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The name came blandly out of his mouth, but she could see the tension in his body.
“Did you love her?”
“I loved her since I was a child.” His voice had gone low, so low she had to lean in to hear him. “Her parents were the wealthy patrons of the town. Her mother and mine would work together. Our family restaurant catered for her often. While our mothers would work, she and I would play in the gardens of her house. We were best friends for a long time. I think that’s why she chose me. She’d gotten very hurt by a high school boyfriend. She never told me what happened, but I think I was a safe place for her.”
The rich girl and the working-class boy. How often did he think of her? Every day? Every hour? Was she the ghost who clung so tightly to him?
“I was planning to marry her,” he continued. “I knew her parents didn’t approve, but she was strong willed. Sometimes now I think that I was her way of rebelling. Other times I wonder if there wasn’t a darker reason for her accepting my proposal. I went into the Army over my parents’ strong objections. I needed a way to take care of her. That’s where I met Gary. He didn’t have any family left so when we had leave, he would come home with me.”
She got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. An instinct that none of this turned out well. “Was he the father of her baby?”
Sebastian swung the chair around, meeting her eyes for the first time in hours. “Why on earth would you think that baby wasn’t mine? Make no mistake. Alicia was pregnant when I was injured. I’d been home on leave not six weeks before.”
“And you brought Gary with you.”
His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “Why would you question that the baby wasn’t mine?”
“Because you wouldn’t have walked away from your child.”
He leaned forward, his eyes hard. “Perhaps I realized that I wouldn’t make a good father since I lost my legs. Perhaps I didn’t want that child burdened with a father who can’t walk, can’t play with him, can’t be anything but a source of pity.”
“God, Sebastian. Right now I have no idea why I feel the way I do about you. You’re not a source of pity, but that’s an argument for another day. I know that child wasn’t yours because no matter how self-absorbed you are, you wouldn’t have left your kid to fend for himself. Even if Alicia didn’t want you anymore, you would have stayed close for the kid. So I have to assume Alicia was a complete bitch and you allowed her to cost you your family. Why, Sebastian? Why let her get away with it?”
“Because she didn’t want me.” The words burst from his mouth like a bomb exploding. “Do you know what she said to me? She said she wished it had been me. She said she sat down and cried and prayed she could wake up from her nightmare when I came home and he didn’t. She’d known him for all of three days when she hopped into bed with him. I found that out after he was dead, of course. My dear friend and my fiancée would hop in the sack together every time we came home. Do you know how I knew the baby wasn’t mine?”
The truth hit her like a punch to the gut. “Because you never touched her.”
“Because she convinced me to wait until I could honor her properly. Like she was some kind of Southern belle from another century. But I was the dipshit who loved her so I honored her. I never once had sex when I was a whole man.”
She felt her hands fist at her sides. “You are whole. The fact that you don’t have legs doesn’t make you less of a man, but your self-pity does. Look around you. No one pities you but you. You let everyone believe the worst of you because of your pride. What the hell would you have done if she hadn’t miscarried? Would you have allowed that child to believe you were rejecting him?”
“It didn’t come to that.”
She didn’t understand him at all. “Why didn’t you tell your mother the baby wasn’t yours?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I did tell her. She didn’t believe me. What did you want me to do, Tiffany? The woman had lost her husband and then she’d had to see her son come back like this. She wanted that child more than anything and nothing I said could sway her. Alicia was the town princess. Who the hell would believe me? So I left and I ended up in England where I thought seriously about drinking myself to death, but I found something I was good at. I found a place where I could provide service. You don’t need my services, do you, Tiffany? You’ve manipulated me at every single turn.”
“Services. I hate that you call it that. Do you have any idea how much better my life is since we moved in together? I know I’m chaotic. I can’t help it. I’m built this way, but suddenly I have this amazing peace because I don’t have to worry about forgetting important things or being late because I lost track of time. I know that sounds like a little thing, but you’ve rapidly become important to me on a fundamental level. My life is better because I have this man who cares about me enough to take care of me. The trouble is he won’t let me take care of him and I need that, too. I need the exchange in a way I never thought possible. I went into D/s to play and have fun and suddenly I want nothing more than to honor my contract and my Dom and he won’t allow it.” She was suddenly so tired. Weariness blanketed her and it was all she had to simply stand up. “I need you, but I’m starting to think that the you I thought existed was someone I made up in my head. I’m going to eat something. You can eat or not, but the meds are supposed to be taken with food.”
She turned and walked to the kitchen, the world blurring behind her tears.
Had she made him up in her head? Had one day’s kindness been enough to make her fall in love with an illusion?
Like she was on autopilot, she made a plate for herself. She wouldn’t taste the food, but she would eat it. She needed something to do before she tried to figure out how to get through the next few days with some kindness.
When she turned, Sebastian was in front of the table. “I am not self-absorbed.”
He looked as tired as she was.
She moved a chair so he could slide in and set the plate and bowl in front of him. “You are. Totally self-absorbed.”
She started to turn, but his hand shot out, gripping her wrist.
“I thought I loved Alicia and when she turned on me, I wanted to die. I realize now that I worshipped her like a little boy. It wasn’t love. There was nothing complex about the emotions, no real drive to have her beyond the fact that I thought I should. I say I honored her by not touching her sexually, but those are her words, not mine. I wasn’t trying to dishonor you.”
Silly man. “There’s nothing wrong with sex. Even if it is just an itch you need to scratch. There’s nothing truly dirty about it.”
His hand gripped tighter. “You were not an itch.”
