03

He flushed. “Yes.”

I took a deep breath and looked away before I lost control and rushed into Sebastian’s arms.

“How about the promotion ?” I asked. “Did you instruct Tamara to promote me to a senior business analyst on my first day at work ?”

“No,” he answered, his voice lilting slightly with some humor now. “I told Tamara you would make a good fit in her team. She wasn’t happy that I was pulling strings. She was ready to risk my wrath and refuse but she looked at your credentials and told me that she gets to claim credit for your success because she’s taking you on, not because I demanded her to do it but because she sees your potential. The promotion is all hers. And yours.”

I grimaced. “Glad to know I was able to accomplish some of it on my own. Because it’s starting to become very clear that the last four years of my life had been very much a farce—all that I thought I accomplished for myself is cheapened by the fact that you made them all happen. I thought I was finally getting my shot at independence but you cheated me out of it.”

“I simply paved the way ; you had to walk the road. You would’ve made it on your own, Cassandra. I don’t doubt that.”

His eyes raked over me, glinting from the play of frustration, longing and guilt in his expression. “I’m sorry for intervening. You wouldn’t have accepted anything if you knew it was from me. I thought it was a good compromise to give you your taste of independence but also make sure that you are taken care of. I didn’t want you to have any reason to turn to your bastard cousin or anyone else for that matter, for anything. I would’ve never abandoned you completely to fate. I provisioned for you in my will in case something happened to me in those four years. You would’ve never needed for anything. I wouldn’t have lasted this long if I didn’t know you were in a good place and I certainly couldn’t die in peace without you being looked after.”

Dear God.

How do you stay angry with a man so obsessed with your comfort and welfare he would cross every line to see to it ?

“I know you’re not happy about it but it’s all in the past now,” he continued, getting back up on his feet and starting to pace again. “I want to make things right this time. You can work, open your bookstore, do whatever you need to do for yourself. We don’t have to get married right away. If you don’t want to get married at all, that’s fine. We can be happy together without the paperwork.”

My jaw dropped open.

“You still want me ?” I asked in a barely audible whisper. “You still want to marry me ?”

He glared at me as if my confusion was irritating him. “What ? Did you think I stopped ? Of course, I still want you. That was the whole point of waiting four years—I was waiting until you were ready.”

Suddenly, he stilled, wariness and doubt creeping into his eyes.

“Why ? Is it you who don’t want me ?” he asked, paling. Then his brows furrowed, his expression that of renewed determination. “Because the kisses we just had don’t lie. You want it. You want me. You want us. There’s never been anyone else for you the past four years.”

I didn’t care that he was right. He didn’t need to rub it in my face.

“I can’t say it’s been the same for you, has it, Sebastian ?” I shot back tartly. “Because while you were waiting, you were fucking other women to pass the time.”

He flinched, guilt sweeping across his face. “I’m a man. I have needs.”

I threw my hands up, completely appalled. “What an absolute chauvinist you are.”

“The women didn’t mean anything. You know they never have !”

I narrowed my eyes. “Something needs to change about your attitude towards women, Sebastian. You have to stop using them for sex.”

“Why, when they use me just the same ?” he snapped. “They were just distractions, Cassandra. Do you think in four years, I haven’t once been tempted to just show up at your door and claim you back, your independent life be damned ?”

“And what if I tell you that no, it hasn’t been a lonely four years for me ?” I demanded hotly. “I could’ve been with a number of other men.”

“Of course, not,” he snorted, rolling his eyes. “I made sure of it.”

My palms smacked the surface of his desk hard but I didn’t even really notice the pain. “You made sure of it ? Did you manipulate my relationships too ?”

He suddenly looked very uncomfortable. “I just made sure they realized it wasn’t in their best interest to become romantically involved with you.”

I groaned and threw my hands up in the air. “Oh, my God ! What is this, The Truman Show ? Just who the hell do you think you are to play God with my life, Sebastian ?”

He now looked affronted. “I’m not playing God, Cassandra. To be perfectly honest, I’m just desperate. Yes, Sebastian Vice—desperate.”

He rounded his desk to stand in front of me, his face strained with nothing else I could describe more accurately but pain.

“Desperate for you to come back, desperate to finally put things back together, desperate to go back to a time when I was happy. I’m worse off now than I was before I met you. Because you gave me a taste of what it was like and took it away !”

I thrust my chin up at him defiantly. “I didn’t take it away, Sebastian. I showed a little fear and you freaked out and plunged right into your usual defense—hurting people back. You drove me away ! I came to tell you that night that yes, despite all my fears and reservations, I was going to marry you because I loved you and that was more important. And what did I find ? A tryst with one of the women you keep saying didn’t mean anything to you. It wasn’t a real one then but with what you told me, you went ahead and made it into the truth anyway. So don’t blame me for your being unhappy in the last four years, Sebastian, because it was also your own goddamned fault that we were both miserable.”

His eyes were wide with shock and for a long moment, he said nothing.

Then he blinked and gasped. “You came that night to tell me you wanted to marry me ?”

I sighed. “Yes. And now I’m glad once again that I didn’t. I’m not sure I can spend the rest of my life with a man who thinks he can exert his will on others without invitation or consent.”

I turned away and walked towards the glass walls, my arms wrapped around my midsection in an effort to hold myself together.

Tears burned my eyes.

It hurt to know what we lost and how much we wounded each other.

Worst of all, it hurt to realize that despite my pain and anger, I was still foolishly in love with Sebastian Vice. That I never stopped.

I haven’t felt this much in four years.

I lived a half-life, content to be a shell, either empty or too numb to feel much.

Now it was all coming back and the intensity of my feelings were frightening.

Because now I know he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

But what if he wanted me, not because he loved me, but because he just hated to lose ?

And did I just feel this way because I truly loved him or because I simply never found anyone else in the last four years who might make me feel the same way ?

But I’ll never know now for sure, will I ? I have Sebastian to thank for that.

I felt him move behind me, his warmth inviting, his arms sliding around me as he pulled me close and pressed his cheek against my left temple. “We can begin again, Cassandra. It’s not too late. It can never be too late. Give us a chance.”