by Lyla Payne
“You do not want to go there, Audra. Leave.”
“No.”
He slams his drink down so hard the expensive scotch sloshes over the lip of the crystal and onto the end table, then he marches across the room to grab me by the biceps. His grip is tight enough to get my attention but not hard enough to hurt. Our eyes connect. Self-loathing and anger fill his honey-brown gaze. Edge out any regret or affection he might have felt for me on the way home from the wedding, but I don’t look away.
It’s the fact that he hates himself that kills me. Because in all the interactions that anyone has had with Sebastian Blair over the years, no one has ever guessed that the way he behaves makes him anything but deliriously happy. It’s where the sociopath label came from—the assumption that he gets off on other people’s pain.
But what if he’s only trying to distract himself from the anguish inside? The guy looking at me right now, too angry or drunk to hide his feelings, hates himself more than anyone else could ever hate him.
“Leave.” The word is flat, squeezed out between clenched teeth. The anger skitters toward desperation. “I’m telling you, you don’t want this.”
“I want to be here, Sebastian. I’m not scared of you.”
We stare each other down for another thirty or forty seconds. There’s not a single sound in the room other than our breath, collecting between us in joined clouds.
Then he kisses me. It’s not like our other kisses, even though none of them could be described as gentle. This is angry. It’s rough and demanding, consuming to the point of drowning. I love it. It confuses me, the way his hands yanking off my clothes, his tongue forcing open my lips, lights my body on fire. Sebastian needs me, needs this connection or to forget, and his desperation is so strong it’s infecting me.
I need him. Need to feel his skin against mine. I fling his tie off before attacking the buttons on his shirt. He’s got my clothes off before I realize what’s happening and shoves a condom in my hands. I drop to my knees, licking him until he’s so hard it feels unbelievable under my palms as I slide the condom in place.
He grabs my armpits and hauls me roughly back to my feet, meeting my gaze for the briefest of moments that surely tells him all he needs to know. I’m okay with letting him use my body to ease whatever’s killing him slowly from the inside out. I’m okay with being here for him, even now.
We stumble toward one side of the room, and then I’m in the air, Sebastian’s hands under my bare ass as he lifts me against one of the bookshelves. The smell of cracked glue and old leather swirls out from behind me to meet the enticing scent of hormones as Sebastian shoves all the way inside me. I cry out at the amazing feeling of being filled, of being taken in a way I’ve never experienced before—never thought I’d like to be. I encourage him with gasped nonsense and use my forearms to leverage us together and apart, into a frantic rhythm that culminates in both of us crying out at almost the same moment.
I have no idea how long we have sex or what day of the week it is when we’re finished because my mind is littering the floor in tiny little pieces. Among them, barely visible, are the sparkly shards of magic left over from the other night.
They were born of romance then, now from primal sex. From anger and the lashing out and, yes, understanding. What does that mean?
Sebastian says nothing, just pulls out of me and sets my toes on the floor, then pulls up his pants and flops on the couch. I find my underwear and the tank top I had on under my thin long sleeves and slip it on, too, then crawl next to him. The weight of his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close, clogs my throat.
I curl into him, resting a hand on his chest. “You don’t have to talk to me about your mother, Sebastian. Or why you decided all of a sudden that you need a nice girlfriend and a job and maybe a whole new reputation. But don’t treat me like I’m an idiot. Those things are obviously related.”
He doesn’t answer. His fingers are soft as they trail up and down my bare arm, leaving goose bumps in their wake. The gentle touch is the opposite of the sex we just had but the effect on me is just as profound. Blair’s words ring in my mind and I remind myself this isn’t real.
I mean, we’re real, the sex and the connection and the moment is real, but our relationship isn’t.
It’s quiet for so long I wonder if he’s fallen asleep, but don’t want to jostle him to look up and check. Then his voice rumbles through his chest and into my ear. “She’s dying. My mother.”
My muscles want to tense in fear of saying the wrong thing. Of startling him back into silence. “How long have you known?”
“The two of us haven’t been in touch since she gave me to Teddy over ten years ago and never looked back. Didn’t want me as much as she wanted the money he offered, that’s what I’ve always believed. She signed away her parental rights at the same time, along with a nondisclosure agreement.”
The ache in my chest returns. Dealing with that as a ten-year-old is bound to leave a mark. “That’s awful.”
He shrugs, fingers wandering up to tangle in my shoulder-length hair. “It had its advantages. But a few months ago she sought me out. Said it was all a lie, that Teddy forced her to sign everything and disappear.”
“Do you believe her?” The library breathes around us, an intoxicating mixture of knowledge and class, leather and scotch.
“I don’t know. I doubt I’ll ever know.” He takes a deep breath, then blows it out through his nose. “She’s dying. Came to me a few months ago. She’s totally broke, no insurance, and the vascular disease she has is going to require extensive pain management and regular care.”
I swallow, putting pieces together in my mind. “Your dad obviously isn’t going to help.”
“Said he’d cut me off if he found out I was using any of his money for her care.”
“That’s why you need the job.” More wheels turn, and everything that makes sense now doesn’t fit with my previous image of the man lying next to me. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why do you feel responsible for her?”
I don’t voice the rest of the thought, which is that she certainly hasn’t gone out of her way to take care of him, and the story she told could be the lie, not Teddy’s. More than likely the truth is somewhere between their versions but maybe that’s beside the point.
“That’s a good question. I’m not sure what the answer is but there’s no denying that I do. Feel responsible.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get the job today. But I think you can find a campaign that’s not a sinking ship, anyway.”
That makes him chuckle. The black cloud that’s hovered over the room since I stepped inside fades to gray. “I know the guy’s an asshole, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t get elected as part of the GOP.”
“True enough.”
We lapse into silence again, breathing in the lamplit room and our mingled scents. It’s strangely comforting to sit beside him while we’re both lost in our own thoughts. Even though we’re not talking it feels as though we’re communicating, and the closeness, the understanding, tying us together scares me more than anything else that’s happened since I walked through the door tonight.
Something’s happening. I’m not sure if it can be stopped. Maybe that’s okay.
Chapter Seventeen
Audra
It’s family dinner night again but this time I’m bringing Sebastian. My brothers are the ones who invited him, so there wasn’t much choice but to agree even though he’s not stable enough to handle whatever they might throw at him. This thing with his mother is taking its toll, along with the fact that he has to keep going to the campaign every day after they refused to hire him permanently.
He never said the words, but I know his mother is the reason he asked me to agree to this entire ruse in the first place. There are so many opportunities for networking at Whitman, but no one would have recommended Sebastian to their family or friends the way things were going. But with an upstanding girlfriend, a stable
relationship, a recommendation from a local campaign, and his grades, he might have a fighting chance.
It should make me hate him, maybe, that he’s using me to lie to people so that he can get what he wants. But what he wants is noble, in its way, even if he’s not forgiven his mother. He wants to take care of the woman who gave birth to him. The sentiment isn’t hard to understand. My own mother is lovely. I consider her a friend.
There’s nothing she could do that would make me turn my back on her if she were dying.
The fact that Sebastian feels the same way tells me that he’s not a monster. Not on the inside, a place he refuses to let people see. Now that I know the truth about his background and how he lost his mother the first time, my heart breaks for him even more. He might have dealt with his feelings in a shitty way, choosing power over relationships, manipulation over real connections, but he never had any help growing up. No one to explain to him there’s another way. The guy needs help, and for some reason I feel compelled to give it to him.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks as we climb out of my Audi in my brothers’ driveway.
“What?” I shake my head, pretending to look for the perfect place to stow my keys in my purse. “Oh. Nothing.”
To his credit, he doesn’t call me out on the lie, just holds out a hand. “Are you sure you want to do this? We don’t have to involve your family.”
“It’s sweet of you to say that, but my family is already involved, and us turning down the invite will only make them more suspicious.”
“I know. But I could always claim to be sick or something.”
“Come on. Everyone knows the devil doesn’t come down with the flu.”
“Excellent point.” The wry smile on his face makes my belly flip like a pancake.
I’m nothing but a bundle of too-tight knots when I turn the knob and lead him into the foyer. Unlike last time, none of my brothers are here to greet me, and once we’re in the kitchen I see that none of them invited their girlfriends, either.
A frown pulls at my face. “I thought this was a couples’ dinner.”
“No one could make it,” Nox says, peering into the oven, where a couple of take-and-bake pizzas are bubbling.
A nervous laugh threatens to pop out at the idea of Sebastian eating pizza. The guy is all gourmet all the time. “Right. Well, you all know Sebastian.”
Cole looks up from the play he’s reading and nods. The twins don’t even turn around to acknowledge the introduction, and worry fogs my brain. They brought us here for a reason, obviously, and I don’t think either of us is going to like it. The night of the baseball party replays in my mind like a loop and I say a quick prayer that Sebastian’s got his emotions under control enough that we won’t have a brawl.
“I want to apologize to you boys for what happened the last time we were all in the same place. It was disrespectful to your sister and I have no good excuse. I’m hoping we can start over.” Sebastian’s fingers tighten on mine.
Surprise filters through my growing panic at the genuine inflection in his voice. It could be faked—it probably is, because I doubt he has any regrets over riling my brothers up—but to hear him refer to respecting me hits deep. Painful.
Respect from men is something I took for granted before Logan. It had been given to me without having to ask for it—maybe because of my brothers or maybe because I’d always chosen wisely—and I hate that now it feels like a treasure.
None of my brothers respond, but they do at least acknowledge that Sebastian is speaking by turning around and looking up, varying degrees of shock, disbelief, and suspicion touching their matching jawlines.
Law clears his throat and nudges Nox out of the way, pulling two giant pizzas out of the oven and slinging them on the table. “Time to eat. What would you two like to drink? Beer?”
“I’ll have water,” I say softly, settling into the chair Sebastian pulls out for me. His hands brush the nape of my neck and shivers spill down my spine, bringing back wanton memories of all the places we’ve had sex over the past couple of weeks. It’s deliciously dirty to think of him inside me, filling me up, as we sit at dinner.
It’s good, though. It reminds me that there are things the two of us share that are more important than impressing my disapproving brothers.
“Water is fine with me, as well, as long as you have bottled.”
“Nothing sparkling, I’m afraid.” Nox rolls his eyes, setting down two glasses of tap water.
I can literally see Seb biting his tongue. Gratitude gushes into my middle and I reach over and squeeze his hand under the table.
“So, you two are still keeping up this ruse, huh?” Law eyes the two of us over a slice loaded with toppings.
The silence in the kitchen grows pregnant with accusations. I breathe them in, and they turn into excuses on my tongue. I don’t give voice to any of them right away, instead pulling a piece of plain pepperoni onto my plate and smiling faintly as Sebastian does the same, then picks up a fork and knife to cut himself a bite.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I finally reply after chewing and swallowing my first piping-hot mouthful.
“Come on, Audra. There are rumors all over campus that he’s got you pinned with something. He’s blackmailing you into sleeping with him. Being his little toy. And we’re not going to stand for it.” Nox stares at us from across the table, his gaze hard.
Cole’s is more sympathetic. Pleading. He thinks the same thing but he’s not willing to attack me the way the twins are, which reminds me why he’s always been my favorite brother. A glance at Sebastian stabs me in the stomach—he’s putting on a good front, but with all the hits he’s taken in the past couple of days, it’s clear to me that every word out of their mouths is tearing him down. Making him wonder if this whole idea of him changing his life is stupid. Unattainable.
And that’s unacceptable.
My anger swirls, gagging me with rage, and I slam my hands down on the table. Everyone’s silverware and glasses rattle. “He is sitting right here, and the three of you are being unbearably rude.”
I give Sebastian a look when he starts to protest. My brothers aren’t listening. Every word is going in one ear and out the other as they wait to spout their next embarrassing mouthful of shite.
“Sebastian is my boyfriend. This is real. And if me saying it isn’t enough, maybe you’ll believe me when we get married in a few months.”
The words are gone, too far to snatch back, and the room goes dark around the edges. A funny buzzing sound takes up residence in my ears, so loud the shocked responses from my family can’t be heard over it. Or Sebastian’s silence. I refuse to look at him, mortified at what I’ve done.
He doesn’t want to marry me. Bollocks, I’m only nineteen—I don’t want to get married, either. I just wanted to shut them up, and this is what my brain thought would be a good idea to shove out of my mouth.
My brothers are going apeshit. Cole’s staring at me with fiery disappointment. Nox storms out of the room after pausing to say something threatening to Sebastian, and Law stands over me, demanding answers.
I can’t hear any of it, and when Sebastian finally forces me to look into his eyes, we’re both thinking the same thing: What have I done?
Chapter Eighteen
Sebastian
I manage to nod and smile my way through the next five minutes and get Audra out the door in the process. Her declaration shocked me, which isn’t something that’s easy to do, but what surprises me even more is that it’s making me think about what it would be like to really marry someone like Audra.
“I’m sorry. Oh my heavens, Sebastian, I don’t know why I said that. What are we going to do?” Apologies and fear tumble out of her, off of her, the moment we pull away from the curb and head toward the Kappa house.
Her election is tomorrow night, so we agreed she should stay in the house to do some last-minute prep and bonding, but now that this has happened, it’s going to be har
d for her to concentrate.
It’s hard for me to concentrate on the road, so I pull over into the parking lot of a pharmacy and twist to face her. The streaks on her red face move me, and a smile finds its way onto my face. It feels weird. Genuine.
“Well, that’s one way to convince everyone we’re serious.”
Audra coughs out a wet laugh. “Go big or go home, yeah?”
“I’ve always been rather fond of that adage myself.” I waggle my eyebrows and earn another laugh. It makes me feel like the King of England. Or the Huns, maybe, since they’re a little less upstanding. “I’m not angry, so stop apologizing. We’ll figure it out. Two and a half months is plenty of time for that.”
“Thank you,” she says, her voice small as she wipes at her eyes. “Do I look a mess?”
Instinct propels me across the console between us and I plant a kiss on her lips, lingering long enough to make her forget about being a mess. She kisses me back, and lust stirs in my blood, tightens my pants in the crotch. I have no idea what this girl is doing to me, or how or why, but it’s not good.
“You look lovely,” I murmur, pulling back and buckling my seat belt. “Let’s get you home so you can hopefully win this election before we become the most talked-about couple on campus.”
The notoriety, the added scrutiny, probably doesn’t work in our favor. Before, we were a curiosity, and more people probably spent time discussing whether we were pulling one over on Whitman. Now, they’re going to watch us more closely. Expect certain things from us. Things engaged people do, whatever those might be.
I drop Audra off and head to the frat house, figuring I might look up Toby and work on our philanthropy event instead of spending the evening alone at the beach. Once the Stuart brothers shoot what they know into the gossip stream I’m going to want the option to go into hiding.
I’ve spent years free of nerves and worry because I’ve never let myself into a situation where I’m not fully prepared to handle anything that comes up. The problem here is that I have no idea how to be a fiancé. The kind of person who would invest so completely in another that I’d get down on one knee and promise to take care of them—to trust them to take care of me—for the rest of my life.