Page 26 of Friends with Benefits (Club Risqué)

"Would you have, though?" she asked quietly, dejectedly. "Or would that have just been one more thing that was taken away when you decided you didn't want anything to do with me anymore?"

Christian exhaled noisily and slumped back in the seat, taking Trinity with him, his own anger dissolving under the sheer waste and futility of the situation.

"I would never have done that," he argued.

Trinity glowered at him. “Really? You told me we’d always be friends, but that didn’t last long, did it? You dropped me like a hot potato the minute your wife didn’t like it. You didn’t even have the decency to tell me to my face. So don’t ask me to believe you paying for my education would have been any different.”

“None of that happened the way you think, Ta-Trinity,” Christian sighed, and there was such an aura of defeat about him that this time Trinity didn't argue.

“I was always honest with you, and I always discussed things with you in person. Even the hard stuff. Why would you think I’d do anything different if I wanted to cut ties? I thought you knew me better than that.”

He sounded so dejected that against her better judgement, Trinity’s heart hurt. “So what are you saying?” she demanded, doing her best to channel all her prior anger and indignation.

Christian looked her directly in the eyes. “I’m saying, I know you received a message sent from my phone… but it wasn’t me who sent it.”

Trinity stayed silent, doing her best to digest that information, as he continued. "Bianca did that, and then she deleted your number from my phone so I couldn't contact you again."

Trinity could feel herself crumbling and grasped at anything that might stop her from folding. "And what about Krista? She would have given you my number. Could have done that a number of times over the years." It was said without heat or recrimination. “Not that I’ve spoken to her in years but...”

Christian shook his head. “She deleted your number. I watched her do it right in front of Bianca, to keep her happy. If, by chance, she had it written down, she refused to tell me. And now, well… my mother and I are… estranged…"

"What? No!" Trinity pushed herself upright on his knee and swivelled to face him in sheer disbelief. "You were all she had left; she was terrified of losing you. How could that have even happened?"

Christian leaned his head against the back of the chair and stared sightlessly up at the ceiling, his eyes blank but his voice betraying a deep and abiding hurt.

"Just another little piece of the havoc Bianca managed to wreak during her short run of interference in my life," he muttered with unrestrained bitterness. "I suppose I should be thankful she didn't stick around longer."

"What happened?" Trinity asked hesitantly, wondering if she really wanted to know or not, thinking back to that day when Krista had revealed Bianca's threat to keep Christian away from her if she continued their friendship.

"That can't have been my fault, surely?" she whispered around the ache in her throat. “I packed up and left as soon as your mother told me about Bianca's threats to stop you from seeing her."

It was so long before Christian replied that she almost gave up any hope that he was going to tell her. Then, just when she'd decided to bring the conversation to a close, he started talking again.

This time, his voice was oddly devoid of any emotion and the lack of it made Trinity shiver. He looked straight ahead, gazing at nothing or maybe looking back on his past.

"Turns out, it was all just a con," he said matter of factly, as if he was doing nothing more than reciting a shopping list, but Trinity knew him well enough to understand that this was his way of keeping the hurt locked up tight.

"Her interest in the lifestyle dried up within weeks of our wedding…"

Trinity tried to defend herself against the hurt to her heart as her mind insisted on putting her through the agony of picturing him being intimate with another woman, but the wounds were inevitable, so instead, she just accepted them and stayed silent while she waited for him to continue.

"I guess that should have set off my suspicions straight away, but she made excuses and blamed the fact that I was always busy when she wanted to play or that I was more interested in pandering to my mother than I was to her."

He paused again for a little while, gathering his thoughts, thinking about what to say. "You obviously know the kind of trouble she caused with my mother.” Christian laughed bitterly, and it was a horrible sound. “From what I’ve managed to piece together, if all else failed, Bianca turned to plain old threats and told mother in no uncertain terms that if you were going to be present in her life, then she, and therefore I, was not."

Trinity relaxed onto his chest, pressing her cheek against the hard planes and offering what little comfort she could. He sat there as still as stone, but her heart was heavy with sadness at his plight.

"You know how my mother was. The anxiety was just too much for her, so at first, she caved to Bianca's demands. She never really told me what was said between the two of you before you went back to the south coast."

Trinity swallowed. "We can talk about that another time," she decided, sensing that, right now, Christian needed to offload and get everything out and she just needed to listen.

"Of course, that wasn't enough for Bianca. She didn't like the amount of time I spent with Mother or how clingy Krista was. She saw that as a very serious threat…or maybe she was just scared that anyone close would see her for what she really was, a manipulative, calculating gold digger."

Trinity couldn't help the shocked breath she sucked in or the way her body stiffened at Christian's implication, but she kept her questions to herself for now.

Christian, however, felt the tension vibrating through her body, and it brought him out of the nightmare of his past enough to allow himself to pull her close and stroke a soothing hand up and down her back. The action soothed them both, and bringing with it a calming sense of peace at the simple action.

"I've missed you so damn much," he whispered forlornly, burying his head in the crook of her neck.

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