“My decision…it’s not what you think.”
He arches a brow in disbelief. “So you’re not in love with him?”
“I care about him, but that’s not why I chose him.”
“What am I supposed to think? Landon wants me to marry you, but the first chance you got, you chose Castle. Why?”
I blink, frustrated with myself and guilty for what I asked Liam to do the night of the dinner. “I can’t tell you.”
He pushes to his feet, tall frame towering in front of me, and I avert my attention from the outline of his cock in those jeans. “I don’t like games, princess. Been playing them all my life, and I’m over it.”
“I’m not playing games.” I advance on him, resting my hands on his shoulders and finding comfort in his strength. “You’ll have to ask Landon why I chose Liam.”
“More secrets?” He grips the back of my neck, tugging me flush with his body as he lowers his head. “When I’m allowed to touch you,” he rasps, his mouth a faint tease on my lips, “I plan to extract every last secret from the flesh of your bones.”
The charge radiating off him shakes me apart, and I tremble in his grasp, hot and needy at the core. I palm his scruffy face, holding to the negligible space between us because if he kisses me now, I won’t be able to stop.
“You need to let me go.”
“I know,” he says, his eyes shuttering with reluctance. He steps back and crosses his arms. “Go, before I do something that’ll fuck any chance I have of marrying you.”
I slip into the hall, and my breath stalls in my lungs as my nerve endings snap and sizzle. There’s no arousing elixir on this earth more powerful than Sebastian Stone.
Especially when he implies that he wants to marry me.
Chapter Eight
Vance’s birthday marks the third week of my time in his house. On the evening prior, a commotion filters into my bedroom through the closed door—a herd of footsteps, a mixture of voices, followed by thumps on the floor.
Too nosy for my own good, I set my pencil on the desk with the rest of my charcoals, wooden spindles clinking together, and go into the hall to investigate. The double doors across from my room, usually kept closed, stand wide open. Several assistants surround a woman dressed in a curve-hugging skirt and sleeveless top as she directs them all like traffic.
“The trunks go into the wardrobe,” she says, a manicured finger pointing to her left. As they scramble to do her bidding, she turns and spots me lurking in the hall. Her perfectly arched brows furrow over deep green eyes.
My heart stalls a beat, because the ice coming from Lilith Astor is cold enough to freeze blood.
“Excuse me for a moment,” she tells her entourage before striding to the threshold of her suite. Her ruby-red lips flatten into a displeased line. Without another word, she shuts the doors in my face.
I’m still smarting over her rudeness an hour later as I head into the dining room to meet Vance for dinner. He’s sitting at the head of the table, wearing a dark gray button-up shirt with the cuffs rolled up. I settle into my usual spot on his left, and by the time the kitchen staff sets dinner on the table, Lilith still hasn’t arrived.
“Is Lilith joining us?” I ask.
“Yes. We’ll wait,” he says, a frown stealing over his face as he glances at his watch.
“I’m not sure she likes my being here.” I smooth down my lace skirt.
“Why do you say that?”
“I saw her when she first arrived. She didn’t seem happy to see me.”
Irritation stiffens his square jaw. “What did she do?”
“She shut the door in my face.” Two of them, to be exact.
His frown deepens. “That’s unacceptable. I’ll speak to her about her behavior.”
“Please don’t.” I mentally kick myself for mentioning anything. “It’ll only make things worse.”
“I didn’t realize there was tension between the two of you.”
“Not on my side.”
“Lilith isn’t the easiest person to get along with.”
“I think she might be upset because…” I pause, taking a deep breath and wondering if I should admit my suspicions to the doctor. But he’s been nothing but nice to me since I came to his house, and I’ve grown used to talking to him. “Because of my feelings for Sebastian.”
Surprise widens his eyes. “Sebastian? I thought it was Liam.”
“Would it be terrible of me to say it’s both?”
With a touch of amusement, his lips stretch into a smile. “It would make you human, my queen.”
Lilith appears then, and I wonder if jealousy makes me human, too. She’s gorgeous in a midnight cocktail dress with two side slits that show off her long legs. This is the woman who got her claws into Sebastian and messed him up in the head. At one point, he loved her…if he doesn’t still.