“Wait, Elly.” My fingers tighten over hers on the door handle. Her skin is soft and warm. “Let me win back your trust.”
“No. And trust isn’t all you took from me, Tristan,” she mutters, snapping my hand away so she can turn the handle and fling the door open.
What the hell did that mean?
“It meant more to me than a fling,” she whispers, not looking back.
“It meant more to me too,” I call after her, but she’s already out the door.
Elly
I’m physically shaking when I get on the underground train after work. I expected my first day to be tough but not this shit show. My emotions are all over the place.
I’m disgusted with how much I’ve obsessed over him. Not a day goes past without him possessing at least some of my thoughts. Every night, to the sounds of Frank the Shagger’s real love life, I devise new scenarios in my head revolving around Tristan. It’s my guilty pleasure.
Pathetic.
How could I let myself get so wrapped up in a three-day fling? I’m ashamed to say it was a fairy tale for me. Except in my imagination, the fairy tale has a happy ending, the one where we meet in Greece and he isn’t married with a family.
He claims he issued divorce papers even though he was on holiday with his family. Then why did his ex-wife start a war with the cutlery? She wasn’t acting like a woman who had agreed to a separation. And she was wearing her rings.
I want to believe him. If only so that I can remember our time together as something meaningful rather than just evidence of me being a gullible fool.
I take out my phone and enter the code. Of course, I was lying when I said I wouldn’t look him up online. I could only scan the basics in work today. Looking for dirt on the CEO of your new company doesn’t feel like a productive first day activity. Like an itch aching to be scratched, my next few hours will be consumed with cyberstalking Tristan Kane.
My ultimate goal since I decided to study law was to end up at Madison Legal. Now, this changes everything. I knew the owner was one of the top lawyers in the world. How the hell had I not bothered to check what he looked like? I was so buried in case studies, interviews questions, Glassdoor reviews and articles on how to bag a trainee contract. I ignorantly assumed Tristan Kane, CEO was a stuffy old bloke to have amassed such a CV.
Not him.
I type in his name, and immediately a number of predictive search suggestions pop up.
Tristan Kane net worth
Tristan Kane age
Tristan Kane Gemina Kane
Tristan Kane Madison Legal
Tristan Kane Reid case Tristan Kane Danny Walker
Which one do I start with?
I select Tristan Kane Gemina Kane and click on images. A plethora of photos invade my eyes. Most of them are of Tristan and Gemina at posh events around the globe. Some of the photos are of him outside London’s supreme court or on podiums speaking at events. There are a few videos of him being interviewed by the BBC that send tingles up my legs and between my thighs. Hearing that man’s voice broadcast across the British nation is very erotic.
The bastard is sexy as hell. On and off paper.
I click on an image of Gemina Kane. She’s wearing a dark purple gown and is clearly singing on a stage. Oh my God, is that the Royal Opera house in London? Is she famous? Famous in theatre circles it would seem from the number of pictures of her. She really is devastatingly attractive. It makes me wonder why he chose me to have a fling if this is his standard.
The next photo is one of both of them standing outside a theatre. Gemina is smiling for the camera whereas Tristan is looking at her.
It winds me how he looks at her. Every woman wants a man to look at her like that. The article is dated the start of last year.
Rebound springs to mind.
I click out of the search. This isn’t good for my mindset.
There are lots of photos of him with Danny Walker, the Scottish tech tycoon who owns the Nexus Group. Interesting. They must be friends. There’s another guy in all the pictures. Jack Mathews, I read. It would appear handsome attracts handsome.
I click into info about Jack Mathews. Owner of The Lexington Property Group. It takes me a minute to register where I know them from-the chain of hotels and apartments in every major city in the world. So, this is his friend with whom he owns property.
This is Tristan Kane’s world.
The divorce must have gone through after Greece. I type Tristan Kane girlfriend and click search.
Now photos of Gemina are replaced with photos of Tristan with other beautiful women. I can’t find two photos with the same girl. My thoughts float back to what happened that day and Gemina’s voice echoes through my head, ‘You’re nobody.’
I didn’t blame her for hating me. What woman wouldn’t?
One of the images takes me into an article called ‘London’s sexiest lawyers.’ Who knew that was a thing? As I scroll through the article I laugh bitterly, causing the people next to me to stiffen. No one expresses emotion on the underground.
Tristan Kane was voted number one.
Guiltily, I try one last search. It was the first suggestion that came up, so it would be rude not to. My eyes bulge when the numbers render on screen: 250 million pounds?? This guy is worth 250 million pounds?
I shut my phone. Why am I torturing myself? No good can come of creeping on Tristan Kane online. Seeing photos of his glamorous life is just heart-breaking. None of those women in the pictures look like they live in a house-share with seven other people and stock toilet rolls in their bedroom.
No, I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll focus on my work, keep my head down and get everything I can out of this trainee contract, then move on. Sophie is a good mentor; I can learn a lot from her.
He can sleep with other trainees, not me. Greece wasn’t me; it was a temporary lapse of judgement. And it’s never the subordinate that comes off well in these situations, is it? I can’t jeopardise my career before it’s even started. For all I know he’s looking for a quick fumble then I’ll be ghosted or worse, fired. I need to protect myself. While I’ve been in a no-sex bubble for months he’s been schmoozing all over London, by the looks of things.