Page 39 of The Man I Love

He realized now that it hadn't just been an affair his father had been hiding. He’d been hiding a whole life. A child. A sibling. He wondered how everyone would have taken it back then if his father had told him. Would they have accepted it? Would they have understood?

Tristan glanced to the machines which monitored his brother’s heartbeat, then to his tiny chest which labored with breathing.

He wondered if he’d have accepted his father had he tried to tell him the truth. If he would have heard the words through all of his pain he was feeling in that moment in time.

He glanced up at Heather again, no longer caring about how they got here. All he cared about was this little boy. He wanted Liam to grow up. More than anything else in the world, that was what he wanted.

“I’ll make an appointment tomorrow,” he whispered. “If I’m a match, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Heather’s face wrenched with emotion, and she threw her body against his chest. “Thank you,” she wept. “Thank you so much.”

His body stiffened, but he stood there awkwardly, comforting a woman he barely knew.

Once she retreated, wiping cheeks that were red streaked from tears, she said, “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.” She had no makeup on, and he wondered how long it had been since she’d left the hospital.

There was a knock at the door before he could form a response, and he glanced over Heather’s shoulder to see a nurse standing there with a vitals monitor. “Should I come back?” she asked, glancing apprehensively between the two of them.

Tristan retreated a step, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I was just leaving.”

Heather turned to the nurse, then back to him, her gaze quizzical—as though, for the first time since his arrival, she noticed he was wearing a tuxedo.

Visions of last night flashed through his mind, and he faced his brother’s bed again, lacking the strength left to explain himself. “Thank you for letting me meet him,” Tristan whispered.

Heather only nodded and turned to help the nurse as Tristan stepped out to the hall.

Alone outside the room, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and turned it on for the first time since landing in L.A. Dozens of notifications chimed at once.

Renee: What’s going on?

Penny: We have a problem.

Dad: Call me, son.

Renee: Did you land?

Penny: Tristan, where are you?

Renee: Please call me.

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but there wasn’t a single missed call or text from Samantha.

A raw brokenness squeezed his heart as he walked down the hall toward the elevator. The wounds from last night were fresh, painful, raw, and he couldn’t think straight.

Had she set him up? Had she planned that? Knowing what he knew now, would it still matter to him? His mind was reeling when his phone vibrated in his hand.

“Hello?” he answered on autopilot.

“Tristan, where have you been?” Penny shouted. “They’re taking everything!”

Feeling empty inside, he pushed the down button on the elevator, as Penny continued to explain. Collections had been at the office when she’d arrived that morning. They took the trucks, the furniture, and all the equipment. His few remaining employees were freaking out. “I tried to stop them,” she whispered.

His entire world collapsed as he listened. The elevator door opened, and he stepped inside, unsure where he was going. He pushed the button that took him to the bottom floor, feeling trapped in a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.

In the last twenty-four hours, he’d lost everything. The life he’d built for the last three years was crumbling at his feet.

“Everything will be fine,” he said out loud, but even to his own ears, it sounded like a lie.

17

---