“Sure,” Zac agreed easily and strode across the room to let me out. As we did, he said in my ear, “Lil, you deserve better than Sebastian.”
My heart flipped over in my chest. “Zac?—”
“She’s the type of girl he’ll end up with.” Zac gestured across the room to Sebastian and Candice who stood near one of the large floor-to-ceiling windows in the main room. “I don’t say this to be a shit but to help. She’s from old money. Aristocratic. Known and liked by the royal family. That’s the kind of woman he’ll choose to be with. Someone who gets it. Not someone like you or me who exist on the fringes of that world. I mean, my mum might be Hollywood royalty, but it’s a totally different thing to be an aristocrat. They tend to stick to their own because bad things happen when they don’t. Like you said, Bastian’s parents are falling apart now. You don’t think it’s partly to dowith the fact his mum married outside of the nobility? Why else would she be constantly pushing noble women at her son?”
His words hurt so bad, I had to bite my lip to stop my tipsy tears from trembling it. “We’re not that,” I wheezed out.
“No? Because he’s certainly been all over you for months. Look, he’s my friend, but what he’s doing to you is screwed up. He’s strung you along when he has no intention of ever being with you.”
Those tears sprung to my eyes before I could stop them. It was humiliating to realize everyone was aware of my unrequited feelings for Sebastian.
“Shit, Lil, I’m sorry.”
“No.” I blinked away tears, looking down. “You’re not wrong.”
“I could have been more sensitive about it, though. It just … it pisses me off because you’re so great and you deserve better.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
Zac sighed heavily. “I’ll be back in a sec. Need the loo.”
I nodded, but I wouldn’t be there when he returned. I was going home. This was too embarrassing and if I stayed, I might get drunker and start shouting at Sebastian for being such a dick.
Just then, however, Harry suggested we go up to the roof garden to see the street party and wait for the fireworks to go off at the castle.
“Come on, you!” Jan grabbed my hand, tugging me along with the crowd of moving partygoers. I slipped free of her on the stairwell, but with everyone heading upward, I had no choice but to follow or be crushed. When we reached the rooftop, it was bloody freezing. Once everyone had filed onto the roof, I reopened the exit to the stairwell to make my escape. I turned to find Jan to tell her I was leaving, but she was nowhere in sight.
“Cold?”
I whirled around to find a familiar-looking man grinning down at me.
He held out his jacket. “Here, put this on.”
Like magic, his Irish accent flicked the recognition switch. “You. You were my bartender a few weeks ago.”
“I was. I recognize you too. Hard to forget you in that green velvet dress. It’s imprinted on my brain.” His eyes dragged down my body, lingering on my legs. “This one is good too.” He grinned unrepentantly at my raised eyebrow. “But then you’d make a bin bag look amazing. Where’s your boyfriend tonight?”
There was that aching sharpness in my chest again. With a will of their own, my eyes found Sebastian at the edge of the rooftop. He was laughing with Candice as she rested a hand on his chest, smiling up at him with “screw me” eyes.
I felt sick. And enraged.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Following my gaze, Bartender huffed. “He moves fast, huh?”
Ignoring that, I asked a little snippily, “What are you doing here?”
“I work with Chaz, who apparently knows one of the lads who lives here.” The Irishman smirked. “How the other half live. I’m Lorcan. You are?”
“Lily.”
His lovely eyes twinkled with overt interest. It soothed my ravaged self-esteem. Lorcan was incredibly good-looking and there were many attractive women at this party. Yet, he’d zeroed in on me.
Ugh, I replayed that thought in my head.
January was right.
I really needed to work on my self-esteem.
