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“Wow,” Mike Holmes said, his voice shaky with restrained excitement and disbelief. “Thank you for returning to my sitting room this evening, Trystan, and laying your soul bare for the world to see. I do hope your Iris sees this and gives you another chance. That’s all we have time for this evening, folks. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that this has been one hell of a show. Thank you?—”
Colby put the television on mute, while Iris continued to stare at the screen in disbelief, and no small amount of horror.
“How does he think this is going to make things better?” she asked, the question directed mostly at herself. “Now I’ll be getting death threats if I don’t take his sorry arse back.”
Colby smothered what sounded like a laugh and rubbed Iris’s back in comforting circles.
“Drink your tea before it gets cold,” she instructed. “I agree that parting shot was a little ill advised, but the rest of it was pretty decent, right?”
“So… I’m supposed to just fall over myself and forgive him now?” Iris asked querulously, taking a sip of her lukewarm overly sweet tea. She wrinkled her nose and glared at Chance, out of sorts and irritable and willing to take out her frustration on anything male right now. “This tastes like syrup.”
‘Thought you’d need it sweet for the shock,” he said with a nonchalant shrug.
“Did you know he was going to do this?” she asked him with a glare, pointing a shaky finger at the TV.
“I knew he had an interview, but I had no idea it was going to go down like that. I was backstage when they dragged Evan back there. She had a shell-shocked look, like she’d just been hit by a bus and didn’t quite understand what had happened to her. Once the shock wore off, she started pacing, so furious you could practically see the steam coming off her. She was on her phone, sending frantic texts and making urgent, low-voiced phone calls. Got to admit, it was fun to watch her carefully constructed house of cards implode.”
Iris was gnawing her cuticle again, and she hissed in pain when she hit a raw spot.
“Look, Iris, he asked me to give you this.” Chance tugged a slim phone from his jacket’s breast pocket. He didn’t make any attempt to give it to her, merely held it in his hand. “I told him I’m not going to be his little errand boy, ferrying notes between you two like we’re high school kids in the middle of some teenage drama. If you don’t want this, I’ll happily hand it back to him tomorrow and that’ll be the end of it, okay? You don’t owe him anything.”
“Why does he want me to have that?” Iris asked, staring at the device like it was a venomous snake poised to strike.
Chance shrugged. “In case you want to talk, I reckon.”
“I have a phone.”
“Maybe he wanted to be certain you’d get his texts and phone calls. Since you’ve blocked and deleted him from your other phone.”
“Not interested.”
“Okay.” Chance palmed the phone and moved it back to his pocket.
“Wait,” Iris said, her eyes glued to the innocuous-looking device. She shook her head, furious with herself and held out her hand. “Give it to me.”
Chance handed it over without comment.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” Iris maintained, sliding the phone between her thigh and the sofa cushion, and then tried her best to ignore the slight warmth emanating from the damned thing. “But I’ll keep it in case I change my mind.”
“You can smash it to pieces with a mallet if you want, Iris. It’s your business.”
“What’s going to happen now?” Iris wondered.
“Hopefully this will all blow over soon,” Colby said and then shook her head. “Frankly, after this interview, I don’t see interest in you waning anytime soon, but it may be a lot less hostile and negative.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“You’ll have a security team, which means more freedom of movement,” Chance said.
“A security team?”
“Trystan insisted.”
Iris didn’t like the thought of that at all. “I don’t want to be beholden to him for anything.”
“He got you into this shit. It’s the least he can do,” Chance said, his green eyes icing over. “It’s not a permanent arrangement, Iris. But you’ll be able to go for walks, go shopping, visit your parents, have some semblance of freedom again until things get a bit more normal.”
“It’s a good thing, Iris. Trust me,” Colby said. “Our guys are so good you’ll hardly even know they’re there.”
