William I didn’t wanna know what the hell had gotten into Tristan, but after that crap he just pulled today. That truly was the height of it, I decided I was gonna go and stick whatever the hell is bugging him up his ass. From impossible tasks, to cold shoulders and now this. I don’t care if he is the CEO or whatever. I’m done dealing with what it was that’s been bugging him so much. I strongly made up my mind that I was gonna confront him, no matter how ugly things went . As I stood outside his glass-walled office, I could see him staring at his computer with his expression seemingly neutral. I clenched myn first so hard, I could almost feel my nails piercing me. My heart pounded to the rhythms of anxiety. But the annoyance and frustrations I felt were at its peak. I took a step and then another closer to the door and barged in after a knock without waiting for a response. He looked up at me a bit shocked, but then he seemed to ease his nerves when he saw it was me. Like I was n
William"What the ?"The words came pouring out of my mouth before I knew it, my entire being with disbelief as I stared at Tristan, while still trying to process what he’d just said. My heart raced, my thoughts were a mess. Did he really just? No. This had to be some kind of sick joke. A cruel, twisted joke that only a sociopath likeTristan could think was funny."Are you insane? What the actual fuck? What the?" I asked, my voice trembled. I felt a rush of emotions through my head, and I let it out before I started having any second thoughts. "I have always known you’re a sadistic bitch, but this?" I gestured wildly between the two of us. "This is way too low, even for you."Tristan didn’t utter not even one word. Or rather, he couldn’t. There was something about the way he sounded, about the way he looked at me. It feels so genuine and a bit warm at the same time. For a moment I saw a part of Tristan that seemed vulnerable and humane. And I wanted to believe maybe there was a speck
WilliamThere was no way I could go to work the day after Tristan confessed his love for me. I just couldn’t. I didn’t think I was ready to face him or the awkwardness that was bound to follow. My emotions were so all over the place, the confusion, the frustration, even a flicker of something I don’t think I wanna say. So I decided to stay in bed, and was sure to completely ignore the constant buzzing of my phone, and tried to process what had happened.Adrian had called my phone twice. While Tristan’s name showed up on my screen more times than I cared to count. But I let them both go to voicemail. I just needed a day to stay sane and keep my shit together, to figure out what I was even feeling.I needed to talk to someone, it felt like there was a huge mass in my chest and I was gonna exp-lode if I didn’t talk to someone. Ellie was the only person I could think of who might make sense of the mess in my head since she probably already saw this coming. By late morning, she was sitt
William No matter how much I tried I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to fix things with Adrian. No matter what had happened, he was still a good friend to me, and the last thing I wanted was for our relationship to fall apart because of whatever mess Tristan had thrown into the mix. So, I decided to take a detour after work. I wasn’t sure what was gonna happen, but I needed some answers, and I needed closure. Maybe we could work this out, put everything on the table, and move past this sandstorm together.When I reached his apartment, I stood outside for a moment, debating whether or not to knock. I felt so stupid and immature, but I had to do this. I just couldn’t just ignore the situation. After all, this was all Tristan's fault and not his.The door swung open, and there he was. Adrian. He looked as though he’d been expecting a visit, though the look he wore on his face told me that I wasn’t welcome.“What do you want, Will?” he asked, his voice flat, almost defens
William The weekend was finally here. The much needed break I really needed from work, from everything that had been happening in my life so far. I had just ordered a pepperoni pizza, hoping for a nice a peaceful day to just sit back and relax, when my phone buzzed with a text. It was from my dad: "Don’t forget the charity event tonight, Will. Be there early. We are expecting you."My heart fell to my stomach. I had totally forgotten about the annual charity event my family and some other prestigious families hosted together. I hadn’t been in ages, mostly because I had been away from home for so long. The event was the usual Noblesse Oblige act with top companies and industries gathering to raise funds for orphanages and the homeless. It was supposed to be a night of high-class charity, something the top dogs liked to flaunt, and I had completely spaced on it. I had no choice but to go now, even if I didn’t want to but my dad’s reminder kept echoing in my mind.The pizza sat untou
William's POV A fire was burning in my head until I felt like I had a coal brassier on my shoulders, and my eyes had narrowed to pinpricks of light. I drew in breath because everything else felt impossible at that moment The smile on his face was infuriating and I found my hands clenching into fists. But if my father was aware of how I felt or whatever was going on between us, he did not show it. “Tristan.” I said shortly. My father looked excitedly at the both of us. “I simply can’t tell you how much of an honour it is that you decided to come down for the event today, Tristan.” “It was nothing. I needed some time away from the office. I’m sure William felt the same. He’s been working an awful lot doing over mistakes he’s made that would have otherwise been costly.” My father looked at me with new eyes. “Do you need help with work, William? This is the first time I’m hearing of you redoing tasks.” “I wondered the same thing too, Mr. Bracknell. I was already pleased to ha
William's POV My entire face felt soaked in perspiration and moving my tongue was easily one of the most difficult things I had done all through today, still I tried to focus my attention on Caleb, his form swirling in front of me. I tried to reach out to touch him, just to be sure that he was real, and tumbled forward. I was propped back up. Caleb’s smell hadn’t changed either. I wanted to vomit. “It’s alright,” he said sweetly. “I’ve got you.” “Unhand me,” I muttered with a leaden tongue. “What was that?” “Unhand me,” I said more forcibly. “I’m fine.” I imagine that Caleb must have pouted like he was so used to and given me a look. “William, you are anything but fine. I don’t even know who told you to come here in the first place, trying to drown your sorrows? You’re a lightweight and you’ve consumed so much already. You’re not fine.” His words pierced my head like thumbtacks, but they brought along some needed clarity. Not much, but enough to focus if I really trie
William's POV I went straight to my room and tossed myself onto the bed, rubbing at my eyes. I had no idea what was going on. There was so much I could not wrap my head around, with Tristan, with Caleb… I was completely lost, but for now, all I could do was sleep until much later in the day when I woke up, took a shower and decided to see Adrian. But on second thought, I decided to call him instead. He answered on the second ring. “William,” he said flatly causing a lump to form in my throat. I had not really thought about how I was going to broach this topic with him. “Hey, Adrian,” I said. “How’s it going with you?” “Could be better.” “Right.” “And work?” There was silence on the other end, the duration of which I felt like stabbing myself several times in the head. How could I have forgotten that he was no longer working at the company? Tristan had fired him, after all. Because of me. “Listen, Adrian, I’m sorry. I know I’ve apologized before about the entire thin
Ellie and Mavis and I strode into Food Palace, both Ellie and her husband looking like a million bucks, while I hoped to be able to pass for only slightly ruffled.I had not checked my hair to see if I had any of that sex hair. I had gotten the smell out of my mouth and taken a shower and tried my best to look as spruced up as possible, but there was no denying at all.Tristan had messed with me, and it showed, no matter how much I tried to hide it. It was evident in the way that I walked. I looked around, hoping that Tristan was not somehow following us around. I didn’t peg him for the stalker type, but one was never sure about these billionaire dark princes that seemed to want everything to always go in their favor—wanting to always be in control.I sighed as we slid into a booth and Ellie chatted up the attendant who came around almost instantaneously.“Welcome to Food Palace, the one stop for everything food.” The man said. He was an interesting glass of wine, tall and beautiful i
My breathing was finally slowing down, but Tristan was still standing over me with that same cold detachedness. I could not place what had happened, when he had made the switch, but back at his place, the first night that we had had sex, he was carefree. He looked alive back then. Now, he seemed like an entirely different human being, completely focused on wringing every single inch of pleasure out of me.It seemed like so long ago since when we had first sex.Tristan seemed like a completely different human being now.I wondered if this was how he normally was—if he was always this cold and detached human being, or he had only been gentle as an act for me.I could hear him rolling the condom over his cock and it filled me with a new desire, a need that burned in my groin, excusing my already-burnt out cock. I was still trying to catch my breath.Tristan’s hands gripped my ass firmly as he tried to position himself, then my cell phone rang and for once, I was glad for a distraction be
I looked at Tristan, my eyes lingering on his before dipping down to see just how hung he was.“You look like you’re in a fix, Tristan Richmond,” I teased.Tristan only said gruffly, “Shut up. Come here. Finish this.”“Afraid I can’t, Tristan. I’m just your employee, or whatever else it is that you said, or isn’t that right? Employers shouldn’t maltreat their employees, you know.”“You’re still in my office.” He smirked. He moved back so that he was half-sitting, half-leaning on his desk again, just the barest part of his butt resting on the hard wood. The top was still cluttered with all of the documents that he had to review.I rolled my eyes at him. “Actually, Tristan, I just sucked you off in your office, so it’s more or less my office now. I’m the one on top.”“No, you’re not.”“Yes, I am, Tristan.” I retorted, as though we were children caught in a game of who was wrong.Suddenly, Tristan moved from his desk. So quick like he had sprung off the desk and charged straight for me.
It felt like all the air in the room had been sucked out, just by the words that Tristan declared. I cocked my head at him, unsure of what I had heard. “Mr. Richmond, I’m so sorry, I tried to stop him…” But Tristan was glaring only at me, his eyes trained and focused. I stared, my head still cocked, wondering just who this new creature sitting behind the desk was. I opened my mouth to speak, but Tristan beat me to the chase. “You can leave us, Guiseppe,” Tristan said to the man who crouched by his side. His lawyer, I supposed. He had black hair slicked back and eyes like charcoal. He was beautiful with a kind of animal savagery. But I was not concerned about this man. My eyes were fixed only on Tristan. I inhaled as the lawyer walked past me, his briefcase drawn close. He gave me the stink-eye, but I didn’t care about him. I wasn’t looking at him— “I asked you a question, William,” Tristan said calmly as he pulled the cover over a folder that he held. Alexa tugged at my elbow, w
For all of the words that I had thrown at my father… all of the things that I was feeling in my chest, I still drove slowly, weaving through a light traffic as I tried to get to the office.I was thinking about a million other things, but as I drove, everything everywhere looked pretty normal. Didn’t look like the world was ending on account of the way that both Tristan and my father, and quite literally everyone that I knew was acting.Still, I understood why they were acting the way that they were. There was a lot of publicity. It was a lot of publicity. And my father had been right. There was in fact bad PR. This kind of thing was exactly the sort of news that counted as bad publicity. Not because Tristan and I were gay. I doubted all of America gave two shits anymore about anyone’s sexual orientation, but the fact that he was my employer, and was breaching a serious code of ethics in the corporate space.Tristan was one of the higher-up people. He could not afford to make mistake
I stared at my father, shell-shocked.He was holding me close to his chest, but I felt more distant from him than ever before, the light receding from my eyes with every movement of his hand on my back, patting me.“It’s alright, William, he was saying, but it wasn’t alright at all, and I knew that it was not going to be alright for a very long time if I didn’t say something now. Something was terribly wrong.I pulled myself away from my father and cocked my head, trying to understand if I had heard him correctly.“Dad?” I asked, trepidation and a little confusion in my voice. “Pulling me out of Terra?” I laughed nervously. “What does that mean?”His eyes were pure and his gaze was straight as he looked into my eyes.“It means I’m taking you off the project with Terra Corporations. I had hoped back then that you would be able to handle the stress and deal with this entire thing for us at Bracknell Inc., but I see now that that was a mistake.”He had more lines on his face and even thr
I stared at my father, shell-shocked.He was holding me close to his chest, but I felt more distant from him than ever before, the light receding from my eyes with every movement of his hand on my back, patting me.“It’s alright, William, he was saying, but it wasn’t alright at all, and I knew that it was not going to be alright for a very long time if I didn’t say something now. Something was terribly wrong.I pulled myself away from my father and cocked my head, trying to understand if I had heard him correctly.“Dad?” I asked, trepidation and a little confusion in my voice. “Pulling me out of Terra?” I laughed nervously. “What does that mean?”His eyes were pure and his gaze was straight as he looked into my eyes.“It means I’m taking you off the project with Terra Corporations. I had hoped back then that you would be able to handle the stress and deal with this entire thing for us at Bracknell Inc., but I see now that that was a mistake.”He had more lines on his face and even thr
I explained everything to Ellie, starting with why she had been unable to reach me, up till the point where Tristan had left this morning and for a while, both her and her husband just stared, speechless.I took a drink of the tea that they had served me and moved back in the chair. I would be silent too if someone just unloaded everything that had happened so far onto me.It seemed like everything had happened all at once, had been fast-forwarded and then the hot looping mess had been poured into my lap. I brought the cup of tea to my lips again.“You mean to tell me…” Ellie started. She’d risen up from her chair and had started pacing round the room. “Let me get this straight. You and Tristan had sex.”“Yes.”“You and Tristan had actual sex.”I frowned at her. “Is there a point you’re trying to make, Ellie?”“What? No, I’m just…” she paced and spun. “And then he left you just like that? All alone in his house? That was kind of harsh.”I sighed. “Honestly, it’s what I would do too. I
“How do you keep getting my number, Caleb?” I shouted. “What is wrong with you?”To my surprise, Caleb’s voice was calm when he responded, “There’s nothing wrong with me, William, I’ve told you before. If there’s anything that’s the problem with me at all, it’s you, William. You’re refusing to hear me out. You’re refusing to see what’s in front of you. I love you, William. Why won’t you—”I ended the call and squeezed the phone in my hand. I unlocked it and went straight to number, blocking and then deleting it, but not before a text message from Caleb had come in:STOP FIGHTING THIS, WILLIAM. I’M STILL HERE FOR YOU. LET ME LOVE YOU. RETHINK OUR RELATIONSHIP.I deleted the text message and blocked the number.It occurred to me that every person that I probably knew was seeing this news, unless they were not online or like to keep abreast of current topics.My father had already called. Now I understood what he had meant when he said I had killed him. He had read the news already. He h