Page 35 of Wanting a Family Man

Trystan turned the flame back on to bring the water back to a boil and poured a packet of dehydrated soup into it.

“Treating nature as an adversary is a very colonial, capitalist attitude. The wilderness isn’t something to be conquered and tamed. It took me a while to realize I was playing into that narrative. I was blinded by the numbers. Viewership rose through the roof. Money rolled in. But more money for me meant more money for them. And for Yasmine. By then, she had become my business manager. There was no incentive for anyone to agree to a safer show except me and my desire to stay alive. I began to push back and everything fell apart.”

“She broke up with you because you didn’t want to die?” she asked with contempt.

“Because the money was drying up. I was already behind on filming because negotiations were taking so long. No one wanted to pay me for the original vision. They all wanted the high-risk version. The distribution agreements were falling off. I needed money to finish the season and wanted to sell the house to do it. Yasmine was horrified.”

“I’mhorrified,” Cloe assured him. “On your behalf. That’s awful, Trystan.”

“It was. But you know what made her angriest? That I was there at all. She really enjoyed being the partner of an absent celebrity. She liked being my voice and holding the spotlight on herself. It turned into a very ugly parting where she took all the credit for my success. I gave her the house and paid her a chunk of cash to get lost.”

“That’s bullshit,” she muttered, glancing down at Storm to help the baby recover the food pouch. “All of it. When someone is thoughtful and caring and says they love you, you should be able to believe them.”

“Yeah.” Her words kicked him straight in the chest, winding him.

He hadn’t told anyone about Yasmine’s betrayal because it was too humiliating. He felt like a grade-A fool. Having Cloe’s understanding ought to alleviate that in some small way, but it only made him angrier. She knew exactly how he felt and that infuriated him. No one should feel like this.Sheshouldn’t.

“You got the executives to see reason, though. Things changed in the latest season,” she noted.

“It took time to find investors willing to gamble on my shift in focus. They weren’t really convinced until I risked my own money again. I refused to ask my team to take a pay cut or reduce the production value of the show, not when I already knew I’d lose viewers by talking about the dangers of climate change instead of, you know, camping beside volcanoes or man-eating tigers.”

“Where do things stand now? I’ll be really sad if you tell me the show isn’t coming back.”

“I’m trying like hell to get back to filming. I want enough episodes in the can to get a syndication deal. I was finally out filming when—” He waved at Storm.

Storm dropped her food pouch again and rolled, scrabbling to stand against Cloe. One of her little fists clutched into Cloe’s T-shirt. The other covered Cloe’s hand when Cloe offered the pouch again. Storm sipped once, then ignored it, trying to crawl past Cloe to freedom.

“We can live with a delay,” Cloe said to Storm, supporting her so she could stand. “Can’t we?” She rubbed her nose to Storm’s, getting a bat of Storm’s flat hand on her cheek in response.

“Get comfortable,” Trystan muttered.

“What do you mean?” She blinked at him.

“I had to dump what was left of my available cash into Raven’s Cove. When we graduated, Dad gave each of us a hundred thousand dollars. Reid and Logan used theirs for school. I sank mine into getting my show off the ground. We didn’t know that he took loans against the resort to give us that leg up. Between that and two divorces and Tiffany’s renovations, the place was fully underwater when Dad died. There’snothingfor Storm.”

“Really?” she breathed in shock.

“That’s not blame on Tiffany. Dad let her run with the upgrades after years of his own mismanagement. The overextensions are on him, but selling at a loss would have left a lot of people holding unpaid bills.” Trystan hadn’t been able to bear that, not only because a lot of those unpaid bills were held by locals who were closely connected to him.

On a deeper level, by accepting that money from his father, his father’s debts were his. He wouldn’t feel right until all of it was balanced out, including the resort being run by the people who owned the land.

“It’s great that Reid and Emma want to adopt Storm, but supporting her shouldn’t fall completely on them,” he continued. “Logan and I need to pitch in. Do our fair share.”

Reason number ten billion why he wasn’t ready to have kids. They were freaking expensive.

“Filming the baby hacks is a special episode that will keep the show on life support while I figure out the rest, but things are pretty dicey right now.” He took the soup off the heat and stirred it. “I’ve downplayed all of that with my brothers, so I’d appreciate your keeping it to yourself.”

“Why? I mean, yes, of course I’ll keep it in the vault.” She absently guided Storm’s hand away from her nose. “I’m just wondering why you wouldn’t tell them?”

Why did she think he would? Because she thought they were close?

“Pride,” he admitted with a self-conscious scratch beneath his jaw. “Reid would take it as a problem I need him to fix. Fuck that,” he said firmly. “I’ll fix it myself in my own way.”

“He does seem kind of… I don’t know. Tense?”

“He’s knotted tighter than a boa constrictor with an embarrassing itch.”

She sputtered a laugh.

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