Three Reasons to Leave

Chapter 4

Tristan's POV

I sat on the edge of the armchair in the guest room, staring down at my hands.

In my left palm sat the worn silver coin I had carried since forever. In my right sat Audrey's diamond wedding band, cold and way out of place.

I had spent seven years imagining what it would feel like to see her again.

I had pictured running into her on some crowded street corner in New York, or finding her at an airport terminal, or showing up unannounced on her doorstep. In every single fantasy I played out in my head, she was different.

She was supposed to be a stranger by now.

The real problem was that she had barely changed at all.

She still scrunched her little nose up whenever she got furious, just like she did down in the kitchen five minutes ago. She still pressed the pad of her thumb hard against the center of her palm whenever she was desperately trying not to cry in front of people.

She still made that tiny, almost silent catch in her throat right before a lie slipped past her teeth.

The door pushed open, and Asher strolled in with a glass of scotch in his hand, looking down at the ring in my palm with a raised eyebrow.

"Are you going to give that back to her?" Asher asked, taking a sip and leaning his hip against the dresser.

"No," I said flatly, not bothering to look up.

Jude stepped into the room right behind him, quietly closing the door and checking the hallway. He adjusted his collar and gave me a dry, assessing look.

"Stealing a married woman's ring straight off her finger isn't exactly subtle, Tristan," Jude pointed out, his voice smooth and rational as usual. "Preston is an i***t, but even he is going to notice his wife isn't wearing his diamond."

"I don't care," I said.

"Of course you don't," Asher laughed, shaking his head. "You've been holding onto that little coin like a lovesick teenager for seven years, and now you're pocketing her jewelry. You're hopeless, man."

"Say another word about my coin, Asher, and I'll throw you through that window," I muttered, flipping the silver piece over my knuckles with a practiced flick of my thumb.

"Obsessed with me much? Try it," Asher grinned, flashing his teeth.

"Both of you shut up," Jude interrupted, running a hand over his face with a tired sigh. "You're acting like children."

For a few seconds, the room slipped effortlessly into the old rhythm we used to have before seven years of silence tore everything apart.

Then Audrey's name hung in the air, and the easy laughter died instantly.

"I hate the way she looks at us," Asher admitted quietly, the teasing smirk gone from his lips. "She genuinely thinks we came back to punish her for walking away back then. She looks at us like we're the enemy."

"Well, we need to stop behaving like ghosts from her past," Jude said, looking out the bedroom window toward the driveway. "If we keep cornering her, she's just going to dig her heels into that pathetic excuse for a marriage. We have to give her a reason to trust us again."

"We don't need to save Audrey," Jude added, turning back to face me. "She's not a broken project. We just need to remind her that she was once capable of wanting something for herself."

I closed my fingers around the ring, the edges of the diamond pressing into my skin.

I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted her. I had never stopped wanting her for a single second of those seven long years.

I also knew that if we pushed her too hard or backed her into a corner, she would run again, and this time she might run so far we would never find her.

I hadn't just stumbled into Preston's company by accident.

I had spent the last four months quietly watching her life from a distance through private investigators and security feeds. I didn't do it because I trusted myself to stay away from her forever.

I did it because I needed to know if she was truly happy.

She wasn't. Not even close.

I knew about Preston's cheap affairs. I knew about the financial control he exerted over her, holding her sick aunt's medical bills over her head like a noose.

I knew the exact way she had learned to swallow her sobs in the bathroom so no one would hear, and all the pathetic, quiet compromises she made every single day just to keep the peace in that hollow mansion.

It made my blood boil every time I thought about it.

"What happens if she actually still loves him?" Asher asked suddenly.

The question dropped into the quiet space like a stone hitting glass.

The room went dead.

Jude looked down at the floor, saying nothing.

My antique coin stopped dead between my index and middle finger, frozen mid-flip.

I didn't have an answer for him. At least, not an answer I was willing to say out loud to my two best friends.

If she still loved Preston after everything he had done to her, I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know if I had the strength to walk away a second time.

My phone suddenly vibrated violently against the wooden nightstand, the screen lighting up with a bright blue GPS tracking alert.

I had slipped a tracking link into her phone's settings last night while she was passed out in the booth at D&T. I had asked her to keep us updated only because I wanted to know she was breathing and safe.

But when I checked to make sure she was close, her location stopped moving.