them reading my feelings for him as the time passed. Some were sad, while others made me smile. Each one marked a moment in time without him.
By the third day, it was all I could do to drag my body to the shower and wash my miserable self. While I didn’t feel like I had when my father died and when Cal cheated on me, in some ways I felt worse. Those had both been horrible times, but they’d been endings I had to handle. Learning to accept the loss of someone was like having your heart torn out every day, but this was different. Tristan wasn’t gone forever. He was just gone.
There was nothing I was allowed to mourn about this situation. Instead, I was supposed to stay in this house haunted with memories of him and act like everything was hunky dory. Well, it wasn’t. After months of waiting every day for him to return, all my hunky dories had disappeared, and all I was carrying around was frustration and resentment at what our life had become.
And now Jordan was gone but not gone too. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Something had come between us in the time she’d lived here. I really didn’t think I’d changed, but had I? Had the world Tristan showed me made me so different that even my best friend didn’t recognize me anymore? Even if I had changed, I still didn’t know why she’d jumped to all the wrong conclusions with Gage. That wasn’t like her at all.
It wasn’t like her to not want to talk to me either. I’d tried calling and texting her, but she’d never answered or texted back. I’d apologized for something I really didn’t mean to do, if I had done it at all, but still nothing. We’d disagreed before, but never had there been a rift like this between us.
As I stood in the shower remembering all the good times we’d had, I realized for the first time in my life, I was alone. Nobody I’d relied on was there for me anymore. Not my father, Jordan, or Tristan.
Dressed in the clothes that had become my usual outfit for hanging out at the house—yoga pants and a comfy shirt—I made my way to the kitchen, hoping I didn’t see a soul since my face didn’t have a stitch of makeup on it, my hair was a damp, stringy mess, and I wasn’t even wearing a bra.
Maybe I had changed. Or maybe I was just depressed. Whichever it was, I wasn’t in any shape to be seeing anyone.
For the first time in days, Maria had brewed the French Roast I loved, like she’d known this morning was the day I’d finally drag my butt out of bed. The only other female with me in the house now, she cooked for me, Jensen, and my giant shadows. She and I rarely spoke since her English was broken on the best of days and my knowledge of Portuguese was non-existent. Maybe if I’d taken Spanish in high school and college I could muddle through a conversation with her, but my three years of German was useless in comprehending what she was saying. Maria was kind, though, with hooded dark eyes that had a motherly feeling to them when she looked at me, and unlike every other person Tristan had working for him here, she seemed to have no interest in what I did with my time. For that reason alone, I liked her.
The coffee was exactly what the doctor ordered, and slowly my body began to come back to life. My spirit was still disheartened, but coffee wasn’t going to fix that. The only cure for that wasn’t to be found anywhere close, though.
I heard a sound behind me and turned to see Gage standing in the doorway. I couldn’t be sure, but I had the sense that a look of surprise crossed his features for a moment. I probably deserved that since I looked like the walking dead.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked in my best pretend chipper voice.
“Daryl called me. It looks like we’re doing the dinner thing tonight.”
Swell. Daryl had wonderful timing. The day I emerged from my cave of depression looking like shit warmed over was the perfect day for me to pretend I was moving on with my life with my bodyguard. Yeah, this was fantastic.
I put my coffee mug down on the counter and folded my arms across my chest. “I bet right now you’re wishing you hadn’t agreed to this. I’ll see what I can do to look less like a hot mess.”
A slow smile spread across Gage’s mouth. “No worries. How does six sound?”
“As good a time as any, right? So what does Daryl have planned for us? Casual or black tie formal?”
“He didn’t say, but he said I should wear a suit. That’s my task today, unless you’re planning to leave the house. It seems my usual suits aren’t good enough.”
I looked down my body and back up at him. “Uh, no, I have no plans, but if you want a woman’s help with your shopping, I’d be happy to join you. Sort of kill two birds with one stone.”
He thought about my offer and nodded. “It couldn’t hurt. Maybe we’ll even get some people to see us together shopping. I’m sure Daryl would love that.”
“Okay. Give me half an hour and I’ll whip my head into shape. Wouldn’t want to take out your brand new girlfriend with her looking like a train wreck. What would people think?” I joked.
Thankfully, he said nothing since telling me I looked great in any way would have made him sound like a true boyfriend and simply being supportive would have made him like a girlfriend. Either way, it would have been weird.
“I’ll let Jensen know. Daryl was quite clear about that. For some reason, he seems to think that any man who’s supposed to be dating you wouldn’t drive.”
I had to laugh. Daryl had everything planned down to the car we’d be seen in. He was nothing if not thorough. “I’ll meet you at the garage in thirty then. I have to tell you, though, that I don’t know where Tristan buys his suits. He has a shopper do that for him, so I don’t know where to tell Jensen to take us.”
“No worries there either. Daryl already told me. You up for Gerard’s?”
I’d seen the store mentioned in magazines before, but I’d never been there. “I’m sure they have very nice men’s suits there. I wonder why Daryl chose that store? How much do you want to bet he’s already arranged for all eyes to be on you today?”
Gage chuckled. “I’d bet on it. No pressure, though, right? All we have to do is convince the entire world that you’d move on from someone like Tristan Stone to someone like me.”
I stopped in front of him, struck by how his voice dropped when he basically said that he wasn’t the kind of man someone like me would ever be with. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the reality was that Gage was very much the kind of guy someone like me would go with. Tristan was the kind of man girls like me never ended up with.
Well, almost never.
“Don’t worry. Just promise me you won’t leave me standing in Gerard’s while you go off with some salesgirl who doesn’t look like a trainwreck.”
His mouth turned down in a frown, and I quickly realized I’d offended him by implying he wasn’t going to do his job. Touching his sleeve, I lightly squeezed his forearm. “I didn’t mean you would really do that. I know you take your job very seriously. I was just trying to say that it’s totally believable that the two of us would be together. I mean, you’re a good looking guy and I’m sure lots of women are attracted to you.”
I was rambling, but I didn’t want to chase yet another person away, even if my insult had been entirely unintentional.