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Nodding, Saint held his stomach as it rolled. He released a long, low sigh as dread filled him.
“You right, sis. I’ll hit you up later, aight?”
“Okay, I love you.”
Saint smiled. Outside of random fans, Cartier was the only person attached to him personally who told him that and he believed it.Ever. His grandparents were in that generation of provision being love, so they never said the words. Tristan began to say it when her lies started to be exposed. She used those words as an excuse for the choices she made, but it didn’t matter at that point. Even if she did say she loved him, her actions said otherwise. Cartier was the only person who said that to Saint and he never questioned if the love was real.
“I love you too.”
After disconnecting the call, Saint pulled a blunt from his glove compartment and put it behind his ear. Instead of going into his home, he went to the backyard and made himself comfortable on the patio. As he smoked his marijuana filled cigar, Saint reminded himself what his attorney said earlier. With proof of Tristan’s infidelity, it wouldn’t affect their contracts, but it would be cause for immediate divorce without alimony. He had two options—maintain who he was and what he had with Tristan, or rebuild from the ground up on his own.
ChapterFive
Tristan
Tristan wassurprised Saint asked to speak with her before he left for Saint Lucia. The last time they saw each other, things didn’t end so well. Admittedly, Tristan had a bad habit of doing things she knew would hurt or upset Saint, but that hadn’t always been the case.
In the beginning, Tristan was smitten over the bad boy with charisma and charm. Even as a teenager, Saint had a way of finessing a person to do just about anything he wanted, and Tristan wasn’t immune to that. When they first met, the sixteen-year-old girl teetered between nerd and rebel. She was forced to transfer to a new school at the end of her sophomore year and had no intentions of making friends. Saint, Malcolm then, made that easy.
He took her under his wing, flirting and introducing her to his friends, and eventually, Tristan became one of the girls who did his homework and gave him answers to tests just like everyone else. Somewhere along the line, she gained his trust, and a true friendship ensued. Unfortunately for Tristan, though, friendship wasn’t enough. For years, Tristan watched Saint date woman after woman. Admittedly, none of them seemed to be like her. It wasn’t until Tristan began to help Saint handle business when it came to his music that he started to look at her differently.
Even with them dating, Saint made it clear he didn’t know how to love romantically. He’d watched his grandfather provide and protect, but he’d never even seen his grandparents kiss or be affectionate toward one another. His parents weren’t around to show him love, and the men that he looked up to in the streets taught him the pleasure of pussy and how to avoid its power. They didn’t teach the young hoodlum how to be faithful to one woman, and no matter how good to him Tristan was, nothing she did or said changed that.
Infatuation and puppy love turned into obsession, and Tristan became determined to tether her life to Saint’s for eternity. Taking advantage of his trust through his contracts over the years was risky, but it was the only way Tristan was sure she’d be able to stay in his life. He was so happy she helped him sign a seven-figure distribution deal for his albums that he kissed her. That kiss led to them making love, and that one night of sex was all Tristan needed to convince herself he’d love her with time.
She played her role as manager and friend with benefits. It took a decade, but eventually, Saint lowered his guards and committed to Tristan. He made it clear that he wouldn’t be faithful and the average husband, and she swore that was okay… until it wasn’t. Tristan didn’t like the way it felt to watch women throw themselves at Saint and he catch them… spoil them… have sex with them. His unfaithfulness, though expected, still hurt like hell… and it was the catalyst that catapulted Tristan from devoted wife and manager to an enemy that couldn’t be trusted.
For the last ten years, Tristan had tried to convince her heart to love him right or let him go. Because it wasn’t just Saint who suffered because of her actions—she did too. But she’d devoted too much of her life to Saint to let him go, and she’d rather handle him with hate than let him love and be loved by someone else.
Love.
He’d never told Tristan he was in love with her, and he didn’t believe it when she said it. Tristan didn’t blame him. If the roles were reversed and he’d done to her what she’d done to him, Tristan would hate him just as much as he hated her.
It was supposed to be a one-time thing—signing her name instead of Saint’s on his distribution contract. Then, it turned into listing herself as owner on house deeds and Saint as the occupant when it was really the other way around. She’d done the same when it came down to cars and credit cards as well. But the three biggest things Tristan had taken from Saint because of his blind trust in her was control of his distribution, his masters, and his name.
Though they started the record label together, she was the CEO and had listed him as just an artist. Because he trusted her, Saint signed over the length of his entire music career to Tristan and hadn’t thought twice about it until she started questioning him about his actions, making him want a divorce. It was in that moment with his lawyer years ago that Saint realized Tristan wasn’t a manager who had his best interest at heart; she was a greedy leech who was hungry for everything he had—everything he was.
At the sound of the doorbell ringing, Tristan checked the security camera on her phone. Though she was attached to Saint and every one of her other artist’s publicly, she never felt the need to have guards. She did, however, choose to live in a gated community and have a few registered guns in her home and cars. Saint was looking directly into the camera, causing Tristan to smile. She had no idea why God allowed her to love a man so fiercely who was incapable of giving it back in return.
She stood, but instead of heading directly to the front door, Tristan stopped by the kitchen. Lips pressed together, her head hung, and shoulders dropped.
There was a time Tristan couldn’t wait to be in Saint’s presence. Now, she dreaded it. Though she had no idea what Saint wanted with her, there was no doubt in her mind it wasn’t to tell her he wanted her to move back home. He rang the doorbell again and knocked on the door as she took a gulp of vodka. Wiping her mouth, Tristan sighed and headed to the right toward the front door.
Tristan opened the door, finding it easy not to release the smile that wanted to form. His stare was intense and jaw clenched. It was hard for him to keep his top lip from curling in disgust as he looked her over, so Saint looked away.
“Do you want to come in?” Tristan checked, confident his answer would be no.
“Yeah.”
A flush of adrenaline rushed through her body. Touching her throat, she smiled, trying to hide her surprise. “Oh,” Tristan mumbled, voice disbelieving. “Okay. Come in.”
Tristan motioned for him to come inside. He didn’t give her curvaceous body in the hot pink gown she had on a second glance. It was so short it barely covered her ass cheeks. There was a time Saint wouldn’t have been able to keep his hands off her. Now, he acted as if the sight of Tristan repulsed him.
Leading him into the open space, Tristan asked, “Do you want something to drink?”
“Cut the pleasantries, Tristan,” Saint insisted, sitting on one cream colored sofa while she sat on another. “Since you’ve made it damn near impossible for me to divorce you without giving you everything I’ve worked for, for the last seventeen years, we need to come up with an agreement that satisfies us both.”
Her head tilted as she nodded slowly. “What did you have in mind?” Tristan’s body perked up in anticipation.
