“Ready to get your life back?”
“I am, and Karl better hope to God he doesn’t get in my way. I have too much to fight for to let him get what he wants.”
I took one last look around the rooms where I’d spent months hiding out from the rest of the world. I’d lost part of myself in this place, the one part that I couldn’t live without. Even though Nina had never given up on me all the while I’d been here, I’d given up. Now it was time to take the chance again to have the life I knew I wanted more than anything else.
Chapter Six
Nina
Jordan’s leaving sent me into an emotional tailspin, and for days I didn’t get out of bed. Nothing made me feel better, even texting Tristan. How could it? I felt like I was constantly sending out messages in bottles and although I knew he received them, since he never answered it was a one-sided conversation, at best. As the days dragged by, my unhappiness morphed into anger at everything and everyone.
I wanted answers. I wanted Tristan to finally send a message back, even if it just said that he received my texts. I wanted him to hear what my words were saying and come back, even if it wasn’t safe for him or me. I didn’t care for excuses. I wanted him back.
Our bed became the only place I wanted to be because it reminded me of him. No matter how many times the sheets had been washed, they still held his scent. Not of his cologne but him. Closing my eyes, I imagined him next to me, silent as a statue as I chattered on about something. Like he always did, he smiled when I looked up to see if he was paying attention, muttering, “I’m listening” when I gave him that questioning look because he’d said nothing for so long.
God, I missed him.
My phone still held months of messages to him, so I spent my time scrolling through them reading my feelings for him as the time passed. Some were sad, while others made me smile. Each one marked a moment in time without him.
By the third day, it was all I could do to drag my body to the shower and wash my miserable self. While I didn’t feel like I had when my father died and when Cal cheated on me, in some ways I felt worse. Those had both been horrible times, but they’d been endings I had to handle. Learning to accept the loss of someone was like having your heart torn out every day, but this was different. Tristan wasn’t gone forever. He was just gone.
There was nothing I was allowed to mourn about this situation. Instead, I was supposed to stay in this house haunted with memories of him and act like everything was hunky dory. Well, it wasn’t. After months of waiting every day for him to return, all my hunky dories had disappeared, and all I was carrying around was frustration and resentment at what our life had become.
And now Jordan was gone but not gone too. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Something had come between us in the time she’d lived here. I really didn’t think I’d changed, but had I? Had the world Tristan showed me made me so different that even my best friend didn’t recognize me anymore? Even if I had changed, I still didn’t know why she’d jumped to all the wrong conclusions with Gage. That wasn’t like her at all.
It wasn’t like her to not want to talk to me either. I’d tried calling and texting her, but she’d never answered or texted back. I’d apologized for something I really didn’t mean to do, if I had done it at all, but still nothing. We’d disagreed before, but never had there been a rift like this between us.
As I stood in the shower remembering all the good times we’d had, I realized for the first time in my life, I was alone. Nobody I’d relied on was there for me anymore. Not my father, Jordan, or Tristan.
Dressed in the clothes that had become my usual outfit for hanging out at the house—yoga pants and a comfy shirt—I made my way to the kitchen, hoping I didn’t see a soul since my face didn’t have a stitch of makeup on it, my hair was a damp, stringy mess, and I wasn’t even wearing a bra.
Maybe I had changed. Or maybe I was just depressed. Whichever it was, I wasn’t in any shape to be seeing anyone.
For the first time in days, Maria had brewed the French Roast I loved, like she’d known this morning was the day I’d finally drag my butt out of bed. The only other female with me in the house now, she cooked for me, Jensen, and my giant shadows. She and I rarely spoke since her English was broken on the best of days and my knowledge of Portuguese was non-existent. Maybe if I’d taken Spanish in high school and college I could muddle through a conversation with her, but my three years of German was useless in comprehending what she was saying. Maria was kind, though, with hooded dark eyes that had a motherly feeling to them when she looked at me, and unlike every other person Tristan had working for him here, she seemed to have no interest in what I did with my time. For that reason alone, I liked her.
The coffee was exactly what the doctor ordered, and slowly my body began to come back to life. My spirit was still disheartened, but coffee wasn’t going to fix that. The only cure for that wasn’t to be found anywhere close, though.
I heard a sound behind me and turned to see Gage standing in the doorway. I couldn’t be sure, but I had the sense that a look of surprise crossed his features for a moment. I probably deserved that since I looked like the walking dead.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked in my best pretend chipper voice.
“Daryl called me. It looks like we’re doing the dinner thing tonight.”
Swell. Daryl had wonderful timing. The day I emerged from my cave of depression looking like shit warmed over was the perfect day for me to pretend I was moving on with my life with my bodyguard. Yeah, this was fantastic.
I put my coffee mug down on the counter and folded my arms across my chest. “I bet right now you’re wishing you hadn’t agreed to this. I’ll see what I can do to look less like a hot mess.”
A slow smile spread across Gage’s mouth. “No worries. How does six sound?”
“As good a time as any, right? So what does Daryl have planned for us? Casual or black tie formal?”
“He didn’t say, but he said I should wear a suit. That’s my task today, unless you’re planning to leave the house. It seems my usual suits aren’t good enough.”
I looked down my body and back up at him. “Uh, no, I have no plans, but if you want a woman’s help with your shopping, I’d be happy to join you. Sort of kill two birds with one stone.”
He thought about my offer and nodded. “It couldn’t hurt. Maybe we’ll even get some people to see us together shopping. I’m sure Daryl would love that.”