“Please, Gwendolyn,” Tristan began, “I can make this right. I was a fool, but what I said doesn’t mean…”
“Get out,” I told him. When he didn’t move, I said it louder: “Get out!”
Tristan’s face crumpled. His eyes were pleading. “It was… just a joke…”
“It wasn’t funny. It was cruel. You are cruel. Now get out!”
Tristan gathered his clothes and put them on outside of the bedroom without a word. I waited until I heard the door close to start sobbing in earnest. I’d risked everything for a few moments of pleasure. My business. My reputation. All of it was on the line. And for what reward? Memories that would haunt me the rest of my life? Pleasure I would never feel again?
This isn’t a Disney movie, Tristan had told me once, when I was young. I’m not your Prince Charming, or your knight in shining armor. I’d thought that was just bad boy rhetoric, that if I could make him see the light, he’d somehow change. But he hadn’t, and he never would. Not until he got married, and some other woman bore his children and made him into the man I’d always wished he would be.
I covered my face with my pillow to muffle the insufferable sounds of my grief. Tristan wasn’t the fool here. I was.
Chapter 10
I had royally fucked myself over twice in a single span of twenty-four hours—a new personal record, to be sure. I couldn’t believe what an ass I’d been, and to Gwendolyn of all people. I couldn’t remember a single time that that girl hadn’t treated me well, and I had joked about how I would make her my mistress. Idiot.
After I’d been so forcefully ejected from my stepsister’s bed, I called myself a taxi to take me home. I hated the look on Gwendolyn’s face, that look of embarrassment and shame. I knew that I’d messed everything up in a way that I’d be hard pressed to fix if this plan was going to work.
I was almost shocked when I felt my cellphone buzz in my pocket, hardly expecting anyone to be calling me, at least not this early in the morning. I pulled the phone out of my pocket, surprised to see my father’s number glaring at me from the bright screen. I almost didn’t answer, uninterested in the idea of hearing that old bastard’s voice to disrupt what was already a perfectly terrible morning. Despite myself I swiped my thumb across the screen and put the phone to my ear.
“Father, what a delightful surprise,” I said, making sure my tone was almost too chipper. “You hardly ever phone me anymore. How are you?”
There was silence across the line and I knew that I’d thrown him. He’d expected anger or annoyance right out of the gate. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction; and besides, I so enjoyed toying with him.
“I’m more than fine, Tristan,” he said, his tone suspicious. “In fact I just came back from the sonogram with your mother—”
“Stepmother,” I reminded him in a song-song voice.
“Evenlyn’s child is growing quite nicely,” he said, his own voice becoming almost… kind. It had to be a trick. “I thought you ought to know, since you’ll be a brother soon.”
“What is it you really want, father?” I asked, “We both know you don’t ever call me unless you have something to gloat about.”
“The fact that I’ve won isn’t enough?” he laughed, that same crowing laughter that put a chill in my gut every single time. “My son will grow up to be a duke, and you’ll be left in squalor… that is unless you’ve begun looking for a wife.”
My stomach clenched as those words curled through the labyrinthine maze of my mind. He had found out—somehow, someway he had figured out my plan to take the title from his “legitimate” heir. But how? How had he figured it out? Surely Gwen didn’t tell him, or her assistant, Tina. But then who else could have known?
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, trying to play the fool and see if he was merely fishing, or if he’d truly been able to figure out what I had thought was such a brilliant plan before it had time to come to fruition.
“Don’t play dumb with me, boy,” he snapped, his familiar anger returning in force. “I’ve seen the pictures of you and that woman. Who is she?”
“I was on a date, Father. Is that so unusual?” I asked.
“It is when your only hope of taking what rightfully belongs to my true son is marrying whatever harlot will have you,” he snarled. “I won’t have you ruining this, Tristan. We both know that you don’t go on dates with women unless you want something from them. Dating and courtship imply commitment, something you sorely lack.”
“I’m hurt, Father,” I said, hoping to anger him to the point that he would slip up and reveal just how he figured out where I had been the night before. “How could you say such a thing about your own son?”
“You are no son of mine!” he shouted over the receiver. “My son is growing in the womb of my wife! You are an abomination!”
“Oh, Father,” I said wistfully, “I so love it when you bring out the old names from when I was young.”
“Don’t try to play cute with me!” he roared. “I will make you rue the day that you were cut from your mother’s unclean womb! So help me if you try to steal my son’s inheritance I—”
“I only want what I’m entitled to, father,” I interrupted, doing my best at keeping my voice level. I didn’t need to him to know how frustrated I was, though I found it hard to keep the edge out of my voice. “I’m your eldest son, and I will do what I must to make sure that I am the only viable option for your inheritance when the time comes—a time I hope comes sooner rather than later—when you shuffle off this mortal coil and I take everything you ever had as mine.”
“Never!” he barked. “I’ll make sure it’s all burned before you ever touch it!”
“Then I will be a duke of ashes and dust,” I said, “but a duke none the less. And your new child will not even be that.”
“It’ll never work,” he hissed. “You aren’t enough of a man to keep yourself from a life of sin. You’ve always been a failure, and you’ll remain one. You’ll see.”
“I think you’re wrong father,” I said, making a point to sigh loudly. “I have a whole list of women who are prepared to become the next Mrs. Tristan Wolfe, and I really must be getting back to sorting through them all.”
“How are you doing this so quickly?” he asked after a long and tense silence, suspicion heavy in his voice. “You’ve hardly the connections to find a woman of standing; you must have someone helping you find these women.”
I couldn’t help but laugh as my father desperately pumped me for answers. He knew that the game was on, and he wanted to know all the players before he made his move.
“Gwendolyn is helping me find a suitable wife. That is her job, after all.”
I heard him curse from the other end of the line and couldn’t help but smile. I so enjoyed getting under his skin. He didn’t approve of my stepsister’s business, but since she’d never used a single pence of his money, he could kindly shove it up his ass. He’d never imagined that his children would both rise against him at once. He could threaten me all he liked with disownment, but when it came to Gwen he had no power.
“It doesn’t matter how much help you have, Tristan. No one is going to have you as their husband, even for all the money and status in the world. You have no follow-through. You’re unreliable, and you’re never going to change.”
With that he hung up, leaving me staring out the cab window with only my thoughts for company. Maybe he was right, maybe I was the kind of man who couldn't keep to the promises or the commitments he made. Or maybe I was the man who knew that he had the power to change all of that.
Chapter 11
I couldn’t believe how much of a prick he was.
It was one thing to be a smarmy asshole, but to suggest that I would simply sit by, content to be his mistress, of all things! Even the thought of it had my blood boiling in my veins. I wanted to say that I hated him, wanted to curse his name with every breath I took as I burnt any picture I could find after I’d crossed out his face.