He was right. I’d always been so thankful my father had grounded my upbringing in our middle class values. I knew what it meant to work hard and achieve things. I was forced to account for my behavior, and when that meant I got in trouble, I didn’t get what I wanted sometimes. But Tristan came from a world that smacked of entitlement. He’d always had everything he wanted.
“How are we going to do that? How did you learn to work hard and earn things?”
“My mother,” he said with a smile. “She always made sure Taylor and I knew as easily as things could come to us, they could be lost. Unfortunately, my father had more influence over Taylor, but because I always gravitated toward her, my mother’s ideas about money and possessions became my ideas.”
Climbing on top of him, I sat across his stomach and looked down at the serious expression he always wore when he spoke of his mother. “She did a good job, Tristan. Money and things come and go, but it’s the people we love that matter. We just have to make sure that our kids know that too.”
He gently ran his palms over my rapidly expanding stomach and nodded. “We will. I promise I won’t spoil them too much.”
I twisted my face into a fake scowl as I remembered how he spoiled me from practically the moment we met. “I know you, Tristan Stone. When you care about someone, they always benefit. I just want you to promise me our children will understand the value of people as much as they do things. I want them to be like us, not your brother.”
“Don’t worry. They’ll be wonderful, just like their mother.”
Bending down, I smooched his cheek. “Such a smooth talker.”
Sliding his hands around my waist, he settled his palms on my ass and pulled me into him. “Only with you, princess.”
“Don’t you have work to do, Mr. Stone? We didn’t come to London to make love, did we?”
“Not really, but I just figured since we’re here and in bed…” he said with a sly, sexy look in his eyes.
Just then, his phone vibrated in his pants’ pocket. Rolling off him, I said with a giggle, “Perfect timing.”
Tristan rolled his eyes and swung his feet off the bed as he answered his phone. “Yes?”
The person on the other end began to speak, and I instantly saw my husband’s expression grow serious. He walked out of the room, leaving me alone in the Royal Albert Suite to think about how lucky I was.
Tristan’s meetings took up the entire next day as he worked to solve some problem that had occurred between the hotel and some high level government official on his last stay at the Richmont London. Apparently, a nervous hotel employee had unceremoniously nearly outed the man and his mistress, and now he was calling for an investigation into the legality of Tristan’s ownership of the hotel in the UK under some arcane law no one had thought about for over a century. His attempts at business diplomacy left me with an opportunity to visit a museum or two, and I was drawn to one nearby, Pollock’s Toy Museum.
A tiny building painted red and green on the main floor, it was actually two houses joined by three narrow staircases. As I walked through looking at the wide assortment of toys, everything from board games to Russian nesting dolls, I found myself in the Teddy bear and doll house room. The stuffed animals seemed to cover every inch of space, and near a tiny window a family of tan bears sat around tea cups having their very own tea party.
The room began to feel hot, and I knew I’d overexerted myself with all those staircases. As much as I wanted to stay and see the rest of the museum, my thighs began to cramp, so I quickly bought a Teddy bear in the gift shop and made my way back to the hotel, worried that I’d put the babies in danger because of my need to wander around instead of waiting for Tristan in the room.
I laid down on the bed, instantly feeling better as the pain in my legs eased, only to hear my phone ring. Lifting it off the night table, I saw it was Jordan and swiped my phone, happy to hear from her. “Hey, you! I was just resting after visiting a museum. What’s up there?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to talk to a friend.”
Her voice trembled, like she was holding back tears. “Jordan, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“It’s over,” she said as she began to sob unlike I’d ever heard her before. “I just got off the phone with him. He’s not coming back.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Why would Gage be acting like this? Did you have a fight?” I asked, heartbroken to hear two of my favorite people hadn’t been able to make it work together.
“I don’t know, Nina. I think he’s found someone else. Maybe that woman he was with before.” Jordan began to cry harder, making her words impossible to understand.
I hated hearing her like this. “Shhh, don’t cry. It’s going to be okay.”
“I hate to be a bother, but I really need a friend at this moment. Would you be okay with me coming out there to hang out for a few hours? I’ll leave before Tristan comes home so he doesn’t have to deal with my weepy ass self, but I don’t want to be alone now.”
“I’m not at the Dutchess County house, Jordan. I’m sorry. Tristan surprised me with a trip to London.”
Jordan sniffled. “Oh. Okay. It’s no big deal.”
It was a big deal, though. My best friend was sobbing into my cell phone over losing someone she cared about, and all I could tell her was that my husband had whisked me across the Atlantic Ocean on his private jet to his five-star hotel in London. All the times she’d listened to my sob stories and lent me a shoulder to cry on, and the best I could do was help her long distance.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t talk, though. I’m all ears.”
“It’s okay, Nina. I mean, it’s got to be the middle of the day there. You have better things to do on your vacation than talk to me about something silly. Tell Tristan I said hello and call me when you get back, okay?”
“Jordan, it’s all right. I’m just lying here resting up a bit. I have all the time in the world.”
The phone fell silent for nearly a minute, but in the background I heard her crying again. When she returned, all she said was, “I have to go, Nina. I didn’t mean to impose. I should just be a big girl about this and accept that it just was never meant to be. I’ll talk to you when you get back. I love you.”
Before I could assure her she hadn’t imposed and I wanted to talk, she hung up. A lump formed in my throat at the idea of how sad she sounded. Why had Gage broken it off with her? I hated the very possibility that I’d brought them together thinking he was a great guy, but now he’d left her high and dry. Had he gone back to that Angela woman? As my mind launched into best friend mode, I thought about calling him but decided against it. That would only make things worse. I called her three times, but her phone went directly to voicemail.