He shrugs because he has no doubt he would move Worlds to keep her happy. “I will always be honest with her,” he says.
“So you have told her that you fucked her while she was unconscious?” Constantine asks nastily.
Sebastian blanches but recovers quickly. “No matter what you tell her about that, I will persuade her to believe what I want her to know.”
“So much for honesty then,” Constantine says. “You must have realized by now that she has found a way to control the conflict in her mind. It is because of me. She will never love you enough to want to be Aeval for you. She chose to let me help her.”
Sebastian has no comeback for that. He had hoped and prayed that she would eventually stop thinking of Constantine as her sire, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. He is still the one she goes to for help. He can only imagine that a bombshell the size of Manhattan will tear them apart. And that is fine with him. He will find something to destroy his sire and he doesn’t give a rat’s ass anymore. He is done holding back.
Chapter 16
Ponte, March 2014 - Aefre
I step out of the shower and wrap my hair up in a turban towel. I want to do things manually today to give myself time to think. I am upset with CK, but I know that he is upset with me as well. And he is going to be furious when he finds Sebastian in my old room. I shouldn’t have done what I did. Not here. I am just asking for CK to go off and do something stupid. I leave the bathroom and get dressed slowly in the dress that I have picked out to try and appease my husband. It is black and shows lots of cleavage, but is nice and long and drops to my feet. This seems to be his preferred style on me.
I turn as he enters the room and he stares at me for a moment before he closes the door.
“Have fun?” he snarls at me.
“Did you?” I snarl back.
He sighs, catching me off guard and turns to the windows. “I know what I said was stupid. I was hurt over the Devon thing and I reacted the way I usually do. I am trying so hard not to be that man anymore, Aefre, but you make it very difficult sometimes.”
“I know,” I say softly. “I didn’t think.”
“You never do until it’s too late,” he says, spinning back around to me. “Do you know how betrayed I feel that you took Sebastian to your room today? This is our home. Ours. Only ours.”
“I was upset,” I say, defending my actions weakly.
“So you go to him to seek comfort from me,” he says. “Is that how it will always be?”
“You do the same,” I accuse him and it is lame, really lame, to pick this fight, but I have never been good at admitting complete fault when there is a shred dangling for me to pick at. I will never learn it seems.
“Oh,” he says, taken aback. “I see. You deny me a chance at comfort while I was waiting for you to return to me with another man’s baby in tow.”
I shake my head, but he carries on speaking.
“I was so hurt and so angry and there are thousands of women I could have gone to, to ease my pain, but I didn’t. I respected the decision I made because I respect and love you. I knew you would be upset with me if I took another woman to my bed, even under those painful circumstances. Sebastian was there for me at a time when I desperately needed him. Are you choosing to throw it back in my face every time you think I have wronged you?”
I stare at him, unable to speak after his words. I shake my head again. “No, that’s not what I am doing,” I say, even though it kind of is. “I love you, Constantine, so much. It is why you have the capacity to hurt me so much. Do you know how awful it was to find you here with Clem earlier?”
“It is perfectly innocent,” he replies.
“Maybe it is, but that doesn’t change how it looks to me,” I say. “She is your charge and your first love. That is bad enough, but coupled with the fact that I am no longer your charge and my first love is you, it just… I am jealous.”
He smiles at me then, but it is a sad smile. “You are my first love, Aefre. I thought you knew that?” And for the second time today he walks out on me, leaving me with tears in my eyes and a pain in my heart. We have resolved nothing.
But no way am I leaving him to his own devices now. If we have another repeat of the Tower incident then so be it, but I am following him. I drag the towel off my head and pull open the door. I see him disappear down the hallway that leads to the right wing–the wing that apparently is no longer sectioned off. I race to catch up with him and I hear him speaking to Clementine behind a closed door.
“I won’t do it, Clem,” he says to her. “She is my wife and I won’t ask her.”
In spite of everything that has just been said between us, I feel myself fill with rage that this woman has come to my home and propositioned my husband. I push open the door to find her weeping in his arms and I make a noise of disgust. Get over it already. Go find someone else to fuck for Christ’s
sake.
CK lets her go and gently pushes her away. “It isn’t what you think, Aefre,” he says before I can start hurling accusations around.
I want to yell at him that it is always what I think, but then I stop myself. How many times have we been down this road? It takes a monumental effort on my behalf, but I breathe in deeply and stay quiet.