Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Trystan pushed to his feet with a pained groan, and limped, barefoot, from the room toward the kitchen.
The penthouse apartment was blessedly quiet, Bee and Quinny long gone. His cleaning staff had also been and gone if the lemon-fresh scent in the air was anything to go by. He usually kept a chef and housekeeper in-house, but had wanted solitude after his return from South Africa and all that had followed it. And so Trystan had dispatched the spluttering Frenchman and his equally outraged wife—the housekeeper—to his home in Malibu, where his brother, Dan, was currently staying with his wife and kids on a short family vacation.
Chance was tolerated because he was a necessity. Especially now.
Trystan withdrew two bottles of water from the fridge and handed one to Chance, who’d followed him into the kitchen.
The man rarely spoke, which usually suited Trystan fine, but this morning he felt the need to speak to someone. Someone who didn’t really give a fuck about his fame or infamy.
“So… know any good journalists I can contact for this godforsaken interview?” he asked, half-jokingly, but honestly not sure who the hell he was going to approach. “Good journalist, what a fucking oxymoron that is.”
Chance unscrewed his bottle top, took a thirsty drink and then eased his bulk onto a tall bar stool, the bottle loosely grasped between his hands on the counter.
“Only the one you introduced me to,” the big Aussie said in such quiet tones that for a second Trystan wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly. But when the words sank in, he staggered slightly and sat down on one of the stools as well, swiveling to face Chance.
Nobody within his inner circle had dared to refer to her even obliquely since his return and he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with Chance’s statement.
He toyed with his bottle cap, screwing and unscrewing it as he considered how to respond to that quiet statement.
“Iris—” If he hadn’t been sitting down, his knees would have buckled at the sound and feel of her name on his lips. Jesus… fuck, he’d missed saying it. Missed hearing it. He swallowed past the arid dryness of his throat before continuing. “Iris isn’t a journalist. She never really wanted to be one.”
“Yeah? Fucked up that she wrote that article then, isn’t it? Why would she do such a thing?”
“For the money most likely. The fame. The attention.” Every word he uttered felt wrong, bulky and out of place in his mouth.
“For someone who wanted money, fame and attention, she definitely isn’t courting it much now, is she? Hasn’t consented to a single interview, hides out in her flat all day long.”
“What do you mean? How do you know this?” Trystan knew he should shut this down. Chance was being borderline insubordinate—he was pushing buttons, testing boundaries. And yet, Trystan couldn’t bring himself to stop the man. He hadn’t dared think of her over the past two weeks. In his dreams he made love to her every night. In his nightmares, she laughed at him and cruelly mocked his vulnerability and stupidity for trusting her and confiding in her. And yet, in reality, he hadn’t once dared to find out how much she was enjoying all of her fame and notoriety at his expense.
“It’s my job to know things. She’s a potential threat to your safety—”
“Iris?” Trystan scoffed, genuinely shocked at Chance’s statement. “She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly would never have written all of those personal things about you.”
“What are you doing?” Trystan asked through stiff lips, leveling a frigid glare at the man. “This is none of your fucking business.”
Chance shrugged, taking another sip of water.
“You asked. And I thought we were just talking.”
Trystan was clenching his jaw so hard, he could hear his teeth grinding.
“What do you mean she hides out in her flat all day long?” he heard himself asking, his tone of voice intense, as if the words were being spoken by another iteration of himself. One who cared very much about the answer to that question.
“Well, she can’t leave without being accosted by the press. She’s shut down all her social media accounts—not that she was very active on them before, mind you… terribly negligent for an attention hog to not post every detail of her life on social media. Anyway, shut them all down because of the harassment.”
“What harassment?” Trystan asked tautly and Chance’s gaze sharpened on his face.
“The usual unimaginative bullshit, people calling her a whore, slut, cunt…”
“Jesus,” Trystan muttered, running a shaky hand over his face. The thought of the sweet, gentle Iris he believed he’d known confronted by such hatred and ugliness was sickening.
“Well, they think it serves her right for the way she treated you. And then all that stuff in her journal about her anxiety and phobias. Fucking weird shit to reveal about yourself to an unforgiving public, if you ask me. Don’t know why she’d do that.”