At No Time || Bruno Mars

83

The shift in Trystan and Peter's lives was instantaneous—they were left no time to truly prepare themselves, thoughts of what it would be like nowhere near what they were experiencing. Trystan was not able to go to sleep the entire night, wide awake with premonitions of what would come with dawn. One of her greatest fears was about to be recognized and she did not know how she was going to deal with it.

"Last night, paparazzi spotted music mogul and C.O.O. of SoulWork Records Peter Hernandez with Trystan Wildes, songwriter and producer that has been all but in the spotlight for the past few years, coming out of South Montgomery Hospital with a little girl." A picture of Raina, wide-eyed and surprised in Trystan's arms before her mother could cover her face flipped onto the screen. "Inside sources say that the little girl spotted is actually a daughter the two have together but have been keeping it secret from the public. It's also been speculated that the reason he and fashion designer Kimioko Phan ended their engagement was due to Hernandez's infidelity and child–,"

"Trys, I told you not to watch that shit," Peter muttered as he walked back into the bedroom, stuffing his phone into his pocket before grabbing the remote from beside her and switching the T.V. off. "It's just gonna make everything worse."

Trystan knew that it would; she did not have to go on social media to know the badgering had already taken place. The sole fact that their secret was out meant that they would be under scrutiny until something more scandalous came about. In Los Angeles, that was something quick to come by, but Peter had made success through the years with no conflict. A man with a clean track record that was suddenly thrust into the limelight with a dark secret was going to be eaten alive. Trystan had the luxury of disappearance; little else had been known about her and Raina. Peter stood stoically, seemingly unafraid, but she did not want him to take the brunt of their mistakes.

"Who were you on the phone with?" she asked quietly, picking at her nails so she would not have to look him in the eye.

"Security. There's some paparazzi and reporters waiting outside the building. They're making them leave now."

"They didn't even have the fucking decency to let us leave the hospital," Trystan voiced, recounting the fact that they had to have seen Raina being rolled out in the wheel chair and still took it upon themselves to surround the child, not even stopping with their hounding when they flashed photos of her crying. "She's gonna all over people's news feeds and she's not even old enough to understand what's going on."

Peter did not tell her, but he checked his own social media and saw that they were one of the most popular topics of conversation. He could deal with the backlash he was receiving, but he hated the words toward Trystan, calling her out of her name and that their daughter's face was shown to the public prematurely. The only saving grace was people with enough couth to call out the media for cornering them at the hospital instead of catching them elsewhere.

"We're gonna have to come out about it—before people can run wild with their own versions of what happened," Peter noted, in his mind already making the preparations for SoulWork's spokesperson to release their statement.

"Someone knew we were there," Trystan murmured. "Someone had to have told them we were there. How else would they have known?"

"After you were caught out with Angelique that day, maybe someone's been following you around. It's some crazy ass people out here, Trys."

"But why?" she looked at him. "Why me? I haven't been in the public eye for years and even before then, I wasn't much to talk about outside my career. And how would they have known that following me would somehow lead to you? Someone had to've known the reason I was here was to be with you."