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“It’s not that easy, Trystan,” she said, her voice low and urgent. “Maybe in the beginning after our return from South Africa, if all of that awful shit with the article hadn’t happened, we could have made a good go of it. But after everything—the humiliation, the pain, the fear, the harassment, your treatment of me—I can very definitively state that your life is not for me. I can’t live like that.”
She set to work pouring champagne, noting that Trystan—who obviously knew his stuff—was filling precisely two-thirds of each flute, and each glass was uniformly level. He held the bottle with practiced ease, thumb inside the punt to maintain a good grip.
He stopped pouring to meet her eyes and her breath caught at the naked vulnerability buried within the depths of his silver gaze.
“You said you forgave me.” Which had to mean that he’d read her text… finally. Was that why he was here? When had he read it? After checking almost every hour on the hour for a day and a half, Iris had given up on him ever seeing it, thinking he’d finally moved on. It had left her feeling hollow and devastated and heartbroken all over again, but ultimately, she’d decided that it was best for both of them to move on with their lives. She’d very determinedly muted and archived the conversation, and had resisted the impulse to check it again.
“I have, Trystan. I didn’t want to walk around with resentment, bitterness and anger in my heart toward you. I wanted to move on with my life and remember our time together with warmth, affection.”
“Warmth and affection?” he repeated, his voice acidic and scathing. “Like a comfy blanket. All nice and pleasant. What about the passion, Iris? The soul-deep connection? The off-the-charts chemistry? What about the fucking love? Is that what you’ll be remembering with this warmth and affection?” The volume in his voice had increased, drawing attention, but this time Iris didn’t even care that they were creating a scene, or that it was interfering with their work. How could she care about that when confronted by this much outraged, affronted, clearly wounded male?
“What do you want me to say, Trystan?” she snapped back, furious now. Angry that he was pushing this, that he wouldn’t just let it—the notion of them—die a dignified, silent death. “Do want to hear how truly fucking pissed off I am with you for ruining what we had? Do you want to hear every detail of how much you hurt me? Of how I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t function because of how much I missed you? How I held out hope for the longest time—while I was trapped in my room too terrified to leave home for fear of being harassed and accosted—that you would realize your mistake and come and save me from the madness? But you never came. And when you finally did come to your senses the damage had been done. I can’t live like that again. I can’t. I refuse to. I forgive you Trystan, but I can’t be in your life.”
“I wish I’d been the man you needed me to be,” he said, his voice dropping to a low growl. “I wish I’d been stronger, more confident of what we had. I wish I hadn’t allowed external forces to tear us apart. But I’m just a man. A weak, dumb, often foolish, human male. I’m smaller than my fame, more ordinary than my legend, and I’m fucking nothing without you, Iris.”
Iris’s trembling hand lifted to her cover her mouth, hoping to force back the sobs that threatened to tumble into the void between them.
He put the bottle down, gently palmed her cheeks, and bent his head until his forehead came to rest on hers.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered, his warm breath washing against the back of her hand. “I didn’t treat you well. I know that. I should have cherished you, and I didn’t. But I love you so much, Iris. I always will. I know my timing is shit, I know this puts you on the spot and I’m sorry about that too. You don’t have to say anything right now. Or ever. We’ll go back to pouring this champagne before your dad kills us but I couldn’t let another second go by without telling you that I love you. If you tell me today that you don’t love me, it’ll break my heart but I’ll leave you alone. But if, by some miracle, your love survived the apocalypse of my doubt, then I’ll announce my retirement and we’ll figure out the rest together, okay?”
“You know I don’t want you to do that, Trystan. I never wanted that. That’s not how it should be. Like I told you in my text I don’t know how we could possibly work… but I’m fairly certain that you starting with a sacrifice of such magnitude is not the key to a successful relationship. One person shouldn’t have to give up everything to be with the other.”
“You’re still not getting it, Iris. Losing you would mean losing everything. All the rest? It’s just noise.”
He let her go and stepped away from her.
“So this is what a penance tour looks like, huh?” she murmured, remembering Chance’s words and Trystan managed a wry smile, despite the somber fear in his eyes.
“Go big, or go home, right?” he said, picking up the bottle again. He peered at the clock. “We have ten minutes to finish this.”
Iris glanced around the room, and heads and eyes suddenly averted, while the silence was filled with sudden inane chatter. For once, her father wasn’t yelling at everyone to get back to work. Instead, he was watching Iris and Trystan with a speculative frown on his face. He met her eyes and nodded cryptically, before going back to organizing the kitchen clean-up crew.
Iris managed to get her quota of glasses filled on time, despite her shaky hands and poor concentration. Her glasses were much less uniform than Trystan’s and to her chagrin, he topped up the too-low ones without saying a word.
Once they’d completed their assignment, with three minutes to spare, she excused herself and rushed to the staff bathroom, needing a moment to compose herself. Once there, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, trying to make sense of Trystan’s words in her confused brain. He loved her. She’d known that already. She’d known it all along, but somewhere along the line, probably right around the time he’d dumped her at the side of the road, she’d convinced herself that their love wasn’t enough to overcome all these obstacles.
It had been easy to believe that while they’d been apart and even easier to persuade herself that the gaping holes in her heart and her soul were wounds she would get used to eventually. Like a bum knee, or chronic back pain, it would always be there, but she’d have to simply… live with it.
Now here he was telling her that it didn’t have to be that way. That they could both walk out of this healed, renewed, pain free. All she had to do was believe in him and trust that this time his love was strong enough to overcome any obstacle.
And that’s where she hit a wall because how was this different to last time? How were these promises and confessions of love more sincere than the last? Because she’d believed and trusted him then. She’d had faith in the power and strength of their love and look where that had got her.
She rinsed her face, needing the shock of cold water to heighten her senses.
She so desperately wanted to believe in his promises but how could she? How could she ever trust him again?
Trystan was acutely aware of the scrutiny of every pair of eyes in the kitchen, but kept his head down and his hands busy. He made sure each round silver tray was loaded with exactly ten evenly spaced, full champagne flutes, and when that was done he tidied up their workstation, wiping surfaces with a damp cloth, then rinsing and discarding the empty bottles.
He should have known after his bread-crumb trail search for Iris this morning—going from her flat, to her parents’ house where a nosy neighbor had informed Chance that the family was at this address in Wandsworth—that she’d probably be helping out her parents today. But in his eagerness to see her, he’d totally ignored Chance’s warnings when they’d pulled up to this restored manor with the dozens of cars parked outside, and had unknowingly gate-crashed a wedding.
There’d been no security to speak of and he’d simply walked in, expecting to see Iris having lunch or something with her family. He'd had a moment of disorienting confusion when he’d walked into a massive hall full of milling, jovial people, all so focused on their food that they hadn’t even realized that he didn’t belong there.
And then he’d spotted her—in that sexy form-fitting tuxedo-like uniform— across the room, hands laden with platters of food. By the time he’d reached her, she was turning away toward the doors at the back of the room, and he’d hurried to get ahead of her, only to have her walk right into him. He’d known immediately that confronting her while she was working was wrong, but seeing and touching her after all this time had renewed his sense of urgency. Now it felt like he’d—once again—fucked everything up. Approached her in the wrong setting, pleaded his case at the worst time. He’d had one shot and he’d blown it. He knew it. And when she’d hastened away from him after they’d finished with the champagne, it had confirmed his worst fears.
She’d been gone for nearly five minutes and—not sure what to do about the filled glasses—Trystan wiped his hands, straightened his cuffs, and tugged at the hem of the snug waistcoat, before throwing back his shoulders and making his way to Jason Hughes.
“The champagne is ready for service,” he informed the man quietly. “What else do you need me to do?”
