“When are we talking about, exactly?”
“Oh, did you beat him up more than once?” I shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I went out with him on a Friday. Some charity event. There were photographers there. The next time I saw him, on a Monday, he looked like he’d lost a fight. Was that fight with you?” I spoke slowly, sharply, determined to get a square answer.
“Oh, that…” He gave me an engaging sort of grimace that turned into an audacious smile. “Yes. That was me. In my defense, I was provoked beyond all sanity. And the next time, well, he was asking for it. Don’t get all pissy about it. He’s a big boy, he can handle it. I was literally picking on someone my own size.”
I shook my head, beyond exasperated, because he clearly wasn’t sorry, and moreover, perversely, I found his shameless confession sort of endearing.
And worse still, I couldn’t keep myself from asking, “You weren’t hurt, were you?”
I was a stupid, stupid girl. Hopeless really.
He stood and approached me, and I got the tightest hug for that one, his face buried in my neck. “You’re such a sweetheart, you know that? He didn’t hurt me. Not at all. It was kind of a letdown, really. He looked like he’d be more of a challenge. Do you know that second time was the last time I’ve been in a fight?”
“You beat him up a second time?”
“I knew he kept calling you, after you’d said to leave you alone. Before you ask how I knew, I made a point of finding him and asking him. That was the second time. He stopped calling, right?”
I didn’t have a clue what to say to that, so I just stared.
“Okay, my turn,” said Tristan.
He pulled back and all of the happy bled out of his face as he pondered his question. A twitch started pulsing in his temple, but he plunged ahead. “Did you sleep with Milton?” The words churned over in his mouth, like he didn’t have the stomach for them.
I rubbed my temples. “Tristan,” I warned him.
How quickly we’d wandered out of safe territory.
“I’m not going to interrogate you about the last six years. I just want to know about him. Consider it my one free question.”
I stood and started to pace, getting more agitated by the second. “He bothers you more than, say, someone more faceless? Someone you don’t know?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Fine. No. I never slept with him. It never got that far. Now, my turn.”
“Your turn,” he agreed warily.
“Tell me about you and my sister.”
His brows shot together. “Dahlia?”
“Yes. That sister. Tell me what happened between you two.”
“Nothing. Nothing happened. I tried to help her and Jack out whenever I could, tried to be a phone call away if she ever needed help, but that’s all.”
“Bullshit. When Jack was three, he told me he’d seen you two kissing. I confronted Dahlia, and she as good as confirmed that it was true, though she stubbornly refused to give me any more information. I want to know exactly what happened. Did you date her?”
His breath puffed out in an agitated sigh. “No, of course not. You really thought I’d do that?” His voice was full of chastising affront.
I set my jaw stubbornly. No guilt trip was going to keep me from hearing what had happened. Not even a very good one. “Tell me what happened. Did you kiss her? And if you didn’t, tell me why Jack thought you did.”
“I started checking in on her, as soon as I found out that she was pregnant and alone. Like a big brother would do. Because that’s what I was. I’d married into her family. You know I take family seriously.
And she, well, she always had that silly crush on me. Frankly, it was annoying. She never even knew a thing about me when she started with that nonsense. But I always tried to be nice to her, because she was your baby sister, and I tried to look after her, because she was your baby sister. I guess she was reading more into it. One day she kissed me, planted one on me right in front of Jack. I let her get it out of her system; let her see that there was nothing on my end to feed whatever delusions were happening on her end. That was it. She got the picture. The end.”
“Why wouldn’t she just tell me that?”
“Who can say? She always resented the way I felt about you, the power you had over me. Maybe she saw it as a small way of getting back. The point is, there was nothing between us. Of course there wasn’t. I’d never do that to you. Your baby sister? Come on. Never.”
I felt such a wave of relief I nearly staggered with it.
I believed him. I just did. Moreover, I wondered how I’d ever been so certain he could do such a thing.
Perhaps I’d wanted to believe it. Perhaps I’d been looking for more reasons to bring him down in my esteem.
I had been in survival mode for a very long time. And whatever was happening to me now, well, that could only be the opposite.
It had only taken a few questions to get Tristan out of his fishing for information mood. I’d known that would work, had counted on it.