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Wanting to be with him.
Wanting to believe that despite the odds, we could actually be happy together.
But what does that make me?
A traitor, to Miles’ memory, and everything I’ve sworn to avenge. My feelings for Sebastian go against everything I ever believed in, the whole reason I came into his life in the first place.To destroy it.
But looking back now on the raging girl who made that vow, I almost don’t recognize myself. I’ve changed.
Sebastian has changed me.
I don’t know what to say to him about the proposal, but he seems to understand I need time to think it through. He leaves for work, somehow seeming lighter and unburdened since his dark confession, and I’m left alone to mull the future.
Because he isn’t the only one who has choices to make about who he is and what he wants to do with his life. The same questions apply to me, too, and I don’t even know where to begin. I have the recording of him confessing that he was driving the car that night. It could be the evidence I’ve been waiting for to destroy him…
If I choose to use it.
I’m lost in my thoughts, when my phone buzzes with a text. It’s Charlie, using the same spa code.
‘Your appointment is confirmed: Today, 1pm.’ There’s an address, too, so it must be something important. Glad for the distraction, I get dressed and cross the city, to what turns out to be a chic, elegant hotel just off Regent Street.
I enter through the gleaming lobby, looking around for Charlie’s familiar face.
But instead, I see a ghost. At least, that’s how it feels when I lay eyes on him.
Nero.
“Avery!” Lily’s voice comes, enthusiastic, and then she’s rushing across the lobby and pulling me into a hug, smothering me in blonde hair and a silk scarf. “Oh my God, I’ve missed you!”
I hug her back, suddenly overwhelmed by this visit from my former life. “I’ve missed you, too.” I tell her in a daze, pulling away as Nero saunters over to meet us, looking smart, but still every inch the dangerous mob boss.
“What part of ‘discreet’ don’t you understand?” he chides Lily, good-naturedly. “We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile.”
“Sorry,” she grins. “I was just so happy to see Avery again. Avery?” She pauses, noticing my emotion. And maybe it’s the stress of my choice that I’m facing, or suddenly seeing old friends like this, but I do the unthinkable. Something I never would have imagined in a million years.
I burst into tears, and cry.
“Well,you sure know how to make an entrance.”
An hour later, and I’m cloistered away in a booth in the hotel restaurant with Lily, indulging in tea and cake and all the girl talk I can handle. Nero has made himself scarce, probably sensing that we need a chance to catch up on things—and that his brutal style of conflict-resolution might not be what I need right now.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize again, self-conscious about my tears. “It’s just… so much has happened. I’ve been keeping it together on my own here for so long, it felt like two entirely different lives were colliding when I saw you walk in.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” Lily reassures me, her face open and friendly. “Hell, I know a thing or two about worlds colliding. And annoyingly handsome men keeping me locked up as a prisoner,” she quips with a knowing grin.
I have to laugh. Things weren’t easy between her and Nero when they got together. He was pretty much forcing her to pose as his fiancée under the threat of death, as revenge for her father informing on the Barrettis when they were younger. They say there’s a fine line between love and hate, and those two definitely proved that to be true.
Still, I feel a rush of shame as I fill her in on everything that’s happened between Sebastian and me since I first arrived, vowing my revenge.
“I don’t know how, but the lines just got more blurred,” I despair, drowning my sorrows in English tea. “It’s not just desire, either. Although the sexual connection is just…”
“Mind-blowing? Earth-shaking?” Lily suggests. “Epic despite the fact you want to throttle him and also beg for more in the same breath? Been there. Done that.”
I manage a smile. At least someone knows what it’s like to want someone and loathe them equally fiercely. “All that, and more,” I admit. “But now… my emotions are involved, too. I can’t believe it, but I’ve fallen for him. What the hell is wrong with me?” I despair. “This was never the plan!”
“But plans change,” Lily says sympathetically. “I mean, look at me and Nero. I wanted him dead, and now, well, I still want to kill him sometimes, but only in a good way.” She lifts her teacup, and I see the enormous diamond flashing on her ring finger. Proof that she and Nero found a way through all their animosity and doubts.
“But… How did you know Nero was worth forgiving after everything he did?” I ask. “How could you trust that he really wanted to change?”
