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I thought we’d get closer, but Sebastian pushed me away.
“What do you want from me, Princess?”
“Don’t get angry. You said you believed in me. Keep that faith, Sebastian. I will not push you away the way you just did me. You can tell me anything. I believe in you, too,” I added softly.
“You believe in me? Do you believe I’m a ruthless bastard who wanted to use an innocent woman in his revenge scheme?”
My chin went up in defiance. “I already know that, and...here I am dancing to no music with you. What else you got? Why are you seeking revenge against Gabriel, Sebastian?”
“It’s not against Gabriel, Princess. It’s against your entire fucking family, not just perfect Gabriel who’s as big a criminal as I am but such a gentleman about the sordid life he lives.”
I swallowed, but Sebastian had finally opened up, so I didn’t interrupt him. I didn’t want to give him a chance to craft his words. I wanted the raw, hard truth, no matter how difficult it was to hear.
But I had questions. What had my entire family done to cause him to want revenge against all of us? I could understand some sort of professional rivalry between him and Gabriel, but the rest of us? It didn’t make sense.
“Why? What have we done?” My voice cracked with fear of the words about to come.
Sebastian’s face hardened. “Youexist, Princess. You live. You breathe. You keep me from being able to focus on what really matters.”
“Don’t I matter?”
He shook his head. “Yes. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. You were supposed to be disposable.Fuckable. A waste of my time. Instead, you’ve changed everything. I made promises, Princess, and because of you, those promises remain unfulfilled.”
“Then fulfill them! How am I preventing you from doing that?”
Sebastian closed the gap between and grabbed me by the forearms, shaking me slightly. I put my hands up to his chest to steady myself.
“Because I can’t hurt you that way,” he growled. “I made a promise I’ve spent the last decade trying to uphold. I’ve spent the last five years setting it up. The waiting, the planning, all so I could get close to your brother. And then one damnable afternoon, I came across Gabriel Calegari’s sister’s picture and I thought I’d found the perfect vehicle for revenge.”
“By using me?”
“Using you. Fucking you. Leaving you. Whatever it would take to break you. The plan was to leave you a hot fucking mess. The plan was to destroy Gabriel by destroying you.”
I swallowed hard as his grip eased again. “Then when I finally had my chance...” He ran his thumb over my quivering bottom lip. “I can’t do it. I can’t have you. I can’t walk away from you. And I still want my revenge against your family.”
His expression hardened again, and I braced myself for being pushed away. Instead, his arm snaked around my waist, and he pulled me close again. “In less than four months, you fucked up a decade of planning. I don’t know what to do about that. I hate you for it, but I’ll use any excuse I can to keep you here.”
“Including a fake kidnapping?”
“It’s not fake. As long as your brother wants me dead, you’re my insurance policy to stay alive.”
“You said you’d take me back to Connecticut. That this wasn’t permanent.”
“Here.Hereisn’t permanent. After we go home, you’re still staying with me. Until I can convince him not to kill me. But it’s interesting how that’s not the argument you made.”
“What?”
“That your brother isn’t trying to kill me.”
I thought back to the conversation we’d had earlier about Dante. “I don’t believe Dante will try to kill you so it’s not an argument I need to make. And we’re going in circles again. I know you think Dante’s going to try to kill you for some mysterious reason. You can tell me what that is after you tell me what started all of this to begin with. This tale of revenge and murder, Sebastian.”
My thoughts went in one direction as I cleared them enough for the memories to come back. My father had been shot in the street and I had witnessed it. The revenge piece escaped me, but...was Sebastian trying to tell me he had something to do with the experience that had haunted me my entire life and taken the father I loved away from me?
I shook. My heart rate sped up.
Sebastian noticed the change in my composure.
This is what he could tell me that would make me walk away from him forever and not look back.
