Blood Knot (23 page)

How had she been so blind to Sebastian’s feelings before?

Because he had hidden them from her
. It was a two way street, she realized. It hadn’t been just up to her to notice. Sebastian had to let her see, too.

Just as she had locked away the true depth of her love for him. It was just safer that way.

And it still was.

“
Just like old times,” Winter murmured to the empty room. She sighed and went downstairs, her joy back under control.

Sebastian was studying blueprints for the Flatiron building, spread out over the dining room table. He straightened up as she approached, his gaze flicking over her. “These are updated and current,” he told her. “I’d love to know how Nial got hold of them so quickly, but I’m sure he’ll say something like ‘don’t ask,’ so I didn’t bother asking.”

“
Pessimist.”

“
Is your hair getting longer?”

“
Yes.” She pushed it back over her shoulder.

“
I love it,” Sebastian declared. “I really do.”

“
Well, I’m kinda stuck with it.” She cleared her throat, bent over the table and began to study the blueprints. Sebastian started pointing out the entrances and exits, weak points, and all the other points that Winter would find of interest and the conversation slid back into normal work stuff. The tension left the room.

Later, she sat at Nial’s desk and started reading the profiles he had written on his computer. They were solid, workmanlike documents that gave her everything she needed to deal with any of the lawyers she might meet in the corridors—enough information to approach them closely enough to touch them and not alert them until it was too late.

Absorbed, she read, trying to memorise information and catalogue it.

“
Is the ring bothering you?” Sebastian asked, placing fresh coffee next to her.

Winter glanced at the Claddagh ring on the desktop next to the keyboard. “No. But the skin on my finger underneath it is all pruned from the shower. I’m just letting it dry out.”

Sebastian picked up the ring. “I’d rather you wear the ring and suffer the inconvenience.”

“
I know it has value to you.”

Sebastian sat on the edge of the desk with the ring on his palm. “Nial didn’t tell you anything about it, did he?”

She shook her head.

“
Typical.” Sebastian showed her the inside of the ring. “See the initials there?”

She saw tiny letters that looked like scratch marks. An “R” and an “I”.

“
They stand for ‘Richard Joyce’,” Sebastian said. “The goldsmith who made up the design of this ring to my father’s orders.” He gave Winter a small smile. “My
real
father.”

She felt her mouth open in shock. “You mean your real father invented the design? He designed the Claddagh ring, Sebastian? Who is he?”

“
I don’t know,” Sebastian replied. “My mother never told me.” He lifted his hand with the ring on it. “This is all I have of him. This ring.” He lifted it up off his palm. “It’s too old and the design too precious to have the ring resized, now. Many years ago, I gave it to Nial.”

He lifted Winter’s hand and slid the ring onto her finger, with the crown oriented the way Nial had placed it. “Southbys have estimated it to be worth around two and a half million sterling.” His green eyes lifted to look at her. “I know you’ll take care of it.”

“
God, Sebastian, no! Not something like that. You take it.”

He shook his head. “Nial knows exactly what he’s doing.” He stood up. “Done with the profiles, yet? I’ve got some first estimates on security timetables for you as soon as you’re ready.” He walked away, leaving her looking at the worn ring on her finger, winded.

THE WORK WENT smoothly after that. Too smoothly. Winter wondered if Sebastian was doing as Nial did—deliberately pouring oil on the waters and keeping the atmosphere untroubled and conflict free.

She found herself watching him more carefully, to spot any subtle signs of Sebastian’s’ charm at work. She had observed him using his ways with dozens of marks over the years. Surely, if he was trying to soothe her now, she would detect it.

But Sebastian just seemed to be happy.

Puzzled, she mentally dropped the matter and fully concentrated on the job at hand.

“
You’re frowning,” Sebastian pointed out. “Problem with the timing?”

She smoothed out her expression. “No, it’s fine,” she assured him. “A bit tight having to go in so early, but we’re soft-shoeing it.” She shrugged. “It’s all part of the fun, right?”

Sebastian sat back. “That’s not what the frown was about,” he said. “You’ve been distracted all afternoon. Worried about Nial?”

She laughed. “God, no.”

“
It’s not like you to let anything pull your attention away from the job once you’re into planning, Winter.”

She nodded. “I was thinking that this was just like old times…but it’s not, is it?” She looked him in the eye. “Once this job is over, you’re out of here, aren’t you?”

Sebastian put his pen down. “It’s not like I have much choice.”

“
You were always leaving before, too,” she pointed out. “I never knew if you were going to come back.” She looked down at the notepad she had been writing on. “Two years of ‘just one job’,” she said bitterly.

“
Bullshit, Winter,” Sebastian said, his voice low and rough with some emotion that made her head jerk up to look at him. He hadn’t moved from the lazy sprawl in the chair. His arm was still hanging on the back of the chair, the other flung across the table. He still leaned against the arm of the captain’s chair he sat in, his long legs thrust out toward the window and the late afternoon light. But his body was thrumming with tension and his eyes glittered with it.

“
You knew,” he said flatly.

“
Knew what?” Her heart was suddenly racing and she wondering about the wisdom of asking, but the question was already out there.

Sebastian turned quickly in the chair to face her, with a swiftness that wasn’t quite vampire speed, but was fast for a human. “In the back of your mind, in your subconscious you knew I was different and you liked it. For two years, we both picked up hints and signals, Winter. I must have known all along that there wasn’t something quite human about you, that you were hiding a huge part of yourself from me, but I didn’t dig it up because I wasn’t ready to hand over the truth about me, either. But we
knew
! In the back of our brains, we knew, Winter.”

Winter held her breath. Had she known? Had she?

Sebastian leaned forward. “You didn’t say anything because you liked that I was in your life and you were no longer alone.”

Winter recoiled, shocked.

Sebastian nodded. “It’s a curious thing. When two outsiders stand together, they’re not outside anymore. They’re inside their own world.” He shook his head. “But I’m not part of my world anymore. You took me out of my world. You made it just you and me. And then you took that away from us, too.”

Winter stood up. “Enough, Sebastian. Please.”

“
No.” He was suddenly
there
, almost as fast as Nial could move when he had a mind to. Standing over her. “Let me finish. Let me say it all.”

“
Another confession, Sebastian?” she whispered.

“
The last one,” he ground out. “It pays for everything.” He reached for her hair and stopped himself. “I loved you, Winter. I think I fell in love with you the first job we did, when you laid out a guard with a round house heel kick then caught him and lowered him to the ground and told me that’s the way you wanted it done on your jobs. Cool as a cucumber, hot as pepper when your dander was up. It was like four seasons in one day and I loved it. I loved you.”

“
Loved?” she breathed.

He took a breath, one so deep it made his chest lift. “I’m trying to be fair,” he whispered.

“
Be honest,” she replied. “It’s cleaner.”

Pain touched his features. “Honesty hasn’t served us well, Winter.”

“
I like honesty,” she admitted. “I’ve grown addicted to it, these last few days.”

“
No matter how much it hurts?”

She nodded.

“
Very well.” Sebastian let out a breath. “I love you. I love you so much every breath I take when I’m in the same room with you hurts now you’re with Nial. It’s like breathing in ground glass, Winter. I can see that you’re…growing around him and I’m happy for you and it makes me die inside.”

Winter looked away. It was as bad as she had thought. As wonderful. Two years. No, three years if she counted the year they had just wasted idling their time not working. Three years of pretending they were just team mates. Just friends. And all along Sebastian had loved her desperately. It wasn’t just Nial teasing him about an unrequited attraction.

Sebastian drew her face gently back to look at him. His eyes were hot with wanting, with desire. “All those men,” he told her. “The endless line of them. Do you know how much I resented them, Winter? How I imagined storming into your room, throwing them out of your bed and proving how much better a lover I could be than any of the world class billionaire play boys and Hollywood pin-ups and studs you were picking up?”

Winter bit back her moan. Her body was melting. Her mind crowding with images, memories and despair. She leaned back against the window, her legs weakening. “Sebastian…please don’t. I know I asked for honesty, but spare me this.”

“
Like you spared me?” he asked, his voice rough. “Do you know what it’s like watching someone you love in another’s arms?”

“
Yes, Sebastian, I do.” Winter mentally sighed. If this was to be his last confession, she would make it count in every way.

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “You do?”

She gave a laugh that came out shaky, on top of all the adrenal and arousal surging through her. “
You
, Sebastian. I’ve watched you. Two long years. And every conceivable type of lover possible. You’d walk into a room and turn heads. Then you could take your pick, with your charm and your beauty. And I’d be left with my imagination and my raging jealousy and breaking heart. So I would find someone to share my bed and pretend it was you.” She could feel her mouth trying to curl down at the corners. “It didn’t work.”

Sebastian stepped in front of her so that she was trapped between his body and the glass. He wasn’t touching her but she could feel the heat of him. It made the window seem even colder against her back. Sebastian’s hands were curled into hard fists. “Say it,” he growled.

Winter could feel tears burning at the back of her eyes. “What purpose does it serve, Sebastian?”

“
You made me say it,” he said. “You want honesty. So do I. All of it. Tell me. I want to hear it, Winter.” His eyes were glittering with the emotions driving him.

“
I love you,” she whispered. And her tears spilled.

Sebastian drew in a breath that shuddered. But still he did not touch her. He pressed his hand to the window very close to her head and leaned so that his lips were close to hers. His eyes gazed into hers. “I waited two years, Winter. At any time, you could have just lifted a finger and I would have made you mine in every way a man could, and more. And I would have made your lovers look like fumbling high school boys on a first date.”

Winter felt her breath push out as everything inside her leapt. She was drowning in Sebastian’s eyes.

“
A night in my arms, Winter, and you would never have wanted to leave them again.” His voice seemed to thread through her thoughts like mist, making her want to lean through the scant few inches between them and press herself against him.

Winter found she was holding onto the windowsill. Clutching it. A lifeline. The edge bit into her palms.

“
Do you know how much I want to kiss you right now?” Sebastian asked. “More, to tear those damned abbreviated garments you wear from your body and give you the sort of pleasure that makes you moan and scream the way you were last night?”

Winter clutched at the windowsill as one thought dominated all others.
She wanted it
. She wanted Sebastian. Life was utterly unfair. She kept herself motionless in case she gave away anything of her desire for what he was offering.

Sebastian was gazing into her eyes and she knew that if she gave him the slightest hint, the smallest positive sign, he would press his lips against hers and she would be lost.

How long did they stand there, with lust beating between them so thickly they could have touched it?

How long before Winter found the courage to speak the word that would destroy the sweet tension? She didn’t know, but it took time before she was able to do it.

“
Nial,” she breathed.

Sebastian groaned and pushed himself away from her, to lean his forehead against the cold pane of the window. She watched his eyes close.

Winter was trembling. Adrenaline aftershock. Slowly, she set about restoring her body to normal. And she wiped away her tears. There was nothing more to say.

She had a headache. Just like every other human on the planet, she had to suffer through headaches or take something for them. She had never figured out how to cure them for they usually had no point of origin.