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He looks at it.
He doesn’t move. I’m not sure he’s breathing. The silence stretches until I can hear Nova laughing two houses down, a lawnmower somewhere, my own heart slamming against my ribs.
“It’s yours,” I say, because I have to fill the silence with something. “It was that first night, I think. I missed some pills the week before, and I didn’t realize until it was too late. I found out the night I walked out of your father’s study. I’ve known for eight days. I almost told you outside the detention center, but you said whatever you are ends with you, and I couldn’t...” I swallow. “I know you never wanted this. I know you told me. I’m not asking you for anything. I just couldn’t let you say all of that to me without knowing.”
Still nothing. His face has gone completely blank, the way it does in the boardroom, the way it did in front of his father, and my stomach drops.
Here it is. The moment they leave.
“You can go,” I whisper. “I’ll be okay. I mean it.”
Sebastian sets the test down on the bed very carefully, like it might shatter.
Then he slides off that ridiculous little chair onto his knees on the carpet in front of me.
He wraps his arms around my waist and presses his forehead against my stomach, and the most powerful man in New York, the man whose own staff are afraid to breathe when he walks past, comes apart in my sister’s guest room.
His shoulders shake. I feel the heat of his tears through the cotton of my dress.
“Sebastian,” I breathe. My hands find his hair on their own.
“I swore it would end with me,” he says, his voice wrecked and muffled against me. “I said it to everyone. I said it to you. I thought the only way to make sure no one ever went through what we went through was to make sure there was no one.”
He lifts his head. His eyes are red, and they’re the warmest I’ve ever seen them.
“I had it wrong. It isn’t the family that ends with me, Isabella. It’s him. The way he raised us ends with me.” He spreads one big hand gently over my stomach, as if he’s afraid to press too hard. “This one gets the version of me you found. Every single day. I swear it on my life.”
I’m crying too hard to answer. So I just nod, and nod, and pull him up to me.
“You’re not trapped?” I manage. “You’re sure?”
He laughs, a broken, astonished sound, and cups my face in both hands.
“Isabella. I’m the luckiest man alive, and I almost threw it all away for a name on a building.”
For a long time, neither of us says anything. He just pulls me into him, folding me in his arms. We stay like that for a long time, clinging to the other with hope for the future and trying not to be terrified.
When our lips meet, it’s as though we’re making up for the time we’ve lost, for the time we should have been together, supporting one another. For all the times we wanted to be holding each other and couldn't.
We slowly undress, then lie on the bed, wrapped up in each other and a love I thought I would never find, a love that surprised me and pushed me off balance, then pulled me back toward this man.
Sebastian doesn't just tell me how much he loves, adores, and desires me. He shows me, working his way over every inch of my body as if to familiarize himself with it again, to worship it, to taste every inch he’s missed. I do the same until we find our release, both of us gasping for breath, our skin slick with sweat.
We cling to each other in the afterglow with playful kisses and caresses.
“You are perfect.” Sebastian’s voice rumbles in his chest beneath my cheek. His hand plays with my hair absently, his fingers gentle against my scalp.
I laugh softly. “I’m far from perfect.”
“You are perfect to me.” He enunciates every word, and there is nothing but truth in his eyes when I raise my head to look at him.
I don't know what the future holds, but if it includes this man, I know I’ll be alright with whatever comes my way.
I’ve found my heart and my home.
40
SEBASTIAN
