The Way She Burns

“Sebastian?” she prompts me again. “Is everything all right?”

I cough into my fist. “Perhaps I don’t love the idea of going into town.”

She nods, as if she was expecting that. “You haven’t been there in a long time.” Her tongue skates along the seam of her lips. “Why is that?”

“I prefer being alone, as I said last night.” I desperately want to leave it at that, reveal no more, but she’s still as a statue, waiting. Expecting more from me—and I crave that expectation from Chloe. I want her to…believe in me. Goddammit. “Before I inherited this home, along with my grandfather’s fortune, I worked in private security. Based in New York. Traveled with politicians and high-profile businessmen, mainly. It was a good living, but the money was nothing compared to…this.” I glance out the window briefly, expecting to see the ocean, but the gray walls meet me instead, and I frown. “I spent a lot of time with my grandfather as a boy, but we weren’t very close. Not as close as he was with the rest of my cousins, because my father was in the military and we moved around a lot. But…I don’t know. In my grandfather’s will, he said I would use his money with honorable intentions. He said I was the most honest among his descendants.”

“He saw something in you,” Chloe whispers.

“Yes,” I say, tight-lipped. “And he was obviously mistaken.”

She shakes her head, venturing a step closer. “I don’t think so.”

How can she think I’m worth a damn after what I did last night? How can her grace be so pure that she forgives me this easily for taking her virginity in a frenzy of lust? That grace makes me continue, wanting to return her faith. Give her something, anything, in return. “My plan was to sell this house, but once I arrived, there was something about it. Like I was supposed to be here, silly as it sounds. So I decided to remain a while. Big mistake, it turns out. My relatives, knowing how to find me, descended like wolves. Each of them had a debt that needed resolving or a business venture to be funded. And in the beginning, I helped each and every one of them. I shelled out money left and right, wanting to be accepted into the family I’d been so distant from.” I break off on a bitter laugh, tugging hard on the cuff of my button-down shirt. “It was never enough. They came back for more. Over and over. And every time, they hated and resented me a little more. Finally, I stopped saying yes and they sued me. After I’d given them millions. After I’d opened up to them about…my past. How hard it was to move, over and over again, as a child. I told them things and they were just humoring me. All they wanted was the money.” I stop for a breath. “After my lawyers handed them their asses, I didn’t see them again. They won’t get another dime. Or another piece of me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Chloe says. When she lays a hand on my forearm, I realize she’s standing right in front of me, her eyes shining. “That’s why you built the walls? To keep them out?”

“To keep everyone out,” I rasp. “I’m never going to bare myself like that again. It’s better to hold the power. To keep it close. Untouchable.”

“And lock everyone out in the process,” she adds.

I swallow hard, unable to look her directly in the eye when I say, “Not you.” A beat passes, the clock ticking over the fireplace. “I don’t…want you locked out, Chloe.”

Her fingertips dance over the back of my hand and pressure pushes against the insides of my heart, making my pulse race at a dizzying rate. “Then it’s a good thing I can pick locks.”

A laugh catches me off guard.

How? How does she do that?

Make me laugh right on the heels of revisiting my life’s worst moments?

“No, it’s a great thing,” I say raggedly, dipping my mouth to hers—

The sound of an engine revving to life is heard in the distance.

We pause, breathing hard, our lips a scant inch apart. Almost immediately following that intrusion, the child runs into the room and promptly trips, breaking the spell.

At least the one that almost led to me mauling her in the study in broad daylight.

I’m permanently under Chloe’s spell, however—and Christ, there’s no breaking it.

6

Chloe

When Sebastian leads us outside, his hand firmly on the small of my back, I decide that “car” is not the appropriate term for his vehicle. It’s a limousine. Not a stretch one. But a sleek, elongated black town car with two benches of seating that face each other. Climbing into the rear of the limousine, I take one side, Sebastian takes the other—and Curtis promptly begins switching sides every thirty seconds.