I had no intention of letting the subject go, though. I had to know what this meant. My very sanity depended on it.
He would not do that, I told myself. He would not go near my sister, not like that, not after everything we’d been through together. He’d have known that would kill me.
No, I told myself again. He just wouldn’t. There has to be some explanation.
I tapped her bare shoulder.
She was sprawled out in a tiny yellow bikini, her pale skin gleaming in the sun. I didn’t know how she wasn’t burning, she’d been laying out so long.
She lowered her shades to peer at me, but didn’t take out her headphones.
I tapped my own ear, feeling impatient.
She took one ear bud out, raising her brow at me. “What’s up? Is Jack behaving?”
“He’s fine,” I told her tersely. “Bev is keeping an eye on him for a few minutes. We need to talk.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not right now. I’m relaxing.”
“Right now,” I shot back.
Her eyes widened at my tone. I usually treated her with kid gloves.
I didn’t drag her out of her lounge chair, but it was a close thing.
I took her all the way to my old room, shutting the door behind us.
“Are you seeing Tristan?” I asked her, voice shaking. I couldn’t keep my cool for even a second about this.
She sighed and sat on the bed. She reminded me of a sulky teenager, with the way she curled her lip at me. “Jack said something,” she guessed.
I nodded, mouth tight, fists clenched. “He said he saw you kissing. Tell me the truth. Are you seeing him?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this. You and Tristan! God! I refuse to talk about him with you.”
“Are you seeing him?” I asked again through clenched teeth.
I wanted to shake her, or worse, though I knew the true source of my anger wasn’t her. It was him. She was my sister, but it felt like the real betrayal was coming from him.
Logic had left the building.
She let out an annoyed little grunt, exactly like a teenager. “I’ve started seeing Adair, okay? Tristan still comes around, helps with Jack, gives him some of the male attention he needs, but anything that happened, anything between us, ugh, it’s over.” She grinned suddenly. “I know what you’re thinking; I’m making my way through the entire band.” She laughed like that was funny.
My eyes were wide on her and filled with horror. “That is not what I was thinking. Is that what you’re doing?”
She laughed again. She was way too amused by all of this, when I wanted to tear my own hair out. Tear her hair out.
“No, that’s not what I’m doing. It’s just, you know, how it probably would look to some people.”
“I’m not asking how it looks. I’m asking how it is. What happened between you and Tristan? Why did Jack tell me he saw you kissing?”
She waved that off. “I don’t want to talk about it, and like I said, whatever it was, it’s over now.” Her eyes narrowed on me suddenly. “You don’t get to throw him away and then decide who he gets to see. I never would have thrown him away.”
My heads translation for that; he’d dumped her.
I was livid. “You have no clue what he and I have been through, no clue why I had to walk away. This is none of your business, but I did not throw him away. I barely made it out of that relationship intact. And yes, he and I are done, but there are rules to this kind of thing. You and him…no, that’s just wrong. You’re my sister. He is not allowed to go near you.”
“Relax, okay? We’re just friends now. I’m seeing Adair now, and it’s going really well. And I am done talking about this. You turn into a nutcase when it comes to Tristan. And vice versa.”
She wouldn’t talk about it anymore, no matter how I pried, but that didn’t mean it stopped bothering me. It ate at me, because I still didn’t know what had happened, and probably never would.
CHAPTER FOUR
His name was Milton Sagar. He was an NFL quarterback who’d just been drafted to play for San Diego. I met him at a gallery showing in L.A. on a Friday night. He came to visit me in the Vegas gallery on the following Monday.
He was charming, intelligent, good-looking, and very, very interested, and for the first time in a long time, I found that I was genuinely interested back.
Not good on paper interested.
Heart rate accelerating interested.
That hadn’t happened to me since Tristan. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or horrified by the development.
He was very persistent. I turned him down twice.
He had huge arms, gorgeous black hair, kind blue eyes. He even had dimples. He probably flirted in his sleep.
He was just the type of guy I should avoid.
The third time he very charmingly asked me out, I said yes to having lunch with him in Vegas, on my break at work. He flew in just to see me.
I had no intention of letting it go one step further than that.
“So you live in Vegas, but you work in L.A. a lot?” he asked me over appetizers.
I shook my head. “Just the opposite. I live in L.A., but I’m in Vegas quite a bit at the moment. I’m managing both galleries until I can train someone here.”