I feel Lucas near then his lips leave their imprint on my forehead. “Treat her like she’s always deserved, love her like she’s always needed. If you do those two things, my friend, you owe me nothing.”
My friend. A quiet tear slips from my eye.
I don’t see it, but I can hear the shuffle of clothing, maybe jacket sleeves, and I think they are shaking hands.
“I will treat her like the angel she is. That’s something you never have to worry about, Lucas.”
“Then we’re good here.” I can hear him stepping toward the door. “I’ll still take that car though. I could use the safe ride.”
“I thought you might. The black Audi downstairs is for you. I told the driver to wait for you, no matter the cost. Be well.”
I stay curled under the hospital blanket as they say their final goodbyes and then the light slices over my face again before disappearing once more, leaving me completely alone with my Tristan.
“How much did you hear, Petal?” Tristan asks softly before bending to kiss the tip of my nose.
“How did you know I was awake?” I ask with my eyes still closed.
“Your breathing wasn’t as deep as when you’re completely asleep. Those long eyelashes of yours would flutter slightly. I know it isn’t easy here, but you weren’t fully peaceful.”
My eyes have finally become light enough to open. Tristan is now my Tristan again. He’s showered, in a pair of wool trousers with a waffle weave, long-sleeve shirt under his suit jacket. The only thing missing is his dimpled smile. His face is riddled with exhaustion.
“You look so tired. I need a new pillow.”
“Well, lucky for you, I have just the right chest for the job.”
He slides out of his jacket, which he lays over the back of the chair, removes his shoes, and silently asks me to lift the blankets for him. I scoot just enough for him to take up the space next to me, which is still warm, and I melt into his chest. His bandaged, but still strong arm slides around my body, and a calm I haven’t felt in hours sinks into my skin.
“Martin told us that you refused a lawyer. Why would you do that?”
“Because I didn’t have anything to hide. I wasn’t afraid. You should know, however, that Adrianna sent an attorney to me and refused to allow me to speak without him present. If you know anything about Adrianna, you know that she is persistent.” He kisses the top of my head. “I was safe the entire time.”
“Tristan,” I say to him with my lips against his shirt. “I was scared you weren’t going to come back to me.”
“Even if they needed more than I could give them, I was going to come back to you. That was nonnegotiable. They were fully satisfied with what I told them after Scotland Yard got involved, and they were able to retrieve other information.”
I swallow audibly and ask the question that I shouldn’t ask, but it’s weighing on my mind. “Where is he now? Evan, I mean.”
“I’d imagine he’s in the morgue or at the coroner’s office. Petal, I don’t want you thinking about him anymore. You don’t have to. You never have to again.”
“I’m… free,” I say, not as a question, but as a statement of fact. For the first time since the day that I met Evan Caldwell, I’m free.
“You are. We are, not that we weren’t before. There will be no more looking over your shoulder unless you’re looking for me. There will be no more fear, unless it’s fear in how relaxed you are. There will be no looking back, only forward. I will be the only monster in your life, in the bedroom that is.”
There they are. The one thing that’s been missing. His dimples.
“You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to see that smile,” I say with a small one of my own.
“Petal,” he traces a finger over my bottom lip, “I had a lot of time to think while I was away from you.”
“Should I be afraid?” I whisper.
“Not at all.” He lets his thumb pull my bottom lip down then it releases with a plop. “Petal, I’ve never felt for anyone the way that I feel for you. This, as unconventional as some may see it, is the realest thing that I’ve ever had in my life.”
“I don’t feel like I was truly alive until I saw you. Tristan…I don’t want to be apart anymore.”
“What are you asking me, Petal?”
“I want to go to sleep with you, wake up with you, have food fights in the kitchen if we want, sex in your too big shower every morning if we choose. I want to watch sunsets and read poetry. I want to catch you playing your violin at three in the morning. I want to stand in the doorway of your studio and watch you create dozens of masterpieces. I want all of it.”
“And I want to come home from a long day to you studying on my living room floor with your hair in that messy bun you like. At the end of every day, Petal… I simply want you.”
I know that I shouldn’t. I know that the hospital would frown upon it, but I have to be closer to him right now.
I climb, with his assistance, into his lap and wrap my non-slinged arm around him so I can press myself into his chest.
“Please, say yes, Tristan.”
“I think I just did, Petal.” He cups my cheek in his hand.
“I want to hear you say yes. That will make it real.”
He smiles that smile that could start and end wars. “Petal, yes, I would love for you to move in with me. In fact, I insist.”
He lies me back next to him with the attentiveness of a true lover. Tristan slides his hand carefully along my injured arm to position it tenderly, like the broken wing of a baby bird. He smooths my wild hair down and over my shoulder so he can keep a watchful eye on my face; it’s what he does. I used to think what I feel would come with a price. It doesn’t.
Unless you count the care, the worship, the adoration, and the fight to the literal death for what we have between us. This may be a dark fairy tale, but I’m his Petal, and he’s my knight. The devil we’ve both run from is gone. The only running we need to do now is toward each other.
Chapter 30
Tristan
Eight Months Later
I never saw my life going down this path.
I’d resigned myself to the fact that monogamy wasn’t for me. I was too broken, too angry, too intense to ever expect, or want, someone by my side every single day.
But then my Petal unknowingly sealed my fate with a dance in a crowded nightclub on a random evening last August.
She moved in with me a few weeks after she was discharged from the hospital, much to my chagrin. I would have preferred she move in immediately, of course, but she insisted she needed to take a few weeks to settle things and make the move slowly to ease the change with Lucas. I didn’t push, I didn’t press.
I need her to do things at her pace, no matter how much I might feel the opposite, so she is in charge of her destiny. That type of control is what is making her even more sexy to me. With each passing day from that horrible night in October, she is healing on the outside, and inside. Her change is bringing about mine.
The change started with my outward appearance. I have kept my man in black facade, but now there is always a pop of color as a code from me to her. Red is I want you and will have you later. Green is a night of painting, either on canvas or her. Purple is I want us to lock away from the world tonight. Champagne is to remind her of our first night. It has become a subtle game between us that I will ensure never fades in excitement or thrill.