Page 86 of Reckless Obsession

I grab my towel and head for the elevator that leads up to my apartment. I’m almost there when my phone starts ringing.

I check the screen and close my eyes for half a second.

Mother.

Of course.

I let out a long, exhausted breath and swipe to answer just as the elevator doors slide open. I step inside and lean back against the wall.

“You know you can’t avoid me forever, right?” she says the second the call connects.

“Well,” I reply, letting my head tip back against the mirrored wall. “Considering we’re speaking right now, I’d say you’ve clearly found a way to survive my cruelty.”

“You’re being difficult, Tristan,” she says, and there’s restrained anger in her voice now, that tight, brittle tone she adopts when she’s trying not to turn a conversation into a performance. “You know how much this would mean to the firm.”

I rub a hand over my face, already tired. “For God’s sake, Ma, not this again.”

“Tristan, listen to me.” Her tone softens, which somehow makes it worse. “I know he hurt you. I know you’re angry with him. But you still love him, and he still loves you. You know that.”

My jaw tightens so hard it hurts. I stare at my own reflection in the elevator doors and barely recognize the expression staring back.

“I do not love that man,” I say, each word sharpened by anger. “You want me to get back with him because it would benefit the firm if our name were tied to his family again. That’s what this is really about. That’s what it has always been about, and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.”

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that,” she snaps, her voice going raspy through the speaker. “I am doing everything I can to keep this firm alive. Everything.”

“We are alive,” I fire back as the elevator doors open onto my floor.

I step out and head toward my apartment, my heartbeat climbing with every word.

“We are more than alive,” I continue. “We are stable. We are successful. We are not drowning, and we do not need Jake’s family conglomerate to save us. We do not need their money, their name, or their influence.”

I reach my door and punch in my pin harder than necessary.

“So please,” I say, my voice low and shaking with anger now, “be satisfied with what we have and stop trying to drag me back into something I buried for a reason.”

There’s silence on the other end for half a beat. Then, quieter, she says, “You think I’m doing this to hurt you?”

I close my eyes.

Because that’s the problem, isn’t it?

She probably doesn’t think she is.

She probably thinks this is Practicality or Strategy. A mother doing what she has to do for the family business. And maybe part of that is true. But intention doesn’t change impact, and I am so tired of being asked to bleed politely for things other people call necessary.

I push my apartment door open and step inside, the silence of the place hitting me immediately.

“I think,” I say, softer now but no less exhausted, “that you keep asking me to reopen wounds you never had to live through.”

That quiets her. For a second, all I hear is the faint static of the call and my own breathing.

Then she says my name, gentler this time.

“Tristan—”

“No.” I shut the door behind me and lean against it, closing my eyes. “I can’t do this with you today.”

With that, I hang up, then head straight for the bar without thinking, pour myself a shot of whiskey, and knock it back in one swallow.