Page 49 of Ghost Business (Boneyard Key #2)

Thirty-Four

On a Wednesday in late September, the last contractor left Tristan’s condo for the last time.

While Tristan took care of the final walk-through, making sure everything was done, Sophie closed her laptop for the day and made a stir fry for dinner.

It was a weeknight, so no tours on the agenda for either of them.

And finally, there were no contractors or insurance adjusters or property managers for Tristan to wrangle.

It was just the two of them, plates of homemade beef and broccoli, and some stupid competition show involving food trucks.

Midway through the food truck judging, Tristan’s phone buzzed on the coffee table. He groaned as he reached for it. “I really thought I was done for the day.” Sophie muted the television as he checked the screen, then groaned again.

“It’s my dad. I should take this.” He levered to his feet. “Sorry.” He bent to kiss her, his eyes pinched. Sophie didn’t know much about Tristan’s father, but she hated that he always put that look on Tristan’s face.

“No worries.”

But there were definitely worries. Sophie had learned by now that, when it came to a conversation with Tristan’s father, it was Oops, All Worries! She tried not to listen as Tristan breezed through an update on the condo.

“They finished the paint today, and they said it should take a day or two to be completely dry. Retractable hurricane shutters went in last week, and apparently that gets you a credit on the homeowner’s insurance on the place, did you know that?

The property manager should have all that info; she said she’ll email it to you.

” Tristan paced the length of the living room, the crease between his eyebrows deepening the way it always did when he talked to his dad.

“Tours are going great. We had a little downturn there when the storm came through, obviously, so…well, yeah, Dad, tourists weren’t exactly turning up in droves when the town didn’t have power and was covered in hurricane debris.

The second half of July was basically a wash, and of course August is pretty dead anyway, so…

I dunno, Dad, factoring in a hurricane wasn’t exactly on the spreadsheet.

” His lips pressed together hard as he listened, and more than once he cut his eyes in her direction.

The pain in his expression made Sophie squirm on the sofa, and not in a good way.

“Well, there’s still a couple weeks till October first. No, September isn’t all that busy here, but we got a good foothold in Portland over the summer.

That momentum might be enough to make it up…

” His words broke off and he stopped pacing, looking like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Yeah.” It was a single word, but it seemed to sum up the entire conversation. Defeated.

While Tristan listened to his father on the other end—a deep, commanding voice that Sophie could hear through the phone but not understand—she was hung up on the date he’d just mentioned.

October first. The end of their bet, which technically had been nullified back in July, but they’d been keeping their shared spreadsheet out of habit.

Their antagonistic bet had become friendly competition.

But October first meant something else now.

It hadn’t been a date he’d pulled out of the air.

He wasn’t just a random dickhead businessman, come to town to put her out of business.

He’d had something at stake here too. Something to prove to his father.

Whatever it was, it had to be done by October first. And he’d been using their bet to do it.

Alarm stirred in the back of Sophie’s mind.

Tristan cleared his throat, and Sophie raised her eyebrows, waiting for whatever response Tristan was about to give.

But he wasn’t looking in her direction. His normal confidence was gone, and now he looked deflated.

Like he no longer had anything to prove.

“Yeah,” he said again. He took the phone away from his ear and tossed it to the kitchen counter. “Fuck,” he said softly.

She had to say something. “Is this about October first? The bet? The tours?”

“Not the bet.” His voice was hoarse, his eyes still fixed on her Formica countertop.

“Because if it was still going on, you’d win. Not by much,” she hastened to add, her old sense of competition taking over, “but you’re ahead on the spreadsheet.”

“That doesn’t matter.” He shook his head, still looking at nothing.

“The bet was never about beating you. Not to me. It was about beating him. It’s always been about beating him.

So yeah, even if I win, I lose.” His expression tightened as he seemed to digest his own words. “I’m going to lose everything.”

Sophie tsked. “That’s a little dramatic.”

Tristan’s laugh was a harsh bark, falling between them and echoing in the quiet room.

“It’s not. That’s what this phone call was about.

Come October first, he gets to look at the books for Ghouls Night Out.

He’s not going to like what he sees, and then he’ll be pulling his seed money, the money he put in so I could get this business going.

Without that money? It’s over.” He reached for his phone, flipping it over and over in his hands.

“It’s all over?” Sophie didn’t understand. “You mean Ghouls Night Out? Your whole business? In all the cities?”

He nodded glumly. “I’m over.” He let his phone clatter to the kitchen counter.

Okay, that was bad. “What happens now?” She joined him at the counter, reaching for his hand.

He didn’t take it. Tristan nudged his phone with a forefinger, idly watching it spin. “I’m sure Dad’s got something great lined up for me.” Bitterness dripped from every word. “I’ll be back in New York, suit-and-tied, one of his underlings, like he’s always wanted.”

Back in New York. Sophie froze at those words, Tristan’s voice fading over the roaring in her ears. “You’re leaving?” Her words were a whisper.

“That was the agreement.” His voice was a death knell. “I had five years to do my own thing, and when I failed—because he always knew I’d fail…” His mouth twisted in a grimace. “…I go work for him. Live out the future he’s always planned for me.”

He was leaving. Sophie shouldn’t be surprised. Of course he was leaving. What had she expected?

“Well, maybe it won’t be so bad,” she said, even though it sounded like a million different kinds of bad. “Maybe—”

“Are you kidding me? It’s going to be terrible.

” He broke off with an inarticulate sound, and Sophie’s heart broke for him.

He was just as upset to leave her as she was for him to leave.

“Five years I’ve been doing this.” His forefinger stabbed at the kitchen counter.

“I put everything I had into this business, and now he’s going to destroy it all. ”

Oh.

No. He wasn’t upset about leaving Sophie. It was all about business to Tristan. Maybe he was more like his father than he realized. Sophie’s broken heart hardened.

“Huh.” Sophie crossed her arms, her eyebrows crawling up her forehead. “That sounds familiar. I know a little bit about someone trying to destroy something I’ve built for the past few years. In fact, he’s right here in this room.”

Tristan blew out a sigh, dismissing her words. “That’s not the same thing. I didn’t know you then.”

“Oh, so when I was a stranger it was okay to destroy me?” Tristan’s mouth fell open, and when he didn’t have an immediate response, she kept going.

A tear hit her cheek, angry and hot. “If we’d gone through with this bet, and you’d won?

I’d have had to shut down my own business, that I built myself, in my own hometown.

” Sophie felt her voice getting louder, and she wasn’t the type to have a screaming match in her own home, but screw it.

“I don’t have a daddy to offer me a fallback plan, you know.

You were going to leave me with nothing. ”

“I wasn’t…” But the look in his eyes said that she was right, and he didn’t have a good argument. He visibly deflated. “Five years,” he said again. “I worked so hard, and it’ll all just be gone. I’ve lost everything.”

Everything in this case being his business. Of course. It didn’t seem to occur to him that when he went back to New York, he was losing Sophie too. It was probably for the best that they’d never made plans for the future. He obviously didn’t consider her a real part of his.

“You haven’t lost everything.” Her voice sounded cold to her own ears, but she couldn’t do it anymore.

Any of this. Not with him. “You get to go back to your fancy New York apartment and live your fancy New York life. Your dad isn’t leaving you high and dry with no options.

” She took a deep breath and did the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.

She broke her own heart.

“I think you should go.”

Tristan blinked, as though seeing her for the first time since his phone had rung. “Sophie.”

She shook her head hard, backed away. “Please. You’re leaving soon anyway.” She couldn’t gesture toward the door because her arms were wrapped around her middle, holding herself together. She nodded in that direction instead. “You may as well just go now.”

“No.” So many emotions fluttered across his face. Surprise. Regret. “Sophie, we can…”

“Please,” she said again.

Tristan’s eyes looked shattered, but he didn’t speak. Instead he calmly picked up his phone and stuck it in his pocket. He slid his feet into his flip-flops next to Sophie’s umbrella stand. Her front door closed quietly behind him as he left.

Sophie got the remote and turned off the television. She no longer cared about food trucks.

She knew she shouldn’t have let herself get used to Tristan. He wasn’t going to stay.

No one ever stayed.