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When Cruz hesitated, I patted his arm. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t you worry.”
I chatted with Elenore for quite some time and found her to be a doting wife and mother. She explained she was somewhat a victim of her time and station and that expectations from the people around her when she was young taught her noble parents didn’t raise their children. Instead, they hired nannies and sent them off to the best education money could buy to prepare them for life in the service of the country and the crown. Elenore missed her sons terribly when they weren’t around. However, she only ever did what she thought was right. Elenore wasn’t a trendsetter like Diana Spencer had been, though she had envied her parenting style. All in all, she was a delightful woman whose only crime was to try to do what she thought was best.
I told her of my humble background, my job at Estate Styles, my interest in fashion, and now event management. She was surprised to learn that I’d had a hand in helping Cruz’s band get noticed enough to score their upcoming supporting tour next spring.
Our conversation was interrupted when someone spoke over a microphone, wishing the Earl a happy birthday.
“Oh, do excuse me, sweetheart. I must go and join my husband.”
“Of course.”
We both got to our feet, and as her ladyship went to her husband, I joined my little group.
“Did everything go all right between you?” Cruz asked.
Augustus stood beside me and grasped my wrist. “Were you just chatting with our mother?”
“Yes, and everything is fine. She’s lovely.”
Both brothers looked surprised.
“You liked her?” Augustus asked.
I flashed a genuine smile. “Yes, and she liked me.”
Again, they were both speechless.
Augustus squeezed my elbow. “May I talk to you privately for a moment?”
I pointed to his parents. “Don’t you want to hear the speeches?”
“Not particularly.” The very idea clearly bored him.
I glanced at Cruz as Augustus dragged me outside the pavilion. I shivered against the blast of cold, Yorkshire air that hit me like a brick.
Augustus rubbed my arms in a lame attempt to warm me up. “Sienna, I know I’ve been rather… absent in our… whatever we have going on between us.”
I attempted to help him. “Relationship?”
“Yes. That. I know I’ve confused you. I’ve even confused myself. I’ve been a fucking prat in the way I’ve played with your emotions, and I apologize, I truly do. You deserve an explanation for my behavior.”
I nodded once. “Yes, I do.”
“The thing is…” he gulped, “… I had a girlfriend when I was younger who got to me in much the same way as you have. I trusted and loved her more than anything in the world. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, but things went quite wrong.”
I hugged my arms around myself. “What do you mean?”
He squeezed my arms as he moved forward with his explanation. “We had a fight. A big one. She wanted to marry, but I felt we were too young and wanted to wait until after I completed university. She freaked out, and in her anger, she took our sex tapes to Channel 4 and outed us as swingers, which we were, but that was our business. It caused a major scandal as you can imagine. In fact, it’s how I got my playboypersona. When I realized the entire country knew about us, I cut her out of my life and decided to embrace the playboylife. Then you came along, and I began developing feelings for you. Feelings I recognized from before. The exact same feelings that caused all that grief, all that trauma… so I tried desperately to shut them down.”
“I’m nother, Aug,”I shouted. “I enjoy swinging with you guys and having an open relationship with all of you. You’ve seen how much I hate the paparazzi being interested in me. I like my anonymity and my privacy. Do you honestly think I’d do something like that?”
“No, of course not. Well, that is… I know now. To be honest, I’ve known for a long time.” He paced back and forth in front of me. “Fucking hell, you don’t understand how difficult it is for me to drop my barriers? But I want to be with you, and I find myself wanting to be with Ruben. I’m falling in love with both of you, and it fucking terrifies me.” He pressed his hands into his chest as tears trickled from his eyes.
Tears streamed down my face at the sight of his tears.
He dug his cell phone out from the inner pocket of his jacket. “But the most important thing I need you to know is that I didn’t fucking cheat on you with Linda. Here.”
I hesitated. “Aug…”
