Ruined

by Shiloh Walker

  Marin had called him shallow and maybe he had been, a little. But a shallow man wouldn’t have so easily risked everything the way Sebastien had.

  Whatever she’d thought they’d had, though . . .

  It wasn’t there.

  He’d lain on that couch with her and called her Monica. Apparently, he had nightmares, or at least he dreamed about what happened. And he dreamed about the woman he’d once loved.

  Marin didn’t want to think about some of the images she had seen in the months since it all happened. The most poignant one wasn’t on most of the more mainstream media sites, but plenty of independent places had posted the image of the dead actress, while Sebastien lay collapsed at her side, one hand on her cheek.

  That was the image she had in mind as she parked her car.

  Sebastien was still grieving over Monica. She could understand his grieving. He’d never really given himself any time to say good-bye, to let go. And if he was having nightmares . . . ?

  She knew he blamed himself, just as she knew he shouldn’t.

  But if he was dreaming about another woman, still grieving for her, still in love with her . . .

  “What was I thinking?” Marin would have laughed if she hadn’t been hurting so much inside. “You’re getting too old to be naive.”

  Tears pricked the backs of her eyes but she didn’t let them fall. Bad enough she’d been so foolish, but she’d be damned if she cried about it.

  Chapter Eight

  “Can a lonely man join a beautiful woman for breakfast?”

  Marin glanced up at the familiar voice and smiled as Dash Harlow dropped down into the chair across from hers. “Fancy seeing you here,” she said lightly, tucking her script back into her bag. “I don’t suppose somebody tipped you off to my favorite breakfast spot, did they?”

  “Somebody?” The brown-eyed blond winked at her. “You mean somebody like our mutual manager? Now, would he do that?”

  “Absolutely.” She made a face. She’d been avoiding JD’s calls for the past day and a half. She hadn’t wanted to tell him that she hadn’t brought up the script to Sebastien. One, because she was still feeling bruised inside. Two, because she couldn’t believe she’d been stupid enough to go out there on Hanson Smith’s birthday without realizing it. She should have thought about it, realized that Sebastien would be in a bad spot.

  “He hasn’t asked you for a favor, has he?” She studied Dash speculatively as the server paused by the table.

  He didn’t answer right away, accepting the offer of coffee from the server and requesting a menu. “A favor? Such as . . . ?”

  His dark eyes were guileless. He could have been lying—probably was misleading her about something—but she doubted JD had asked him to go out and talk to Sebastien. It wouldn’t have done much good. So far, Sebastien was talking to only a handful of people and last she heard, Dash wasn’t on the list.

  “How are things going with you and . . .” She paused, embarrassed to realize her brain had completely blanked out on the name.

  “Me and . . . ?” Dash cocked a brow. “Is the list so long?”

  “I’m sorry.” Waving a hand, Marin said, “I’m distracted lately. The woman you were with last—you two were sort of serious.”

  “Well, you’re sort of right.” Dash was a notorious flirt. “But the last time you saw me, I was with a woman . . . and a man.”

  Blood rushed to her face. “Oh. Um . . . well, yeah. I remember him. How are . . . they?”

  “Beats the fuck out of me.” Dash hitched up a shoulder and looked away. “Blake decided she wanted to go monogamous and talked Felix into moving out with her.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Dash offered her a crooked smile. “This is one of the reasons I like men—they tend to be a little more straightforward and they don’t go back and forth so much. You females just can’t make up your minds.”

  “Shows what you know.” Marin sniffed. “I’ve known—and dated—several guys who couldn’t decide on a pair of shoes for the life of them.”

  Dash chuckled.”Love’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely.” Her heart gave a hard, demanding pang, reminding her of the man she’d left sleeping the day before. She had to go back out and talk to him—soon.

  She knew that, but she wasn’t ready.

  “Just who has you looking so blue?”

  “Nobody,” she said and the second the word left her lips, she knew she’d been far too quick to respond. She should have just laughed it off.

  “Hmmmm.” Dash braced his elbows on the table and leaned forward, studying her with shrewd eyes. “Not buying that. Let me think . . . I haven’t seen or heard anything about you seeing anybody. You must be keeping it under wraps.” Dash leaned back, head cocked. “The only thing anybody is saying about you is that you’re often seen traveling out to visit our beloved, and much missed, golden boy.”

  “Oh, bite me.” Determined not to let him see that he was anywhere close to the truth, she jabbed a finger at him. “You know, you could go visit him occasionally.”

  “And risk getting eviscerated? Thanks, no. I’m well aware just how that toxic his mood has become. The one time I called him, he almost ripped my throat out through the phone lines.”

  Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “Are you implying he doesn’t have a reason to be . . . toxic?”

  Dash opened his mouth, then closed it. After a few seconds, he said, “I believe I’ll go with no comment.”

  “He got into a fight that led to a man’s death. He blames himself for the death of his former girlfriend. He sees himself as completely disfigured,” Marin said concisely, ticking off some of the things that had rambled out of Sebastien—always when he was drunk, because he wouldn’t talk when he was sober. “He thinks the life he’s busted his ass for is over—”

  “Alright. Ease up, Marin.” Dash looked sheepish. “He’s had a rough go, I get it. I just . . . Hell, I think it’s easier for a lot of us to stay away because looking at him makes it too hard to think about what we might have done. Would we have gone for that knife? Would we have stepped up?”

  Marin shifted her gaze away. “You would have. You’re that kind of guy, Dash. Look, I know Sebastien’s not always easy to be around, but that doesn’t mean people need to just shut him out.”

  “He makes it kind of hard not to, from what I’ve heard.”

  Brow arched, she looked back at him. “Been talking to JD or Zach?”

  “I keep my ear to the ground.” Dash stroked his jaw. “Speaking of Sebastien . . . I’ve been wondering . . . are you two serious?”

  “We’re not anything,” she said firmly. “There’s nothing there.”

  “Certain?”

  “Yes.” She put just the right amount of annoyed emphasis.

  “Good . . .” Dash grinned at her and reached over to touch her hand. “Maybe you and I could have dinner tonight.”

  She automatically wanted to say no, because Sebastien’s face came to mind.

  But then she stopped herself. His face came to mind all too easily, just as it had for the past year . . . longer.

  But hers wasn’t the face he saw at night. She hated that he had nightmares, but at the same time, she couldn’t keep wishing for a guy who was still in love with somebody else. Especially a woman who was no longer alive. Ghosts were very hard to compete with.

  If she said no now, was she going to say no to the next guy?

  Because of Sebastien?

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked.

  ***

  He woke up smiling.

  That wasn’t normal for him, at least not in a good, long while.

  He also woke up with a miserable headache and a taste in his mouth that was too familiar. That was normal. Except . . . he hadn’t had anything to drink in . . . hell, a week? He
tried to think back, but his pounding head made it hard.

  He’d stopped drinking, though.

  He’d decided he was done.

  Clearly, he’d slipped.

  “Okay,” he muttered. “So I just straighten myself up and start over. First, by dumping the booze.”

  His voice sounded unusually loud and he swept out his arm, half expecting to find somebody there with him.

  That would have been . . . nice.

  Yeah. That would have been just fine.

  But the bed was empty.

  He wasn’t sure what he was reaching for. That dull headache began to pound a little harder and he grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose. He really should have tossed all the booze out like he’d planned.

  Slowly, he sat up and looked around.

  The sheets were smooth under him. It donned on him then that he was naked. Once upon a time, that wouldn’t have surprised him at all. The past few days, since he’d been sober more often than not, he’d fallen back into his habit of stripping to his skin before he collapsed on the bed.

  When he spent the night—or the day—drowning himself in booze, he barely had the sense of mind to make sure he didn’t fall flat on his face, much less get out of his clothes.

  But he’d done it last night.

  Eyes falling on the clock, Sebastien grunted in disgust. It was almost noon. He didn’t remember much of anything after he’d gotten started reading those articles about himself, Hanson, and Monica, then decided to grab a bottle. That had been a little after noon, because he’d made himself a sandwich not much before then.

  He’d lost almost an entire day.

  So much for heading down to San Francisco to see his parents. Blowing out a breath, he rubbed at his face and gave himself another minute to sit there and process and jog his still half-fogged mind into action.

  Shoving upright, he took a minute to make sure he was steady, and then headed into the bathroom. First thing—empty his bladder. After he washed his hands and splashed water on his face, he dug out a nearly empty bottle of ibuprofen and tossed four back. He followed that with two glasses of water.

  While the painkillers got to work in his system, he started the hot water for a bath and went to grab something quick to eat. Food. Water. Bath. The headache would be at tolerable levels within an hour.

  He went to dump the scraps from the sandwich on his plate and paused. A rainbow of glass glinted up at him from the recycling bin next to the trash. Empty bottles. He counted and stopped, turning around to look around the kitchen. He didn’t remember dumping out the alcohol.

  “You wouldn’t, you dumb ass.” He lost pretty much everything after he drank enough—that was why he’d been drinking so much over the past year anyway, and if the headache he had was anything to go by, he’d had drank way more than enough yesterday.

  A nagging thought settled in the back of his mind and he went back to the fridge, tugging it open and staring inside. The vodka he’d put in there was gone. A few things he knew he hadn’t bought were in there. Fried chicken, potato salad. A thermos he knew well by now—Marin had been bringing food to him for almost a year now, like she worried he’d stop eating if somebody wasn’t there to feed him.

  Hell, it was possible she was right.

  “Okay, so she came by and saw you piss-faced drunk.” He groaned, wondering if he could kick his own ass. “Again.”

  He needed to call her and apologize but the thought of doing so made the headache worsen.

  Yeah, he’d call.

  Apologize.

  But not yet.

  First he was going to go soak his sorry ass in the tub and see if he couldn’t ease the headache into tolerable limits.

  ***

  Slumped in the water, Sebastien’s lids drooped shut.

  Thoughts drifted away and he was happy to let them do just that. Thinking was overrated and more trouble than it was worth, really.

  Water slapped against his chest.

  His mind went hazy.

  When the haze went from near-blank to fantasy, Sebastien barely noticed, although it wasn’t much of a surprise that the fantasy centered on Marin. Everything seemed to center on her.

  She moved against him, her mouth on his, as hungry as his own.

  Her hands tangled in his hair while his cupped her ass.

  She rode him and with every passing second, the movements went from lazy and hungry, to driving and desperate until it was just as much war as lovemaking.

  Under the water, he closed his hand around his cock, echoing the rhythm in his daydream.

  She brought him to a hard climax while in reality, Sebastien grunted, arching up and driving his cock into his fist.

  As the water carried away the semen, Sebastien lifted his lids and looked around. He had a good idea what he’d been dreaming about earlier, and why he’d woken with a smile on his face.

  Something Marin had said or done had set him off and he had probably spent the entire night getting off in memory of it.

  “Hell, I hope she left before I said anything to her.”

  ***

  Sebastien called twice.

  Each time the call went to voice mail.

  Marin wasn’t out of town. He knew that because he knew her schedule like the back of his hand. Not that he was stalking her, per se. After all, she told him when she’d be working or when she’d be taking a break, when she’d be spending a weekend alone at her place in the Smokies, and more than once, she’d asked him if he’d like to come with her—a friendly sort of thing, he knew.

  But she was in LA and she wasn’t answering his calls. Sebastien figured either one of two things was going on. Either she was too busy to talk—he doubted that. He’d left messages and the last call had been nearly five hours earlier.

  The other option . . .she was avoiding him.

  If she was avoiding his calls, then he’d probably done something stupid. The daydream from earlier came back to him and he swore. He needed to go talk to her. If he had done something stupid . . .

  It was that worry that had him driving out of Malibu and up into the mountains where she lived in the Pacific Palisades. Although they weren’t far apart, their homes were as different as they could be. Marin had a thing for mountains, something Sebastien had figured out a long time ago, and her house, sprawling and elegant, was tucked into fifteen acres, affording her more privacy than one would typically expect to find so close to LA.

  Already rehearsing his speech, he punched in a code she’d given him a couple years ago and drove up to the house.

  He practically slammed on the brakes when he saw her walking down the steps with somebody—a guy.

  A familiar-looking guy.

  And she was dressed in a sexy little black scrap of nothing, too.

  A date?

  Was she going on a date?

  The sound of his car caught their attention and wasn’t that just perfect, because he’d been about two seconds from throwing the car into the reverse and getting the hell out of there.

  Too late, though.

  Marin, her arm hooked through Dash Harlow’s, turned her head and caught sight of him. Dash did the same and Sebastien was close enough to see the wide smile creasing his old friend’s face.

  He’d shut everybody save Marin out of his life, including Dash.

  Hell, he hadn’t shut people out. He’d all but shoved them out, and a few people, he’d practically thrown them out so hard, it wouldn’t be a wonder if they didn’t have skid marks on their asses from the impact with the ground.

  And there was Dash, one of the guys he’d come down on pretty hard, smiling at him.

  While he smiled, he had his hands on Marin.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  It was almost enough to make Sebastien want to go back to his house and bury hims
elf in booze—or would that be drowning himself? He didn’t know. But instead of swinging the car around, he finished the short distance to the house and put the car in park, climbing out just as Dash and Marin reached him.

  Dash was never one to hold back affection or enthusiasm and Sebastien found himself getting hugged while the other man pounded him on the back. “Damn, man. You finally crawled out of that hole you fell into. Glad to see you back out in the light of day.” Dash pulled back and caught Sebastien’s face in his hands, staring at him hard. Then he shook his head. “You look like hell. What are you doing, drinking yourself to death and lifting weights and nothing else? Your complexion is shit and your eyes are all bloodshot.”

  “One of them is bloodshot. The other is fucked up to hell and back,” Sebastien pointed out. He shoved Dash back, knowing the man wouldn’t take offense. “And pardon me if I don’t go and bathe in mud every other week the way you do, pretty boy.”

  “I’ll have you know I’m naturally this gorgeous.” Dash laughed at him. “You used to be. You should go see the people at my spa. A day under their hands and you’ll be back to your beautiful self.”

  Sebastien rolled his eyes. “A few days of eating right and getting some decent sleep and I’ll be fine. See, I really am naturally gorgeous.” He scowled. “Well, I was. I didn’t need people at a spa. I could live at a spa now and it wouldn’t do shit.”

  Marin spoke up before an awkward silence could settle in. “Sebastien, a spa wouldn’t do shit for you because you don’t need it. You’re not a pretty boy and never were. Leave the mud baths to those who enjoy them . . . like Dash.” She gave them both a cool smile.

  “Ouch.” Dash grabbed Sebastien again and hugged him. “I’ve missed you, Seb. Lots of people do. Tell me you’re coming back.”

  “Coming . . . What? No. Hell, no.” He shook his head and eased away, focusing on Marin. She met his gaze with an arched brow. “Hey.”

  “Sebastien.” Her smile was steady. Her voice was easy.

  But there was a warning in his head. It screamed at him.

  When he took a step toward her, even though she didn’t do anything, there was . . . something else. It was almost as if she wanted to back away, but wouldn’t let herself.