S H A D E S

Flames to Dust...

Opening the polished wood double doors, I strode inside. Tristan stood facing the wall of windows. Morning sun curving over the horizon, bathing the cityscape in a swath of blazing red. Manhattan on fire. And Tristan lording over the flames, a heathen god in expensive Armani.

My mouth salivated and went dry all at once.

"You wanted to see me?" I said, ensuring the doors were shut behind me. When he turned at the sound of my voice—struck by the fierce look in his eyes—I almost stumbled.

I'd seen Tristan many ways. All varying depths and shades of the man I'd come to love, but this sort of raging tempest, clamped in a cold, iron fist—there was only one other instance I'd seen him so heated and chilled. The night he'd broken Percy's nose. But this time, the full force of his ferocity was directed towards me. And I cowered in the face of it.

"What's wrong?" I asked, voice whisper thin. "Jesus, Tristan, what happened?"

Silver eyes snapping with violent sparks, he moved silently to his desk, pressed the button for his voicemail. Flicking through a few saved messages, he settled on one and pushed the speaker intercom so I could hear.

"Shade—Wade Coleson here. New York Times. We met at that event—your remember the one, don't you? What am I saying, course you do." That voice laughed, the thick male tones fringed with a smoker's rasp. "Something interesting has fallen into my lap, was wondering if you cared to comment? I've flipped you an email. I know you're a busy man, Shade, and I'd like to say I can give you a comfortable buffer of twenty-four hours to sit on this before we go to press, but you know I can't make guarantees."

The finger held poised over the phone curled tight into a fist. And that fist trembled. My heart kicked, rolled, lurched and came full stop. Seeing him like this, so silent and seething, was the single most terrifying thing I've ever witnessed.

"Shade." Carefully, I moved around the side of the desk. Touching his shoulder I turned him to me, searching his face for something. Any sign or clue or hint I could latch on to and understand. Process.

He got a call from a reporter. But what did it all mean?

"Read the email," he said, stepping back and away from me. There, on his desk, was his laptop, the screen open and email already in place. Sitting down in his chair, I rolled these at forward and started at the beginning.

According to my source...

Four little words and my already chilled blood ran colder still. And the more I read, the more the chill intensified with sharp, hard waves of ice that lashed and scored and cut so deep.

"Oh God. Oh God." I whispered the refrain, over and over, not quite able to believe what I was reading. Shakily, I scrolled over to the attachments, and there I was—a picture of men on screen in a seedy, dim lit bar with Susan. My face, a smear of purpling bruise darkening my jaw. The day after I had been assaulted by Jeremy.

"Is it true?"

Dazed, I looked up at him. Shaken to my core. "True?"

"This," Tristan's finger bounced on the desk. Impatient and inflammatory full of insinuation. "Did you betray me—betray us and everything we've shared—to a journalist?"

Stunned, I glanced at the computer, to all the mess spilling out from it. "You think I've done this? Gone to the Times?"

His sharp, unrelenting gaze said it all. "They have far too much to have come from anyone or anywhere else. And this picture speaks volumes."

"I didn't—I would never—she door-stepped me, Shade. I told her to get lost. Why would I do that? Why would I put you and all of this out there? What could I possibly stand to gain from humiliating you?"

"You never wanted this merger," he said, soft as a feather but the implication carried all the staggering weight of a punch to the solar plexus. "And it's early days, yet. Easy enough to overturn and back out. A bit of colour and scandal splashed across every paper and news station would be just the thing you'd need to snap that fragile union. And just like that you'd be back on top. Alone. As you always wanted."

"I would never do that. I'm not your wife. Don't you dare compare me to her."

"Aren't you?" His lip curled. "Then how do they know about the contract?"

"How could they know that?"

"I don't have a single foggy fuck, Shade. I carried it around with me all week. It never left my side or sight once except to—" I closed my eyes, my heart sinking to the pit of my stomach. Shit. "The contract. I'd scanned the document from work."

When I opened my eyes, Tristan's own glimmered cold and unforgiving as the iceberg to sink the Titanic. "That was a stupid thing to do."

"I'm sorry," I said, spreading my hands. "I didn't think—"

"Didn't think that someone could easily place a call to IT and request a detailed record of all your accounts? Incoming, outgoing—downloads and uploads." Turning he drove his fist into the swath of wall. The sickening crunch of knuckles against the hardened concrete beneath rang with the deafening sound of fury. "Christ, Laura, I thought you had some fucking sense to do that from home."

Dazed, I set my hands to the table, folded over. "Jesus..." Stomach roiling, heart kicking, knees weak, I prayed I wouldn't pass out.

"I can fix this." I believed that. Had to. This was what I did. Crisis management was a major facet of Corporate Communications. And no one was better at spinning a disaster than me. The number of companies I had pulled out a death defying nose-dive were too long to enumerate, but I had. Over and over. I could turn this around. I could make it go away.

And if not, I could find the angle to spin this puppy my way. I just needed him to believe in me. To trust me.

"Please, I can fix this." Turning to him, Tristan glowered at me, hard as stone and equally unforgiving.

"It's too late for that," he said. And though he hadn't moved, I felt the stretch of distance expanding between us, obliterating everything we'd accomplished together. Gone. Ruined. Finished.

A door was closing. I could feel it.

"No..."

"We're finished here," he said, all cool indifference. No hint of emotion. I watched as his temper bled away. All frustration and rage. All heat and violence. Gone. All of it gone. Like nothing mattered. Like he didn't care. Had never cared.

"You and I, Laura Pierce, effective immediately, we're done."