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“Hey,” Trystan exclaimed in mock outrage, and she threw him a happy smile.
“But how? Why?” Darryl looked confused and justifiably suspicious. Iris couldn’t blame him. If her emotionally fragile, vulnerable—not to mention world famous—friend suddenly introduced her to an utter stranger who seemed to have appeared out of thin air under questionable circumstances, she’d be wary as well.
“I’ll let Trystan explain,” she said softly. “I really am happy to meet you. Trystan talks about you a lot. And I have to confess, I kind of harbor a secret love for Night of the Killer Wetas.”
He still looked wary but said, “Aah, so you’re one of that lot.”
She laughed at his disgruntled response and handed the phone back to Trystan. She closed her laptop, swung her legs from Trystan’s lap, and got up. He caught her hand as she passed him and brought it to his lips to plant a tender kiss on her knuckles.
She reciprocated by ruffling his hair affectionately and leaving the room.
But not before she heard, “What the fuck, Trystan? Who is she? You can’t simply let?—”
She winced and shut the door behind her, knowing her presence here would take a lot of explaining from both Trystan and Hunter Quinn. And even then, Darryl Constanza would probably still doubt that she and Trystan shared anything real.
Iris sighed as she put her laptop on the kitchen table and stared out at the immense yellowwood tree in the backyard. Not that she could blame the man for his suspicion and doubt, when Iris herself harbored similar doubts about this thing between her and Trystan.
She found herself falling deeper and deeper for him every day, but how could it possibly be real? She hesitated to call it love. Just days ago, he’d been imprisoning her in her room. Now she was entertaining notions of love. It was laughable, it was incongruous… but oh God, it felt so real.
They were in each other’s company twenty-four hours a day. And such propinquity could well be responsible for amplifying every emotion. It was hard to trust your feelings in a situation like this.
And yet when she looked at him, Iris wanted to believe that what they had could work, that what they had could survive the skepticism of close family and friends. And worse still, the close scrutiny of the public and press. Iris didn’t think she could handle the publicity of being seen on Trystan Abbott’s arm. She was an innately private person, and she didn’t respond well to being the center of attention.
But that was part and parcel of who and what he was.
His strong arms wrapped around her waist and his warm, hard body slotted against her back. She hadn’t heard him come in, but she welcomed his embrace, leaning back against him while he bent down to notch his jaw in the nook between her shoulder and neck.
“I’m sorry about that. Quinny and Dazza have been protective since the accident.”
She smiled and turned her head to plant a kiss on his stubbled cheek. He’d stuck to being clean-shaven, and part of Iris still missed the wild man who had met her at the door that first night.
“I don’t blame him, you’re you and I’m me. It would be hard for anyone to reconcile the idea of the two of us together.”
He made an impatient sound at the back of his throat and turned her around to face him. His arms remained loosely wrapped around her waist.
“The fuck does that mean?” he demanded to know once he was able to glower down into her eyes.
“Trystan, your friend’s reaction is just a sample of how it would be in the real world. We don’t make sense together.”
“We make sense to me,” he said vehemently. “You make me happy, Iris.”
“Yes, I make you happy here. Now. In this place. Out there, I feel like I’ll hold you back. I don’t want your life. I don’t want the limelight, the glamor, the premiere parties, the press, the invasive questions about myself, my family, and friends. I can’t do that. Not even for you.”
“Iris, I’m falling for you. No, that’s not true. I’ve already fallen for you. Hard. I don’t want to consider a life without you. I refuse to.”
“How can you say that? You barely know me. You don’t know my family, my friends. You don’t know if I like sushi.”
His lips quirked at the last one.
“What? Why sushi?” he asked, momentarily diverted. And she shrugged irritably.
“It feels like the type of thing that could make or break a couple. You have two types of people, those who love sushi and those who don’t. There’s no in between.”
He laughed and the sound rang with pleasure.
“You’re full of enchanting surprises, sugar, I can’t remember the last time I laughed as much as when I’m with you. And you wonder why I love you?”
She went silent at his words, and his eyes darkened at the question he saw in hers.
