Crash into Me (Heart of Stone #1)(23)
Author: K.M. Scott

Suddenly, I felt like I was intruding on something private. He’d never talked about his family with me, not even to say he had a twin. From the moment I met him, I’d felt like he was all alone in the world, so where were this brother and his parents?

My gaze drifted up to the top of the picture to his mother and father, and I tried to find his eyes in one of them, but couldn’t. Everyone else in his family had dark eyes too, but there was something different about his. He resembled his father more than his brother did, if that was possible, and as I stared at the man, I recognized a lot of him in Tristan now.

I’d heard that even identical twins could be told apart easily because of their personalities, and nothing proved that more than this picture. Beaming a smile of a gregarious child, Tristan sat next to his brother, a child who looked far more serious with his tiny downturned mouth. Each boy was positioned in front of a parent, Tristan’s twin in front of the father and Tristan in front of his mother. As I stared at all of them, I imagined him being more like his mother. She was beautiful, with long brown hair, high cheekbones, and a lovely smile, the kind of woman everyone admired.

I placed the pictures back inside the chest and hurried downstairs, fearful Rogers would appear out of nowhere like he always seemed to and see me rummaging in Tristan’s personal things. Another hour passed before I gave up and slipped into bed, feeling lonely and wishing Tristan was next to me.

Would I ever meet these people or did he plan to keep me a secret out here in the country, never to appear at any of the functions or events he attended or to see the people closest to him? As I tossed and turned in bed that night, I couldn’t help but wish that I hadn’t gone to the attic. Now I had more questions about Tristan, and he seemed content to exist only in the present with me, never mentioning anything about his past or our future.

Chapter Eight

"I missed you."

Tristan’s voice stopped me dead in my tracks as I shuffled into the kitchen to look for my morning coffee. He stood leaning against the massive island in the center of the room, a sly grin on his face as he watched me gawking at him.

"You’re back? I thought your note said days."

And love. I hadn’t forgotten the love part. Hopefully, he hadn’t either.

"I finished what I had to do early and got back a few hours ago. You must have some great boss to let you sleep in on a workday."

I liked this relaxed Tristan and smiled as he teased me. "I’ll have you know that it’s Friday, which is basically the weekend to many people." Walking around the island, I stopped in front of him, looking up into his beautiful face. "And my boss is the best."

He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger. "Thank you. However, your new job begins today, so you better get ready."

"My new job? The one at the hotel downtown?" I asked excitedly.

Tristan shook his head and grinned. "No."

I lowered my head in disappointment. It had been too good to be true, after all. Now he had me here for the next six months, and the best I’d likely get was the consolation prize of being Tristan’s paid love interest. No matter how appealing Jordan had made that sound, it still seemed like second place.

"Don’t look so unhappy. You’ll love it," he whispered in my ear.

"I guess. Let me go get dressed and you can tell me all about it."

I turned to leave but he held me by the shoulders, forcing me to face him. My expression surely showed my disappointment, and I couldn’t hide it. I didn’t want to hide it.

"Nina, have faith in me," he said quietly, those brown eyes boring holes into my soul.

When he looked at me like that—like I meant more to him than anything else in the world—I wanted to believe he cared and wanted me to be happy like I wanted to make him happy. "I do," I said, half-believing it myself.

"Meet me in my office in ten," he ordered as he released me.

"I’m here, as commanded," I said with as much bravado as I could muster.

He sat behind his large cherry desk and crooked his finger at me. "Come. I have a surprise for you."

I walked toward the leather Queen Anne wingback chair in front of his desk, but he stopped me as I began sit down. "No, come sit with me. I want to show you what your job is going to be."

So I was going to be his sex slave. I knew it. There would be no art, no need for the new wardrobe, no great job. Just fucking for money. I was no better than a prostitute, no matter how he or Jordan phrased it. A whore.

"Should I just sit on your lap or would you prefer me to skip the preliminaries and just get on my knees?" I asked as I rounded the corner of his desk.

He said nothing but turned his laptop and looked up at me. "I love your idea of work, but I had something slightly different in mind."

I looked down at the laptop and there on the screen sat ten small thumbnails of artwork. My face felt red hot as I stood there staring down at the screen while my words echoed in my ears. What an ass I was!

Embarrassed, I looked down at the floor. "I’m so sorry. That was uncalled for. I didn’t know."

Tristan chuckled and took my hand in his. "I love how honest you are. I’ve told you that. Don’t ever stop being that way. There aren’t enough people in this world who will truly say what they’re feeling, Nina."

Biting my lip, I looked up in humiliation, his soothing words not working. "I really am sorry. I feel like such a jackass. I just assumed that…well, all I’ve done with you so far is…" I really wasn’t explaining myself well and was probably making things worse. I definitely felt worse.

All he did was smile and stand from his chair. "Here, sit down and let me tell you what I plan to have you do. Unless you’d rather go down on me first. I’m not going to say no to that."

Oh, he wasn’t going to let me live this down any time soon. I deserved it, though. As I sat down in his chair, he dragged one over next to me. "I know you want your job to involve working with art, so that’s exactly what you’ll be doing. Those pictures are just ideas I have for your job."

I looked at the pictures on the screen again, studying each of them and seeing no common theme or period. "What exactly is my job, Tristan?"

"I want you to choose the artwork for the penthouses and suites in my hotels. You’ll have to choose pieces for each one and pitch them to me to convince me to buy them. If you succeed, then I’ll buy them and put them in that suite or penthouse. If not, you’ll have to choose something else and pitch that to me. I’ll have the final say as to the choices, but I’m trusting that you’ll show me excellent pieces."