Page 39 of Trust Fund Baby

I snorted. “Wow. That’s somehow worse.”

He smirked. “I’m a realist, Rox. That’s not a crime.”

“No, but it’s depressing.”

He looked out the window again, his expression unreadable now. “Depressing doesn’t mean untrue.”

The breeze lifted the edges of his shirt collar again, and for one stupid second, I hated the wind for touching him like that. As if it had any right.

I folded my arms and turned away, pretending to be interested in the sand dunes coming into view through the windshield. “I still say you’re full of shit.”

“That so?” he asked, voice lower now, but not sharp. More curious.

My instinct was to snap back, and reveal that this image he cultivated, the one of the Wall Street playboy living fast and loose, was nothing but a fabrication. But the car pulled to a stop in the parking lot before I could say anything.

Sebastian stepped out first before rounding the car to hold the door open for me. As I slid out, his hand lingered near my lower back, and I despised the sudden warmth that bloomed there because of him, and heat simmering between us despite everything.

The beach stretched out before us in a hazy golden sprawl of movement and sound. People danced barefoot in the sand, music pulsed from speakers hidden behind mismatched wooden tables, and the scent of wood smoke tangled with saltwater in the air.

Already ahead, Hallie and James were making their way to the central area, in search of a server. When she laughed, she leaned in, prompting him to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her closer still.

Sebastian followed my gaze. “I mean, if they’re not sleeping together already, they’re doing a pretty convincing impression.”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of more commentary. Especially when it came to my best friend and her happiness. Hallie and James had clearly come to some sort of mutual agreement—they go on dates that Hallie can write about for her article and James got … whatever it was he was getting out of this arrangement. But it seemed like there was something more like a real relationship behind whatever it was they’d arranged. I didn’t know the ins and outs of it, but I did know Hallie was happy, and that was all that mattered.

I grabbed two drinks off a passing server’s tray. One looked bright and citrusy and the other was something darker that looked like scotch. I shoved the darker drink into his hand without looking.

“Here,” I said. “So you can keep your mouth busy.”

He laughed quietly. “You’ve been staring at my mouth then, King?”

I felt my face burn at his question, but I wouldn’t give him the acknowledgment of an answer.

“And you remember my drink order?” he asked, not at all deterred by my silence.

“Don’t get all flattered,” I warned him. “I also remember you stealing expensive bottles of scotch from your father’s office as a way to get back at him growing up. Doesn’t mean I’m sentimental about it.”

“Sure,” he murmured as he sipped, watching me over the rim of his glass. “We can go with that.”

We wandered closer to the bonfire, where the heat cut through the early evening breeze. People were already dancing, some tipsy, some barefoot, some clearly trying to make memories they wouldn’t remember tomorrow.

I wasn’t drunk enough for any of it. Not yet.

So when a hand appeared in front of me, palm up in a kind of question, I raised an eyebrow in Sebastian’s direction.

“Want to dance?”

His voice was a low rumble, barely audible over the rhythmic beat of the music coming from the beach speakers. If there was one thing Sebastian was good at, it was being persistent. Despite agreeing to this barely there truce that we had, I still had my guard up. But that didn’t seem to bother him one bit. That damned crooked smile of his played at the edges of his mouth like he already knew what my answer would be.

“I don’t dance,” I said, even though we both knew that wasn’t true.

He rolled his eyes at me as if it was the most ridiculous thing I’d said to him yet. “Growing up, any time you had even a sip of alcohol and we were in the vicinity of music, you’d make your own dance floor.”

“I’m not that girl anymore.”

For a fleeting moment, I saw a shadow cross Sebastian’s face as his grin faltered. But what I thought I saw in his eyes was not an emotion I was used to seeing on him—guilt.

“No,” he said, dropping his hand but not backing away. “You’re not.”