It’s easy for Tristan to say this will be over soon. It’s not his face plastered all over the internet. It’s not his name that will be trashed in the headlines. My anonymity’s hanging from the thin thread of Mia Reed’s twenty-million-dollar lawsuit. Settled in or out of court, it doesn’t matter. Once it comes out that the video’s backdrop is some obscure banquet room in the St Chalamet Manhattan, it’s a hop, skip, and a jump to my name becoming another trending but trashy hashtag.
Chapter Thirty-Five
TRISTAN
Igo back through Dad’s email, reading the one line I didn’t share with Lexi again and again:
You’ve always cared about Alexandra O’Reilly, so I thought I’d give you a heads-up.
That he’s bothered to email me about this case is weirdly gratifying. Hetrustsme. But…You’ve always cared about Alexandra O’Reilly.
How does he know? And what the actual fuck am I doing here, reading emails from Dad? Lexi needs me right now. She’s so good at pasting a smile on her face and being professional, and the only thing that ever gives her away is that blush she just can’t help. When she walked out ten minutes ago, she was emotionally shattered. Yet she was still going to do her job.
I close my laptop and unplug it as lightning brightens the office for a split second. The ensuing thunder rolls in two seconds later.Shit. Not good. It’s too close. Lexi isn’t going to like that at all.
I lock up everything and speed toward the guest area as fat drops of rain kamikaze from the heavy clouds. When I get to thebar and dining area, the place is quiet. A few guests are sitting around having drinks, and waiters are going about their job as if a storm is par for the course. But the dining room is all set with the roll-down shutters, which I notice for the first time, and hundreds of candles flickering. Jeez, so romantic. And extra as always.
“Have you seen Lexi?” I ask the bartender when I don’t spot her.
“She was here a couple minutes ago, jumping at the weather. Maybe in the office?”
“Nope. I just came from there. Maybe she went to grab dinner.” I go to the staff mess, but there’s no Lexi there either. Jem and Mike are eating with several others, and I avoid eye contact with them, not wanting to get into a long conversation right now.
I’m halfway out of the canteen when I hear Jem’s voice, coming loud and clear over a lull in conversation. “Those two are only trouble,” she declares. “And that in our spot of paradise.”
What the actual…?Not that I have time to dissect her comment now. All I can think of is Lexi and how she looked earlier—and that was before this weather came crashing down. I rush along the decked pathway, unable to dodge the rain despite the thick tree canopy overhead. A full-on deluge is pouring from the sky and to protect my laptop, I push it underneath my T-shirt. By the time I get home, I’m soaked, and a chill spreads over my back with the wind that whips through the vegetation.
The shutters are down, and dim light comes through their fine slats. I kick off my flip flops, heading to the closed door. Another crackle of lightning flashes, and thunder sounds seconds later. At least they have lightning rods everywhere on the island to protect their rather rustic wood-and-palm-leaf structures.
“Lexi?” I walk inside and spot her curled up on the bed. “Are you okay?”
A pained grunt is all I hear over the rain that pelts the roof.
I drop my laptop to the sofa, shake my wet hair, strip off my soaked clothes, and find my way through the mosquito net. I clamber up on the bed and pull her into my arms. “It’s okay. It’s going to be fine.” She pushes into my chest, and I fold her tense frame against me as she quivers.
“I didn’t think about this when I signed up for this gig.”
We didn’t think about a lot of things, babes…I press a kiss to her hair. “It’s not a hurricane. They would have told us, if it were. It will be over soon.”
She sobs.
Oof. I didn’t realize she was crying.
“I’ve been better about this, honestly—” she starts, her voice breaking. “It’s so long ago now.”
“I know.” But when you have too much on your plate, even the fears you’ve overcome bubble up out of nowhere. Lexi is strong. She did, after all, spend a night on a random rooftop when that hurricane drowned her childhood home and swept her family’s life away with it. “I’m glad I’m not out on a boat right now.”
She sniffs and looks at me. “What happened last year?”
I tense at the memory of it. I haven’t really spoken about this to anyone. Even the other crew who were with me on the boat have been side-stepping me as I’ve been side-stepping them. We filed the reports and other necessary paperwork and scattered. It’s still too recent and raw. “We capsized in a storm. In the moment, all you can think of is surviving… It’s afterwards that the fear comes. We were lucky. Got a mayday out and a bigger vessel came just in time to pick us up.”
“God…and you still go out to sea?”
“I’ll never stop.”
She brushes at the wet strands of hair that cling to my forehead. “Why do you love the sea so much? For a New York kid, it’s kind of weird.”
Talking takes her attention off the storm, and although Lexi knows a lot, she doesn’t know everything. “It’s quiet down there.”
