Exit Strategy (12 page)

“All right. I’ll make the necessary calls,” Tristan says. “You’d better get back to practice. Your season hasn’t been very stellar so far.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nate says, grinning, and shifts to the side. That’s when Tristan gets his first glimpse of Moses who’s holding his cap, looking all concerned. “Make sure you take him directly back to his condo, Mo. And have Mrs. Naven call Dr. Trammell. I’ll be by to check on him when I’m done here.”

“Yes, Mr. White,” Moses says then dons his cap as he helps Tristan to the car.

Tristan smiles ruefully. “Let’s swing by KSR first, will you?”

“You’ve got jokes now, sir? I’m following your brother’s instructions to the letter, so don’t even try it.”

Tristan scowls but doesn’t argue. “Then I guess it’s home, James.”

Moses nods, stays close, and ushers him toward the door.

~*~

Even though his knee-jerk reaction is to call Keisha first, he rings Velasquez.

“Carlos, there was an incident concerning Ms. Beale a couple of nights ago. Tell me your men are already in place.”

“Yes, sir. I have a man on the front entrance and a team covering the alleyway adjacent to the parking lot of Kente Studio Records.”

“Good. In the meantime, call in a favor with the Chicago PD and see what you can find out.”

“It might be better if I interviewed Ms. Beale.”

“Not before I talk to her first. I’ll let you know when a personal interview is possible.”

Tristan hears what sounds like a sigh of relief. “Good call, sir. It would make my guys’ job much easier if she knows we’re there. Otherwise, she could mistake us for the bad guys.”

“Keep me posted.”

“You’ve got it, sir.”

When he hangs up, he calls Darryl and tells him to notify Huáng Corporation of the cancellation.

Tristan can’t put it off any longer. As he calls Keisha, he convinces himself it’s only because he doesn’t want to have another former submissive harmed on his watch. The return of his panic attacks—as demonstrated a short while ago upon learning of the incident with Keisha—he relegates to stress brought on by the threat to his family.

He’s just spent three entire weeks without entering his playroom. Of course, he and Keisha had once stayed out of the Grotto six weeks during Clara Lee’s convalescence, but they still had plenty of vanilla sex to keep him from spontaneously combusting. Now he had nothing, and the preparations for his Hong Kong trip have also been wearing on him. As are the recurring dreams he’s been having about his mother.

However, he can't dwell on any of that right now. He has to secure Keisha’s safety—and fast. The business calls have given him the time he needed to gather his thoughts and figure out what he’s going to say.

Tristan thinks back to how she was so angry with him on the stairs, but her body gave her away. God, she was so beautiful as she simultaneously fought him off and ravaged him right back.

Fuck! He’s getting hard just thinking about it. The only other time he’d done that had been with Aimee, with whom he christened almost every surface in his house when she’d been his submissive. The memory of Aimee on those very stairs almost triggered a panic attack.

After Keisha became his sub, he neglected Aimee terribly. His monthly visits to the rehabilitation facility had fallen from one or two per month to nothing. The almost-attack had reminded him of Aimee despite his ongoing preoccupation with Keisha.

Had he succumbed, it would’ve been an embarrassment of monumental proportions. Allowing his submissive to see him in such a state of weakness would’ve been tantamount to self-emasculation. In the same way she isn’t prepared to share everything about her triggers, he also isn’t sure he’s ready to go there himself.

Tristan shakes his head as if to clear it and breathes deeply before he calls Keisha. He knows he has to handle her delicately. She could be dating that guitar player he saw her with at KSR. The guy really seemed to be into her, and he most likely doesn’t have the baggage that came with the arrangement they had.

There was someone who could give Keisha the kind of romance she deserves. Yet something about seeing her in the other man’s arms burned in his gut like a fucking ulcer. He rationalizes that her abrupt departure left him without closure, and he’s just reacting to his desire not to share. Flimsy though it might be, that’s the extent of what his subconscious is willing to concede. At the moment.

He imagines Keisha seeing his number appear on her phone, trying to decide if she should pick up or not. Her phone rings several times before she does.

“Tristan?”

Hearing her voice doesn’t help with the rapidly rising situation in his pants. He adjusts himself and thinks of the most unsexy things he can—a wrinkly grandma in a bathing suit, a skeletal meth head with rotting teeth angling for a kiss.

“Hello, Keisha.”

“I’m glad you called,” she says. “Just a second.” He hears her say something to someone before a door closes. “Are you still mad at me?”

“Why would I be?”

“Well, we haven’t talked in about three weeks, and I looked for you to say good-bye when I left, but you were nowhere to be found.”

Tristan hears anguish in her voice, and that ache in his chest returns. “I went for a run at the country club.”

“Oh,” she says. “I wanted us to adjust quickly to a normal working relationship, but I also wanted to give you ... time to decide if that was what you wanted.”

He thinks briefly of how he almost handed KSR over to Bryce without even consulting her first. That move would’ve made this infinitely more difficult. “I was going to call and talk to you about that when I returned from Hong Kong, but as it turns out, I won’t be making that trip just yet.”

“Really? Why?”

“Something came up. It’s concerning your safety. Will you come to the condo? I’ll send Moses for you.”

There’s a long pause before she says, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I can assure you I won’t... touch you... that is, unless you want me to.”

She sighs. “Okay, I’ll come. Should I just meet you at your office since I’ll get off before you?”

Come. Get off. His sex-deprived brain isolates those words, and he sees her in his mind’s eye doing just that. For a moment, he’s tempted to do the adult, responsible thing and warn her not to come. Just tell her about the threat over the phone. But he wants to see her. He knows in the end he’ll honor his promise not to touch her, but in his heart of hearts, he secretly hopes she’ll want him to.

“No, I’ll be home.”

“On a work day?”

“Even I’ve been known to be under the weather a time or two.” No way in hell he’s going to tell her he had a panic attack.

“You’re not catching that flu that’s going around, are you?”

“No, nothing as pedestrian as that,” he says. “I think it’s just a matter of... burnout ... Stress.” Yes, he would stick with that as the root cause. He wasn’t ready to entertain any other reasoning at this juncture.

“Okay. I’ll expect Moses at four-thirty.”

He considers the advice Nate gave him, and he hopes it’s not too late to put a bit of it into practice. “Keisha?”

“Yes?”

“I would be honored if you’d stay a while. Maybe we can have dinner and put the theater equipment to use again.”

He could hear the apprehension in her voice as she says, “Okay.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Keisha

As I approach the car, I notice Moses looks happier than I’ve ever seen him. I grin broadly and purposefully breach decorum, taking both his hands before giving him a kiss on the cheek. He surprises me and kisses my cheek in response.

“Ms. Beale, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!”

“And you!”

He scrutinizes me carefully. “But I see these three weeks have taken a toll on you both.”

“Oh yes, I’ve been working hard,” I say, waving him off. “And Tristan told me he’s stressed for the same reason.”

“Something like that,” Moses says cryptically. “Maybe seeing you will help.”

A girl can dream, but when it comes to a man like Tristan White, a girl’s dreams and his resolve don’t always coincide. He’s not about to give up a lifestyle he’s practiced for more than a decade just for me. Likewise, I’m not about to tell him my whole pathetic life story.

“I certainly hope so,” I say and slide into the car.

I’m curious about Tristan’s request to see me, of course, but I don’t have time to give it any more thought. Moses and I do our version of catching up as we wend our way through Chicago rush-hour traffic and listen to jazz music, a commonality we discovered on one of our many rides together.

I feel such a sense of calm as we enter the gate into Tristan’s exclusive neighborhood. Then Moses pulls up in front of the building behind an ambulance. My heart dips like a roller coaster, and I’m worried the occupant in the penthouse suite has passed out from exhaustion or something. I leap out of the car before Moses can reach the door.

“Good evening, Ms. Beale,” the doorman says.

“What’s going on, Mr. Dunleavy?”

“A new resident just moved in from a medical facility.”

“Oh. Oh, okay.” Relief washes over me. “How’s the wife?”

“She’s great. Thanks for asking, Ms. Beale.”

He unlocks Tristan’s private elevator for me since I don’t have my keys any more.

As I ride up, I wipe my damp palms on my suit pants and think about seeing Tristan in his condo for the first time in three weeks. Then I wonder if I should’ve gone home to change.

My Fairy Hoochie Mama and Triple-G, who’ve abandoned me for almost all of that time, come out of their self-imposed exile.

You should’ve worn that red lace overlay dress,
my Fairy Hoochie Mama says as she flits around fast, wearing its replica.

“Whoa,” I say and put my arms out to steady myself. Her flying and the elevator’s movement has me reeling like a drunken bimbo.

My Triple-G emerges in a white diaphanous number and joins Hoochie.

“Cut it out,” I say. “You bitches staged a boycott against me just a couple weeks ago. Why’re you coming out now?”

We want to see Tristan!
  they say in unison.
We’ve missed him!

“You aren’t the only ones. Now settle down and stop zipping around like a couple of bees on steroids.”

They giggle and disappear in a puff of smoke as the elevator stops—oddly on the floor just below Tristan’s. I frown as I take in the scene before me.

A red-haired, frail-looking but very beautiful woman is on a gurney. The only thing obscuring her flawless face is a clear oxygen mask. She looks at me listlessly at first, but then her eyes seem to spark with recognition. She mumbles something through the mask that I can’t hear, and just as the EMT leans in to hear what she’s saying, my line of sight is obscured by an unsmiling older woman in scrubs.

“May I help you?” The look in her eyes is one of pure hatred, as if I’ve smothered her puppy or something. If I weren’t preoccupied with seeing Tristan again, I’d give the old lady a few choice words. She doesn’t have to be so damned rude.

“No. The elevator must’ve stopped here by mistake.” I immediately push the button to Tristan’s floor, and that’s when I see a button has been added for the floor I’m on.

Weird!
The doors close, and I go up to my destination. I’ll have to ask Tristan who his new neighbors are.

When I get to his floor, I’m not at all prepared for the man waiting for me. Although he’s smiling, I can see right away he’s not the same Tristan I left here just a few weeks ago. Moses was right. There are dark circles under his eyes, he’s sporting a marked five o’clock shadow, and he looks thinner. If I were an over-confident woman, I might think it’s because of me, but he’s already said he’s been working hard on the Hong Kong project.