Stitches

I need to talk to Seb. I need to tell him. He’s gonna fucking flip. I mean, he won’t be torn up about it—not like he was married to her, and with all the trouble she’s been causing lately, the bastard might even be relieved to…

My thoughts slow to a crawl.

Now he might be persuaded to put a gun in someone’s mouth. I can’t picture him pulling the trigger because I love the fucking guy, and that’s just not a thing you can picture someone you love doing…

No, it couldn’t have—he wouldn’t do that. That’s too far. Seb’s not a fucking murderer, what am I thinking? Plus, he was at the house with us. He’s the one who told Moira to invite her sister over for dinner, and he was there with us all night visiting. Gwen didn’t leave until late, and he was right there at the front door seeing her off.

No, of course Seb didn’t have anything to do with it. I can’t believe that thought even crossed my mind.

Overwhelmed with a need to see him, to tell him about this, to see that he’s shocked, too, I pat my pocket for my keys. Finding them, I head straight for my car. My jacket’s still in the office, but who fucking cares?

I fire up the engine, back out of my spot, and peel out of the parking lot. I break several traffic laws along the way, but I can’t drive fast enough. Thankfully there aren’t many people on the road today, but Seb’s across town so it still takes forever to get to him.

I could’ve called him, given him a heads up, but I didn’t bother.

Since I didn’t bother, I shouldn’t be too shocked when I get to where he’s supposed to be and he’s already left. The curly-haired girl who watches his every move when he’s around—major infatuation there, but she’s just a kid, so it’s nothing to worry about—told me he was meeting with his Realtor over at the retail space he told me about.

The fucking retail space? How the hell is he meeting at the retail space not just without me, but without telling me? It wouldn’t be a big deal any other time, but right now he knows we don’t have the money to buy it. He knows our finances are tied up and looking dire given the Ashley situation.

Irrational anger surges through my veins when I pull up and see him standing inside the building, hands shoved into the pockets of his long, stylish jacket, talking to the Realtor. I park up front so he spots me immediately; a wary look passes across his face.

He should look fucking wary. I kill the engine and get out, slamming the car door behind me and heading inside. Since Seb watches all this, as soon as I swing open the door and let myself inside, he tells the woman, “Give us a minute.”

I’ve obviously met with her before and she knows I’m his partner, so she glances between us uncertainly, then nods and click-clacks into the next space over to give us some privacy.

Seb’s gaze drifts up and around, and I know immediately the motherfucker is checking for any potentially working cameras.

Goddammit.

“Did you do this?”

His voice level, his face vaguely annoyed, Seb asks, “What are you talking about?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about, Seb. What are you doing here? I told you we had to hold off on this place. You know we can’t afford to buy it right now.”

“I had to come,” he tells me. “I know you wanted to wait, but there’s another buyer sniffing around and this place is too good a deal. If we wait around, we’ll lose it. Obviously I would’ve looped you in before I did anything official, but—”

I don’t let him finish bullshitting me. I’m not in the mood for it right now. “But you knew we didn’t have the fucking money!”

Passing a hand over his mouth and caressing his strong jaw, he regards me like he’s appraising an angry pet, determining whether to throw it a bone or slip it some tranquilizer pills in a piece of lunch meat to keep it from attacking.

“Why don’t I finish up here?” he finally suggests. “We can go somewhere and talk.”

“About what?” I ask, lowly. “What do we need to talk about, Seb?”

“Whatever has you upset,” he says, evenly. “Let me just tell Elsa I’ll call her tomorrow.”

I’m still restless as hell, but I wait for my best friend to go handle fucking business while I stand here with a dead wife—and he might’ve been the one to kill her.

This is a fucking disaster.

People can’t just do shit like this and get away with it. What am I supposed to do if he gets caught?

I’m getting ahead of myself. I still want to believe he didn’t do this, but I know there’s a darkness lurking beneath Seb’s well-assembled exterior, a scrappy willingness to do whatever he has to do to save himself. As a kid he always had to fight, and he never really stopped, he just upgraded his arsenal. Maybe he doesn’t have to come to blows with the house bully or build an emotional force field around himself anymore, but what if he felt like he needed to protect me and Moira? Ashley did come to the house. Moira was going to have to admit to our arrangement and we were going to be outed publicly—and not on our own terms, but in a way that made the whole thing seem sordid and wrong.

Seb has been like a brother to me, and I know the man well. I know his heart and soul, and I know he’s loyal as hell, but I also know he shuts off that heart to anyone he feels has turned on him, abandoned him, left him out in the cold. If Moira hadn’t stopped me leaving, I would’ve felt the arctic chill of his indifference.

So how easy would it be for him to look at Ashley—someone he never had a single strong feeling for—not as a person, but as a problem he needed to solve? Lately she’s been presenting her