Page 54 of The Betrothal

“It will hurt Ben.”

“Fucking bullshit!” Seb raised his voice. “Don’t you dare imply I’d hurt Ben, Alex. Fucking hell! What Ben and I have is everything to me. He is the one that won’t ask for all of me, he doesn’t want to commit to it. And you know I’ve been waiting for him to.”

Guilt washed over me and I dipped my head in an apology.

Seb’s anger eased, but he was fidgeting now. I’d pissed off the golden retriever.

“And!” His voice was still raised. Fuck, I’d really pissed him off. “If you’re pretending that you don’t see how Ben reacts to her you’re a goddamned moron, no pretending required.”

He threw back the last of the drink standing and pacing a few steps across the study before returning and grabbing the chair, lifting it with one arm and dropping it exactly where he found it. He was definitely pissed off if he was tidying up after himself.

“I don’t know if your attitude is some kind of playground macho bullshit. I’ve seen you watching her. I saw your face when I kissed her by the lake. Then when she brought back the plate from taking food to Ben. The way your face softens at how Ben smiles at her.” Seb carefully listed the moments I thought had been private, then I snorted. He fucking had not. Had my face betrayed me?

“And the way you watch her leave the room. The books you gave her.” Seb rolled off more examples.

My frown was now a snarl.

“Your lies fall flat, brother. The only person believing them is you, and her. Whatever it is that Ben thinks or feels towards her, all that effort you’re putting in to protect his feelings? It will all be a big fat waste of time when you realise she matters to him and you’re being unkind to her. Now tell me, you know Benji as well as I do, how do you think that will land?” Seb delivered his final blow.

My anger slackened at his words. Shit.

“Fucking exactly.” He grabbed his glass and went to leave but turned back to me at the door.

“I love you, brother, but you’re being a fucking dickhead.”

I didn’t have any chance to reply as he stormed from the room, leaving me to stew in the honesty of his words.

Fucking Sebastian.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SEBASTIAN

Damn it. I really tore strips off Alex last night.

The look he gave me at one point… Well, I wasn’t convinced I would be leaving his study without a black eye.

I was probably the one person Alex would ever allow close enough to give him those sorts of home-truths. But it now seemed I cared for three people in this house, and the only person knowingly getting in the way of themselves, and causing undesirable ripple effects for the rest of us, was him.

And he fucking knew it.

Ben shifted in the bed beside me. He slept on his back, always. The covers were thrown down, pooling at his waist. The broad expanse of pale skin and muscled torso on display never ceased to amaze me.

I’d known I was bisexual from a really early age. When I dreamed about kissing a girl, I’d then dream about kissing a boy. I never thought to be ashamed of it. My mother was barely interested and my father was always running off with his newest conquest. It created an environment absent of care but also absent of judgement – so I simply carried on.

I knew from the very moment I saw Ben that I’d love him. I had been assigned to oversee the after-school homework club and the new arrival turned heads. With his shock of ash-blond hair and brightest blue eyes, the boy who shrank into the furthest corner of the hall in the hope of disappearing.

True to form, I would have none of it. I’d insisted on helping him with his homework, him barely speaking more than a few short words to start. He eventually stopped observing me and turned his attention to the rest of the class, his nervousness now directed at the school at large.

In the school days, I often saw him sitting at the edge of the playground, hood up, eyes hidden, until one day I had an idea and snagged a pair of my father’s tinted glasses. He’d blinked at me as I’d slipped them over his face, and when I say the boy visibly relaxed the moment they covered his eyes, I mean he truly, visibly relaxed.

It was only after I saw his first anxiety attack that I knew I would do anything I could to see the tension bleed from the quiet boy with the piercing ice-coloured eyes.

One day he sought me out, after-schools became lunch breaks and weekends in each other’s company. Any time he could be away from the group home he would be.

Even when the Cavendish family adopted him, I simply spent time with him there. They wouldn’t allow him into the village alone, so I’d find a way to him.

My family, true to form, not caring nor noting where I was at any given time, I spent more time at the manor than anywhere else. Until the manor became unliveable, and then it was the cottage. But wherever Ben was, and then Alex, there I would be.