Dom opened the door and watched Tristan’s face transform from shock to confusion to narrow-eyed anger.
“What the hell is happening here?” he demanded. “Where’s Tess?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” He threw a hand toward Dom’s chest. “You’re standing half dressed in my sister’s bedroom, and you don’t know where she is?”
“She seems to have stepped out.”
Tristan’s frown deepened beneath a fall of blond hair a shade darker than Tess’s. “Did you two have a row? Have you done something to her?”
Dom crossed his arms defensively as Tristan’s pitch rose. “We did not have a row. We are getting along... well.”
Tristan swept his gaze down Dom’s rumpled clothing, stalling at his half-buttoned shirt. “I don’t think I want to know the details. I just want to know where Tess is.”
“Me too. I have no idea where she went.”
Something in Tristan’s expression seemed to soften at Dom’s tone.
“If she merely needed time to herself to think, I suspect I know where—”
“Where would she go?”
Her brother held up a hand. “If she wants to be on her own, it’s best to let her do it.” Tristan sniffed. “There’s a tip for you that you’ll want to retain if this... between you is to go any further.”
“Thank you.”
“Though it seems to have gone quite far already.” Tess’s twin’s eyes narrowed again. “Of course, I’m not entirely surprised.”
“No, we did discuss the possibility.”
Tristan nodded thoughtfully. “If I were at all an honorable brother, this is the moment when I would ask you what your intentions are toward my sister.”
“Is that what you’re asking me?” Dom lifted his brow.
“Yes,” Tristan said, squaring his own shoulders.
Dom’s mind stalled on the question, though it was a fair one and precisely the question he would have put to a man he found in his own sister’s bedroom. Though he wasn’t certain he’d be nearly as restrained as Tristan Hawthorne was managing to be.
Indeed, the man had an odd energy about him today.
“We set rules before this all began,” Dom said, though he knew it wasn’t the answer her brother deserved.
“Rules.”
“Tess insisted upon them.”
Tristan nodded again. “Understandable. She was trying to protect herself, no doubt.”
“Yes, whatever happened before—”
“I told you. A rotter seduced her, promised her things, and then once he’d...” Tristan shot Dom a pointed look. “He told her it had all been a ruse for that very purpose.”
“That’s vile.”
“Agreed.” Tristan took a step closer. “But the question remains as to your intentions.”
“I’ve never met a woman who I wanted a future with until I met Tess.”
