Tristan
TRISTAN DUG INTO HIS omelet with ease and after a bite, realized he’d never had breakfast with anyone on this cruise, let alone a woman he’d been with.
Sort of.
“How did you sleep?” he asked to cut away the silence.
“Good.” Laney picked up a fork. “You?”
“Good.” The shower he took, picturing Laney beneath him gave him the best night’s sleep he’d had on this cruise. Ever. “I assumed you liked blueberry pancakes.”
“All women like blueberry pancakes, Tristan.” She cut a triangle slice and lifted it to her mouth. “Any woman telling you otherwise is lying or has ulterior motives.”
He swallowed before bellowing a laugh. Laney was funny. He liked that. He didn’t think he’d go for silly and sweet. Yet there he was...going in. “I thought about what we discussed last night.”
“Yeah, about that,” she began.
The crushing hurt invaded his chest. “You...changed your mind?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “I was nervous about how this will work between you and me.”
Smart. She should be nervous, he thought. “Okay. Some guidelines—”
“Guidelines,” she chuckled. Her adorable smile was going to be the death of him. “Is that Tristan Hart, COO speaking?”
He smirked, but withdrew for a moment. Who did Laney really want? Tristan or Tris? Tristan would approach getting her groove back in a methodical, yet painfully boring way. Tris would just lift her onto the table, but that image soured his stomach. Laney didn’t deserve the wild fuck beast he usually turned into when he smelled saltwater.
“I’d get you one of those fire pins, but I don’t want other men going near you.” You’re mine, Laney. A different Tristan growled from deep in his chest.
She stopped chewing and brought her face up to stare at him. Licking her lips, she said, “Okay.”
“Until you get with it...”
She swallowed. “Right.”
He relaxed. “But you have to give me a signal that I can, you know, have you. Be with you. Even the women here for—”
“You,” she reminded him, as if he could forget.
“And Jonathan,” he shot back and watched her breath hitch.
“Right,” she said and shoved a large piece of pancake in her mouth.
Damn, you asshole. Playing dirty, reminding her that the man she clearly had some kind of feelings for was a pig.
“Now that we, the um, group, are underground, so to speak, I just can’t drag someone off to a bench or a corner without consent. Hence the pins.” Only then did he appreciate the civilized nature of brutal emotionless screwing. “It means you’re ultimately in control.”
“Oh, I like that.” She sat up straighter now. “Would I send you a text?”
Man, he’d love to get a fuck me text from her. He’d make it his damn screensaver. But... “No.” He reached in his pocket. “I uh...forgot to take this off when I left for the pier the other day. I never wear it here. I’m glad I have it with me now, though. I want you to put it on when you’re, you know, in the mood. For me.”
Laney’s eyes lit up and held the matte gold squared-off ring. A blue sapphire sparkled with an elegant golden ‘Y’ floating in the center. Circling the stone, a boldly carved inscription read: Yale University. On one side, were his initials, TH, and the other, the year he’d graduated.
“This is beautiful, Tristan. You trust me with your Yale class ring?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked.
“Because you don’t know me.”
“Sure, I do. You’re a textile designer, you live in the city, you were raised by your grandmother, and you want to start your own business.”
“That’s my history and my goals. It doesn’t tell you the kind of person I am. I could be conning you.”
He erupted with laughter. “I can spot a con a mile away. You’re genuine, Laney. It’s why I like you. You’re...” His response wonderful felt thick in his throat as reality crashed in on him. “I didn’t expect to meet someone like you here. You hit me when I wasn’t looking.”
“Because you were looking for...” She glanced at the other tables and sure enough, they were surrounded by fire pins. “That.”
“Yeah.” He exhaled.
“What are your plans for the rest of the day?” she asked and tucked his ring away in the pocket of a halter sundress he wanted to peel away from her body like a banana.
Shaking that image away, he gave into the stress aching his shoulders. Not just from the lack of sex, but from the flood of messages Luke had been sending him. The guy must be desperate, he never bothered Tristan on his cruise. “I have to be honest with you.” He pushed his fingers against his temples. “My head is messed up. Luke got an offer on the hotel.”
“Someone wants to buy it?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to sell.” He brought his hands together and sat back when a server took his plate away.
“Who’s offering to buy it?” Laney leaned her elbows on the table after the server took her plate, her empty plate, away as well.
“A developer. They want to make it into condos.”
A crushed expression overtook her face. “Oh no. Oh hell to the no. The Sterling can not be condos.”
He smirked. “It’s a crazy offer, Laney. Billions.”
“Do you want to be a billionaire?” she asked without even flinching.
Damn, he liked this woman. “I’m kind of already a billionaire. On paper. I’d be stupid if I didn’t want more, right?”
“Too much money can pollute someone’s life.”
Like Luke.
“Tell me about it, right?” He leaned in. “I can’t begin to spend what I have now.”
She gave a throaty laugh. “Oh, people will line up to help you soon enough.”
He fingered a napkin left behind. “That’s what I’m afraid of. I’ll be hunted like a dog.”
“Woof.” Laney’s luscious lips cooed at him.
Put that ring on now, his dick screamed.
“Don’t sell,” she said with an adorable shrug. “Are you an equal partner?”
“Yes.”
“Does Luke need the money?” She said his brother’s name like she knew him, like she’d been in their life...forever.
“No. He made a killing as a lawyer.”
“What kind of law did he practice?”
“Intellectual property and he’s done some international work, too.”
“Can you buy him out?”
Tristan thought about that because it hadn’t occurred to him. His father wanted them to run the hotel together. Why? It made no sense because the man hardly knew him, Luke, and Grayson. And his father was dead, why should it matter? “You think I should keep it? Run it myself?”
“If that’s where your passions lie. If that’s what your heart is telling you to do.” She leaned across the table and tapped his chest. “You even have the right name. Hart.”
His dick told him to do something else, but Laney fueled the rest of his body with ideas. “I want to do a full overhaul of the place.”
She wrinkled her nose. “The furniture is a little dated. It has old-world charm, but...”
“But?”
“Come with me.” She held out her hand.
He had no idea where she would lead him. He’d jump off the ship and take his chances in the water with her at the moment. Being led somewhere, anywhere, by this woman made his cock swell. In the distance, he spotted the elevator. Fuck yes.
But she stopped at a seating area outside the casino. “See this?” She ran her hands on the back of a curved loveseat. “She the fraying?”
“Yeah.” His entire lobby looked worn and tired like that.
“Depending on how old your furniture is, the fabrics were just not made for the type of use and abuse. And sadly, with a growing older population...”
He held up his hand, not wanting to kill his passion buzz thinking of the people w
ho’d peed on his lobby wing chairs. “I get it.”
“I have a sickness, Tristan,” she said, locking her fingers.
His heart spiked, thinking she meant literally. “What... What’s that?”
“I’m constantly looking at fabric and I can almost always tell who made it.”
“You’re that good?”
“I’m that good,” she said with a little curtsy. “Let me show you something else.”
Once again, she grabbed his hand, and he held on for dear life. Her knowledge of the ship was impressive given the size of the boat and she’d only been on it for a few days. She took every turn down every corridor with intoxicating confidence.
“This, my friend, is the wave of the future.” She pointed to the seat cushions on a set of lounge chairs outside the theater. “Touch it.”
Putting his hand where other people’s asses had sat made him stomach twitch. “Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
He pushed his shoulders back wanting to play a little game of chicken with her.
She smirked. “Okay. Hang on.”
From a nearby housekeeping trolley, Laney grabbed a plastic container of cleaning wipes.
“What are you doing with that?” he asked, confused.
“Cleaning the seat.”
“It’s fabric, you can’t clean fabric with a wipe.”
“Watch me.” She bent down and when the cleaning chemicals hit the seat, a shine glistened.
He looked closer. “That’s vinyl?”
“Yep.”
Now he got on his knees and ran his fingers across the entire clean seat. “How?”
“I’m that good.”
He looked up at her. “You did this? This is your fabric?”
She nodded proudly.
“Is it all yours?” he asked.
“No. A few, though. A ship this size was a multi-vendor project. I know the design firm the cruise line had hired.”
“You sell to design firms?”
“Not directly. The design firms choose my fabrics and the furniture manufacturer follows their specs, so they make the sale.”
“And if you landed a big project, your boss...” He tasted acid on his tongue.
“My boss makes a ton of money off me. My designs sell very well.”
They were talking about Jonathan.
Not only did Tristan not want that dickhead anywhere near her body, now he didn’t want Jonathan to make any more money off her talent.
“Does it help when a customer requests your fabrics?”
“Sure.” She tossed the dirty wipe in a trashcan and squirted on some hand sanitizer. “I don’t pitch directly to customers, though.”
Tristan stopped to realize where he was. On his annual hook-up cruise and not in his cabin or some stranger’s cabin, or the pool, or a stairwell, getting off. Yet this was so much more satisfying.
He smiled feeling humble. “Thank you, Laney.”
“For what?”
“If I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to about this. I’d be...” Alone. Like many major things in his life to hit him, he faced it by himself. Neither Luke nor Grayson held on to the same kind of resentment for their father as he had. When Lawrence Hart died, Tristan kept his mouth shut and couldn’t talk to anyone. Even doing his marketing job, he’d been alone at his computer looking at numbers and trends, submitting reports. Isolated.
Not now, not with Laney clearly in his corner on this one. Christ, if he’d not been in that spot to pick her off the floor, he’d not have had these revelations. He rolled his eyes imagining his alternative activities these past few days. Then he would get off that boat, bleary-eyed and worn out, vulnerable to Luke’s pressure.
Tristan staggered into a seat. “Luke would have cornered me into signing away the hotel. I’d have no reasonable argument to make.”
“You would have come up with something.” She lowered into the seat next to him.
“Show me more.” He smiled at her.
An hour later, he sat with Laney at an outdoor bar, sipping ice teas. She impressed the hell out of him by flipping through her phone to show off all her designs. Her fabrics were in so many swanky hotels in Manhattan, Paris, L.A., and even Dubai. Their lobbies, spas, and executive suites were all blessed with her textiles.
Tristan wanted to light The Sterling up with her kind of magic. Luke had to meet Laney.
A phone pic of a seat that looked like velvet, but was really vinyl from his hook-up cruise wasn’t going to convince his brother not to sell the entire hotel, though. He needed more. He needed more of Laney. His body hardened and tensed at the idea of keeping her close a little while longer.
“Wanna have some fun this afternoon?” he asked her.
“Put the ring on kind of fun?” she asked with wide eyes.
His heart pounded, sure he wanted that kind of fun, too, didn’t he? “Not yet.” Now he reached for her hand. “Come with me.”
CHAPTER NINE
Laney
Laney’s nerd flag flew high in the sky and she waved it proudly. Sitting cross-legged on the floor in Tristan’s cabin, she was in blueprint heaven.
“Call me a geek, but I love these things.” She taped loose printed sheets together because the ship didn’t have a full-scale printer. “And maps.”
“Me, too.” Tristan crouched next to her, helping her arrange the layout of his hotel’s three floors of common areas. “I need some kind of alternate plan for Luke. I can’t just suggest we make it look nice. He’s my brother and he loves me, but not enough to walk away from billions of dollars.”
“We’re gonna give him a reason,” she said, cutting up the pictures she’d printed of her past hotel projects and taped them into the layouts Luke had emailed him.
“Laney?” Tristan asked with a shaky breath.
She lifted curious eyes to him. “Yeah?”
“Can you... Can you do this? Be the designer?” he asked.
She sat back on her heels. Could she? Sure. She took plenty of interior design classes and had a commanding knowledge of CAD. Despite The Sterling being a twenty-story hotel, the guest rooms only required one or two designs with just a few tweaks here and there for suites. The three floors of common spaces needed most of the pizazz she had envisioned for The Sterling. Paint. Carpet. Lighting. Artwork. She could do it all. Working on that project would give her an amazing escape hatch from Westmore and make leaving her firm less scary.
Taking on Tristan as a client, however, meant she’d be working for him. Ethically, he’d be off-limits. He was a man of integrity with billions of dollars at risk. He had to prove to his brother he was serious about the renovation. Dragging some no-name, part-time interior designer he’d spent the week banging into a boardroom would crash and burn harder than the fall she had taken the first day she got there.
“No.” She exhaled. “This is too much for me. You need a top-notch firm.”
“Oh.” He frowned and sat back. “But I want your fabrics everywhere.”
It gave her tingles, how he wanted every inch of The Sterling covered by Laney Designs, the mythical name of her imaginary textile firm. She giggled inwardly, liking how that sounded. The wrinkle in Tristan’s plan needed to be verbalized, though.
“Right now, my fabrics are licensed by Westmore. It would take me months to get myself set up in a mill with my own designs to the point they’d be on bolts ready for purchase.”
“And if I chose your Westmore designs, Jonathan gets a cut.”
“A big one,” she admitted.
He shook his head and growled a little. “Do you get a commission at all?”
“It’s very small. Brock pays me well. He doesn’t want me wondering where my next meal is coming from. Like anything creative, you have hot streaks and then things cool off. I could go months without a solid line, and I still get paid.”
“That’s good at least.” He went back to organizing the pile.
This hot streak of an afternoon w
ith Tristan would have the inevitable cooling-off period, wouldn’t it? He would get off that ship in less than a week and disappear into the big city. She’ll never see him again, except maybe on television. Or in the gossip rags, like his brother stepping out of a limo on his way into one of the many Manhattan glamourous galas. With some pretty woman on his arm.
Tristan Hart wasn’t going to stay single forever.
Either he’d be back on this cruise next year or home decorating a damn Christmas tree with someone. Someone else. She pressed on her chest to smooth away the ache in her heart. This was truly her only shot with Tristan. He had the power to either ruin her for any other man, including Jonathan, or he’d be the perfect springboard into a whole new chapter, where she lived that life of the city sex kitten, Nikki seemed to think she was capable of.
Tears built up in her throat, realizing out of all these options, she wanted to decorate that damn Christmas tree. With Tristan. “I need to use the bathroom.”
When she pushed to stand up, his hands were on her waist helping her. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Perfect.” She wiggled away and disappeared into the powder room near the cabin door.
The bathroom looked identical to hers, just reversed. She leaned over the sink and let the faucet run. She just needed to splash some water on her cheeks, but couldn’t screw up her mascara and emerge looking like she had an ugly cry.
A few sprinkles on the back of her neck brought her body temperature down and her heart rate returned to normal. When she leaned into the vanity, Tristan’s Yale ring dug into her hip.
She took it out and stared at it. It represented the green light for Tristan to take her. Have his way with her. Prepare her for what a man like Jonathan would do to her on this cruise. Her stomach flopped. Those pancakes turned into boulders deep in her gut, thinking of Jonathan’s hands on her.
Whoa, where did that negative feeling come from?
After a few breaths, she closed the ring in her palm. She liked Tristan. Today proved how compatible they were. Nikki’s words came back to her. How she could easily get a man like Tristan back in Manhattan. Away from this fantasy world she crash-landed on.
He and Nikki were certain once Laney laid it on the line with Jonathan, he’d take her. Having sex with her boss meant Tristan’s work was done, and he could move on to someone else.
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