She grabbed his arm to force him to stop moving. He glared at her.
“It’ll be fine, honestly, Sebastian. It’ll be fine.”
He closed his eyes and groaned and looked so exposed that she was shocked. And in that moment, she knew that it would be the exact opposite of fine.
Chapter7
Indra watched Sebastian pace the room. The pacing got quicker, turning at one end and speeding up as he approached the other before he ran up to the door and threw his body at it with all his might. But the old door was solid—part of a much older part of the manor—and the bolt didn’t even rattle. It held firm. He swore and punched the door. She winced. It must have hurt.
“You’ve got to calm down, Sebastian!”
He didn’t stop pacing, only glared at her, and she could see the panic in his eyes continuing to mount. She had wanted to know his secrets, but now it looked like the iron shutters had been ripped apart, she wished she couldn’t see them. They looked too savage, too painful to contemplate.
He slapped the palm of his hand against the wall as he peered outside into the developing twilight, willing someone to appear, someone to hear them, someone to release them from the purgatory he appeared to be in.
She placed her hand on his shoulder. He flinched but didn’t move, just kept his agitated gaze flickering outside, over the shadows, searching for something, anything, which would get them out of there.
“Sebastian,” she said quietly now, exactly as she’d used to speak to the wounded dog she found, trying to make him trust her, believe in her. “It will be all right, you know. If no one else appears, there’s always my secretary.”
His eyes flared with hope. “You can contact her?”
“No. I mean, we have a standing arrangement. Every morning, my secretary comes here to deliver the correspondence and sort out my diary for the day. Every day. Without fail. Shewillcome.”
“That’s tomorrow morning,” he said grimly. He started to move away but she gripped his arm more tightly and stepped closer. “Notnow,” he said. “Not this evening. Nottonight. That’s over twelve hours away.” He lowered his face to hers and she could sense his agitation and panic, not only in his eyes, but also in his voice. “How the hell am I going to stay sane, cooped up in here with you?”
An image—a very sexy image—flashed through her brain and stayed there for an instant. She hoped Sebastian didn’t notice the blush which flooded her cheeks.
“I distract you.” She dismissed the sexy image firmly. “Wetalk.”
“What the hell do we have to talk about that can make me forget I’m back in the very place which drove me away from my home when I was a boy? Hey?”
“We could find out about each other.” Instantly, she wished she could retract her words. She’d virtually given him permission to know her secrets. But it was either that or give herself to him physically. She could see she had his attention. “First you,” she said quickly. If she could divert him into surrendering his secrets first, she might be able to hold on to hers. “I’d like to know you better, Sebastian.”
He grunted dismissively. “You think that’s going to take my mind off this?” He swept his hand with a flourish around the long, low-ceilinged room. He shook his head as he looked up at the white-washed ceiling, lower than any of the other rooms in the house. “I always hated how low this ceiling was. It made me feel trapped, like a caged—”
She tugged his arm. “Sebastian! Stop it! Okay, let’s talk about something else.” She could see that she’d caught his attention. “Anything.” She had no choice but to offer her past up as a distraction. “You said once that you wanted to know my secrets. I’ll tell you if you ask me.”
He tilted his head to one side with sudden interest, and the tension in his brow lifted. It was working. “Okay.” He shifted his stance, so he was facing her directly. She felt unnerved but didn’t move away. “Where did you and your mother come from, Indra?”
She wetted her lips as a myriad of answers flitted through her mind. Answers that her mother had created for her, ready-made to tell anyone who asked. And then there were the truthful answers. She knew she couldn’t get away with the former with Sebastian.
“India.”
He waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t.
“Okay, so I have to know the questions, the veryspecificquestions, to ask before I receive the answers?”
She nodded. She was going to make him work for whatever he wanted to know. Firstly, because she wanted to divulge as little as possible and secondly, and most importantly, it would divert Sebastian from his fears more effectively. But maybe she could divert him a little by leading him along paths which were less revealing.
“Do you want to know whereabouts in India?” She could talk about her home city for hours.
“Not particularly.”
Her heart sank.
“No, I’d rather know about the ‘why’.”
She frowned.