An Innocent, a Seduction, a Secret

Edie wondered if he’d been about to say that it had been their last match before the accident. The timing would be right.

She felt silly now, when she thought of the crash. Her encounter with him had been such a small event and yet it had had huge repercussions for her. How could she explain that?

‘I just...saw you. And I wanted to...to meet you.’ She cringed inwardly. This was so much worse than she had imagined. ‘I tried to talk to you and you told me to leave you alone.’

More or less.

Sebastio’s skin felt too tight. As he looked at Edie he realised that the wispy sense of déjà-vu had been real. He had seen her before. He remembered her huge eyes looking at him with such a sense of naked hope that they’d sliced right through him. Now she looked at him far more warily. Had he done that? Or someone else?

Except... ‘You looked different then...’

She seemed to go paler in the dim light. ‘You can’t possibly remember.’

But he hardly heard her as he pieced the event together. ‘You were a very young girl.’

‘I was nineteen,’ Edie said, almost defensively.

Sebastio looked at her. ‘Like I said, very young. Fragile. Big eyes. And your hair was longer...’

Edie touched her hair self-consciously, surprised he’d recalled that detail of her wig.

‘Why didn’t you tell me when we met again?’

Edie’s hand dropped from her hair. She avoided his eye. ‘I was embarrassed. I approached you and you basically told me to run along. And then you kissed a woman in front of me.’

‘That wasn’t very nice of me.’

Edie made a small shrugging movement. ‘I’d disturbed you with your friends.’

Sebastio recalled the incident now—it had stuck in his mind for days afterwards. Her eyes had been so huge, and full of a kind of hope and innocence he’d never really seen before. That was why he’d sent her away, even though something about her had been very compelling.

He recalled now that she’d made him feel jaded. And restless.

He touched her jaw, tracing the feminine line. ‘I’m sorry I was harsh, Edie, but believe me I did you a favour that night. I was a different person then...you would have liked me even less than you do now.’

He had told himself at the time that he’d done it because he hadn’t wanted to taint her with his cynicism, but he realised now it had been for far more complex and personal reasons. It was as if those huge eyes had seen right through him to the root of his sense of dissatisfaction.

And she still had that ability. Except now he couldn’t push her away. He wanted her too much.

‘I don’t not like you, Sebastio. I just never expected to meet you again.’

‘And yet here we are.’

Sebastio tipped up Edie’s chin with a finger as lust coiled tight inside him. It would appear that he had no such qualms about not tainting her with his cynicism now.

‘Maybe you like me a little... Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Are you telling me you really care what I think about you?’

Her eyes flashed with dark blue fire. She might have projected fragility and innocence four years ago, and sometimes she still did, but she’d obviously grown up too. A part of Sebastio lamented the loss of some of that innocence. Which was ridiculous.

He was surprised by an urge to tell her that yes, he did actually care. When he shouldn’t. This was about sex. Not feelings.

‘We don’t need to care about each other to want each other.’

Wow. Edie absorbed this. She couldn’t fault him for not being brutally honest. She felt a dart of hurt but pushed it aside. She pulled her head back, dislodging his finger from her chin.

‘Edie...let me be very clear. What I want from you is purely physical. I don’t do relationships. I don’t offer commitment. I’m not kind or understanding. I want you...and what I’m offering is a finite affair until such time as this thing between us burns out. But don’t ever expect anything more, because I can’t give it and you’ll get hurt.’