Page 75 of Third Time is the Charm (Passion and Perseverance #3)

“I think I’ll just submit the portrait I brought of my Mom; if that doesn’t show true love, I don’t know what does,” he mused out loud, blindly enjoying the irritation growing over his friend’s face.

“Plus, you wouldn’t know love if it came up and punched you in the face,” Tristan concluded with a sarcastic laugh.

After a moment, he stopped, wondering if he had gone a little too far.

Pierce still hadn’t replied and it looked like Tristan was the one who was about to be punched in the face.

“We’ll see,” Pierce finally said, his voice clipped and harsh, as he turned and stalked away. Tristan just stood there for a moment, watching him go.

This was not a good idea.

He wasn’t as bad as Pierce when it came to letting his emotions get the best of him, but he was still far too easily susceptible to them.

Pierce didn’t care about winning, Tristan knew that.

All he cared about was the thrill, the competition, the strategy of outsmarting the other person.

Tristan, on the other hand, cared about winning, about being the best, and Pierce knew just what to say to get Tristan to play right into his hand.

At this point, he wasn’t concerned about the competition; he was more concerned about the white-hot rage that had flared in Pierce’s eyes when Tristan called him out for rigging the competition in his favor, and then proceeded to tell him that he had no knowledge of what love was.

It was a low blow, he knew that; he’d been annoyed at himself for giving in to Pierce’s game and had wanted to just poke him in the eye a little bit for playing the competition card.

But he might have poked just a little too hard.

Tristan began to move through the crowd trying to find him and offer a semblance of an apology.

He was concerned that Pierce was going to take that rage and do something stupid to level the playing field; that’s what Pierce did, he acted on emotion with no forethought and rarely any regret.

Most of the time, what he did was essentially harmless but, with that edge, you just never knew.

He shouldn’t have told him about his mother’s portrait; he’d given Pierce the upper hand with that information.

Tristan’s mother, Viola Black, had died ten years ago from leukemia.

Not long before she passed away, just before she’d gone into the hospital for the last time, she’d asked Tristan to draw her – at home and happy, just how she had wanted him to remember her.

She’d told him that when he looked at it, he would remember just how much love she had wanted to give him.

He hadn’t had much formal training at that point, but even to this day, he was pleased with how well his younger self had done.

For several years after her death, he couldn’t bring himself to pull the portrait out; it was too painful because she’d been his biggest supporter in everything that he’d done.

Finally, a few years ago, he’d managed to open the drawing and hang it in his studio.

Looking at it, it hadn’t felt complete, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to alter it until recently.

This year, he’d fine-tuned the drawing, adding in all the finishing touches to make his mother’s memory complete.

It had been truly a work of love and that is why he had no doubt it would win a competition focused on the art of portraying that emotion – one he had only this singular experience with.

Pierce had never, to his knowledge, created anything of that caliber, anything that personal.

He was a player in every sense of the word.

The excitement, the competition, that’s what held his interest. They all had gone through things in their respective pasts that shaped them, but Pierce, well, he had just gone through a little more than most and it made him come off as callous.

Deep down, Tristan believed that he cared, just about very few people, and it took a long time for him to let you in that deeply.

Which is why what he had said struck a nerve with Pierce, not that Pierce wouldn’t forgive him, but there was definitely going to be some sort of retribution involved first.

He scanned the crowd again, but Pierce was nowhere to be seen.

Finally, he spotted Sloane standing off to the side of the room, watching the announcer make his way up to the podium to begin the auction.

That was typical Sloane, always off to the side, in the background, never wanting to draw attention.

Of the three of them, Tristan and Pierce definitely had the most striking features – light and dark.

Sloane, on the other hand, was neither; his hair was wavy and a nondescript light brown.

He kept it longer than theirs, to the point where he needed to pull it back when he was working.

Without Tristan or Pierce to be compared to, he was very good-looking; when they were around, he tended to fade into the background, although that could have been on purpose.

The only thing striking about him was his eyes; they were the clearest, most brilliant blue you’d ever seen.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming tonight. On behalf of the Gentlemen’s Guild, I’d like to welcome you…” Tristan ignored the auctioneer’s booming voice, making his way swiftly over to Sloane.

“Have you seen Pierce?” Tristan leaned in and said into Sloane’s ear so that he could hear him.

“Earlier, why? Did he talk to you about the competition?”

“Yes. I’m surprised you agreed to do it before talking to me,” Tristan responded.

Sloane’s crystal blue eyes widened for a moment before he let out a laugh. “You should know better than to believe everything that Pierce says,” he responded wryly. “I told him I would do whatever you two decide.”

“That fucker,” Tristan spat, not truly angry; it was his own fault for believing him.

“The first piece that we have for auction tonight is by Mr. Titian, from the Guild…”

Tristan looked up at the mention of his pseudonym just as the auctioneer paused, looking momentarily flustered as the audience watched Morgan come up behind him and hand him a piece of paper.

Tristan and Sloane shot each other confused expressions.

Looking back to the podium, Tristan glimpsed Pierce standing well-hidden, off to the side of the stage, a satisfied smile on his face; and that’s when Tristan realized that Pierce’s revenge was beginning to unfold right in front of him before he could do anything to stop it.

“Sorry, everyone, just making sure I have all of the correct information here. As I was saying. Mr. Titian’s piece for auction this evening, is something very dear to him…

” Tristan began to shove his way through the crowd, even though there was no way he would make it over there in time to have Morgan stop the announcer.

His heart was pounding, rage making his vision blur.

“This piece is entitled ‘Mother,’ we will start the bidding at two million, going once…”

Tristan’s hands fisted.

He was going to kill Pierce for this.