He took my mouth softly, in slow, drugging pulls, running his velvety tongue very slowly along my lips, begging for entrance.
With a small moan, I opened for him.
“Do it, Danika. Claim your man,” he pulled back to murmur against my mouth.
I wasn’t proud of it, but I let him have me, quick and fierce against the wall.
We were straightening our clothes when Mona opened the door. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. She just wanted us to know that she knew what we’d been up to.
I felt bad. I’d just participated in making her bad day worse.
A few days later, I couldn’t believe I’d ever had a kind thought about the woman.
Always trust your gut, even when it makes you feel like a total bitch.
That’s what I learned from Mona.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I was at work, minding my own business a few days later when a smiling Mona came waltzing into my gallery.
Every time I saw that smile, I became more certain that there was just something wrong with it.
“Is it about time for your shift to end?” she asked, her tone pleasant enough but lacking any inflection. Her eyes were sort of glazed over and vacant.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Even so, I didn’t really want to know where this was headed.
I sighed. I still felt bad about what she’d been through with her dad, so I’d be humoring her. “I run the place. I can leave any time I want. I take it you wanted to talk again?”
She nodded. She was just off. I wondered if she’d taken something, but I didn’t know her enough to be able to tell for sure.
“I’ll meet you at that bar, Twist, when I’m done.”
She left.
I finished up with a few things, and then tasked Sandra with closing up in thirty minutes. I headed to Stephan and Javier’s bar with the hope that I could get rid of Mona quickly and then just hang out with the guys.
Stephan saw me coming and came to greet me with a big hug, kissing both of my cheeks. “Finally, you come to see us.”
Javier followed closely behind him, and we had a quick love sesh.
“Come sit at the bar, chat with us. Tell us what’s going on with you.” Javier wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Because we’ve been hearing some things.”
“Hell, we’ve been seeing some things,” Stephan added, referring, I knew, to the baby shower.
I scanned the plush lounge area for Mona and sighted her easily enough. “I’ve got to talk to someone real quick, and then I’ll be right there.”
I excused myself, knowing they’d have a million questions for me to answer about this in about five minutes.
I sat down next to Mona on a plush white leather couch. Next to, as in three feet away.
“We need to talk,” she began.
I had to make a concerted effort not to roll my eyes. “Shoot.”
“I just want you to answer one question for me.”
I studied her, finding nothing in her face or her demeanor that I understood. I never had. “Just ask it. Enough with the drama.”
“Are you in love with him? Just tell me that.”
I shook my head. “I’m not doing this. Nope, not doing it. I don’t know where on this earth you got the idea that I owe you answers about Tristan and I, but that is not the case.”
“I am. In love with him. No hesitation here. Your turn.”
I wanted to slap her. I felt my upper lip trying to shape into a snarl, and I had to take a few careful moments to smooth it out. “There was a six year window. I’m not sure when you came into the picture for him, but that was the window. That’s how much time you had to make your I love you matter for him, for it to be enough. That window is closed, and I am sorry for you, but if he didn’t love you before, I can promise you that he will never love you now. Is that a good enough answer for you?”
There it was. The thing I’d been looking for, and if I was honest, hoping for, since I’d first met her.
Perhaps I’d driven her to it; perhaps she’d been hiding it all along. Needless to say, I preferred the latter.
But did it matter? No.
The point was, the ugly from inside of her spilled out, contorting her face, her kind smile shaping into a hateful sneer, eyes gone bright with edgy fury.
She pointed a shaking finger at me. “You think you own him? You think you’ve had some invisible hand on him, through it all, but he was doing just fine until you came back into his life. Just fine, until you sabotaged his life again, with that pathetic limp, and those f**king manipulative guilt trips of yours.”
“I’m going to stop you right there. You’re going to keep going on with this rant and it is not going to matter. Whatever you had with him, it doesn’t have the power to affect what he and I have. So go on. Go. Get on with your life, because you don’t have the power to influence mine.”
She gave me the most bitter smile. No, not bitter.
Triumphant.
That worried me, and I felt my heart rate accelerating with more than my temper. Dread swirled deep in my belly. I watched her mouth, fearing what she would say before she even f**king said it.
And then she proved me so very wrong, because she could affect Tristan and me. In fact, she could destroy us with two short sentences. Just five little words.
“I’m pregnant. It’s his baby.”
My mind reeled. I don’t know how long I just stood there in stunned, unadulterated horror, but she was still sitting there when I came out of it.
“So now you’ll try to trap him with a baby.” Disgust dripped from my voice. For her, for him, for all of us.
“Who are you to judge me? I’m better for him. I don’t have to wonder if I’m in love with him, I know. I never would have left him, pining and alone, to suffer for years, to look for comfort in other women, for years. You did all of that. Who are you to judge me?”
“How far along are you?” I asked her. I couldn’t believe how calm my tone sounded.
Inside, I was a mess.
A bloodbath.
“Does it matter? I know he’s the father. I haven’t told him yet, but you know Tristan. He could never turn his back on something like this.”