Page 29 of Black Heart

“How so?” Marty asked, wiping her hands dry on a paper towel.

“Your father’s still making me let you tag along,” Tristan said, knowing that it would piss her off enough to make her walk away.

It was a lie and it killed him to say it. Not once in their childhood had anyone forced him to let her tag along or made him be nice to her. They’d never needed to do that. Even back then, she was special to him.

He watched as his words had the desired effect. Her eyes teared up as she stared back at him. Still, he made no moves to correct the lie or comfort her even though it was tearing him apart inside to watch her cry.

“You’re lying,” Marty said hollowly. “No one ever made you be nice to me.”

Tristan simply shrugged as he adjusted the gun in his side holster.

“You really are an asshole, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said with absolutely no hesitation.

CHAPTER10

Tristan risked another glance at Marty, making sure that she was okay, only to find her staring down at the file in front of her and realized that he’d finally managed to push her away for good. No wonder he felt like shit. That, and his shoulder was fucking killing him, but at the moment, he really didn’t fucking care.

A knock sounded at the door.

“What?” he snapped, in absolutely no fucking mood to deal with any more bullshit today.

Rosemary walked into the office, carefully staying away from Tristan’s side of the room. She looked at Marty expectantly as she set a huge bouquet of baby pink roses in front of her.

“Are these for me?” Marty asked as she reached for the card.

“Whoever sent them didn’t bother signing their name. It only says congratulations,” Rosemary said, shrugging it off as Marty’s hand stilled on the card.

“You read her card?” Tristan asked, his tone thoughtful and cool. It was the tone that everyone around here knew meant that he was pissed, really fucking pissed.

Rosemary nervously licked her lips. “I had to find out who they were for,” she explained, trying to act innocent but he wasn’t buying it.

“Her name’s on the envelope,” Tristan pointed out.

“Oh,” Rosemary said with a nervous chuckle. “I didn’t realize that.”

“Uh-huh,” Tristan said, not believing one syllable of bullshit coming out of her mouth. She was one of the biggest gossips and troublemakers in town and if she’d had her way, he would have been fired a long time ago.

“It’s okay,” Marty said with a forced smile.

“No, it’s not,” Tristan bit out.

“It’s fine. Really,” Marty said tightly, shooting him a look that clearly told him to let it go.

Tristan rolled his eyes before looking back at Rosemary. “Anything else?”

“It’s eleven-thirty,” she said, looking at Marty as though that was supposed to mean something.

“And…” Tristan prompted.

She looked imploringly at Marty as she shifted anxiously, obviously expecting Marty to somehow save her. Marty looked up from her work and sent the woman an apologetic smile. Then, she looked back at the clock and sighed. “I guess it’s my turn.”

“Um, yes,” Rosemary murmured, once again licking her lips nervously even as her gaze flickered between him and the door.

“Turn for what?” Tristan demanded.

“Just something that her father asked her to do,” Rosemary quickly said, too fucking quickly.

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