Exit Strategy (16 page)

“So
...
what?  You want to postpone our regular thing?”

“Absolutely not. You’ve been invited. Is that okay with you?”

Keisha looks stunned, happy, and terrified all at once, if that’s possible.

Tristan presses her for an answer, not wanting her to overthink it too much. “Well, will you go with me?”

“Tristan, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. We’ve just resumed our... arrangement, and I don’t know. My mother already has the wrong idea about us. Let’s not be intentional about duping your father, too.”

“I’m sure my father has some idea about my lifestyle. You remember we were introduced to it by one of his old flames.”

“Which is why I don’t want to practice this charade with him.”

“My father is very discreet... and an honorable man, despite his own proclivities. He’s traditional enough to consider it the height of impropriety to make you uncomfortable in any way in his home.”

“I don’t know... ”

“Just say yes. Please? I won’t hear the end of it from my dad if you don’t come... and I want you there.”

Her big hazel eyes soften, and she flashes him a brilliant smile.

“Then I’d be happy to go with you.”

He cups her cheeks and kisses her his thanks. Just as they’re disengaging, his cell phone buzzes.

“I’d better take this,” he says apologetically.

She waves him off. “No, go right ahead.” Keisha slathers her hands with sanitizer, works it in until it evaporates, and then busies herself fixing plates of food while he answers his call.

“Yes, Darryl?”

“The PR department in the mayor’s office called to confirm your attendance at a fundraiser next Thursday night. Shall I give them your regrets?”

Tristan thinks about the favors he’ll need for Huáng. It would be a great opportunity to speak to the mayor about bringing more foreign commerce to Chicago. This would be a wonderful event to take Keisha to. He and Keisha have gone to tons of social events together, and she makes a terrific plus-one. She’s poised and graceful in social settings—cultured and well-read enough to be a fantastic conversationalist. It would be a terrific evening to play dress-up and have a nice meal, and she could do some networking of her own.

Other men often ogled her exotic beauty when she was dressed to the nines. The subtle mix of her African American and Brazilian heritage usually had them salivating, and Tristan didn’t mind them looking as long as he was the lucky stiff who got to take her home at the end of the evening.

“Hold on... Hey, hungry girl,” he says to Keisha as she finishes up a strawberry.

“Mmm... yes?”

“There’s a function for the mayor I’ve been asked to attend next Thursday night. Can you make it?”

She shrugs. “Sure.”

“Darryl, it’s a go.”

“And your plus-one?”

Tristan smiles at Keisha as he says, “Ms. Beale will be accompanying me.”

~*~

The staff at the White’s Gold Coast mansion prepares a gourmet meal for the celebration, which belies the truth of the matter. At best, it is being masqueraded as a scheduled observance of Alyssa White’s birthday. This is actually another of Lydia’s feeble attempts at making them all one big, happy family.

Bryce is in attendance with a Pamela Anderson lookalike in tow. Throughout dinner, they engage in superficial small talk, and everyone is cordial. Lydia even proposes a toast, and Tristan is surprised his father is allowing his wife this farcical display. Nate and Tristan share a look of disbelief. Their dad delivers his own toast immediately after his wife’s anticlimactic drivel, and they finish the meal without incident.

However, Tristan wants to punch something when Bryce introduces himself to Keisha as his stepbrother. Tristan has certainly had enough when, during after-dinner drinks, Lydia offends Keisha by intimating that Sara might have been a better match for him.

“Tristan, you and my son have always had a thing for blondes. The one you were with when I began dating your father looked a lot like Bryce’s date tonight. Dare I say she was the ‘one who got away’?”

Feeling Keisha stiffen, Tristan pulls her close to his side and says, “Present company excluded, I wouldn’t consider any of my companions in recent years as the elusive catch one regrets for life.”

“Perhaps the Gabriel girl was more deserving of that honor. Such a tragedy,” Lydia says and feigns a sympathetic frown.

Tristan doesn’t give any outward indication that Lydia’s mention of Aimee is unwelcome. He’s more concerned about the effect her words have on Keisha. He certainly hasn’t told her about that chapter in his life, and she’d probably run for the hills if she knew.

Like him, Keisha handles the situation deftly and doesn’t allow Lydia to visibly rattle her. In fact, she doesn’t miss a beat when she gives her a beaming smile and says, “If you’re speaking of Sara, I’ve met her. It’s obvious she and Bryce’s date have a... procedure or two in common. But believe me when I tell you, Tristan isn’t missing anything—especially as it relates to authentic female anatomy.”

Lydia flushes, narrows her eyes imperceptibly, and moves on to chat up Nathan and Jada, who are at the bar with his dad. Keisha clutches Tristan’s arm and whispers, “Now I know why you don’t like that bitch. If we weren’t in her home, I would’ve lumped her right in there with Barbie one and Barbie two.”

“It’s semantics, I know, but this is my father’s house, and if she bares her diamond-encrusted claws again, you have my permission to verbally rip her to shreds.”

Keisha smiles up at him. “Yes, Sir.”

“So, the trouble in paradise only lasted a little over fortnight.” He and Keisha turn to find Bryce approaching with his bimbo on his arm, a drink swirling in his hand.

Tristan isn’t surprised that neither Lydia nor her spawn know how to have pleasant social conversation.

“Feel free to wallow in your own hastily crafted assumptions,” Tristan says.

“Now that I’ve had a chance to meet the gorgeous business partners who’ve tamed the White brothers, I see what all the fuss is about. I
want
one.” Bryce’s date pulls away from him, folds her slender arms over her voluminous chest, and looks on in disbelief as he extends a hand to Keisha.

Keisha offers her hand warily, and Bryce brings it to his mouth and kisses the top of it. Keisha looks back at Tristan, clearly uncomfortable with Bryce’s insipid, over-the-top display. Bryce says, “If I were Tristan, I’d have pummeled a brick wall and required casts on both my hands had you deprived me of the pleasure of your company for even a day, Keisha.”

After downing the finger of Scotch left in his glass, Tristan discards it on a side table and tucks Keisha’s hand into the crook of his arm, effectively putting himself between her and Bryce. “Keisha and I were just leaving,” Tristan says and nods to Bryce’s date. “Good night, Ms. Weintraub.”

Bryce isn’t about to be so easily dismissed. He darts into their path and lowers his voice so only Tristan and Keisha can hear him. “I thought we might take this opportunity to reconsider the transfer of KSR to me since Hong Kong is a no-go.”

Keisha looks confused. “Transfer of KSR?” She trains dagger eyes on Tristan, who takes Bryce to task.

“Surely you must realize that’s never going to happen,” Tristan says, a muscle in his jaw working furiously. “Especially given your patent lack of discretion.”

“But we’re among family,” Bryce says. “And let’s be realistic, it’ll only be a matter of time before you two have another spat, and then you’ll be asking me to be the angel for her little business venture again, so we may as well proceed. I understand women of her ethnicity have quite the temper.”

No sooner are the words out of his mouth than Tristan decks him. Everyone gapes before Nathan and Tristan’s father spring into action. Charles grabs Bryce, who’s struggling to get up and ostensibly defend himself, while Nathan grabs Tristan, who wants nothing more than the opportunity to knock Bryce’s lights out completely.

“Hey, settle down now,” Charles says. “This is supposed to be a celebration, not a goddamned sideshow.” Lydia rushes to her son’s side with a white dinner napkin she’s dunked into a champagne bucket and applies the cold compress to her son’s rapidly swelling, bleeding nose while Bryce’s date saunters over to the wet bar and asks the servant manning it for another drink.

“What gives, Tristan?” Nathan says, shaking his head. “You let a worm like Paulson get to you?”

“He made a belittling remark about Keisha,” Tristan says, as he shakes out and flexes his reinjured hand.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Keisha and her roommate having a frenzied conversation, no doubt about the bomb Bryce just dropped on her about taking over KSR.

“Oh, well,” Nathan says. “I would’ve handed him his ass on a platter, too, then.”

Tristan stalks over to Keisha and takes her arm, but she pulls away. Jada steps between them and into Tristan’s face.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve thinking you can waltz right out of here with Keisha on your arm after the shit you just tried to pull.”

“You don’t speak for Keisha, Ms. Jameson.” Tristan looks around her to Keisha. “Keisha, let me explain. It’s not the way Bryce presented it.”

“We’re partners, lest you forget, Tristan,” Jada says, her eyes shooting daggers at him. “And the least you could have done is given us goddamned courtesy call or something.” Nathan sidles up to Jada and pulls her back to his front.

“Baby, let Keisha and Tristan talk. Seems to me that deal Bryce spoke of is a non-deal. Right, Tristan?” Nate says, but his eyes are saying,
Please don’t tell me you were seriously thinking of handing them over to Bryce?

“I took a meeting with him to discuss options, and he took it to mean it was going to happen—even after I clearly told him I’d changed my mind.”

Tristan goes to Keisha, takes her hand and leads her into the foyer where he closes the doors on the melee he created.

She immediately gets into his face. “Jada and I should’ve been a part of those negotiations with your politically incorrect stepbrother, or a simple notification that a meeting was going to happen would’ve been nice.”

Tristan clenches his teeth. “He’s not my fucking stepbrother!” Keisha flinches, and he holds his hands up in a conciliatory gesture in lieu of an apology. “You’re right. I should’ve mentioned it to you before I even considered it. I would have sooner rather than later if this... threat hadn’t occurred and I hadn’t been so... consumed with getting you back.”

She looks at his reinjured hand. “We’ll discuss this later; right now you’d better get some ice on this.” She takes his hand gently in hers. It isn’t lost on him that she’s set her anger aside to tend to his busted knuckles.

“Let’s do it in the car. I think I’ve had about as much of Lydia’s hospitality as I can stand.” He fishes his cell phone out of his inner jacket pocket and makes a call. “Moses. Let’s roll.”

They’re retrieving their coats when Tristan’s father emerges from the sitting room.

“You don’t have to leave,” he says. “Bryce had a little too much to drink. I believe he’ll behave now.” Charles smiles conspiratorially. “I think your right hook sobered him up a bit, son.”

“It’s okay, Dad,” Tristan says. “We were about to leave anyway.”

Charles turns to Keisha and takes her hand. “I hope to see you again soon, young lady. And I promise to keep the family drama to a minimum next time.” He leans in and kisses her on the cheek.

“Thanks for having us, Mr. White. It was a lovely dinner. No worries. I’m no stranger to family drama,” she says, and they share a laugh.

They exit to see the waiting limo in the curved driveway, and Moses already has the door open for them. Keisha walks leisurely to the car, and Charles places a hand on Tristan’s shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier. Velasquez have any leads regarding who might be behind this nasty threat business?”

“Besides the trace evidence Quantico collected from the letter, no. Of course, the DNA recovered didn’t match that of any known felon in the database, but we’ll keep looking. The perpetrator will give us something we can use eventually.”

“Well, keep me posted.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And son?”

“Yes?”

“I think your mother would approve your choice of companion.”

Tristan smiles. “Really? How so?”

“I believe Keisha has a heck of a lot more going for her than flighty Denise Huxtable ever did, even on her best day.”

Tristan is shocked. “You knew about that?”

“Your mother and I never kept any secrets from each other, and you watched that show religiously. I’m not surprised about Nathan and Jada, either. Senator Jameson and I don’t have a lot in common politically, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a familial connection. Neither should you. He could be our next governor.”