Bellamy ran a hand through his hair and stared at him with those unearthly green eyes. “Look in your top dresser drawer, Seamus.”
He obeyed suspiciously, knowing it was empty now since he’d packed most of his clothes this morning.
It wasn’t empty anymore.
Four plane tickets lay there next to a decorative red bow. “What is this?”
“I used Tanaka’s example and got you, Owen and Jeremy something special.”
Seamus picked up the tickets, his heart pounding in his ears. Paris. Four tickets to Paris. They left tomorrow and the return flight wasn’t for another three weeks.
Bellamy couldn’t let the silence stand. “I’m extending their honeymoon. They enjoyed Ireland, but Paris is the city for lovers so they’d fit right in.” He came up behind Seamus and wrapped his arms around him. “And you and I can stay at my apartment there. It overlooks the Seine, Seamus, and it’s beautiful this time of year. I want to show it to you. I want to show you everything.”
Seamus squeezed his eyes shut, hating himself because for the space of a heartbeat he was tempted. In that moment, he wanted to go to Paris with Bellamy more than he could remember wanting anything.
More than he wanted to go home.
In his mind he saw Jake, the twins and Sean. Their hopeful faces shamed him. He’d never put them out of his mind, not for a second, until this last week. The knowledge of how much control his feelings for Bellamy had over him was terrifying. “We can’t accept these, Bellamy. You know that. I have a business to run and I’ve been away from my kids long enough.”
Bellamy was sliding his hands under his shirt and kissing the back of his neck. “You’ve told me about your family. Crowded Finn Agains and your sister’s men. They’re never alone, are they? They spend their days in school and their nights being spoiled by their relatives. Who wouldn’t want a few more weeks of that?”
He couldn’t understand, Seamus knew. He wasn’t a parent. “They need me, Bell. Not my parents or my sister. Me. And I need to be with them.”
Bellamy took his shoulder and turned him around to face him. “I’m not ready for this to be over. I’ve never felt like this before, Seamus. They have you for the rest of their lives, but I only had a few weeks. Come to Paris with me.”
He didn’t offer to join him on his flight home. To meet his children. Seamus suddenly remembered that Bellamy had always made himself scarce during his nightly phone calls to his children. That he’d always changed the subject when Seamus brought up his life back home.
Bellamy didn’t want him. Not the real Seamus Finn. He only wanted the one he’d met in Ireland. The one without responsibilities and other people who needed him.
His skin felt tight and there was a lump in his chest that he wasn’t sure was going away anytime soon. This was all they had. He’d known it from the start; he just hadn’t been expecting it to hurt this badly.
“I can’t come with you, Bellamy. My decision is final and I won’t spend my last night arguing with you.”
Bellamy scowled and crossed his arms, looking every inch the pampered prince Seamus had imagined he was. “Your decision is final, is it? Do you know who you’re talking to? I’m not one of your children. You can’t send me to my room without supper for saying something you don’t fucking like.”
“Are you sure?” Seamus let his anger at the situation shield him from the pain he was feeling. “Because you’re acting like a spoiled, bored child right now. One who plays with people instead of toys.”
Bellamy’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell does that mean?”
Seamus couldn’t shut it off. He didn’t want to. Anger was better than heartbreak. “Gill’s bar? These tickets? You always get what you want, don’t you? It’s always easy for you. And if it isn’t? If life takes effort, if a relationship has complications, you throw money at it until it changes or goes away.”
Bellamy responded as if Seamus had hit him. “This is about your kids.”
“Yes!” Seamus shouted, turning toward the closet to gather up his suitcases. “Everything is about my kids. My family. I don’t know who you’ve been sleeping with, but if you don’t know that by now? You never will.”
“Seamus, wait. Let’s talk abo—”
“There’s nothing more to say.” Seamus dropped his luggage to open the door to his suite. “Goodbye, Bellamy. I need you to leave now.”
“Seamus.”
The pain in his eyes was too much to bear and Seamus looked away. “Please, Bellamy. Just go.”
Owen and Jeremy were too exhausted from their last night in Ireland to do much more than sleep during the long flight, and Seamus was thankful for the reprieve. He didn’t want to spoil the last leg of their honeymoon with his dark mood and even darker thoughts.