by Nikki Wild
I needed to do damage control.
I dug around in the bed where I’d thrown my phone, surprised not to have even one call from Tina to warn me. Either she was swamped with handling the fallout or something was terribly wrong. I dialed her up and waited for the phone to ring.
She answered after the first one, and I could already tell she was fighting not to panic.
“Marm,” she said, “you’ve seen the news?”
“Tell me how bad it is,” I said, bracing myself for what I knew would be bad news.
“I’ve had clients calling me all morning to cancel their services with you, marm,” she said, and I could feel the worry in her voice, not just for her job, but for the company she’d help me run for the past few years. Both our hearts were in this business and I knew Tina hated to see this just as much as I did. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure how well we’re going to weather this.”
I sighed, trying not to cry over the phone as I did my best to come up with some sort of plan.
“I’ll need to make a statement—a message to our clients apologizing for bringing them into the spotlight. At this rate they’ll all be investigated to find out whether they were slept with as well. By the time the day is over they’ll be trying to make it sound like I’ve been running some sort of escort service.”
“I’ll prepare something within the hour, marm,” Tina said dutifully.
“Thank you, Tina,” I said. “I’m not sure what I’d do without you.”
“You’ll not see me abandon you, marm, that I can promise.”
After I hung up the phone I descended into a mess of tears.
18
The music pulsed through me, the bass thrumming in my ears as I watched the countless men and women on the dance floor grinding and pressing into one another to the rhythm. I hated clubs
I need somewhere that I could drown myself in enough alcohol to kill an elephant all while having the excuse to ignore anyone who decided that they knew who I was. I wanted to be surrounded by people, while at the same time be alone with my thoughts.
I sat there as the world moved around me in a constant motion, while I felt like I alone stood still, watching everything pass me by, changing and evolving while I stay the only constant. I laughed at myself, and at how every single word that Gwen had said about me was true—I would never change, and that I had done everything within my power to make her life a living Hell all for my own selfish needs and desires.
She had every right to hate me for what I’d done, for who I was and would always be. I was a burden, an embarrassment, and if that was who I was meant to be, then why hide from it? If life wanted me to play the Fool then who was I to deny it? The best thing that I could do for Gwen was to stay out of her way—to disappear and never show my face anywhere near her again. I’d hurt her enough, and I was more than willing to put an end to all of it right then and there if it meant sparing her another minute of the pain I had caused.
I looked up from my drink to find my eyes draw toward a woman only a few seats over from me at the club’s bar, her eyes half-opened in a sultry stare that I couldn’t deny was utterly enchanting. She smiled at me, her full lips turning up at the corners like a cat that was about to eat the pet canary.
“All alone tonight?” she asked, sliding over into the seat next to me and shouting about the noise. “Sort of shocking for a guy as gorgeous as you are.”
“I had something of a breakup,” I said, my gaze drawn to the plunging neckline of her dress. “I thought I could come here to get over what happened.”
She laughed in a way that made my spine tingle.
“The only way to get over a lover is to take another, darling,” she cooed in my ear. “And I’m more than available for a gorgeous thing like you tonight.”
Why not? I thought, wondering whether it even mattered at this point if I could ever win Gwendolyn back. What was the point of staying true to her if no matter what I did I’d always be a plague on her life? Maybe it’s better if I try my best to forget these last few days ever happened.
“You think you’ve got what it takes to make me forget?” I asked, trying my best to sound coy, though no matter how much I wanted to I couldn’t stop thinking about Gwen. I’d never fallen so hard for any woman in my life, and now that I lost her it was hard to let her go. “She was the best I’d ever had.”
“I’m better,” the mysterious vixen purred in my ear. I felt the soft touch of her hand sliding over the leg of my slacks and up my thigh until she caressed the bulge of my cock. “Trust me, I’m all you’ll be thinking about tonight.”
I should have wanted her. I should have done what I would have normally done and used that woman to make me forget, to devour her in bed to feed my own need for something to fill the holes in my life. But the more she came onto me the more I kept thinking about how disappointed Gwendolyn would be. She would hate me for betraying her, for being the man I told her that I would never be again. Despite what she said I knew that I couldn’t be that person again. I had to prove them all wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I said, gently pushing the woman’s hand away from me. “But I just can’t do that.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, shrugging her graceful shoulders as she slid off the bar stool and strutted out onto the dancefloor. I watched her go, feeling that she took something of my old self with her. The old me would have taken her into some VIP room and bent her over for my own pleasure. But that wasn’t me, not anymore.
I have to make this right, I thought, setting my drink down on the bar as I stood up. I can’t let her think that I ruined everything.
I slipped a fifty-pound note under my glass and headed out the door, pulling my cellphone out of my pocket as I searched for the number of the news station that had covered the scandal when it first made the air. I was going to make things right, even if it ruined my own life in the process. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t be the man that my father and stepmother thought that I was, and I wasn’t about to stand by and let Gwen think that I was that kind of man either.
“Hello,” I said as the phone stopped ringing. “My name is Tristan Wolfe—yes, the very same. I’d like to offer you an exclusive interview about the story you released concerning my stepsister and I. Yes, I can be available as early as tomorrow morning.”
19
I couldn’t bring myself to go into the office, not with the threat of a crowd of jeering men snapping pictures with their phones crowding around the doors to the building. There had already been vandalism on the front door, a spray painted sign declaring me a slut and a harlot. It was too much for me to handle, too much for anyone to handle. I just wanted to hide somewhere and not come out until the world completely forgot my name or that I’d been stupid enough to fuck my own stepbrother.
Clients had left in droves after the news story broke, even some former clients coming out of the woodwork to claim that I’d slept with them as well! I couldn’t believe the nerve of some people, or the desperate need some have to be in the spotlight. If it were up to me I’d never grace the newscasts ever again. I just wanted to disappear.
Tina had honestly stepped up more than I had ever imagined possible, even giving a statement on my behalf in regard to the scandal, brief as it was and denying any and all claims that I had slept with any of my other clients. I could have kissed that woman if it wouldn’t have turned into another scandal all on its own. With the evidence of my affair with Tristan, it was best to not deny what was already proven, but that hardly meant I had to give them all the details. Thankfully I made sure that I had minimal contact with the press—or my mother for that matter.
For the last few days my mother had tried to call me, trying my number again and again to mock me or try to tell me just how disappointed she was to have a slut for a daughter. Her last message had been particularly venomous, especially the parts where she declared that she wouldn’t even bother to disown me, since my own inheritance was already set to be given to my soon-to-be bab
y brother. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about any of it. All I wanted was to be left alone by the rest of the world to try and salvage what was left of the life I had built.
All that I had left was my business, and I was determined to take whatever was left after this disaster and build it back, better than ever. I could only hope that I at least had some of my clients left.
“With us this morning we have Tristan Wolfe, son of Lord Wolfe who recently made headlines after it was discovered that he had been having a rather sordid affair with his own sister,” came a voice from my TV. I’d almost forgotten that I’d had the damned thing on, and it was only Tristan’s name that had brought my attention back to it.
For a moment I froze, time seeming to slow around me as I turned my head to gaze in shock at the television screen.
What is hell is he doing? I thought, turning my attention back toward the screen.
“Good morning,” Tristan said, dressed in a sharp looking blazer, with a conflicted look on his gorgeous face.
He ruined everything for you, I reminded myself, but the fluttering in my heart was a hard feeling to ignore. I wanted so badly to simply hate him with every fiber of my being.
“Mr. Wolfe,” the interviewer began, “tell us how all of this began.”
“Well,” he said, “it started when we were in our teens actually, though as it was this time, the flirtation was mostly one-sided.”
“Your stepsister did not return your advances?” the woman asked.
“Not at all,” he said. “She refused me several times up until the point when I left to begin my first tour of duty.”
“You might consider this unrequited love then?”
“Perhaps on my end,” Tristan said. “I am sad to say that I employed a great deal of manipulation on my part in order to get my stepsister into the position we were caught in. A lot of promises I had little intention of keeping”
“Is there something that you’d like to say to your sister if she’s watching this?” the woman asked.
“I’d like to tell her that I’m sorry for dragging her into this, and that I take responsibility for putting her in such a terrible situation. I took advantage of her drunkenness and did things that I should not take any pride in.”
“Is it true that you’ve formally renounced your claim to your family title?” the interviewer inquired.
“I have. I hope that my half-brother—when he’s born—is a better fit for it than I ever would have been. I can’t say that I’d have made a wonderful brother to him, but perhaps this is something that I could do for my family that wouldn’t be such a black mark.”
“Heavy words of repentance from the debonair Mr. Wolfe,” the newscaster said, looking into the camera, “next up—”
I turned the TV off mid-sentence, utterly dumbfounded by what I’d just heard coming from my stepbrother’s mouth. Why on earth would he lie like that? How could he sit there on national television and say that he was responsible for everything that had happened?
He was protecting me, I realized, tears welling up in my eyes as the truth of it all hit me like a ten-pound hammer. He still loves me.
20
I had few options left open to me after the scandal, and the only skills I had were best suited for a position in the military—and so it was Her Majesty’s Royal Army that became my only option. I would be able to apply for a return to duty and before I knew it I’d be back in some far-flung land securing the interests of the country. I’d never see combat, even as the disowned son of a lord, but at least I’d be able to have a place to stay and a more than decent wage to keep me going.
At least this way I’d be out of everyone else’s hair and able to hopefully turn myself into the man I knew that I could be—the man that I knew would prove my father wrong. Maybe it wasn’t what I wanted, but at least being in the military would keep me on the straight and narrow, and hopefully out of too much trouble.
I wasn’t even sure where I’d be stationed, all I knew is that I’d be away from the things that would tempt me to be my old self. I could only hope my absence would make everything better for Gwen. Perhaps the interviews had helped and perhaps just maybe she’d find it in her heart to forgive me for what I’d done, but I imagined something like that was a long way away.
I stepped out of the cab as it dropped me off right outside of the recruitment office, breathing in the crowded London air as I tried to push through the crowd of people that was moving to catch the next light on the crosswalk.
I wasn’t sure why, but every step felt like I was pushing against a wind, as though something wanted to keep me out, to warn me away. Maybe I was being foolish, giving in to a deep seated sense that somewhere in the universe there was some force pulling us toward a certain goal. Fate.
But if fate had any meaning then how could something so cruelly pull me from the one woman that I knew was the only one that I’d ever feel any true manner of love for. Fate was a joke, and a sick one at that if it kept me and Gwen apart.
You did that, I reminded myself. Fate had nothing to do with it.
But despite my assurance that only my foolish actions had lead me to where I was, I couldn’t help but hesitate as I reached out for the handle for the recruitment office door. I don’t know what I did it, honestly there was no logical reason to have done it at all, but for a second I stopped before I touched the handle and went inside.
“Tristan!”
The voice stopped me dead in my tracks, my entire body frozen in time as I let that name wash over me like a wave from the ocean. I knew that voice, I’d hoped to hear that voice one last time before I left, but knew that I’d never have that chance again. At least that was what I thought.
I turned toward Gwendolyn’s voice, my mind still in shock from even the vaguest possibility of seeing her again. I almost thought that I’d gone mad, crazed at the idea of her even considering seeing me again. I couldn’t believe it, but there she was.
She wove her way through the crowd of people toward me, trying to keep my attention, my hand only an inch away from the handle of the door. It all felt like a dream. None of it felt real.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, staring down into her gorgeous eyes. I felt like I was going to be sick with guilt just looking at her. All the thoughts of what I’d done kept flooding back to me—how she’d even managed to stand the thought of seeing me again was beyond me.
“I saw the interview,” she said, reaching up to gently caress my face with her soft fingers. “I heard everything that you said… and I know that you lied to protect my reputation. And I wanted to tell you that I appreciated it.”
At least there’s that, I thought ruefully. I gave her a half-hearted smile as I stepped away from the door to allow another person to make their way inside to sign their life away as well. The longer I had to consider what I was doing the less I actually wanted to go through with it. Seeing Gwen brought back feelings that I knew I needed to suppress,
“I’m just happy that I could do that for you at least, even if everything that happened was my fault,” I said, swallowing hard to fight back something akin to tears. I couldn’t let her see me shrink away from this, after everything that I’d done, she deserved to be as far from me as I could get. I wasn’t the kind of man that she deserved.
“There’s more than that,” she whispered, taking a step closer. I looked deep into her eyes, my heart aching to feel those soft lips against mine, like fruit from the forbidden tree. I wanted to toss all pretense aside and take her into my arms like I’d been dreaming since I saw her that first night in her office. “I know that you still care about me.”
“Of course I do,” I said, taking a breath to calm myself and my quaking nerves. I care for Gwen more than anything, which was why I had to make sure that I was far away from her or anyone else that I cared about. I was toxic, and she’s said as much. So why was she here now when if she’d only waited I’d have been out of her life for another decade or more. “I wouldn’
t be doing this otherwise.”
“Rejoining the army?” she asked, her eyebrows raised. “You really think that’s what you want?”
Of course it wasn’t. I had hated my time in the army with such conviction that I’d almost made a game of how much it would take to have me thrown out. But I knew that a life in the military would at least keep me grounded, with a sense of purpose that could not have been seen as more respectable than to strive and possibly put oneself in danger for their country.
“It isn’t about what I want,” I said, shaking my head as I turned away from her touch against my cheek. How could she expect me not to go through with this after everything that had happened? This was my penance, the only chance that either of us had for any sense of happiness. “This is about what needs to happen.”
“Look at you, sounding like a grown-up,” she teased, and I couldn’t understand where her sudden change of attitude had come from. I’d ruined her life only days before and now she was flirting? “Maybe there is another way that you could make up just how awful you’ve been to me lately. A way that I think both of us would enjoy.”
“What has gotten into you?”
“I want to be with you,” she said, looking up into my eyes. “Permanently.”
“How can we do that when every newspaper in town would be hounding us everywhere we went?” I asked. “It would be a zoo, and your reputation is already at risk as it is!”
“That would be true if we were planning on staying in London,” she said, smiling mischievously up at me.
“Where the hell else would we go? Our entire lives are here!”
“Then we can make new lives,” she said, her hands sliding over my sides. “Somewhere that they don’t know us or care who we are to one another.”
