“My house, it’s…” He blows out a long, painful breath, and my hand on his waist tightens in support.
“I’m pretty sure nothing else you can say or do will scare me off now, Seb.”
“Yeah, you say that, but you don’t know just how shitty my life is.”
“Try me.”
“My mum’s a drunk and an addict.”
I suck in a breath. I have no idea what I was expecting him to say, but that wasn’t it.
“After my dad died, she started losing herself to it. Sophia and Zoe pretty much brought Demi and me up. She was a mess from as early as I remember, although she could mostly function. Then when Demi died… Well, Mum might as well have gone with her.
“Her occasional drug use to supplement the alcohol increased, and she gradually moved onto harder and harder options as each one stopped working, stopped blurring her reality.”
“Shit, Seb.”
“The person who killed my dad didn’t just kill him. They broke my mum. They ruined my family. I’ve spent all these years hating a faceless person for even daring to point a gun at my father’s head. And then one day I was in the house with Theo, and I just happened to walk past Damien’s office. He was talking to Evan, Nico’s dad, discussing business. I can’t remember exactly what they were saying, but hearing my dad’s name made me pause before he said the words I’d been waiting for years to hear. ‘Galen’s been punished for killing Christopher. It’s best we just leave it in the past.’
“I knew he was probably right, I should have just left it. But I couldn’t. The need to get revenge on the person who ruined my life had been burning within me for years.
“I spent too long imagining all the things I’d do to that man. I told Theo and Alex, and we started digging a little. Discovered that you existed.
“It was all fantasy. I never thought I’d ever get a chance to look into his eyes and call him exactly what he was, explain exactly what he did to us… but then, there you were. You stood there in that graveyard, not giving a single fuck that I was sitting there with a gun.
“I thought you were my fucking guardian angel that night, until you corrected that, telling me that you couldn’t possibly be an angel.”
I can’t help but laugh at the memory.
“Fuck.” He squeezes his eyes tight as if he’s bringing back that night. “I never wanted to let you go. You will never appreciate how much you gave me that night when you stood there and challenged me. It was everything I didn’t know I needed.”
“Then I told you my name,” I add for him.
“Yeah. It should have been obvious. No normal girl would have acted the way you did. I should have known we were connected from the very first moment.
“You fucked me up, baby. I wanted you so fucking badly, but I hated you more. Or at least, I thought I did.
“All I could see was revenge. And with you right there, your father’s precious daughter that he ran away with to protect, what better way to make my point?”
“That’s fucked up, Seb.”
“I wanted to hurt you, but not to hurt you. I just wanted to hurt him,” he continues, as if he can’t stop now he’s ripped the Band-Aid off all this ugliness.
“You should hate me, Stella. You certainly shouldn’t be lying here with me and putting any kind of trust in me.”
“We can all lie here and come up with a long list of things we never should have done, Seb. We’ve all made bad decisions, mistakes, have regrets.”
“But I fucking hurt you.” Pain bleeds from his eyes. “I hurt you because of some fucked-up need to hurt the man who didn’t even pull that fucking trigger.”
His hold on me becomes so tight it borders on painful, but I don’t complain. I don’t even flinch, because he needs this. He needs me to be his life raft right now, because he’s fucking drowning. Right before my eyes, he’s drowning under the weight of his reality, his mistakes, his regrets… and it physically hurts me to watch it.
“Seb,” I breathe, resting my palm on his scruff-covered cheek. “I get it. I understand.”
He blows out a breath, fighting some internal battle.
“You shouldn’t, though. What I did—”
“Stop, please,” I beg, knowing that he’s beating himself up. “It’s done, Seb. You can’t go back and change anything. You’re better off just focusing on how you can make it up to me.”
It takes a couple of seconds, but the regret begins to wash away.
“Oh yeah?” he asks, the twinkle of mischief I’m more used to returning to his eyes. “And how should I go about doing that?” His hand slips under his shirt that I’m still wearing, skimming up my side.
“Well,” I say, rolling onto my back, allowing his hand to cup my breast. He groans as he squeezes. “You could start by making me scream. Then, I don’t know… we’re in London. The possibilities are endless.”
“Hmm… I’m sure I can come up with something. But first…” He jumps on top of me, pushes his shirt up, exposing my breasts and dipping his head, sucking my nipple into his mouth.