He lifted his chin, and I saw a spark of something that looked like pride flash in his eyes.
“So what’s with the dog and pony show, then?”
“It’s complicated,” he said, running his fingers over the windowsill and frowning when they came away dusty. “Less interfering and more … coercion, I guess you could call it.” He brushed his fingers off on his pants, his eyes meeting mine. “We have an understanding of sorts. A few times a year, I show up at one of their parties, smile for the camera, and play the dutiful son. In exchange, he quietly funnels money to causes I care about. Things he’d never support publicly, but wouldn’t oppose either. I mean, can you imagine actually being anti-literacy? Wanting kids to starve?”
I pictured what that must be like for Sebastian. Being told when and where to show up and what kind of reward he’d earn for smiling his way through it.
I didn’t have to imagine too hard.
“At least I get my name on a marquee for my efforts,” I snarked, trying for a joke and not being sure if it would land.
Sebastian looked confused for about two seconds, and then recognition lit up his face. “Right. Our professors would be so proud. All that studying just to show up and collect a check for getting our picture taken.”
He shook his head and leaned against the sill, his palms flattened on the ledge on either side of his hips.
“So now, my relationship with them is mostly transactional. But the money does an immense amount of good in ways I could never achieve on my own. So I smile next to men I despise,throw up in my mother’s hydrangeas, and tell myself the trade-off is worth it as I cash their checks.”
He paused, his expression darkening.
“There are lines, though. Issues he refuses to touch. Anything LGBTQ-related is off the table. We literally never go there. Thankfully, he seems happy to think I’m just being a bleeding-heart liberal—an ally.” He used his fingers to make air quotes. “And I’m happy to let him, because if he ever found out the truth, all his money would dry up in an instant.”
For the next half an hour, he told me more about his work and the projects he championed, while I was going out of my mind to learn about the one thing he didn’t touch on. Senator Wyatt Hastings was all over his website. They traveled together and danced like lovers. And yet, his name was conspicuously absent from our conversation.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I’d come up here to have sex, but I wasn’t a cheater. I also wasn’t the type of person who knowingly enabled someone else to cheat.
“And the guy downstairs? Is he your boyfriend?”
He crossed his legs at the ankles and huffed out a laugh that held zero humor. “Yes. No.” He shook his head as if he didn’t actually know how to answer. “Not in the way you probably think.”
My eyebrows drew together. How did you not know if you were with someone?
“Care to elaborate?”
He exhaled hard, his fingers coming up to comb through his hair. Pushing off the window, he crossed the room and lowered himself onto the edge of the bed with a groan. “I don’t have the first clue where to start.”
“The beginning, maybe?”
“Are you sure you want to hear all this?”
I was dying to know.
“Yeah. Lay it on me.”
He blew out a breath, seemingly steeling himself. “I met Wyatt seven years ago.” His eyes met mine briefly and then skipped away. “We hooked up at a wedding. He was …” Sebastian paused and shook his head. “Anyway. It was what I needed when I needed it. A hot guy I actually liked who was in the closet? Sign me up. Over time, we became friends and formed a professional partnership. He’s not my boyfriend—not in the traditional sense of the word. Definitely my lover, though I despise that word.”
I couldn’t explain it, but jealousy burned through me, sharp and unwelcome. I forced myself to breathe slowly—in through my nose and out through my mouth, the way my therapist had taught me.
Despite the acid churning in my stomach, I had so many questions.
“And the woman?”
“That’s Celine, his fiancée. They’re getting married in a couple of weeks. They brought me to Vegas to celebrate.”
That explained the dancing, I supposed.
“So, what? You’re all together?”
