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Chapter Seventeen
- Lilly -
My eyes hurt.
But not as much as my heart did.
The cheap clock next to my bed said it was two in the morning. I had no idea what time I fell asleep. Sebastian held me. I was so damn tired, but I was past the point of falling into an easy sleep. I laid in his arms, waiting, crying a little...hurting so much.
Because I believed him. Every word Sebastian said was true.
That’s why it hurt. Because it was real. I didn’t even bother to try and argue with him. I was team Gabriel all the way when it came to his character as a man.
But I only knew Alessandro Calegari as a daughter would know her father. He laughed with me. He hugged me and took me out for ice cream. He made sure I had everything I needed. I knew there was another side to him, but I didn’t knowthatman. An eight-year-old doesn’t think about things like that. And when everyone you know tries to hide the truth from you, you close your eyes to the few things that make it past the veil.
But I couldn’t close my eyes to Sebastian’s pain - to the loss of his own father. To nearly being beaten to death.
To becoming the man he was today because my father had issued him an ultimatum he couldn’t accept.
I squeezed my eyes shut to stop the tears from flowing again. I ached for him. For Sebastian. For the strength it took to reveal himself to me. How ironic that he seemed to hate the man he had become because of my father, but that new man...hewas the one I’d fallen for.Hewas the one I couldn’t get enough of.
Were we supposed to suffer this way so we could find our way to each other? Was this what fate had written in the stars? The death of our fathers created our destiny? Why? To bring us together only for the agony of the past to keep us apart?
I believed every word Sebastian said about seeing my father at the scene of his father’s murder. My father was apparently capable of many things, and I couldn’t vouch for him, not in that way.
But now I understand Sebastian. I understand his need for revenge, and I understand how he warred within himself because of me.
I understood because I was weathering the same storm of emotions. I fell for the man who vowed to destroy my brother, my entire family! I slept with him. I went along with his charade. I...I was curled up next to his warmth in the center of a bed in what was supposed to be my jail cell, but he couldn’t bring himself to really lock me up, could he?
I should have been ashamed of myself.
But I wasn’t.
Not really.
Sebastian probably felt the same way. He wasn’t supposed to want the daughter of a murderer...but he did.
I turned onto my side and curled my hand under my head to watch Sebastian sleep. I wanted to reach out to him, but I didn’t want to disturb the deep, even breaths of a man who had borne the weight of his hatred and revenge for far too long.
I didn’t know how to fix what was broken.
I didn’t know if it was even possible.
But I knew I needed to try.
But how?
Did I wake up in the morning, hug him tightly and whisper, “I’m sorry?”
Would an apology work? Of course not. If the man who murdered my father showed up and said, “Hey, sorry about that,” the last thing on my mind would be forgiveness.
But we...I...Gabriel...didn’t kill his father. Sebastian had transferred the guilt to someone who didn’t deserve it.
I had to find some way to convince him to leave the past where it belonged, but was it already too late? How could we return to Connecticut and walk hand in hand into my home as if we were star-crossed lovers returning home from a romantic rendezvous?
Beside me, Sebastian sucked in a deep breath, then turned on his side to face me.
“Are you going to stare at me all night?”
