"I don't need you to remind me of any of this, Rogers. What the f**k am I supposed to do?"
"About what, Tristan? You can't fix what your father did. No one expects you to."
"I don't care about fixing anything Victor Stone did. I care about taking care of Nina, not because of what happened to her father but because I love her. Why is this so difficult for you to understand?"
Rogers stood there staring at me, his face full of judgment. "Because you haven't loved anything or anyone since the accident."
Looking away, I watched out my window as a porcupine walked slowly across the grass. "I'm not incapable of love because of a plane crash. Are you saying you don't believe I fell in love with her?"
"I have no doubt you love her and she loved you. You've been given a second chance to make things right, Tristan. If you do not, I can't see how your future with her could end any differently than it did before."
"All I need is time," I mumbled as I watched the porcupine continue to make his way across the lawn toward the trees on my side of the house.
"Time for what? You must tell her the truth. If you don't, you'll be making the same mistake again and the outcome will be the same as last time."
Time. If I could find the evidence Karl believed existed, then Nina could be safe and never have to know about my father's heinous crime. Never have to know that I was the son of the man responsible for taking her only parent from her.
Turning back to face Rogers, I stood to get to work. "Thank you, Rogers. That will be all."
I saw the disapproval in his eyes as he turned to leave, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to let Nina find out the truth of her father's death. Her memory loss meant I could spare her that. It was the only good thing to come from her accident, and I intended on protecting it, no matter what.
All I needed was time.
At five o'clock I sat in the dining room waiting for Nina so we could eat dinner together as we had every day we'd been here in this house. I'd had Rogers instruct the cook that tonight's meal was to be duck in the hopes that maybe having that would remind her of the time we spent together at the penthouse. I knew it was probably grasping at straws, but what else did I have?
I waited for twenty minutes, watching the steam slowly fade away from the dishes before I was forced to admit that she wasn't coming. Of course she wasn't. She wasn't coming because she didn't remember that this was something we both looked forward to each day. That too was gone.
Loosening my tie, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes in frustration. I couldn't go on like this. It was like being sent to a country where everyone had forgotten the language except that one lonely soul who kept speaking even though nobody understood him, hoping one day he'd find just one other person to comprehend his words.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and felt the stress ebb away for a moment. Maybe I was just kidding myself. Maybe it was time for me to forget that language too.
If I could forget, I may have tried. But I couldn't. Rogers had been right when he'd said I hadn't loved anything or anyone since the accident. He was only partially correct, though. In truth, I'd never loved anyone before the accident either. Not like I loved Nina.
She was my everything. I needed her like I needed air to breathe. I doubted she'd even known how I truly felt about her before the accident. She was unlike anyone I'd ever encountered. Never before had another human being made me want so much more than the things my money could buy me.
All my life I'd been blessed with everything I could want, and it had made me hard and greedy. Nothing meant anything when you could have it at the drop of a hat. I'd learned that was one of the curses of money, but for a long time didn't care. Cars? I'd gone through dozens with not a thought about why I shouldn't. Homes? They came and went without any feeling or connection to them. Women? I could have who I wanted, when I wanted, and how.
And I did. Victor Stone's money paid for whatever I desired, and it didn't matter how fucked up it was. No worries. Money can make anything happen and then make it go away, if someone chooses. I let my co**ck lead me to places filled with desire, sex, and whatever else I could want. It was all so easy. How often had I fucked someone merely because I could, not because I felt anything for them?
It always amazed me how eager women were to please when good old Benjamin was sitting in my pocket. All it took was flashing the money clip once or twice.
Running my hand through my hair, I shuddered at how many times it had only taken a few bills for me to get everything I wanted or more, if that was what I craved. It all came so easily. A blonde, maybe her friend or two, and as much blow as I could get my hands on. Then it was just a matter of stuffing the junk up my nose and fucking as many women as I could.
And it had felt so fucking good. Life was mine to enjoy, and enjoy it I did. What's that saying about life and letting the juices run down your chin? I had juices enough to last a lifetime.
Then one day all the good times were gone. I was the lone survivor of a plane crash that killed my family. I'd watched my parents and twin brother die around me, listening to their agonizing cries for help and not being able to help them or myself as I waited to suffer the same fate.
I was allowed to live, and what did I do with that gift? I closed myself off from the world and turned into what I'd never wanted to be. The CEO of Stone Worldwide. Shrink after shrink promised with just a little more therapy that I'd find the answer and realize life was worth living again, as if they feared at any time I was going to kill myself. What they didn't seem to understand was there was something worse than dying.
Living.
Having whatever your heart desired and it never being enough to overcome the emptiness that ate away at you every day and night until you felt hollow inside. Dealing with the guilt that every member of your family had been taken away and you were left like some shining monument to Darwinism, as if being alive was some achievement I'd strived for and attained. All I'd done was sit there in that plane seat. That steel bar that had plowed through my brother's heart hadn't been able to find mine not because I was crafty or clever. It wasn't because I was lucky either.
That steel rod hadn't found my heart because I didn't have one. I'd spent my entire life caring for no one enough to call it love. Why would my heart be anything to pierce, much less damage enough to kill someone like me?
So I lived, a sole survivor with everything he could want. Except the one thing he needed.
That all changed when I met Nina. I hadn't intended on anything happening with her. I'd accepted my life alone as a punishment for all that I'd done for so many years. I didn't expect a reprieve. I didn't deserve one. All I wanted to do was try to make up for what my father had done. That she made some good come alive in me was something I wasn't ready for, but I couldn't let it go. Some small part of me was reborn that night we drove up the Taconic to this house.
So now I had a choice to make. Give up or fight. I let all those times I held Nina in my arms fill me, all those times she made my heart leap with one of her gentle smiles. For someone who had never had to fight for anything, it was strangely easy. Whatever I had to go through for her, I'd endure it.
Chapter Two
Tristan
Nina was sitting on her bed when I gently pushed the bedroom door open. She was doing something on her laptop, and I stood there for a moment to watch her. Her brown hair had grown much longer since she first moved here. It hung halfway down her back in soft, natural waves as she sat cross-legged and hunched over looking at something on her computer's screen. The sweet memory of twirling those waves around my finger as she lay in my arms made an ache form in my chest as I stood there.
Not wanting to scare her, I tapped on the door and quietly said her name, but she nearly jumped off the bed from fear anyway. Wincing at my clumsiness, I put my hands up to calm her.
"I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm sorry. I was just hoping we could talk."
Shaking her head, she made her apologies. "No, no. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you there. What's up?"
"I wanted to talk."
She closed her laptop and pushed it aside. "You can sit down, if you like. Or would you rather talk somewhere else?"
What I rathered was taking her back to our room on the other side of the house and showing her all the ways I was crazy about her. Instead, I merely nodded and sat down beside her.
"This is a great room, Tristan. Thanks for letting me stay with you."
I forced a smile at her statement, which sounded like something a long lost relative would say to someone who wasn't thrilled about having them visit. "You're welcome, but this is your home, Nina. You don't have to thank me."
Lowering her head, she looked away from me. "I'm sorry. I can't imagine how hard this is for you. Jordan's told me how crazy in love I was with you, and I get that." Looking up at me, she blushed. "I mean, look at you. Who wouldn't be crazy in love with you? I just don't remember. But I don't want you to think that I don't want to remember. I do."
Nina looked away again, her cheeks red from embarrassment. Maybe that was a good thing. At least she seemed to be attracted to me. That was something I could work with.
I took her chin between my thumb and forefinger and gently turned her head to look at me. She still looked down at her hands sitting in her lap, though. "Look at me, Nina. Please."
She lifted her beautiful blue eyes to gaze up at me, and I swallowed hard, my mouth suddenly dry and my brain devoid of all thought about what I'd planned to say. Licking my lips, I began, hoping the right words would come to me.