The realization stung more than I expected, knowing he was still holding back over something that felt so fucking trivial to me. I thought we were past this.
“So what?” I asked. “You figured you’d just… keep me away until I was old enough for this to be real?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes and dragged my hands through my hair. “You and yourfuckingplans.”
He reached for my wrists, fingertips brushing my skin, but I shook him off, stepping back. He was closer now. Too close and not close enough.
“I don’t believe that anymore,” he said. “I want usnow.”
“Because of your dad?—”
“Partly. But mostly because of you. Because of what it meant to have you there. Because of how much I needed you. And because of the man you’ve become.”
I stared up at him, every part of me held in place.
“Not that you weren’t always…everythingto me. You were—you are,” he went on. “But now you know who you are. You stand in it. And I want to be there for all of it. I don’t want to keep missing you as you grow into yourself.” His throat worked. “But it’s so fucking complicated.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to give up this part of your life,” he said, his voice breaking softly around the edges. “I don’t want to steal it from you. I don’t want you to wake up one day when I’m gone and realize you still have years left—and you spent them on someone who’d already lived his.”
My brows furrowed. “I’m sorry—did you turn thirty-nine last month, or eighty?”
He huffed. “You know what I mean?—”
“No. I really fucking don’t.” Heat flared back into my chest. “Why are you making decisions aboutmylife without eventalking to me? Why do you get to decide what I want—or what my future should look like?”
His face tightened—not in anger, but in pain.
“I know how old you are, Sebastian. I’ve always known. And I don’t give a fuck.” My voice softened, but it didn’t lose its edge. “I want you. I don’t want to lose out on anything either. Why can’t I grow up and live my lifewith you? Why does the only version of my future you’ll accept have to be one without you? With both of us miserable?”
“I don’t,” he said. “Not anymore. I want everything with you, and I don’t want to wait anymore to have it. If you’ll have me again—if you can forgive me for being an absolute ass—then we’ll figure everything else out.”
We stayed there for a beat, just looking at each other, letting it sink in.
Some of my anger started to fade, and as it did, this ache—this fucking Sebastian Langley–shaped ache—came rushing back. Because even though I hated what he’d done, part of me was swooning at the thought that he’d been waiting this whole time. That I’d been the only one to ever bring down the fortress he kept around himself. That he was mine. That he had always been mine.
I swallowed thickly. My hands weren’t steady when I spoke. “Why were you staying away now?”
Sebastian stilled. A hesitation. Small, but unmistakable.
“Don’t,” I said, my voice tightening. “Don’t decide this without me. I know you. I can tell when you’re doing something that involves both of us without actually talking to me about it.”
His gaze dropped, a slow breath leaving him. “I heard you.”
“Heard me…?”
“You and Henry. On the terrace.” He pressed his lips together, offering a small, helpless shrug. “You said you weren’tgoing to build castles in your head again. That you couldn’t afford to believe too much.”
Heat rushed up my neck. “You were eavesdropping?”
“I wasn’t trying to,” he said. “But once I realized what you were saying… I couldn’t walk away.”
Silence pressed in around us.
“I know how much I hurt you,” he continued. “When I said we were never going to be love. That what we had was only sex.” His eyes lifted to mine. “I saw what that did to you. I see what it still does. And I realized that if I touched you again without proving this was more—without showing you that I want all of you, not just your body—you might never believe me.”
