He was a fool to have shown her the orphanage. And he was a damn idiot for encouraging her to visit with him. It brought them closer together. It bonded them in ways that he hadclaimed he did not desire. It lifted the veil of antipathy and provided a glimpse of what married life might be like, were they to stop all the nonsense and admit that they were not nearly as different as they had claimed.
This marriage was not as it had been. It had changed, transforming slowly before their very eyes, so it was getting harder to ignore where it was heading.
Or where it will head, if we don’t put a stop to it.
“It does not matter what she feels,” Sebastian sighed. “It is howIfeel that ruins me.”
Giles snorted. “I did not know you had feelings.”
Sebastian jerked his head up and snarled at his friend. “This is not funny.”
“You should see things from where I am sitting.”
Sebastian tried to hold his snarl, but it withered and died, and he bowed his head pathetically.
“She is relentless, Giles. Unlike any woman I have ever known. One minute she spurns me, the next she is trying to upend me and turn to me with anger, then she softens and purrs like a kitten and looks at me like…” His chest tightened as he pictured that look in her eyes. “Like no one ever has.”
“She is falling for you.” Giles nodded.
“I hope not,” Sebastian said, and it was the truth. “But I cannot think when I am around her. I cannot sleep. I find it hard to breathe!” he roared suddenly, feeling the urge to toss his glass into the flames. “She is fiery and unpredictable, and just when I think I have her figured out, she shifts like smoke in a fire, and I find myself wrong-footed. I… I am completely undone when I am with her.”
Giles sighed and rose from the couch. Then, he crossed the space between them and rested a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Forgive me for saying this, Sebastian, but I could not be more relieved to hear it.”
“What?” Sebastian’s head shot up again. “What does that mean?”
“Do you know who you described just now?” There was a glimmer in Giles’s eyes and a smirk on his lips. “Yourself. Helena, for better or for worse, has undone you because she isyou. As bizarre as that might sound.”
Sebastian winced. “No, she is far better than I am.”
“Regardless, you come here as if confusion is what wrecks you, when in truth, your mind is as clear as it has ever been.” Giles reached down and pried the glass from Sebastian’s fingers. “Clearly, you are falling for your wife. And like it or not, that isn’t going to change based on anything I have to say.”
Sebastian’s stomach twisted into knots. There had been a weight sitting on his shoulders when he arrived, and it was still there, because Giles’s words were not unexpected. In fact, Sebastian knew the truth of them well before they were spoken.
But that was not the point.
He had never meant to fall for Helena. He did not want to. All he wanted, the only thing that mattered to him, was the orphanage. And once that was taken care of, he intended to do as he promised and end this marriage by allowing Helena to leave so she might never come back.
But could he do such a thing now, knowing how he felt? And did it even matter, for she might not even want him. Was it best to do as they had once done and avoid each other until this was all over, or to admit the truth and stop playing these ridiculous games?
Sebastian did not have the answer. He knew what he wanted, but there was a huge difference between what he wanted to do and what he knew he should do. And sad to say, all the whiskey in the world would not solve his woes.
He was falling for his wife. What a tragedy it was.
CHAPTER 22
The coincidence was too great to ignore. Fate… or something close to it. But perhaps Sebastian was just looking for an excuse, a reason to ignore his conscience and listen to what he felt deep inside his soul. Feelings he was trying so hard to ignore, but that refused to leave him.
And the fact that I am so eager to do away with good sense and reason should tell me exactly how I truly feel and what I need to do about it. It is time I stop behaving like a darn coward.
It was Helena.
Sebastian had just arrived home from visiting Giles. He was still feeling a little drunk from the whiskey he had guzzled. He was still feeling confused after the conversation he had with his closest friend. And he was still determined to do as he promised himself all those weeks ago and treat this marriage as one of pure convenience, resolute to end it as soon as possible.
However, as he steered his mount down the road, the gate to his estate slowly approaching, he looked beyond and down the drive, where he saw a carriage just now coming to a stop.
It was late in the evening, a moonless night, so it was harder to see than he would have liked, but there was no doubt who it was that climbed out of the carriage, as if fate itself demanded that Sebastian stop being such a fool for a damn change. That he do what was right.
Even in the darkness, Helena seemed to glow. He watched as she stepped onto the drive, her movements slow and tired, her eyes cast down in a way that made her look saddened.
