Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
“Follow me,” she said, and turned away from him, her movements tight, the line of her narrow shoulders taut and tense. He meekly followed her slender body as she weaved through the silently staring crowd. Chance, who’d been watching while wolfing down some pretty tasty-looking Greek food, sat upright as they passed him.
“Relax, Chance,” Trystan heard Iris murmur. “We’re just going to the pantry.”
Great, his entire future was about to be decided in a banquet hall pantry of all places.
Well, at least it was private, he noted as he stepped into the quiet, gloomy interior of a mid-sized pantry. It was unstocked save for a few crates of alcohol and several discarded cardboard boxes that still retained the aroma of the fresh fruits and vegetables they had transported.
Iris shut the door behind them, and switched on the overhead light. The fluorescent tube buzzed and flared to life, producing a stuttering flicker that surged and waned without any kind of predictability. Iris turned toward him and Trystan took a step back, to give her some room, and waited for her to speak.
“I heard what you said,” she began, after a few moments of pensive silence. “To my dad.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Trystan nodded gravely, shoving his hands into his pockets to prevent himself from reaching for her.
“You were afraid of being hurt?” The lilting intonation in Iris’s voice made the statement a question.
“Of course I was, Iris,” he admitted, his hands bunching into fists in his pockets. “I’d just served my heart up to you on a silver platter. I’d never been more vulnerable in my life. I was terrified.”
“So when the article came out—”
“All my deepest, darkest fears came to life in that one moment. I was so fucking blindsided by the sweeping pain, the panic and the fear of even more hurt to follow that I lost all ability to think rationally. I lashed out at you—the one I mistakenly believed was the source of all that pain—it was a nuclear response based wholly on emotion. I wanted to punish you. I wanted you to feel what I’d felt… and after that I retreated into myself. I functioned on autopilot. I refused to think about you, refused to consider how you must have felt, what you were going through. It was only at the first interview with Mike Holmes-- when he dared ask me about you—that I finally started to come out of that daze and began to think clearly again. Before that, I’d managed to sanitize my surroundings, my interviews, of your presence—having him ask about you was like having a bucket of ice water tossed directly into my face.
“It was brutal and my reaction was visceral, instinctive. I walked out because I was physically unable to talk about you. It hurt too much. But after that, you were all I could think about… More and more I had the uneasy feeling that I had things completely wrong. That feeling grew and grew until it consumed me and I was asphyxiated by my own stupidity. I started hearing about what you were going through. And that’s when the repercussions of my scorched-earth reaction in the car that day truly hit me.” He choked up and bowed his head to stare at the polished floor between his feet, fighting for control. “I’d abandoned you. I promised you I’d be there for you and then I wasn’t. Iris, I can’t…”
He lost his battle with the sob that forced its way up past the blockage in his throat and out on a guttural moan.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, daring a glance upward, not sure what he’d find, not sure he wanted her to see the despair on his face, but unable to help himself. Her eyes were gleaming with unshed tears, her expressive face nakedly vulnerable. “I’m so fucking sorry. I wish there were bigger words than sorry. I wish there were massive, mountain-sized epic fucking words to describe my regret and despair. But I’m stuck with I’m sorry. I can promise you the world, only I know you don’t want it… I don’t know what you want. But I kind of hoped you would be okay with just me. Trystan Abbott. I know I’m weak and flawed, and kind of an arsehole. I make mistakes, I say and do dumb shit, but my one true redeeming feature was being loved by you once. And the only thing I’m capable of doing truly right in this world is loving you back.”
“Trystan,” Iris murmured, her voice throbbing with emotion and regret, and Trystan shook his head in a panic, certain she was about to reject him, absolutely sure he was seconds away from losing her. He took a step toward her, his hands coming out of his pockets and reaching toward her, wanting to stop her, to somehow physically prevent her from sending him away for good. But in the end, he knew he couldn’t stop her. He needed to let her speak and then he had to let her go and allow her to move on with her life.