“Tristan!” I called as I made my way down the hallway. “Where are you?”
As the last word left my mouth, he came racing toward me with a worried look on his face. “Everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, trying to reassure my suddenly very nervous husband. “You’re like a cat on a hot tin roof tonight. Are you sure everything’s okay with you?”
Shaking his head, he smiled. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just excited about this trip. What did the doctor say?”
“He’s fine with me going. He likes the idea of a doctor being around, though, so if we have one that would probably be better. It’s the twins thing, I think.”
“It’s all arranged then. We leave tomorrow morning. I’m going to do some work tonight, but you get some rest.”
He turned to walk away, but I grabbed for his hand. “Wait a minute! You just got home. Can’t we at least have some dinner? It’s barely eight o’clock. I’m not tired yet.”
“I’m not hungry. I’m sorry, but I have a lot of work to do. I need to be up-to-speed when I get to London.”
Suddenly, a terrible thought crossed my mind. Tristan was acting weird. Was he doing coke again? Unlike the wife I knew a lot of women would be, I wasn’t going to make myself sick wondering because I wanted to avoid some silly confrontation with him. If he was going to act bizarre, I was going to ask why.
Pulling him back toward me, I asked point blank, “Are you back to doing coke again? If that’s what this acting crazy business is about, I won’t tolerate it, Tristan. I told you I can deal with a lot of things, but a cokehead for a husband and father to my children is not one of them.”
As if my words had alarmed him, he stopped moving and stared down at me. After a long moment, I finally heard him say what I needed to hear. “No, it’s nothing like that. I’ve just got a lot on my mind lately. I promise I’m not back to the coke.”
I wanted to believe him, but I knew there was something else, something more than work or things on his mind. That he wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me about what was troubling him made me sad. “Tristan, no matter what you’re dealing with, you can tell me about it. I’m always here to lean on. I hope you know that.”
Bending down, he pressed his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. “I know. You have enough to handle being pregnant. You don’t need to hear me complain about work and other nonsense.”
I wrapped my arms around him in an embrace and held him to me. “I don’t care what it is or if you think it’s nonsense. If it’s bothering you, it’s important,” I whispered near his ear. “I hope you know that.”
He squeezed me tightly, and I knew he was dealing with some burden, even if he didn’t feel like talking about it yet. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. You’re the important one in this group, remember? I’m not the one carrying our children.”
His hands slid down my body to cradle my baby bump, and he smiled as he looked down at it. “Speaking of that, we need to get to work deciding on what their nursery is going to look like after we get back from London.”
I watched as he gently moved his thumbs over my stomach and smiled. “We don’t know what the sex is, Tristan. I don’t want to make it all pink and frilly, and then we have two boys or design it in all blue with trucks and airplanes, and then we have two little girls.”
“Isn’t there some unisex color for babies? What is it, green or yellow?”
“Yellow could be good. Maybe ducks?” I asked, knowing he was trying to get my mind off his odd behavior.
“Ducks? A room full of ducks?” he asked, looking up at me.
“It’s cute. We can decide when we get back. Right now, I want to sit down and spend some time with you before you become chained to your desk again.”
I didn’t know what part of that upset him, but a darkness crossed his face by the time I finished my sentence. He forced a smile, but I knew something was wrong. I’d just have to wait for him to tell me.
* * *
The Richmont London was just as wonderful as I expected it to be. I’d pumped Tristan for information about the room décor for hours on our flight, and for once, he seemed happier to be on the plane than he had back home. Far more formal than his other properties, the London location still impressed me. As at all his hotels, the staff greeted us with warmth when we arrived, and we were quickly shown to our penthouse suite.
Exhausted from the trip, I made a beeline to the nearest bedroom and flopped down on the king size bed, loving the feel of the firm mattress under my aching back. This having babies business was tough on the body, and Dr. Michaelson hadn’t been wrong about me needing to stretch my legs on the flight. Even though I had gotten up and moved around a few times, for the first time, a plane ride had really tired me out.
I stretched my weary body as Tristan lay down next to me looking the very picture of relaxation. As he weaved his fingers in mine, I couldn’t help but comment on this new Tristan. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy after a flight. Is there something about London I should know because it seems to have a wonderful effect on you?”
Nuzzling his lips to the spot on my neck just under my ear, he chuckled. “No. I’m just happy to be here with you. That’s all.”
He trailed kisses over my skin to my shoulder as I took in the gorgeous design of the Royal Albert Suite. The canopy bed sat on the dark hardwood floor in the middle of the enormous room, surrounded by cappuccino brown walls on three sides and a full bank of windows on the fourth wall covered in pale gold sheers. Above our heads, the gold and paprika red colored canopy completed the design, making me feel warm and secure. The designer had done a wonderful job of making what could have been a sterile, large space quite welcoming, and I felt myself falling in love with this latest hotel of my husband’s.
“Your properties are really stunning, Tristan.”
“Our properties, princess. Ours.”
I rolled over and saw him grinning at me. He said those words so easily, as if they were second nature to him, but I continually had a hard time thinking of anything he owned before we married as part mine. You could take the girl out of the middle class, but you couldn’t take the middle class out of the girl.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that, you know.”
Tristan kissed me softly on the cheek and whispered, “Yes, you will. The hard part will be to make sure our kids don’t get too used to it.”