by Mari Carr
He’d only seen her one other time, shortly after he’d graduated from college. He had returned for the funeral of a friend, another member of their high school class, who had overdosed. Elyse had been standing by the graveside. When her eyes found his, he saw guilt reflected there and he knew. Knew it was Elliot who had sold the drugs that cost Rick his life.
She hadn’t convinced her brother to stop. When the service ended, he walked over to her. “That’s the last life your brother is going to take.”
She’d winced, but didn’t respond or call out to him as he walked away.
Sebastian went home and told his father everything.
Dad had been pissed to discover the evidence that could have put Elliot away had been destroyed years earlier. And then Elyse made prosecution even more difficult. Sebastian heard through his father she had convinced Elliot to check into a rehab facility overseas, out of the DEA’s jurisdiction. Brother or not, she had protected a murderer.
Seeing her again, one thing was crystal clear to Sebastian. He still had feelings for her. Her grip on his heart was no less powerful than it had been the night of graduation.
And rather than feeling angry at her for what she’d asked him to do, he was pissed as hell at himself for still being so weak, so powerless to whatever hold it was she had over him. The two of them had a day of reckoning coming. He was going to yell, scream, rage, and then he was going to do what he’d regretted not doing in that hotel room. He was going to take her to his bed and make love to her.
He’d been able to hold on to his anger, to use it as a shield. Every time his thoughts swung to her, he’d reminded himself that she’d gotten her brother out of the country, helped him to escape justice—something she’d been able to do because he’d tipped her off.
But her brother hadn’t escaped. He was dead, and with his death, some of that anger Seb had used as a shield died too.
Elyse was still the same sweet, charming, intelligent girl he’d fallen for senior year. Juliette had no idea what can of worms she’d opened in her quest for punishment. She had merely thought saddling Sebastian with one of the “bitch squad” for a few weeks would teach him a lesson for lying to her. She didn’t realize how many unrequited feelings he had for Elle.
And if it were just her, Sebastian wouldn’t hesitate to put the pieces back together, to fix what had broken.
But it wasn’t that simple.
Grant was in the picture now. Sebastian genuinely liked the guy, which was going to make this job harder to do.
But more than that, he didn’t want to hurt Elyse, starting something that wasn’t going to end the way she expected. She thought she was in her triad, that her forever was set.
It wasn’t.
Especially if it turned out Grant was in bed with the purists.
Shit. So much for feeling better.
As Sebastian considered all the things that could go wrong during the next month, his good mood vanished. His life was as fucked up as ever.
Climbing out of bed, Sebastian dug through his duffle bag for a clean t-shirt and jeans. He was going to have to make a run to the legacy house today for clothes. When he’d headed to the library yesterday morning, he’d truly hoped to be back in his own bed last night. Then Juliette had told him about the purists and his plans had been shot to hell.
Once he was dressed, he ventured out of his room. Elyse and Grant were sitting side by side on the couch, drinking wine and talking. Sebastian felt the same twinge of jealousy that had blindsided him yesterday when Grant held Elyse.
“He lives,” Grant joked.
Elyse gave him a tentative smile that made him feel guilty. He’d hurt her—yesterday at the altar and the night of graduation. Hoping to make amends for his previous grumpiness, Sebastian grabbed an empty wineglass from the kitchen counter and approached the couch.
He lightly tapped Elyse’s knee, so that she scooted over to make room for him. It was a tight fit for the three of them, leaving them in close proximity. Elyse reached for the bottle, pouring the rest into his glass.
“Is that the first or second bottle?”
“The first. If you want more, you and Grant will have to drink the next one. I haven’t had wine in a long time. I’m already feeling the effects.”
Grant tapped his glass against Sebastian’s, then hers. “You’ve only had one glass.”
“I need to keep my wits about me if I’m going to hold my own against you guys.”
“I didn’t notice you struggling with that last night.” Sebastian laid his arm along the back cushion, toying with her wavy blonde hair.
She gave him a sideways glance, suspicion in her eyes. “I have a feeling tonight might get trickier.”
Sebastian’s forehead creased with confusion until Grant laughed.
“It was just a kiss, Elyse.”
Suddenly Sebastian understood Elyse’s concerns. And once again, his jealousy sparked. “You kissed her?”
Grant shrugged unrepentantly. “She made an off-color joke and blushed. It was adorable, so I kissed her.”
He wasn’t sure why the idea of Grant kissing Elyse bugged him so much, but it did. Mainly because he wanted to be the one kissing her. But more than that, there was a part of him—buried deep—that was angry he’d missed seeing it.
He shoved that thought aside. They weren’t working to build a relationship here. Thirty days. That was it. This wasn’t his trinity and he needed to remember that.
“I’m sorry about ditching you guys so early last night. I’d just gotten back to Boston yesterday morning after a day and a half spent on an airplane.”
“Where were you traveling from?” Elyse asked.
“Libya.”
Grant let out a long, slow whistle. “I changed my mind. Your job doesn’t sound quite so fascinating anymore.”
“It sounds dangerous,” Elyse added, concern in her eyes.
Sebastian raised his hand. “I’m well behind the lines, more intel than anything else. I’m an asset. I look for information and then feed it to the people who go put the fires out.”
Elyse only looked slightly appeased by that answer. Sebastian liked the idea of having someone to worry about him.
His parents were too ensconced in the same field as him. They understood the risks attached to doing their duty and, like Sebastian, they were good at tucking away their emotions about doing the job, keeping them locked in a box that never saw the light of day. It wasn’t that his folks didn’t care. They genuinely loved him. However, conversations about his work were always detailed oriented and sentiment never came into play.
He reached over and clasped her hand, the action based on instinct rather than intellect. If he’d been thinking, he would have kept his hands off her.
“I’m safe, Elle. Honest.”
Once he had her hand in his, he didn’t let go.
Focus, Seb.
He glanced at Grant, whose attention was riveted to their linked hands. Unlike the jealousy Sebastian had been experiencing, Grant seemed affected in a different way. There was a hunger in the other man’s eyes that Sebastian recognized.
Focus, Seb!
Sebastian needed to ferret out more information on Grant. To do that, he needed those same wits Elyse had been worried about maintaining. “Maybe we should spend the afternoon getting to know each other. Elle and I have an advantage on you, Grant, given the fact we grew up together.”
“I wouldn’t call that an advantage,” Elyse muttered.
Sebastian knew she didn’t mean it as a joke, but there had been too much tension in the air yesterday, so he grinned. The three of them had been riding the razor’s edge between nervousness and exhaustion. After a night spent talking to Elyse, it felt as if things were starting to go back to the way they’d been prior to graduation night, before everything had gone straight to hell. He leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “It’s an advantage. Trust me.”
Her face revealed something he hadn’t expected from her. Hope.
Sebastian’s heart beat a little faster, a little harder. If he’d thought what he had felt for her had merely been a schoolboy crush, he knew now he was wrong. Dead wrong.
“So maybe I need to be filled in. I wouldn’t mind a few juicy details.” Grant had heard his whispered comment to her.
Sebastian made sure of that. It wasn’t as if he was trying to hide anything from the other man. But the conversation between he and Elle would be a painful one and Sebastian didn’t want to ruin this moment. He was quite content to share this couch with Elyse and Grant, talking about a whole lot of nothing.
Elyse seemed determined to take the path of least resistance as well, so she went with the safe details. “I think I should tell you, Grant, Sebastian Stewart was the golden boy. The student all the teachers loved because he never did a damn thing wrong. He was president of the class and so perfect and sweet, he made my teeth hurt.”
Sebastian expected Grant to laugh at Elyse’s description. After all, she was getting a few digs in at Sebastian, but they were missing the mark. He was actually getting a kick out of it.
Grant winced instead. “So—just to be clear, Elyse—you don’t care for that type?”
That’s when Sebastian gave in to the laughter. “Oh my God. You were that guy too, weren’t you?”
Grant shrugged, adopting a guilty look that wasn’t the least bit sincere. “Editor of the school newspaper and president of the National Honor Society. Voted Most Likely to Succeed.”
Sebastian tapped his glass against Grant’s in a toast. “So was I.”
Elyse groaned. “I can’t be married to two Boy Scouts. It just can’t happen. My reputation will be ruined.”
Sebastian leaned closer. “I think it would take two Boy Scouts to keep you out of trouble.”
She narrowed her eyes, though there was no anger in her expression. “I was never a bad girl.” The second she spoke the words, Elyse bit her lip as if regretting them, as if expecting him to contradict her.
Sebastian placed a soft kiss on her cheek. “You’re right. You weren’t.”
“So what were you in school, Elyse?” Grant asked.
Elyse smiled self-deprecatingly. “I was…” She paused, considering.
Sebastian wondered how she’d fill in that blank. Would she tell Grant about her learning disability? She had only trusted him and Mrs. Rayburn with that detail in school, though Sebastian had never fully understood why she felt the need to hide it. There was no shame in being dyslexic.
“Confused.”
Grant grinned. “I think that’s standard fare in high school. There must be something else.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Not really.”
Sebastian hated her description, so he corrected it, looking at Grant as he spoke. “Elle was funny and quiet cool. The kind of cool that seemed effortless. If she did something, everyone did it.”
“Ah, the kind of girl I was intimidated by,” Grant said with another wince.
Elyse snorted. “Somehow I doubt you’ve ever been intimidated by anyone in your life.”
Grant lifted her hand and kissed it. “I like the way you see me, Elyse.”
Seb smiled, enjoying their easy conversation. “Her friends were bitchy, but she wasn’t. Not her fault that we all put her up on a pedestal.”
“My friends weren’t that bitchy. They were just terrified of being made fun of. Easier to strike first.”
Sebastian gestured to her because she’d just proven some point. “That’s Elle. Bright and loyal. And there was nothing she wouldn’t do for someone she loved.”
Sebastian felt Elyse’s gaze on his face as he described her. He didn’t look over until he felt her squeeze his hand.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Sebastian shrugged. “He was your brother.”
“Your brother?” Grant asked.
“He passed away a couple of years ago,” Elyse explained woodenly.
Grant’s gaze flashed briefly to Sebastian. The poor guy was even more in the dark, but rather than ask for details, he leaned toward Elyse and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek. “I’m very sorry, Elle.”
Grant’s use of her high school nickname provided the distraction she needed. “I’m not going to win the battle over that name with you guys, am I?”
Sebastian shook his head. “Nope. You’re always going to be Elle to me.”
She started to speak, but he placed his fingers over her lips, trying to ignore the jolt of desire that touch provoked. God, he wanted to kiss her. Elyse grasped his wrist, his fingers still pressed against her mouth. Sebastian didn’t move, didn’t blink when she lightly kissed them.
“I like being your Elle,” she said as she released him. Then she glanced at Grant. “And yours.”
Grant smiled. “I’m still missing about ninety-nine-point-nine percent of that story, but I think it’ll keep for now. We need more wine.”
Sebastian agreed. He needed to put some distance between them, to find a way to stop thinking about Elyse’s soft, pink lips. He stood and retrieved a second bottle of wine from the bar. Picking up the corkscrew, he tried to put them back on track.
“I believe you said you took after your great-grandfather, Grant. Was he a lawyer? A businessman?” As far as segues went, Sebastian’s was weak as hell. He was struggling to keep his head in the game, feeling too many things that were completely inappropriate.
He wanted Elyse more now than he had in high school. And he was feeling some sort of friendly—almost brotherly—bond forming between him and Grant. They were similar souls beneath the surface. Sebastian hadn’t met many of those in his life. Juliette. Devon. And…that was pretty much it.
His gut was telling him that Grant was a good guy. Someone with the potential to be a close friend. Maybe even more.
And Juliette’s assertion that intimacy loosened tongues flashed through his mind. He’d rejected that idea yesterday. Today, it didn’t seem like it would be such a hardship.
Shit. He must still be suffering from jetlag. His thoughts were taking him to some fucked-up places.
“My great-grandfather was actually a senator from the fine state of California. Sorry to say, my grandmother had high hopes I would follow his footsteps into politics.”
Breton.
Sebastian finally realized why the name was familiar. He’d written a research paper in college about McCarthyism. He’d found the subject fascinating and had dug quite deep into the details of the era. Richard Breton’s name had been linked to Joseph McCarthy’s in the early 1950s. Like McCarthy, Breton had been fond of pointing the finger at suspected Communists, not bothering with things like proof or evidence. He’d served on the House Un-American Activities Committee for well over a decade. Did Grant know about his ancestor’s role during that tumultuous time in American history?
“I think I recall hearing that name from my studies.” Sebastian paused, wondering how to proceed.
Grant saved him the trouble. “Well, then I guess you know it’s not something I go around bragging about.”
Elyse frowned. “Why not?”
Grant grimaced, though he didn’t seem terribly embarrassed to reveal the information to her. “He had close ties to Joseph McCarthy.”
“Oh.” Elyse made a face that was clearly supposed to be horrified, but looked very cute.
Grant picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles. “It’s okay, Elle. I don’t have any plans to launch my own hunt for Reds.”
Sebastian wasn’t sure what to think. Grant’s casual stance toward his family’s rather checkered history didn’t indicate he was associated with the purists. But he didn’t seem all that bothered by his great-grandfather’s unsavory activities either.
When Sebastian considered Richard Breton’s association with HUAC, his confusion grew. The committee had been formed in the late thirties to uncover citizens with Nazi ties. Juliette feared Grant’s great-aunt, Jessica, had actually been a Nazi sympathizer. If that were true, why would her
father be part of a group that hunted down those individuals? Did he know about his daughter’s politics? Was he protecting her? The pieces weren’t fitting together.
“So you have no interest in politics at all?” Elyse asked Grant.
Grant shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve become rather disenchanted by the American government. I know that’s not a popular opinion for a Trinity Master to hold, but the current state of affairs in the country feels like it’s built less on the idealism of our forefathers and more like some twisted director’s idea for a really stupid reality TV show. Idiocracy rules the day.”
Elyse’s eyes lit up. “That is the cheesiest movie ever. But I loved it. ‘Enjoy your extra big-ass fries,’” she quoted.
Grant’s answer bothered Sebastian. According to Juliette, the purists were a group of Trinity Masters who were unhappy with the way the organization—the country—was operating. In his great-grandparents’ day, the purists were resistant to the social changes taking place and the Trinity Masters’ focus on them—educational reform, welfare and such. It would stand to reason that if the secret sect was still at play, their talking points would have changed. What would their goals be now?
As he considered Grant’s comments, he wondered. Would they be seeking to overthrow what they perceived to be a broken system?
“Don’t hold back, Grant. Tell us what you really think about the world,” Elyse teased.
Sebastian dropped the cork on the counter and walked over to refill their glasses. He needed to do some deeper research on Richard Breton and he wanted to talk to Juliette to see if she had any more information to share. As it was, Sebastian was flying blind, shooting at ducks in the dark.
“Sorry,” Grant said, taking a sip of Cabernet. “I’m usually careful to keep my subversive opinions to myself.”
The comment was meant to be a joke. That was certainly how Elyse took it as she continued to laugh. Sebastian forced himself to grin and pretend he wasn’t hung up on the word subversive.
“You definitely don’t want to talk to my dad about politics then,” Elyse said.
Sebastian was grateful for her presence. While his mind was chewing over everything Grant said, she was driving the conversation, ferreting out details without realizing it.