“What?”
“You already are that man.”
Sebastian stared at him.
Thomas shrugged. “The one who didn’t kiss her. The one who walked away when everything in you screamed to stay. That’s the man you didn’t know you were.”
Sebastian didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Thomas’s expression softened. “Have you kissed her before?”
“No.” The word came out like regret.
“Why not?”
“Because she’s innocent,” Sebastian said, the words raw. “Because she’s precious. And I didn’t want to start something I couldn’t finish with the right intention.”
Thomas raised a brow. “And what is your intention?”
Sebastian hesitated. His voice came out rough. “To keep her. If she’d have me.”
Thomas’s lips quirked. “You’re worried you’d scare her?”
Sebastian nodded. “I don’t want to rush her. Or touch her in a way that—God, she’s not like the others.”
Thomas grinned then, a slow, wicked smirk. “You do realize she’s best friends with Ashley, right?”
Sebastian frowned. “Yes…”
“And you don’t think she’s had questions?”
The realization landed slowly.
Thomas clapped him on the shoulder. “Trust me. If she wanted answers, Ashley gave them.”
Sebastian groaned. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did,” Thomas said smugly. “Every question. In detail.”
Sebastian rubbed his face with a groan. “I can’t decide if I want to thank you or throw you into the snow.”
Thomas laughed. “You’re welcome. And I’ll add this—Maddie may be innocent, but she’s not breakable. If she looked at you the way I think she did—then you’re already halfway to trouble.”
Sebastian leaned against the edge of the table, the firelight soft against his features. For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then quietly, “I think I’m falling in love with her.”
Thomas’s voice dropped, the humor gone. “Then stop trying not to.”
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning,Maddie hesitated in the corridor outside Ashley’s dressing room, her fingers twisting in the edge of her sleeve. She was not here for anything in particular. Certainly not for advice. And if her cheeks were warm from walking too briskly through the corridors and not from thinking of Sebastian’s eyes—or his mouth—well, that was entirely her business.
She knocked lightly.
“Come in!” came Ashley’s familiar, sing-song voice.
Maddie opened the door to find her friend perched on the edge of a velvet-cushioned chair, swathed in a dressing robe of pink silk and half-lost in a cloud of soft hair ribbons. Her lady’s maid bustled behind her, arranging perfumes and hair combs like a tiny military operation.
