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“Iris, you seem like a determined woman. Someone who usually achieves what she sets out to do. You’re what? Twenty-six? And you’ve been pfaffing around editing, working for your parents, doing anything except what you say you so desperately want to do. I’d think that by now you would have at least worked or interned at any number of publications or news agencies. But you haven’t. Why not?”
“The time was never right. My dad went through a bad spell with his health a few years ago and I needed to help out more with the business.” Even to her own ears, her excuses sounded flimsy. Because, quite honestly, she’d had numerous solid opportunities to work as a junior reporter at several local newspapers, and she’d turned down internships at two national news broadcasters. She’d always used family commitments as a convenient excuse not to grab those chances, and now she could clearly see how much she’d been bullshitting herself.
“If I didn’t want to be a journalist, I wouldn’t be stuck in this godforsaken place with you, now would I?” she asked, throwing the question down like a gauntlet between them. Instead of bristling like she’d expected him to do, he canted his head as he leisurely perused her hot, agitated face.
“You make a valid point, Hughes. I clearly don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.” Infuriatingly, he sounded like he was humoring her and that rubbed Iris up the wrong way.
“You don’t,” she told him, anger making her voice quiver. “You have no idea what motivates me.”
“Oh, I think I do.”
“No, you don’t,” she denied, her voice heated and her words curt.
His eyes argued with her, but he chose not to verbalize what he was thinking.
“Wine?” he asked instead, reaching for a pair of long-stemmed glasses.
She stared at him, hating to let this go, needing to convince him of her commitment to her chosen career path. But knowing she couldn’t make a solid case when she, herself, doubted her choices.
“Iris?” He prompted and she inhaled deeply, hating how much she loved the sound of her name on his lips.
“Red please,” she said in response to his earlier question, and turned to retrieve the raita from the fridge.
They sat down to lunch at the quaint, cozy banquette in the kitchen and ate silently for a while, soft jazzy music playing in the background and alleviating the strained silence between them.
“Sam is my security advisor,” Trystan volunteered unexpectedly after he was about halfway through his meal. Up until that point he’d only complimented her on the food, before they’d lapsed into silence.
It was odd that he’d choose this moment to refer to the name he’d mentioned three days ago.
“Oh? I thought that Australian guy, Chance, was.” The big, blond Australian bodyguard had caused a minor sensation in the gossip magazines when he’d first started shadowing Trystan about a year ago. People had been sighing over his good looks, rhapsodizing over his brawny body, and the sight of him with Trystan had soon become common. There was even rampant speculation that the two men were hot for each other. Which had resulted in a lot of erotic fan fiction centered around Trystan and his bodyguard.
“Chance works for Sam. One of the reasons I chose not to have Chance here was because Sam lives in town, and he was reasonably confident that I’d be perfectly safe here. Chance is staying with Sam while I’m here, on call in case I choose to venture out into the world. But I wanted—needed—to be alone.
“In fact, Sam and Miles Hollingsworth are good friends. Miles is merely a passing acquaintance of mine. We’d met at a few charity functions and he seems like a decent guy, but we’re not what I’d call intimates.
“Sam knew I needed someplace private to stay and—since Miles and his wife are in London for the next six months—Sam asked Miles if I could stay here while he and his wife are out of the country. So, no… Miles Hollingsworth is not my financial advisor.” The last was offered with a faint smile but Iris was baffled by this sudden flood of previously withheld information, and was unable to return the gesture.
“I see,” she said, not really seeing at all. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
“You asked.” His answer was both simple and immensely complicated at the same time.
Why had he suddenly decided to start answering her questions? Or more specifically why that one?
And would he answer another question if she merely asked.
Only one way to find out.
“Speaking of Australians,” she began. “Are you aware that your fancy American accent has been slipping steadily by the day?”
He surprised her by looking not one whit offended by that question, and then shocked her even further by laughing.
“I tried so fucking hard to get rid of my native accent when I was starting out because Quinny believed that it would limit my opportunities. It became almost second nature to disguise it.
“By the time I was big enough for it to no longer matter, it had become commonplace to speak in that godawful hybrid accent. But when I’m back in Oz, or spending time with my family, or away from the US, my natural accent starts to reassert itself. In fact, I’m hoping to shed the American one completely. It was the worst advice Quinny ever gave me. And that’s saying a lot, since he is partially responsible for one of my biggest flops. Although, to be fair, we’ve been together from the start, and we were young and inexperienced with a lot to learn back then.”
“Your biggest flop? You mean Eagle-Man?” Iris asked, with a sympathetic wince, even though she was trying hard not to laugh at the memory of that embarrassment of a movie. It had been one of his earlier films and it would have been a death knell to the career of any less-talented and—let’s be honest here—less hot actor.
He glared at her.
