"You aren't my servant here. This is your home, Nina."
I tried to disguise the hurt in my voice, but it was no use. She heard it too and turned around from looking out the window to face me. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say the wrong thing. I didn't mean to make it sound like you'd treat someone like a servant. This is all so new to me."
"Don't be sorry. I'll leave you to get settled in. If you need anything, I'm just on the other side of the house."
I wanted to reach out to touch her hand, to take her in my arms and tell her how much I loved her, but she wasn't ready. I didn't want to scare her off. I knew I had to be patient and hopefully if I was, when she finally started to remember things, she'd also remember how much I loved her.
My insides felt empty as I walked toward my side of the house, alone again as I'd been for so long. I had work to do, but my heart wasn't in it. I didn't care about reporting to the Board as I had to soon at the quarterly meeting. I didn't care about anything involving Stone Worldwide. What did it matter anyway?
I sat down at the desk in my room and looked out the window at the unseasonably warm December day full of sun. All I could think of was that in just over a week the date I'd chosen for our wedding would pass without mention because she didn't remember the day held any special meaning. Nothing like the biggest day of your life going unnoticed.
"Tristan, I've arranged for dinner at five, as you ordered."
Something in Rogers' voice told me he hadn't come to find me to talk about dinner. Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back. "That's fine, Rogers. Thank you."
My words were met with silence, but he didn't leave. I'd avoided Rogers for weeks, knowing what he thought, but I wasn't going to escape this discussion about Nina. Opening my eyes, I turned to see him standing there staring down at me. "Is there something else, Rogers?" I asked, knowing there was.
"I'm simply wondering what I'm to do regarding Nina."
I hated the way he could refer to a human being in the same tone as he'd use to tell me he believed the gutters needed cleaning. Looking into his dark eyes, I leveled my gaze full of disgust on him. "What you're to do regarding Nina? Speak plainly, Rogers. I'm not in the mood for the butler talk. You've known me since I was five years old, for fuck's sake."
Rogers nodded his head slowly, and when he raised his gaze to meet mine again, it was one of doubt. "Nothing has changed, Tristan. Your father is still the one responsible for her father's death and you're still Victor Stone's son. The son of the man who killed Nina's father. Things are the same as they were the night she drove away from here."
I didn't need Rogers to tell me all of this. None of it had ever left my mind since that day Karl had confirmed what I'd found in my father's secret files. I'd lived with the knowledge that my own father had been the architect of Joseph Edwards' murder just as I'd have to continue living with it for the rest of my life.
"I don't need you to remind me of any of this, Rogers. What the fuck am I supposed to do?"
"About what, Tristan? You can't fix what your father did. No one expects you to."
"I don't care about fixing anything Victor Stone did. I care about taking care of Nina, not because of what happened to her father but because I love her. Why is this so difficult for you to understand?"
Rogers stood there staring at me, his face full of judgment. "Because you haven't loved anything or anyone since the accident."
Looking away, I watched out my window as a porcupine walked slowly across the grass. "I'm not incapable of love because of a plane crash. Are you saying you don't believe I fell in love with her?"
"I have no doubt you love her and she loved you. You've been given a second chance to make things right, Tristan. If you do not, I can't see how your future with her could end any differently than it did before."
"All I need is time," I mumbled as I watched the porcupine continue to make his way across the lawn toward the trees on my side of the house.
"Time for what? You must tell her the truth. If you don't, you'll be making the same mistake again and the outcome will be the same as last time."
Time. If I could find the evidence Karl believed existed, then Nina could be safe and never have to know about my father's heinous crime. Never have to know that I was the son of the man responsible for taking her only parent from her.
Turning back to face Rogers, I stood to get to work. "Thank you, Rogers. That will be all."
I saw the disapproval in his eyes as he turned to leave, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to let Nina find out the truth of her father's death. Her memory loss meant I could spare her that. It was the only good thing to come from her accident, and I intended on protecting it, no matter what.
All I needed was time.
At five o'clock I sat in the dining room waiting for Nina so we could eat dinner together as we had every day we'd been here in this house. I'd had Rogers instruct the cook that tonight's meal was to be duck in the hopes that maybe having that would remind her of the time we spent together at the penthouse. I knew it was probably grasping at straws, but what else did I have?
I waited for twenty minutes, watching the steam slowly fade away from the dishes before I was forced to admit that she wasn't coming. Of course she wasn't. She wasn't coming because she didn't remember that this was something we both looked forward to each day. That too was gone.
Loosening my tie, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes in frustration. I couldn't go on like this. It was like being sent to a country where everyone had forgotten the language except that one lonely soul who kept speaking even though nobody understood him, hoping one day he'd find just one other person to comprehend his words.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and felt the stress ebb away for a moment. Maybe I was just kidding myself. Maybe it was time for me to forget that language too.
If I could forget, I may have tried. But I couldn't. Rogers had been right when he'd said I hadn't loved anything or anyone since the accident. He was only partially correct, though. In truth, I'd never loved anyone before the accident either. Not like I loved Nina.
She was my everything. I needed her like I needed air to breathe. I doubted she'd even known how I truly felt about her before the accident. She was unlike anyone I'd ever encountered. Never before had another human being made me want so much more than the things my money could buy me.
All my life I'd been blessed with everything I could want, and it had made me hard and greedy. Nothing meant anything when you could have it at the drop of a hat. I'd learned that was one of the curses of money, but for a long time didn't care. Cars? I'd gone through dozens with not a thought about why I shouldn't. Homes? They came and went without any feeling or connection to them. Women? I could have who I wanted, when I wanted, and how.