When several seconds passed and he didn’t, I turned to the man. “You’ve got it completely wrong. Sebastian’s the one who disappeared on me. Cut me out of his life completely.”
Like we’d never even happened.
Ten years. Ten long fucking years since he’d changed his number and blocked me everywhere.
And I’d never understood why.
Sebastian’s face crumpled for a brief second before he fixed his expression into something bored and disinterested-looking. “It was a long time ago,” he said, pivoting toward his companions. “Let’s go.”
As he guided them off the dance floor, the only thing I knew was that I absolutely could not let him walk away.
Not after a decade of wondering. Not after hearing that he believedIbrokehisheart.
What the actual fuck?
I darted after him, catching up at the edge of the room and grabbing his arm, my fingers tightening around solid muscle.For a heartbeat, everything else—the music, the crowd, Wyatt and the woman—ceased to exist.
His whole body went rigid, and his gaze dropped to where I had a hold of him. “Get your hands off me,” he seethed.
I let go immediately, my face heating with shame and embarrassment.
“Sebastian, please,” I begged. “We need to talk.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wyatt and the woman exchange a smug look.
My fists instinctively opened and closed at my sides. “Something you want to say, asshole?” I spat, my lip curled in a sneer.
He glanced down at my fists, and his face blanched.
Fuck.
This wasn’t the ice. I couldn’t just drop my gloves and handle it. I unclenched my hands and shook out tingling fingers.
Sebastian sighed, a deep, tired sound. “Go away, Taylor. There’s nothing to say.”
His dismissal rocked through me. For a second, it felt like I couldn’t pull in air. I stood there, my chest feeling hollow as I stared at the only person I’d ever loved.
Dismissed.
Again.
I dropped my chin and attempted to save face. I was a lot of things, but a glutton for punishment wasn’t one of them.
“Message received. I’ll leave you to it.” I hooked my thumb over my shoulder, gesturing somewhere toward the exit. “Um. Have a good life, I guess.”
All at once, my eyes began to sting, and everything in front of me went blurry.
Before I could further embarrass myself by actually crying in front of these assholes, I turned and shoved through the crowd—past women in sparkling dresses and drunk guys with their drinks sloshing over the rims.
Away from the one person who’d ever had the power to destroy me—and just had.
Nothing felt right.The shower was too hot. Then too cold. The silk pajama bottoms Johnny’s shopper had picked out for me felt scratchy against my skin. I yanked them off and threw them in the corner, climbing into bed naked. The sheets were worse, like sleeping on sand.
I tossed and turned for several uncomfortable minutes, Sebastian’s dismissive voice echoing loudly in my head. How could he think we had nothing to say to each other after all this time? After the way he’d left things?
When twenty more minutes passed, during which I’d stared at the ceiling and punched the pillow to try to get it the way I liked, and Istillcouldn’t get comfortable, I grabbed my phone and pulled up Google. My hands shook as I typed Sebastian’s name into the search bar.
The first hit was for his consulting firm, a sleek website featuring a photo of Sebastian in a suit that probably cost more than my first car. I clicked around, looking for clues about the kind of work he did.
