Salt Kiss – Episode 32
The Laurence estate looked less like a home than a guarded institution. Stone walls surrounded manicured grounds, and armed men watched the gates beneath discreet cameras. Tristan identified three weaknesses before his vehicle reached the entrance.
Isolde’s father kept him waiting in a formal room designed to make visitors feel small. He spoke of the marriage as an obligation already settled and of his daughter as though she were cargo requiring delivery.
“Ms. Laurence travels when she is ready,” Tristan said. “My responsibility is her safety, not your schedule.”
The older man’s displeasure confirmed that few people challenged him. Tristan had spent enough of his life under controlling fathers to recognize the pattern.
Isolde entered without announcement. The woman from the photograph had appeared elegant and distant; in person, she carried wary intelligence behind her calm.
Her eyes moved over Tristan’s military posture and weapon. “Mark sent a soldier to collect me?”
“He sent his bodyguard to protect you.”
“From whom?”
Tristan glanced toward her father. “That is one of the things I intend to determine.”
Isolde nearly smiled. The expression vanished when her father ordered her to pack immediately.
“I already packed,” she said. “I was waiting to decide whether I would leave.”
Her refusal changed Tristan’s assessment. She was not the reckless heiress he had expected, nor a passive bride resigned to being traded. She was measuring the limits of a cage.
Tristan requested a private conversation. Her father refused until Isolde calmly reminded him that forcing the appearance of consent would endanger the alliance he valued.
Alone, she asked what kind of man Mark was.
Tristan searched for an answer untouched by love or anger. “Powerful. Difficult. More careful with consent than people assume.”
“You sound as if you hate him and trust him at the same time.”
“Both can be true.”
A sharp crack sounded outside the window. Tristan recognized suppressed gunfire and threw Isolde to the floor as the glass exploded above them. Their private conversation ended beneath a storm of bullets.