Page 56 of About Last Night
She broke eye contact and stared at her lap. ‘I can’t work for you any more, Tristan.’
He paced across the room, shrugging off his coat and hanging it on the peg by her door before returning to her sofa and sitting down next to her.
So, he wasn’t accepting her resignation then.
Leaning his elbow against the back of the sofa, he propped his head against his hand and studied her for a moment.
Her blood pounded in her throat as she waited for him to say his bit and she picked at a thread on the cushion so she didn’t have to look at him.
‘I’ve been thinking about how empty my life would be if you moved to Australia,’ he said finally.
Her gaze snapped to his and she pinched her brows together. ‘Well, you should be kept pretty busy here in London at the radio station.’
He sighed. ‘Lula, I’m not going to move to London if you’re not here.’
She could actually hear the blood pulsing through her head. ‘Really?’
‘No, of course not. It’s a Lula-sized hole in my life that I’m concerned about, not a London-sized one.’
She was actually trembling with hope now. ‘So, what are you saying?’
‘Flash can’t afford to lose you, Lula. Our audiences love you – the ratings for your show prove that – and we need you to stay to bring in the advertisers. I’ll have a monetary stake in the station but be hands-off in the running of it. I’ll get someone in tomanage it so you won’t have to deal with me being your boss any more.’
He was giving up managing the station? ‘But you love working at Flash.’
The fierce expression in his eyes made her heart flip. ‘Actually, it’s more that I’ve enjoyed doing something thatisn’tworking for the family business. Thing is, I’ve been so focused on working there over the years I’ve let it take priority over everything else in my life.’
He leant his back against the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. ‘It was originally my mum’s family’s business – she met my dad when he started working for them – but when she died my dad lost interest in running it because of his obsession with finding a replacement for her and it got into financial trouble. Apparently, Jez’s father helped him out of a hole by loaning him money, which is why he was so keen to keep Jez on at Flash – as a way to pay his friend back for the gesture.’
‘So that’s how he managed to get away with so much.’
Tristan raised an eyebrow. ‘Yeah. Anyway, I took up the reins at the family business once I’d graduated from uni because my dad had let it get into trouble again and I couldn’t bear to see it fail. My mum would have been devastated. Her father worked so hard to build it up from the ground and I’ve been trying to keep it alive in memory of her. I felt like it was the only thing I had left of her.’
She had to fight against the tears she wanted to spill for him. ‘I bet she would have been proud of you.’
The sadness in his smile nearly broke her heart.
There was an uncomfortable pause where he seemed to be thinking about what she’d said.
He snapped the growing tension by swiping a hand in the air, as if trying to swat away the melancholy. ‘Anyway, I put myself under a lot of pressure to keep the business thriving andeverything else in my life took a back seat. Like my relationship with Marcy. I never wanted to commit to her because that would have meant putting something other than the business first. That’s when my brother stepped in and offered her what she wanted.’ He frowned hard.
‘Do you think you’ll ever make up with him?’ she asked gently.
He turned to look at her, dropping the frown. ‘Actually, I already have. He’s going to take over managing the family business from now on.’ His smile was rueful this time. ‘It’ll do him good to take responsibility for something instead of letting everyone else carry him.’
Lula took a breath, steeling herself to ask the question that played heavily on her mind. ‘Are you still in love with Marcy?’
Tristan seemed to consider her question for a few moments, in which her heart hammered so hard against her chest she felt sure he’d be able to hear it.
‘I thought it was a good relationship at the time because we never seemed to argue, but the truth was, we weren’t around each other enough to have anything real to argue about. And if we did, I bought her things I thought she wanted – material possessions – to smooth things over. I gave her everything she ever asked for. Except my undivided attention and love.’
He huffed out a laugh. ‘She said I didn’t see her as a person, only a commodity. I didn’t understand what she meant until I met you. Until you forced me to think about you as an individual, instead of something to be bought off and placated. You made getting to know someone real for me, by making me care about you.’
The irrefutable look of hope on Lula’s face made him want to pull her against him and never let her go, but he needed to say more – to explain himself – before he got distracted by the urge to haul her off to bed andshowher how much he cared.
He laid his hand on her leg, asking for a chance to say what he needed to without interruption and she nodded, encouraging him on.
His heart beat like a jackhammer against his chest as he gathered his courage.
