“Ethan—”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. He heard me—”
Despite the situation, despite how fucked up everything is, I can’t help but laugh. But that’s Aria’s gift. She can always get to me, always reach me, no matter how dark my mood or how bad the mess is.
“Ethan’s one of my best friends. Trust me when I say he knows I have sex.”
“I propositioned you in front of a stranger. And not just any stranger but E—”
“Yeah. Ethan Frost. I get it. Are we going to spend all night rehashing it or are we going to talk about why you’re here?”
“Oh, right.” She shakes her head, pulls herself back together. And when she looks at me, her eyes are liquid, luminous and more loving than I have any right to expect. “I’m sorry about Janet. When she’s drunk she’s pretty incoherent.”
Fresh guilt swamps me, pulls me under as it meets up with the ocean of remorse, of culpability, that I’ve been drowning in for ten long years. “Is she drunk a lot?”
Aria winces, looks like she’s trying to temper her answer. Which tells me everything I need to know. Fuck. I cross to the window, stare out at the bright, bright lights. And try to forget all the reasons I hate this place. All the reasons I hate myself.
“It’s not your fault.”
I laugh, but this time it’s not what anyone would call a happy sound. “Did Janet tell you that?”
“Janet didn’t tell me much.”
“That’s surprising. It used to be her favorite story to tell.”
“I wanted to hear it from you.” She comes up behind me, wraps her arms around my waist and presses soft kisses between my shoulder blades.
“Yeah, well, it’s not a story I like telling.”
“The hard ones never are.” She strokes my stomach softly, her fingers tracing the waistband of my jeans. “Doesn’t make them any less worth hearing.”
I close my eyes, relax into her touch. If I concentrate on the feel of her hands, her lips, her lush breasts pressed against my back, maybe it won’t hurt so bad to think about Dylan. Maybe I won’t feel so out of control.
“Tell me,” she says, her breath warm against the back of my neck.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I think you need to.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No, it isn’t. But it doesn’t make my reason for needing to know any less compelling. You’re hurting, Sebastian. You think I don’t know that? You think I can’t see it in the way you hold your body? Can’t see it in the way you try not to breathe too deeply? What Janet said is destroying you and I don’t like that. I may not have known you as long as she has or know you as well as Ethan does, but I know you, Sebastian Caine.” She turns me to face her then, puts a hand right on the middle of my chest as she stares up at me, her eyes and heart so wide open that it feels, for a moment, like she’s pouring herself deep inside of me.
“Tell me,” she says again.
And because I don’t have a choice, because she needs to know even if I need not to tell her, I do. And hope to God I’m not destroying everything between us that I’ve spent the last few days trying to build.
Chapter Three
Aria
Sebastian is shaking. I’m not sure he realizes it, but he is—there’s a fine tremor running through his whole body and it’s ripping me to pieces.
I want to tell him to forget it. That he doesn’t need to tell me. That I don’t need to know. But it wouldn’t be the truth. Because whatever he’s keeping inside him, whatever happened with him and Dylan and Janet, is tearing him apart. I know the signs, have been living with them myself for fourteen months. The fact that he’s been living with his secret for ten years…I can’t imagine what kind of damage something like that does.
No wonder he’s a control freak.