Chapter 130: The Key To Happiness

The woman beside him had a pleading look on her face and without realizing it, he slowly released Ryan. Something in him instantly began to calm, like a burning fire doused with water until her image shifted.

Right before his eyes, the person he was seeing as Celine transformed to Erica and realization instantly slammed into him.

It wasn’t her!

“Tristan, please be calm. I’m sure he didn’t mean to upset you. Come with me, I’ll help you relax.” Erica said in a sugary voice, there was a hint of triumph in her eyes as he seemed to have calmed under her touch, but that triumph didn’t last too long when he suddenly flung her arm off himself and stormed out of the room.

She stood frozen in place, a sharp but quiet tension radiating across the room.

George Blakewood watched his grandson leave, his aged eyes concealing a trace of pain.

In this world, he only wanted one thing…his grandson’s happiness.

Erica regained her senses and hurriedly tried to follow Tristan but Genevieve stepped in her way.

“Let me talk to him.” Genevieve offered.

Erica sighed like someone in distress, this was after all her future sister in law, showing her infinite affection for her husband to be in front of her sister in law might get her a firm ally within the family.

“He looks so upset, I’ve never seen him like that before. I think he needs me by his side.” She remarked, looking over at the direction Tristan just left with pain in her eyes.

“I have.” Genevieve suddenly said, “I’ve seen him like that before, and he only gets that way whenever someone mentions our father.”

With that, Erica’s curiosity was awakened. She had always known that there was more to Tristan Grayson, but she had never been able to glimpse into his past before, never had the opportunity to be that close to him before.

“What happened to make him hate your father so much?” She asked.

“He doesn’t hate our father, he just…” Genevieve trailed off, her eyes suddenly dancing with tears.

Erica quietly rolled her eyes. In all truth she really didn’t care that much, if the information about the past wouldn’t help in her goals of becoming the future matriarch of Blakewood family then she didn’t want to know.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it. I think the past should be left in the past, if Tristan wants to hate his father it’s obviously because he has been hurt before. I’ll make sure no one will mention the name in front of him again.” She said to Genevieve, sounding like a supportive wife caring for her husband’s feelings.

Genevieve’s eyes raised to look at Erica with shock, it was clear what Erica just said had triggered her in some way as she immediately blurted. “You don’t know anything about our past, stay out of it.”

Genevieve walked away after that. Erica wanted to stop her, to say anything to make the young woman at least like her or see her in a favorable light, but then she remembered how it seemed Tristan wasn’t on speaking terms with her lately and shrugged.

Choose your allies wisely they said, she didn’t need to make an effort for the girl if her brother doesn’t even like her anymore.

Genevieve ran downstairs, hoping Tristan wouldn’t have left yet but his car was still in the driveway and his assistant Kaleb was still waiting downstairs, there was only one other place he could be.

She climbed up to the third floor, this part of the estate had been abandoned for years but the servants still kept it clean even if no one ever came here anymore. The room at the end of the hallway was a place that held beautiful memories, walking down this hallway now brought back old memories into Eve’s mind.

Laughter echoed into her mind, old memories from before. There were pictures hung up on the walls, and occasionally she’d stop to look at each of them.

In those pictures there was a boy, not older than ten years old with dark hair and sharp hazel eyes. In another picture there was that same boy but there was a little girl by his side as well.

Eve caressed the picture with a bitter smile as tears trickled down her face.

Another picture had a full family, their mother, a beautiful woman that looked a lot like Eve herself, and a man…but in most of those pictures, that man’s face seemed to have been scratched off.

Genevieve recalled when this happened, it was the night after that incident. It had been raining heavily and she had felt so scared, coming out of her room she had seen a shadow, the tall shadow of her own brother, he loomed over the hallway like a figure of darkness, all that could be heard beneath the sound of rain beating against the windows was the sharp scratching sound he was making on those pictures.

The next morning, every photograph remained intact except her father’s face. It was as if Tristan was trying to wipe the man off their memories, because beautiful memories had suddenly become a nightmare.

Eve walked into the room and she was welcomed with light, it was a huge bedroom with plain white walls and beautiful paintings across every wall. The bed was still intact, made perfectly as if someone had slept in it, woken up and made the bed into perfection. Eve looked around, her mother’s potted plants were still intact, kept on the window sills as if the woman was still here to water them every morning.

Far into the room, Eve found her brother, he stood with his back in her direction, there was a tall portrait in front of him, seeing that photograph again brought more tears to Eve’s eye as she came to stand next to him.

“I still dream of her… almost every night.” Eve said, bitterness and pain in her eyes. “She is still exactly the same in my dreams, she still smiles a lot, laughs a lot, loves everyone and cares about everyone. Even if she Is hurting on the inside, slowly breaking apart she still takes really good care of us, you’re still her source of pride, her joy. Nothing has changed, even if she’s gone now, I wake up everyday feeling like she’s still here with me.”

The person next to her was infinitely quiet, but she could feel the weight of his suppressed emotions, so heavy it leaked into the air, so heavy one could hardly breathe, and she was just next to him yet she could feel it this deeply, how much more deeper would he be feeling them himself? Or how far did he think he could avoid them, shove them down and never let them show?

“You don’t have to marry Erica if you don’t want to, you can choose someone else, someone you truly care about. Grandma only wants you to get married, and I support her because I think you deserve to be happy.”

A long silence stretched for a while before his voice, thick and hoarse suddenly broke through. “Do you think the key to happiness is marriage?”

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