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“Yes. She had nowhere else to go.”
“I didn’t think you knew each other that well,” Trystan said, not sure how to feel about this.
His sluggish brain was starting to finally put two and two together. No wonder Chance had been so uncharacteristically chatty and judgmental about Trystan’s treatment of Iris. No wonder he knew so fucking much about what was going on in her life right now. Trystan should have questioned that knowledge long before now, but he’d had his head stuck so far up his own arse for too long. He’d been unable to see anything clearly since that fucking article was published.
“We don’t,” Chance said, in response to Trystan’s absent-minded earlier comment. “But like I said, she was desperate.”
“How is she?” Trystan asked, his voice a hoarse whisper, eyes intent.
“Sad, exhausted, defeated… angry.”
“Angry with me?”
“What do you think?”
“I think…” Trystan paused and his brain stalled while his heart picked up the slack. “No. I know I hurt her. I know I broke her heart.”
He’d known that since he’d reread that article and seen the inconsistencies in the writing styles between the journal and the rest of the article. He knew Iris’s writing and that fucking article hadn’t been written by her. Not one fucking part of it. The only words he’d known for certain were hers were the ones drawn directly from her journal.
Trystan had no reason to believe Iris didn’t have a part in that story—she could have given that Evan bitch access to her journal—except for what his gut told him. And after recognizing how negatively this article had impacted her life, seeing how fiercely she’d clung to her privacy, her dignity and pride—Trystan had simply known that she was entirely innocent of any and all wrongdoing.
She was being so fucking brave in the face of overwhelming hatred and bullying. And Trystan, who had vowed never again to hurt her, to always give her the benefit of the doubt, had been the biggest fucking bully of them all.
He couldn’t fix what they’d had before. He knew that. But he could make this better for Iris. That’s what he was working on but he needed to speak to her first, to give her a heads up.
“Thank you.” His voice was shaky as he said those words. “For doing that for her. For protecting her when I didn’t.”
“I didn’t do it for you.” Chance said, his voice frosty.
“I know that. But thank you nonetheless.”
Chance didn’t acknowledge his thanks with so much as a nod, and Trystan knew he deserved the man’s contempt.
“Nobody knows she’s at mine,” Chance said. “So I guess it’s the perfect neutral spot for that meeting you’re so keen on. But we can’t just show up. I have to clear it with her first. And if she says no, that’s it. I won’t bushwhack her.”
“He wants to what?” Iris asked blankly.
“You heard me,” Chance said.
“I did but I was sure I must’ve been mistaken. You told him I was here?”
Chance’s sigh was a loud and noisy blast into the receiver. “I had no choice, Iris. He was dead set on going to your parents’ house to see you.”
“You should have let him,” Iris retorted, her voice dripping with acid. “My dad would’ve kicked his arse.”
The thought of her scrawny father kicking anyone’s arse was incongruous, but the man was angry enough at Trystan to give it a good go.
“Uh… maybe,” Chance said, the soul of tact and discretion. “Iris, you can say no.”
“What does he want to talk about?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Why should I trust him not to hurl all kinds of unfounded, hurtful, and unfair accusations at me again?”
Chance remained silent, giving her the room she needed to rant and rave and work it out for herself.
“Put him on the line, Chance.”
