“Second lie of the night.” He stepped closer, his eyes smoldering with challenge. “Care to tell me another so we can make it an even three?”
“Stop it.” A burst of anger ignited in my chest. “I am sosickof you acting like you know everything all the time. Maybe I’m a liar, but at least I have the courage to give you an answer.” I held his gaze. “You never answered my question earlier, Sebastian. Whodidyou want to be here with?”
His jaw ticked.
“You can’t say because you’re either afraid or you don’t know.” Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. “You didn’t bring that poor girl because, what? You’re afraid of intimacy? She’s too easy, so you got bored? Or maybe it’s because you’re Sebastian Laurent, and no one can meet your impossible standards. How long did you string her along before you decided she wasn’t good enough?”
Sebastian remained silent, but his eyes darkened with each passing second. He was so still he could’ve passed for one of the marble statues dotting the gardens.
I forged ahead through the danger brewing in the air. “Tell me.” I couldn’t make sense of the emotion surging in my chest.Why should I care about Sebastian’s mysterious relationship with a girl I’d never met? But I did, and that pissed me off even more. “Does she know what happened at the bar on Valentine’s Day? Do you—”
“No!” The word exploded out of him with enough ferocity to stun me into silence. Restrained fury carved through his composure. “She doesn’t know, and Ididn’tstring her along because she never fucking existed. I never asked anyone to be my date. There’s your answer. Are you happy now?”
Just like that, my anger seeped out of me, leaving me hollow and confused. “Then why did you say you did?”
Sebastian’s harsh laugh singed the air. “For someone so smart, you can be so goddamn clueless.”
He took another step toward me. I swallowed, my nerves taking flight. He was so close I felt the heat radiating off his body. “I told you I had a date because you were going to bring that guy from the bar, and I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing you two together. So I lied.”
Despite the heat, goosebumps pebbled my skin. “That doesn’t make sense. You hate me.”
Another laugh, this one low and laced with frustration. “I never hated you, Sal,” Sebastian said. “Not once. Not ever.”
The ringing in my ears returned.
I was good at connecting the dots. I solved puzzles in my free time, and I played logic games for fun. But Sebastian had always been an enigma, and my brain couldn’t reconcile what he was saying with the long-standing preconception I’d had of our relationship.
He can’t mean…
“If I hated you, I wouldn’t be here right now. I wouldn’t—” He stopped, his throat working. “I never hated you,” he repeated. “Not even after what happened.”
It wasn’t his first time alluding to something I’d done in the past. It could be any of the thousand times I’d insulted or one-upped him, but I had a feeling he wasn’t referring to those. It was something deeper.
I tried to ask for clarification, but the question lodged painfully in my throat.
Instead, I stared up at him, my blood pounding. I’d known him forever, but this was my first time reallyseeinghim. The honesty. The longing. The anguish that reached into my chest and twisted something deep inside me.
I saw him, and I’d never witnessed anyone or anything more beautiful.
“You said you wanted to be alone, so I’ll give you a choice. I can walk right back in that tent, and we’ll pretend this never happened. Or I can stay.” His eyes bored into mine. “What do you want, Sal?”
Once again, words refused to come out.
I felt like an observer of my own life. My brain was screaming at me to speak, move, dosomething, but I was utterly frozen.
“Tell me the truth. No more lies.” Sebastian’s breath whispered across my skin. “Do you want me to leave?”
A touch of vulnerability crept into his voice, and that was what undid me.
I kept my eyes on his as I slowly, deliberately shook my head no.
Time suspended for a long, agonizing moment.
Then his breath shuddered, and I barely had time to inhale before Sebastian crushed his mouth against mine.
The world upended. There was no other way to put it.
Everything I thought I knew—every certainty, every preconceived notion—flew out the window as Sebastian Laurent kissed me like a man starved… and I kissed him back.
