"Stop. Tell me what happened."
Jensen took a deep breath as he quit his pacing. Hanging his head, he said, "I took Miss Edwards to pick up her friend Jordan and then took them to a restaurant. When West and Varo told me her friend had left, I pulled the car around to pick her up, but instead another person joined her. A man she obviously knew. I didn't want to intrude, but as I watched, she gave him money. I finally did interrupt them to tell her the car was ready because I was afraid he was going to take even more money. I'm sorry if I was out of line. I was concerned she was giving this strange man so much money."
So this was what Daryl was talking about when he texted that he had interesting pictures of Cal. Nina had met him again, and now he was busy trying to con her out of money, as he had with other women, and doing it quite successfully, it seemed. On top of everything else I'd felt that night, jealousy and rage now burned in my gut.
Struggling to hide my feelings, I patted Jensen on the shoulder, thankful for his attempt to keep Nina safe. He'd done the right thing.
If only Nina had.
Chapter Seventeen
Tristan
Instead of going to see Nina after hearing Jensen's report, I went to my room alone, thankful in some ways for having a reason to avoid seeing her. On the floor just inside the room lay an envelope with my name written in her handwriting and a tiny smiley face drawn on the front. As with her other letter, fear flared inside my mind at the thought of what she might have written. Maybe she'd confessed to giving her ex-boyfriend money while they sat at a restaurant earlier that night. Or maybe she'd remembered something and this was the letter in which she finally told me she couldn't forgive me for what my father had done.
Fuck. Not knowing was like torture. If only I could dismiss her as easily as I'd always been able to dismiss the rest of the world, but I couldn't. I loved her to distraction, and even the unknown words she'd written on a sheet of paper inside that envelope could tie me up in knots.
I slid my finger under the flap of the envelope and tore it open, unable to wait any more. Unfolding her letter, I silently prayed for some release from all of this soon.
Dear Tristan,
I like our letter writing back and forth. It feels like we're romantic pen pals separated by some huge distance and someday someone will find our letters and see that no matter what separated us, we ended up together because we loved one another. What can I say? I'm an incurable romantic. Y You didn't answer your phone, so I'll tell you what I wanted to say here. I hope your day was good. I missed having you near me. Come find me when you get home. I'll be waiting up for you.
I love you.
Nina
I didn't go see her right away. I needed to be able to look at her without feeling guilty, but that wasn't going to happen without at least taking a shower. Maybe if I did that I'd find some way to wash off some of the ugliness and be able to deserve someone like Nina.
Half an hour later I'd stood in the shower until my fingertips wrinkled but it hadn't worked. The reality of what I was—the son of the man who'd done so much to hurt so many—couldn't be washed away, no matter how much I tried.
The story Jensen had told me rattled around in my head as I walked over to her room. I didn't want to be jealous, believing the whole thing had been just another example of Nina's goodness in helping that manipulative fuck of an ex. I couldn't help it, though. Anything that made me feel like it would take her away I hated instinctively.
She was already asleep when I reached her room, but I quietly slipped in and stood beside her bed watching her as she softly breathed in and out, her mouth in that beautiful pout she hated and I loved. I wanted to kiss that mouth and wake her up, my Sleeping Beauty who I could whisk away to another kingdom and take care of forever.
Nothing was stopping us. I had enough money to last for this lifetime and the next. We could run away and never be found again, just the two of us living for love. No more of Karl and the Board. No more Cal. No more anyone but us.
That wasn't right, though. There would always be something we couldn't run away from. Someday she'd remember who I was and what part my family had played in taking her father from her, and then there would be nowhere in the world I could go for forgiveness.
I had to tell her what I knew. I had to tell her why her father had been taken from her. I had to tell her everything.
As I stood there watching her, she stirred awake and smiled up at me. She had no idea the man she was happy to see could very well be the one person she'd never want to lay eyes on again.
"Hey, what are you doing there staring at me as I sleep?" she jokingly asked. Stretching her arms above her head, she pushed away her drowsiness. "I missed you."
"I missed you too. I got your letter."
Nina sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Did you like it?" Looking up at me, she held out her hand. "Sit down. Tell me about your day."
I sat down beside her and ran my fingers through her hair. "I'd rather hear about yours. Jensen tells me you and Jordan had a girl's night out."
"I'm guessing he told you about me seeing Cal too."
"He did," I said flatly, hoping to hide how jealous it made me.
She squeezed my hand. "Don't be angry, Tristan. He's down on his luck and I did him a little favor. That's all."
"I don't think you know your friend Cal very well, Nina. What you call down on his luck is actually his con. He does this to women all the time."
"No, you're wrong. Remember, he didn't come looking for me. I found him after all these years. He's just going through some bad stuff now. You'd help someone like him too. I know you would."
I lifted her chin with my forefinger so her gaze met mine. "You're too nice. I know all about him and I'm telling you he's playing you."
"I don't believe it. No girlfriend cheating on him and leaving him with an expensive apartment to pay for? He told me his mother died too. Was that a lie?"
Shrugging my shoulders, I admitted I knew nothing about either of these things. "But I can find out. Whatever he's claimed, I'm guessing it's a lie. He does this all the time, Nina. You're going to have to be careful now that you have money."