Protect & Serve(92)

It was Gwendolyn’s gasp that brought me back to reality from my thoughts. I turned over to find her staring at the television, her eyes wide with shock as she saw the two of us kissing on screen. Her face was pale as a sheet.

“I suppose they were going to find out sooner or later…” I said, trying to perhaps break her from her shock. “And… now that my father is disowning me we can finally be together. We don't have to hide anymore, Gwennie.”

She turned to look at me, her face incredulous and her eyebrows raised.

“Do you honestly think what just happened was a good thing?” she asked, her voice tense.

“Well, yes,” I said, a laugh breaking from my lips. “We don’t have to hide anymore! We can be together out in the open and no one can—”

“What have you done?” she whispered, looking at me in horror. “You ruined everything that I’d built for myself… and I let you!”

Gwen backed away from me in the bed, tears streaming down her face, a sight I hoped never to be the reason for. My chest felt cold and I was suddenly aware of just how vulnerable I felt with my clothes off.

“What have you done?”





17





Chapter 17





“Leave,” I said, fighting back the torrent of tears threatening to soak my face. “Just get out, Tristan.”

“But this is for the best!” he said, trying to make me see some brighter side of my life being ruined. How could my reputation being dragged through the mud possibly be a good thing?

“You really have no idea what you’ve done, have you?” I asked, laughing incredulously. “How could you not understand that you’ve ruined everything that I’ve made for myself?”

“It’s just words!” he cried, as though that would make it all better. “It doesn’t mean anything!”

“It means something to me!” I shouted, my face burning red with anger. “My reputation is everything in my business! And now I have a scandal over my head! How are my clients going to trust my discretion when I sleep with my own client! Let alone the fact that you’re my stepbrother!”

Tristan frowned, though the confusion on his face somehow told me that he still didn’t completely understand. How dense could one person be? I wondered.

“I want you to leave, now,” I said, my voice trembling with and effort not to start sobbing right in front of him. I wouldn’t give him the privilege of seeing me weak. “You’ve caused more than enough damage already.”

“But Gwen, I—”

“Get out!” I screamed, picking up the nearest thing I had and throwing it at him—which happened to be my phone. He was more than lucky that I wasn’t trying to hit him. “You’re just like they always said that you were. Your father way right, all you ever do is ruin everything you put your hands on! I never should have agreed to help you, I should have known better than to think you wouldn’t find some way to make this into another one of your media circuses.”

He staggered back out of my bed, once again hurrying to pick up his clothes and put them on before I lobbed another projectile at him, one that wouldn’t miss.

“Go!” I shouted at him again, my voice breaking.

Tristan didn’t say a word as he picked up the rest of his things and left. It wasn’t until I heard the front door close that I allowed myself to cry.

How could he be so stupid? I asked myself. How could I?

How would they trust a woman who can’t keep her hands off of her own stepbrother?

I want to slap him as hard as I could, make him pay for the way he could just drag someone down into the mud and not once bat an eye. He had the privilege of being born into a life of money and power—a life of wealth that he never had to lift a finger for. I was never so lucky as that. I had to put my blood, sweat, and tears into building my business from the meager little thing that it was from my days at the university. My entire life was in that business, and he had taken a flame to it all.

I needed to do damage control.

I dug around in the bed where I’d thrown my phone, surprised not to have even one call from Tina to warn me. Either she was swamped with handling the fallout or something was terribly wrong. I dialed her up and waited for the phone to ring.

She answered after the first one, and I could already tell she was fighting not to panic.

“Marm,” she said, “you’ve seen the news?”

“Tell me how bad it is,” I said, bracing myself for what I knew would be bad news.

“I’ve had clients calling me all morning to cancel their services with you, marm,” she said, and I could feel the worry in her voice, not just for her job, but for the company she’d help me run for the past few years. Both our hearts were in this business and I knew Tina hated to see this just as much as I did. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure how well we’re going to weather this.”