She stopped moving, too shocked by what he was asking to even look at him. It was true; she’d hated him forever, but the fact that he’d noticed made her heart hurt a little inside. She didn’t know what to say. “I—”
But he stopped her. “You know what, I don’t want to know.” He reached out to tuck the last bits of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry, Sam. I really am. If I—” But he stopped, as if not allowing the words to leave his tongue. He looked back up at her, his expression somber and dark. “Forgive me?”
Present day
BOOM BOOM BOOM
Samantha startled out of sleep, the sounds of banging reverberating through the walls and floor. She threw her feet off the side of the couch and sat forward to turn off the television. The pounding came once again. BOOM BOOM BOOM.
The front door.
“Hang on,” she shouted. “I’ll be there in a second!” She grabbed her cell phone off the coffee table, and realized it had been almost an hour since she’d gotten off the phone with Renee. Tristan Montgomery was on the other side of that door, and she had no idea how long he’d been out there.
She pushed hard against the couch, forcing herself to stand, then walked over to the entertainment center to check her reflection in the television screen. “Oh God,” she whispered, taking in the long strands of hair stuck to her face and smoothing them behind her ears. This was the first time she’d seen Tristan in six years, and a red imprint of her couch cushion was etched into her cheek. No. She shook her head at her reflection. It wasn’t the first time. She’d seen him a handful of other times as well. In passing, when he came home for visits from college…but he never seemed to notice her. Never again after that night.
When she finally opened the door a minute later, unsure if he’d left because he was so quiet, she found him resting in the stairwell, his back against the wall, laughing into the receiver of his cell phone. He stood there so casually, it seemed as though he did this every day, as though he hadn’t just been beating down her front door with his bare fists.
“Yeah, I got it.” He smiled. But not to Samantha—he was speaking to whomever was on the phone. “Talk to you later.”
When he finally turned around, he placed his cell phone in his back pocket. “I thought I was going to have to break the door down.” He lifted his shoulders. “Either that or you changed your mind.”
He brushed past her, not waiting for an invitation before stepping into her apartment. “I have to piss. Where’s your bathroom?”
She made a face at his choice of words, but decided quickly against making a comment, and turned swiftly toward the hall. For the next three days, she was stuck with him. Three thousand miles, and she was determined not set off on the wrong foot. “It’s down the hall.”
She wrapped her arms around her belly and walked in the opposite direction toward the window. This was a bad idea, she could feel it in her bones. Renee had said he’d changed, but she thought in a good way. If anything, he was worse! Gruff, callous, entitled. Though maybe a bit rougher. His jeans were a weathered blue, roughed up in the way that was fashionable these days, and his shirt was gray, form fitting, and indicated that he still had the body he was known for in high school. But now he had a scruffy shadow of a beard that matched his messy surfer-boy style.
Though it wasn’t his looks that made Samantha uncomfortable. It was the way he acted—as though he owned the place. As though it was his world, and she just existed in it.
He walked out of the bathroom some time later, wiping his hands on his back pockets, even though she knew she’d hung up a towel that morning.
“Is this your luggage?” he asked, gesturing to her suitcase in the corner of the room.
She nodded, but before she could add that it was only the beginning, he lifted the bag up to his shoulder and headed for the front door.
“Wait!” she shouted, maybe a tad more frantically than she’d intended.
He turned on his heels, his eyes wide open with a “what the hell is wrong with you?” expression.
“The sculpture,” she finally managed to spit out. “I need help getting it downstairs.”
“The sculpture?” he repeated slowly, as though he didn’t quite understand what she was telling him.
She turned on her heels, not bothering to explain, and headed for her studio. “It’s this way.”
A minute later, they stood in the middle of the room, Tristan’s eyes wide, taking in the three foot tall, two foot wide, bubble-wrapped creation. It was the best she could manage given its shape, but she had to admit, wrapped up like this, it did look rather crazy.
“And we’re bringing that with us?” he managed to ask.
“Yes.” She nodded.
He bit his lip, as though trying to make his mind up about something, and shrugged. “Well, okay.” He set her suitcase to the ground, stepped toward and lifted the sculpture a few inches. He quickly set it back down and stepped backward. “Shit. What’s in there? Steel?”
She scrunched up her nose, knowing it was heavy. But seeing that it was too heavy for Tristan made her nervous. How the hell would they get it downstairs? “Here, let’s lean it on its side. I’ll grab one end, you grab the other.”
Six years earlier
“Why on earth would I trust you, Tristan? I know who you are; I’ve seen what you do!”
His eyes narrowed, but he wouldn’t budge from his spot blocking her on the branch. “For someone who doesn’t know me, you sure know a lot.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have to know you. I know all the people you’ve hurt, and that’s enough.”
“Like who?”
“Veronica Ward. Jenny Chavez. Sophie Miller. Need I go on?”
“Do you always believe what people tell you, or only when it involves me? I’m curious.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, check your sources, sweetheart.” He pushed back off the branch, causing the whole thing to rock backward and cover her in water.
She held on for dear life, watching him swim away toward the center of the lake, damning herself for coming out here at all. “Are you just going to leave me here?” she screamed.
“I haven’t decided,” he said, stopping ten feet away. “What did they tell you?”
“You’re holding me hostage now?”
He shrugged.