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That done, she tried to stretch for a few minutes hoping it would help, but it only seemed to make things worse, before giving up and heading back to the sofa and her laptop.
Chapter Six
The rest of the day was uneventful. TDH returned once more with her dinner—at about seven that evening—and said not one word to her. Luna remained conspicuous in her absence. And, despite being able to message family and friends, Iris felt crushingly alone.
After her reluctant host dropped the tray and escaped with ego-bruising swiftness, Iris picked at the meal of lemon and garlic butter basted fish fillets, with baked baby potatoes and a crunchy, fresh salad. Iris couldn’t quite identify the light white-fleshed fish, but the meal was yet another winner from her warden. The fish was perfectly cooked and delicately seasoned but Iris lacked the appetite to do it justice.
She had messaged and tried calling Hunter Quinn several more times—no luck. She knew it was probably futile, he likely was on that bizarre-sounding silent retreat, but attempting to contact him made Iris feel somewhat in control. And maybe she was crazy for trying, but it was better than doing nothing at all.
She had also tried to do some research on the accident that had been the catalyst for Trystan fleeing the public eye, but there was nothing new to be found. A single-car accident, two victims, one fatality. The driver—Trish Nesbitt—had died, but was found to have had no narcotics or alcohol in her system. The only other person involved in the accident had remained tight-lipped about it and had eventually fallen off the face of the earth.
All of which she’d known before coming here, and all of which told her precisely nothing. Iris crawled into bed feeling unsettled, unhappy, and uncertain. This felt like a bigger story than she’d anticipated, like more responsibility than she knew what to do with. It felt grave, weighty, and like she could do serious damage if she fucked it up in any way.
As she lay in bed that night, she acknowledged to herself that she didn’t feel that curl of excitement her biological father had often described when he was working on a big story. She didn’t have that pressing need to find out everything there was to know about said story, every minute detail that could possibly lead to the biggest scoop of her life.
She didn’t want to know. She wanted to leave it alone, undiscovered, buried with Trish Nesbitt and unspoken by Trystan Abbott. It felt like the worst kind of prying, and she didn’t feel any driving instinct to uncover it.
This felt a long way off from the fun puff piece she’d imagined it would be. This was someone’s life. Someone’s death. And Iris didn’t think she had any right to trample all over Trish Nesbitt’s grave.
“Worst time ever to discover that maybe this isn’t what you want to do with your life, Iris, you dolt,” she groaned into the darkness. The rain had abated somewhat, but the wind was still howling, whistling through the trees and the eaves of the big house.
She covered her face with her hands and prayed for sleep, but between the eerie whistling wind, the feeling of being helpless and trapped, and the clamoring thoughts in her brain, that blessed oblivion was a long way off.
When Trystan brought her breakfast the following morning, Iris remained seated on the sofa, miserably wrapped around the hot-water bottle she’d discovered in the bedroom closet.
Every muscle in her body hurt and her back was in spasm. She shifted to press the bag into the small of her back, muffling a groan as she watched him enter the room, without sparing her a glance.
Trystan. Somewhere between yesterday and this morning Iris had stopped thinking of him as TDH or by his full name. She wasn’t sure how it had happened, or why, but she was uncomfortable with the fact that she now thought of him as just Trystan. It made him seem more human, approachable… which meant she had to tread carefully because she knew he’d hate it if he comprehended where her thoughts had roamed.
Trystan.
Grumpy, hot, reticent, aloof Trystan.
He remained silent as he lowered the tray to the table and turned to leave, not even glancing at her before hot-footing it back to the door. Once there, he hesitated. His jaw flexed beneath that now-short black beard. Iris was inspecting the scar—but it was hard to see it clearly with the beard in the way—and fretting about the type of injury that would have caused it when he turned his head and caught her staring. He pinned her with an almost resentful glower.
She quickly averted her gaze and he actually growled in response to her evasion. The low, animalistic sound had her eyes snapping back up to his and there was a smoldering satisfaction in his stare when she met his eyes this time.
What the hell was going on with him this morning?
The silence stretched between them for an endless moment until, “You’re not going to ask after Luna?”
“Why?” Iris asked, alarmed. “Is she hurt?”
“She’s fine.”
Iris stared at him in confusion, not sure what to say.
“You’re always asking if she can stay with you.”
Always, as if they already had some cozy little routine in place just two days into her imprisonment.
“What would be the point?” She fought—unsuccessfully—to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “You’d just say no.”
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, his eyes raking over her crumpled form.
“Absolutely nothing. All sunshine and roses here,” she said with a twist of her lips. She started to make a dismissive gesture with her arm, but aborted the movement halfway through. She grimaced and tucked the aching appendage close to her torso.
“You’re in pain.” He was crouched in front of her within seconds. How the hell did he move so fast? It wasn’t normal. “How bad?”
