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)
“I doubt you would’ve managed to reach me. My team filters out all unsolicited attempts at contact.” There was a smattering of laughter at the unequivocal put-down, but Trystan continued in that same devastating monotone. “But that’s beside the point. You and I came out of this debacle none the worse for wear, didn’t we? The public has been very supportive of me after the truth about Trish surfaced. Her family have suffered unnecessarily and I’d hoped to spare them that, so perhaps I’m not the one to whom you should be apologizing?”
“Of course,” Evan backtracked hastily. “I did express similar doubts to Iris when I understood how troubled Trish Nesbitt had been, but she was adamant about leaving it in.”
Iris made a choked sound of protest and Trystan’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Evan in that assessing way of his. Evan visibly squirmed beneath that penetrative stare.
But Trystan merely said, “Was she?”
“It was quite impossible to dissuade her.”
“The thing about Iris, Ms. Brooks—”
“Evan, please,” she invited warmly.
“No.” His icy, unequivocal response prompted nervous titters from the audience and Evan blinked in confusion.
“You were saying,” Mike Holmes prompted. The focus had been on Evan and Trystan for so long that the host’s interruption was almost jarring. Iris had nearly forgotten he was there. “About Iris? I know you were reluctant to discuss her last time, but I gather you’re a little more open to speaking about her this evening?”
Trystan didn’t reply, his focus still trained on Evan. Iris knew how it felt to be pinned beneath that relentless hawklike stare and she almost felt sorry for Evan.
“I was saying,” Trystan continued. “The thing about Iris is that she never seemed particularly interested in journalism. The opportunity to interview me fell into her lap and she would have been foolish not to pursue it. She was filled with enthusiasm and can-do-it-ness when she showed up on my doorstep, and everybody knows by now what followed. I treated her poorly and kept her locked in a room for days.”
“She was intruding,” Mike Holmes was quick to point out.
“No, she wasn’t. My manager had okayed the interview and Iris had every right to be there. Funny how none of those leaked excerpts from her journal—which would have entirely vindicated her of any whiff of wrongdoing—never revealed that snipped of information, isn’t it? I was being the arsehole and people have been much too quick to dismiss my behavior, and divert blame onto her. She was properly terrified to be locked in that room and had I known—” He shook his head. “I would have behaved differently. I don’t make a habit of terrorizing women and keeping them locked up in rooms. She caught me at a particularly vulnerable time, but that’s still no excuse for my treatment of her.”
“In the end you were correct to be wary of her though,” Holmes said. “Considering everything that happened afterwards. She betrayed your trust.”
“You have that backwards, Mike,” Trystan said, his voice quiet, the studio audience—likely the entire nation, Iris included—so riveted by what he would say next you could hear a pin drop into the expectant silence. “I betrayed her trust.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Holmes said and Trystan shifted his focus back to Evan who was staring at him with huge eyes.
“Thing is, Mike, I’m very familiar with Iris’s writing. Familiar enough with her voice to know that there’s no way in hell Iris wrote any part of that poorly constructed article.”
The audience gasped, but Iris barely heard them over her own rough intake of breath. She hadn’t been sure of his purpose in coming on the show this time, and certainly hadn’t expected such a blunt denunciation of Evan’s statements. It was unexpected but so welcome. Her sense of vindication and relief was overwhelming.
“I should have noticed it immediately,” Trystan continued. “But I’ll freely admit that I was too butt hurt at the notion that I’d been deceived and taken for a fool to think clearly. Too ready to accuse Iris and believe the worst of her when she’d never given me any reason to do so.”
“Well, hold on a second now, Trystan. Evan did admit to writing a lot of the article, right Evan?”
“I did, because Iris…”
“I heard what you said earlier,” Trystan interrupted. “About Iris not being a good writer. And I’ve never heard a bigger load of bollocks in my life. I’ve read her work and Iris is phenomenally talented. Decidedly more so than you are, Miss Brooks. And anybody who has read any part of those leaked excerpts from her journal could tell you that.”
There was a quiet murmur of what sounded like assent from the audience.
“I wrote the article, I admit that, but everything from the journal came from her,” Evan pointed out heatedly, her cheeks flushed an unbecoming shade of puce.