“Seems unlikely.” I bump him into the railing so I can get ahead of him down the steps. “I like the attitude, though.”
We jog toward the path that will take us through the trees, then down to the water. By unspoken agreement, wealways end at the ocean when the sun is rising, and we always beg Alexis for coffee from catering on the way back. Tristan always tries to grab a pastry from the oven, and she always yells at him, and he always promises bigger and bigger raises.
Our feet slap the path, our breaths even and steady. Birds chirp to each other in the cool May air. It smells like wet growing things under the tree cover. Grass cuttings and mulch and the beginnings of summer flowers. Rain from last night and damp earth.
Something eases in my chest. A morning like this is proof that the weird things I felt last night don’t need to rule me.
Tristan tips up his head to take in a lungful of air.
“You miss it?” I ask quietly.
“Yeah.” He exhales. “I’m glad to be back. Learning about the distilleries was great, but this is where I belong.”
“And you might be meeting Mrs. Tristan Prince later.” I can’t help but needle him. He has a date tonight with Shilpi Sharma, the bombshell investor who flew here from Berlin.
He makes a face. “We’ll see.”
“You nervous?”
He snorts, like him being nervous is an impossibility. “I’m the prize, Bailey. I don’t need to be nervous.”
“Or modest,” I shoot back.
“I have no reason to be modest,” he says, grinning. “I made a woman drop her coffee yesterday morning when I winked at her.”
“She was probably just surprised that eyebrows could move like that. Frankly, it’s impressive.”
He chuckles. “I’ll show you impressive.”
I give him a startled look, but he’s just smirking as weexit the trees into the soft dawn light. He reaches over and yanks at the ponytail under my ball cap.
“What’s with the outfit today?” He glances me over. “You look like a camp counselor.”
My lips flatten. “You know, you don’t have to be an asshole all the time.” My words are mild, because Tristan doesn’t know this is my button. He’s immeasurably confident. It’s why he badgers me about my clothes and how I prefer to stay out of the limelight. He can’t imagine that someone wouldn’t want to be in front of a ballroom of strangers who call them a servant when they’re not looking. I’m the one with hang-ups, not him, butstill, discomfort wriggles inside me. I exhale slowly, shoving it down, biting my tongue.
“I’m an asshole most of the time,” he teases. “I hope this woman is into it.”
She will be, I don’t say. Of course she will be. Half the people in the world seem to want him.
There’s a tightening in my belly that won’t stop. It ratchets up every time he looks at me.
It’s the same type of nerves that I felt last night when I spent way too long looking at Tristan’s potential matches. In the name of security, of course.
My due diligence quickly turned to jealousy when I read their resumes. Not because they’re going to be with Tristan, but because they have everything I’ve ever wanted. Today’s heiress went to the London School of Economics and is the CIO of her family company. I’d give my left kidney to finish college. I’d give both to have a family.
“She’s smart,” I say. “She has an MBA.”
“But is she hot?” He leers at me, and I roll my eyes.
“You don’t care about that.”
“I have the emotional depth of a teaspoon, Bailey. Of course I care about that.”
His words are standard Tristan, but they make something twist in my chest.
“Is that the main criteria?”
He shrugs. “I just want someone normal. Someone I can get along with. I’ll fund their charitable work, and they’ll go to the occasional event with me and make the family look good. A business arrangement.”
