“Your parents?”
Tristan nods. “They’re buried in a cemetery near my therapist’s office. You should meet them sometime.”
Okay, I know I wouldn’t literally be meeting them, but the thought behind it leaves me melting.
“It has to be better than you meeting mine,” I say. Wait, did I say that? Damnit, Daphne, that was so insensitive.
But Tristan laughs anyway. “I think if my parents were still around, they’d love you.” He squeezes my hand softly. “I can’t say the same about your parents and me.”
“You’re rich and have a dick to impregnate me with grandbabies, so Mom doesn’t care. Dad, on the other hand, isn’t easily swayed by money.” I pause. “Though you did contribute a lot to his campaign at the auction.”
“Um,” Tristan stretches the sound out like a plucked guitar string. “So, about that.” He rubs the back of his neck with a sheepish look. “I might not have. I stole that moneyfrom one of your Dad’s accounts and used it for the auction.”
“Wait, you stole from my Dad?”Am I hearing him correctly? How the hell did he manage to do that?Dad’s always been cheap enough to stay on top of his finances. He has a team of accountants. If someone had stolen that money, I’m sure I would have heard about it.
“Yeah, that night wasn’t the right time to bring it up. I wasn’t about to put my own money into a campaign for one of the most evil men on the planet.” His eyes shine as he looks down at me and shrugs. “Sorry, I know he’s your dad, but it’s true. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let another man put their hands on you. I would have drained my own bank account if I had to.” He smirks, and a lusty glint gleams in his eye. “I thought I’d get a dance out of it, though.”
“We danced, right?” I ask. I distinctly remember slipping into the empty ballroom alone with Tristan after the auction. And then we went back to the ballroom and… “We didn’t!” It dawns on me now that he never got the hundred-thousand-dollar dance he paid for.
Tristan pulls out his phone, and in a few seconds, a slow song from the fifties plays before he sets it on a shelf.
“Daphne Fox,” he offers his hand to me. “May I have this dance?”
Tristan raises my hand to his bicep. His hands wrap around my waist, and he pulls me in so close that my chest touches his. He leans down as I look up, our foreheads pressing together. Our hands entwine.
“Sorry you didn’t get that dance,” I say.
“This is so much better, Daphne.” He swipes my lips in a tender kiss. “Being with you makes me feel like the luckiest man alive.”
“Careful there. You’ve only lived with me for a week. That’s barely enough time to know if you can handle my snoring.”
“You’re handling mine alright,” he jokes. “So, about that bedroom set you wanted…”
I laugh. “This is our first date. Isn’t it early to talk about new furniture?”
Tristan chuckles. “Daphne, we’re not exactly conventional. Do you know someone who would literally kill for you? Who would burn the world down for you?” He pauses. “Theoretically. That’s environmentally selfish of someone to literally burn a world down.”
“Okay, Genius. I’ll give you points for the environment spiel. But for now, your bed will do just fine.”
“What about Hawkeye?” he asks. “Maybe he wants a mini four-poster dog bed?”
“Hawkeye’s happy with a spacious backyard. He can bark and chase squirrels around.”
“Though we might want to get him a brother, so he has someone to play with,” Tristan suggests.
“While we’re talking about your house,” I say. “What about the basement?”
Tristan shuffles me around in slow circles as he contemplates. “I’ll take the bolts out of the wall.”
“That place is not safe,” I point out. “It’s a fire hazard.”
Tristan gives me a look. “Well, technically, one wall was fake. You could have punched your way through it and been in the other half, which I use for storage.
My feet freeze, and we stop dancing. “What?” I gape. “I… You…”
Tristan bursts out a deep, guttural laugh at my surprise. “I’ll take the wall down too.”
“Why do I even talk to you?”
