Blowing out air a couple of times, Izzie rang the doorbell. She swallowed hard to make sure her heart wouldn’t climb out of her chest when the faint thud of barefoot steps on a wooden floor got closer. She held her breath when Tristan yanked the door open and glowered at her.

“I wasn’t going to open it, but I figured if you went to the trouble of convincing my mom to give you the access code to the penthouse elevator, you might even camp outside the door or something equally stupid.” He blocked the way, which forced Izzie to remain in the hall.

Craning her neck to make up for their considerable difference in height, and accepting the challenge in his defiant stare, she countered, “I didn’t twist her arm to get it. Truth is, Lil volunteered the information when I mentioned her blockhead of a son wasn’t picking up my calls or returning my messages. It’s been over two weeks, dude. Can we please act like the adults that we are?”

An angry flare lit up his blue eyes, then was gone. His animosity deflated, it left Izzie with an odd taste in her mouth. Not a bad one, though. She had come prepared to wrestle the proverbial bull by its horns and the sudden change in Tristan’s mood was as unexpected as it was welcomed.

Half the butterflies in her stomach dropped dead. The others were alive and well and making her queasy each time her eyes swept over his broad bare chest, which Izzie tried her best to ignore.

Not an easy task with his taut nipples right in her line of sight, taunting her. She bit the inside of her mouth to avoid gliding her tongue on her lower lip.

Mouthwatering sight.

Tristan twisted his towering frame to the left and gestured for her to step in. As she found her way to the seating area, his deep voice followed close behind her. “Honestly, I’m just tired of running around in circles, or trying to convince myself you’ll drop the bone,” he muttered, his tone, drab. Izzie would take dull over surly anytime.

Glancing around the spacious room, she rapidly identified which objects belonged to Tristan and which were Noah’s, since the former tended to become a neat freak when stressed. As if proving her point, Tristan rearranged a pair of brocade cushions three times before sitting on a chair facing the couch, where Izzie perched. She was too tense to enjoy a magnificent view of the shimmering waters of the North Bay, or Baía Norte as the locals called it.

“Okay, I’ll cut to the chase. You’re right, I’m not going anywhere until you hear me out. I came to Brazil because I need your help, but first I owe you the truth. I lied to you,” Izzie blurted.

That piqued his interest. “You mean other than before I caught you and Mark?” His eyes searched her face, but he didn’t offer anything other than an arched eyebrow.

“After that.”

He blew out a heavy breath. “Izzie, I mean it. I’m tired. I don’t want to play your little guessing games. They were annoying when we were young, they’re pointless now. What are you saying?”

He was right.

Again.

Every time she got insecure, she tended to stall, and that drove people crazy. They thought she did it on purpose, the telling stories in installments thing she did. Truth of the matter was that, most of the time, she was too nervous. Like right now.

The moment she dreaded and anticipated in equal parts facing her, Izzie eyed Tristan as she smoothed nonexistent wrinkles on her khakis.

“I let you believe I was having an affair with Mark. I was not,” she confessed.

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

When he stared into her eyes again, she read in them his struggle to keep his feelings in check as clearly as if she was reading a book.

He muttered, “That night at the party, when I caught you two having sex, that wasn’t the first clue I got. It was just the undeniable one. The last straw that broke me. For months before that, I would walk into a room and see Mark’s arm slung around your neck, or his hands touching your face, your waist. And every fucking time I asked about it, you said nothing was going on, but you’d get antsy. Still I didn’t believe my own suspicions because I thought you loved me.”

“I did.” She noticed his subtle flinching movement, but didn’t dwell on it, or she’d lose focus. “And that’s why I didn’t tell you about Mark’s inappropriate behavior, at first. You worshiped the man and I was naïve to believe I could handle him, until it was too late. I didn’t sleep with him before that party.”

Tristan’s hand rubbed his neck. Hard. So hard Izzie spotted the red marks faint as he buried his face in his hands.

“Yeah, you said that then, and I believed you. Even though I had caught you gagging on his dick, I believed you. I forgave you. When you begged me to stay, I caved in because I really didn’t want to go. I wanted to believe you loved me, not him. I stayed and tried to make it work, didn’t I? And how did you repay my trust?” His words were harsh, but his tone remained flat.

Izzie’s heart burst at the seams as she relived the torment of those days. Tristan had also been to hell and back, all because of her. Wretched, she stared at the wriggling fingers on her lap and waited.

He continued, “How did you prove your love to me, Izzie? A couple of months after the party, you ripped my heart out again, stomping it under your feet. You told me you were pregnant with Mark’s baby and you were leaving me. What am I missing here? Which part was a lie?”

Izzie snapped her head up and held his cold stare.

He was right, yet so wrong.

“Most of it. All of it. I didn’t sleep with Mark before or at that party.” She raised her hands to cut off Tristan’s rebuttal, then joined them in a steeple in front of her face and pleaded with him. “Hear me out before you say anything. I promise I’m giving you the truth now. That means you never heard it before.” She waited for his acknowledgment that he had heard her. It came as a curt nod. She added, “In the beginning, I thought Mark was just being Mark, you know. I mean, the man chased anything in a skirt, but I believed he cared for you, respected you too much to mean anything with his silly comments and wandering hands. I took it all as a lame joke. Often, he’d say something to me, or hug me, in front of other women and I thought he was trying to impress them. Remember how wasted he was all the time back then?”

“He hung out with those guys from the Crips in Los Angeles.”

“Exactly. They were a vicious crowd, into heavy drugs and guns and stuff.”

“Mark would pick fights in between concerts. We had to bail him out a couple of times or he wouldn’t make it to the next gig,” Tristan noted. “He was a liability, but a damn good guitarist. Plus, he knew everyone that mattered in the business.”

Izzie didn’t miss those days.

She nodded. “Exactly. When we arrived at the party, Mark pulled me aside and apologized. He said he had been an ass, that you were like a little brother to him and that he’d never jeopardize your friendship. He said that night was yours and that we should celebrate your future success.”

A shadowed crossed Tristan’s expression as if the memories of that evening haunted him. They certainly haunted Izzie.

He whispered, “Except for the apologies, that was pretty much what he said to me too. I thought he was happy for me.”

“Did he offer you champagne to toast your bright future?” Unable to leave out the sarcasm, although directed at herself, not Tristan, she was relieved he didn’t pick up on it.

“Nope.”

“He handed me a flute of bubblies and I emptied it in one swig. I was all for celebrating your contract. I was thrilled for you. After I bottomed up the drink he gave me, I went looking for you and found you in a heated discussion about race cars with Noah.”

Tristan’s stare turned nostalgic and a reluctant smile hitched up the corner of his lips. “You hated racing with a passion.”

“Still do. Anyway, I mingled, talked to friends, and lost track of time. At some point, I felt lightheaded and Mark just popped out of nowhere. He snaked his arm around my waist before I passed out.”

“Now, wait a second. Izzie Anderson passes out in a crowded room and nobody says anything? I was there and I’m sure I would’ve noticed the commotion.”

Without thinking, Izzie reached out and clasped his wrist for emphasis. Tristan didn’t snatch it away, so she held on to it. He had always been her anchor and she needed to feel grounded now, if she had ever needed support. “It felt like fainting to me because the next thing I remember I was sitting on the edge of a bed while Mark opened my top. He made me kneel in front of him. I swear I tried to stop him, but my arms and hands didn’t obey me.”

The mix of anger and anguish in Tristan’s eyes threatened to undo Izzie’s resolve. He muttered through clenched teeth, “Mark slipped roofies in your drink?” His hand gripped hers, knuckles turned white, but Izzie paid no heed.

She nodded, waiting for his outburst.

It never came.