I gently pressed my lips to his and whispered, “Much.”
We laid there for a long time, silent except for the sound of the two of us breathing, but my mind raced with questions and confessions I knew I couldn’t keep inside me for much longer. Our reunion reinforced in me how much I loved him, but this was a fresh start for us and I didn’t want it based on lies or misunderstandings.
I had to know he wasn’t the Tristan I’d seen that night at Top, and I had to tell him about Gage.
Tracing my fingertip over the tattoo above his heart, I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. Forcing a smile onto my lips, I sat up and began. “Tristan, I want us to be completely honest with one another. I need to know a few things and have some things to tell you. It’s important to me that this time we’re truthful with everything.”
He knitted his brows as he always did when he was concerned and turned to face me. “Things to tell me? Like what?”
“I’d rather begin with what I need to know from you. Like, for example, I need to know that whatever was going on with you at Top that night I found you there isn’t going to be a part of our life together. I can handle a lot of things, Tristan, but being in love with a cokehead isn’t one of them. I need to know that isn’t going to be part of us from now on.”
His expression softened, but his eyes filled with pain. “I’m sorry about that, Nina. That’s not who I am or want to be. Coke was a way for me to lose myself for a long time. I’m not going to lie. I got lost in that again when I was away from you, but I made a choice to not be that person.”
“Okay. Now I need you to promise me you’ll tell me the truth, no matter how awful it is. I know you like to handle things on your own and think you have to protect me, but we won’t work if you lie to me.”
Shaking his head, he grimaced. “I can’t promise all of that. I love you, Nina, and to me that means I’m supposed to protect you. The world you’re in now is full of people who would think nothing about hurting someone to get ahead. I’m going to shield you from that as much as I can, but if I can’t, then I’ll protect you from it, and that might mean not telling you everything.”
His insistence on protecting me like I was some unknowing child filled me with frustration. I just didn’t know if I could be that kind of girlfriend and someday, wife. Sighing, I shook my head. “Why do you think I always need protecting? I’m not a little girl, Tristan. I’m a grown woman who knows the man I love. Do you think I don’t understand people at your level?”
“It’s not like that and you know it. This has nothing to do with social class. It has to do with me protecting the woman I love, Nina. Why is that so bad?”
“Because it gives you carte blanche to lie to me! We just spent all those months apart and now you’re telling me you can’t promise you won’t continue to lie. How can we be together like that?”
He sat up and leaned against the headboard, pushing the hair out of his eyes. “Nina, I can’t change who I am in this. I’m not the bad guy because I won’t dump all the shit in my world on you. Most women want a man to protect them.”
“From bad guys and people wanting to kill them. Not from everything else. I just want you to say to me that you’ll treat me like a full partner in this relationship and not some second class citizen who’s forced to react when you make decisions and I have to deal with them.”
“This is about me leaving you alone for months.”
My mouth fell open. “Of course it’s about that! You left me here, all alone, and never once answered any of my messages. All those times when I was missing you so much all I wanted to do was curl up in bed with one of your shirts, I texted you and waited for you to answer but you never did.”
“I couldn’t answer, Nina. I was trying to protect you.”
“Again with the protecting me! Would it have been any less protection for me if I was with you, wherever you were, so you could keep me safe and not break my heart?”
I tried to stop the tears from coming, but it was no use. After the sweetness of our reunion the night before, the reality of how much he’d hurt me was right there in front of us in the harsh light of day. I couldn’t go on with Tristan if our life together was going to be like this.
He took my hand and squeezed it gently. “I know I keep making these mistakes. That you’ve stayed with me this long still amazes me. I hate that what I do makes you sad. I just don’t know any other way to be.”
Wiping the tears away, I looked at him sitting there, his beautiful eyes so full of sadness. There had to be some way to make him see what I meant. “I love that you want to protect me. If there’s ever a time that someone’s trying to mug me or kidnap me, I want you to jump in and rescue me. But you’re not keeping me safe when you leave me in the dark. I sat in that house surrounded by people and barely alive because I missed you so much. You left me and I didn’t know why. Was it me? I didn’t know. It doesn’t matter if I have bodyguards if you’re the one who keeps hurting me by breaking my heart.”
“I’m sorry. I never meant to do that. I did what I thought would keep you safe, but now I see that I’m the one who was hurting you the most. I’m sorry, Nina.”
He looked away, but I gently tugged his face back toward me. “I just need you to promise you’ll protect me from the bad guys but still tell me about things. I want to be your wife, not some childish girl you keep around.”
Closing his eyes, he said quietly, “I promise. No more keeping things from you.” He opened them and stared into mine with a gaze so direct I feared what he might say next. “I lied and hid things out of fear that if you knew about them, you’d never stay with me. I just want you to know that I come with a lot of fucked up shit. I didn’t know if you’d want to be my wife knowing all of it.”
I cradled his face and pressed my forehead to his. “I know what you are, Tristan Stone. No matter what bad things you think you have inside you, I know the man you are is good and kind. I love you, and that means all of you. The good, the bad, and the ugly.”
He nodded and for the first time in our conversation, smiled. “I love you. I always have, Nina. From that first night we drove up the Taconic, you’ve been the one person I knew I couldn’t deal with losing.”
“You’re not going to lose me, Tristan. I promise.”