Trusting Stone (17 page)

Eden made to move, but his next words stopped her from pulling away.

“Enzo told me what your ex did and I’m not trying to push you to jump into bed with me, Eden. But I can help you forget that asshole.” His hands moved to her waist and up onto her ribs, caressing her just under her breasts. Eden wished she could enjoy his touch. She knew Michael was a handsome man, and from the looks she was getting from the other women on the dance floor, she wasn’t the only one. But just like Joachim, he did nothing for her. Michael could never replace Sebastian, even if she closed her eyes and tried to pretend.  

   Eden shook her head before turning around to face Michael. His hands stayed on her waist as she faced him. “Thanks for the offer, but I can’t. Thanks for the dance.” She leaned in and kissed him gently on the cheek. She had made so much progress with Sebastian, but that didn’t mean she was about to start having
one-night
-stands and rebound
sex
. Just letting Michael dance with her so closely was huge. She pulled away and started to walk off the dance floor. She knew that Michael would find a new dance partner without any trouble and didn’t feel guilty leaving him alone.

Eden wove her way through the crowds, trying to avoid the many roving hands that just reminded her why she didn’t particularly like clubbing. She could see Mara and Enzo sitting by the VIP area and she waved at Mara to let her know she was alright. The look on Enzo’s face let Eden know that he had seen her walk away from Michael. This was the second time her friends had tried to play matchmaker between her and Michael and she knew they were only trying to get her to forget about Sebastian. But she knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. It wasn’t just a matter of filling the spot where Sebastian used to be.

A hand grabbed her tightly around the bicep and she turned to see what drunken idiot had made that mistake. She knew Enzo had his eye on her and if she were in any real trouble, he would be down to the dance floor in a second. Getting ready to shove whoever had decided to try their luck with her, Eden swung around and pushed hard against a very familiar chest wearing a very familiar suit. She looked up into Sebastian’s face and froze. What the hell was he doing here?

“Let me go.”

“No. I’ve been looking for you all day and all fucking night. I’m not letting you go. Where the hell have you been?” Sebastian was seething, but Eden didn’t care. There was no way he was as hurt as she was. She didn’t even know why he was angry. He couldn’t possibly think he had any right to be angry about her ignoring him all day, not after what he had done. The man was truly psychotic if that’s what he thought.     
         

“It’s none of your business where I was all day. Surely your time would have been better spent with your wife.” Eden practically spat out the last words as she tried to pull away unsuccessfully.

Eden turned to look for Enzo and saw that he and several of his friends were already making their way to her. Sebastian grabbed her arm tighter as Michael joined the group of men approaching them. Sebastian saw them, but it didn’t seem to be making the sort of impact Eden had hoped for. As much as she hated Sebastian in that moment, she didn’t want to see him get hurt. But as he spotted Michael, his grip tightened and she swore she heard him growl.

“Let her go,” Enzo barked at him, reaching out to take Eden’s hand. Mara was behind him and she was mumbling in Spanish in Enzo’s ear. “Don’t touch her like that, Sebastian. You’re going to leave a bruise and then I’m going to really have to lose my shit with you.”

“I’m not going to hurt her. I just want her to hear me out.” Sebastian released Eden’s arm and she rubbed the spot where his fingers had wrapped around. She immediately was drawn to Enzo’s side and Mara wrapped her arms around her.

“You have ten seconds, Sebastian.” Eden looked at him, wishing she hadn’t had so much champagne. She didn’t know why she thought drowning her sorrows was a good idea. She didn’t know why she thought
dancing
with Michael was a good idea. She didn’t know why she thought being in the
club
at all was a good idea. This was going to end just as it had started, with her humiliated and having a panic attack in front of Sebastian Stone.

“That’s not enough time. Let me take you home and explain. In private.”

“No, eight seconds,” Enzo said, already counting for her.

“Goddamn it, Eden, don’t do this. I’ve been running around the
city
all day looking for you.”

Eden prayed Enzo wouldn’t walk away. There was no way she could find the strength to say no to Sebastian if she was alone.

“Five seconds.” Enzo clearly wasn’t going anywhere.

“Fuck! Eden!”

“That’s it, we’re taking her home. Back up, Sebastian.” Mara grabbed Eden even closer to her and said something in Spanish to her friends, glancing over at Michael, warning him not to press his luck any further tonight. Flanked by Enzo and Mara, Eden turned to walk away.

“She’s not my wife! She’s my sister!”

Eden turned to look at him. His face was a picture of regret.

“She’s my sister. You can check if you want. I’m telling you, I’m not married.”

Eden could feel her jaw drop open. How could that be his sister? The way she had been touching Sebastian, the intimacy between them—that wasn’t the way siblings were meant to touch each other.

Enzo spoke first. “Eden…I don’t think he would pretend his wife is his sister. Maybe you need to hear him out. That would be a pretty messed up lie, even by my standards.”

Eden could see Mara was nodding in agreement. “But the way she was with you, Seb, she was touching you. That’s…weird.” Eden wished she could have thought of a better word, but the champagne was still making her hazy.

“I know, I’ll explain. I promise. But let me take you home.” Sebastian stepped forward and held out his hand.

Still a bit unsteady on her feet, more from his announcement than the champagne, Eden stepped forward. The look she gave Mara was enough for her friend to let her go. Eden had clearly misread the situation and they had all unfairly painted Sebastian with the wrong brush.

Instead of grasping her wrist as he had so many other times when they fought before, he gently entwined his fingers between hers and
led
her out of the
club
. The town car was already waiting and he helped her in before sliding in next to her and pulling her to him. Eden slid onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. She wanted to stay mad. She wanted him to give her an explanation before he even thought about touching her again, before he even dared to think that she was still his. But she couldn’t deny him. Eden had known this would happen and it scared her that saying no to Sebastian seemed physically impossible for her. Now she had proof.

Sebastian held her firmly but with a stillness that Eden wanted to
somehow
melt away. The past 12 hours seemed like a nightmare, and
finally,
she was able to wake up, in his arms where she always wanted to be.

“Where did you go, Eden?” he
finally
asked her, maintaining the same calm in his voice as she felt in his arms, as if he might frighten her if he spoke too loudly.

“I ran. I ran and then Mara got me.”

“You can’t keep on running from me.”

Eden bit her lip. She didn’t know how to have this conversation with him. Part of her was feeling guilty, imagining how Sebastian must have felt looking for her all day, but that was a small part. She also believed that Sebastian was responsible for this situation, despite the fact that Simona was his sister. She knew so little about his life. How could she not even know that he had siblings? And why had he told her he had business to attend to if he was really just meeting up with her? Was he so ashamed of her that he didn’t want his family to meet her?

“Why not?”

Sebastian pulled away slightly until he was able to look her in the eye. “Because I’ll always find you, no matter how far you run. I found you tonight, didn’t I?”

Eden
realized
she had no idea how he had found her and she wasn’t sure she even wanted to. Deep down, she was happy he had. “And it looks like I did right in time by the way Michael was touching you. You promised me you would be careful.”

“No!” It was Eden’s turn to pull back and glare at him. “You don’t get to turn this around on me. Michael wanted to dance and I said no. I walked away. What I saw today is in no way comparable to Michael trying to do some
dirty
dancing
with me. I’m not saying anything else until you explain yourself, Sebastian. You did this to me. You kept me at arm’s length and it’s your fault I thought she was your wife.”

“I’m not married, Eden. I can’t even believe you would think that.”

“She wanted me to think she was your wife. And that’s probably the most messed up part of all this. That’s what you need to explain.”

“I’ll tell you everything, but please just wait until we get back to my place. I just need to hold you now.”

As much as she needed to know who Simona really was, there was nothing more she wanted than to be held in his arms. Eden ran her hands along the back of his neck, pushing her fingers into his hair, trying to push away the image of Simona’s hand doing the same thing. Eden knew she was falling for Sebastian, but seeing him being touched by another woman had torn through her and practically stopped her heart. She knew she wouldn’t be able to survive this if Sebastian didn’t feel the same as she did.

Chapter Twenty

Sebastian lowered her onto his couch before bringing her a large glass of ice water. Her head was still buzzing from the champagne.

“Drink.”

Eden took the glass and glared at him. “Talk. Now. You’re not the only one who can give orders.”

Sebastian sat down opposite her and held his head in his hands. “Fucking hell, Eden, this isn’t easy for me. I’m still coming down from the adrenaline-fueled marathon I took around New York today.”

Eden stayed silent.

“Fine! Fuck!” Sebastian looked up now. “But let’s make a deal. You don’t ask any questions until I’m done talking and you promise to stay the night. You can’t run no matter what I tell you.”

“Why would I run again, Seb?” Eden knew he deserved the same patience that he had once shown her when she asked him to make a deal, but she couldn’t help but feel nervous.

“Do we have a deal, Eden?”

“Okay.”

He put his head back in his hands and starting talking. “Simona is really my half-sister, if that anymore. When my parents got divorced, I had virtually no
contact
with my father. I didn’t even know my mother had his
contact
details. After she died and when I arrived in London, I was surprised to learn that he had a whole new family. He’d remarried a
young
widow, Rebecca, who had two small children, Simona and Dillon. Initially, my father treated them as his own children and they all adored him and he got to play happy family. I, on the other hand, was shipped off to boarding school and I rarely saw them, except maybe for a day or two over the summer, but even then I was usually shunted off somewhere. When Simona was fifteen, her mother
finally
left my dad and he cut them all off, just like he had with my mom. Except Rebecca had her own wealth and she was able to move on relatively peacefully. But the kids, they didn’t take it well. My dad had played father to them for over a decade and
suddenly,
he wouldn’t even take their phone calls. He didn’t care about them. It had all just been to keep Rebecca happy.

“Dillon rolled with it and moved on after working out some anger issues and getting in
contact
with me. I think he’d always been suspicious about the fact that my father treated his biological son like shit. But for Simona, it ruined her. She insisted on
keeping
his last name even though Dillon changed his back to Wilson, their biological father’s name. She also got it into her head that she and I were family—the only family that mattered. And in a way, I guess we were. She’d lost two fathers and I was, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. She clung on to me and I helped her as much as I could. She couldn’t understand how he could reject her. As soon as she turned eighteen, I noticed a change in our relationship, but I
realize
now that the signs were there all along. She became insanely jealous about any woman I was dating. She would swing from telling me all about her sexual relationships to pretending she was practically a virgin. It was bizarre, but I didn’t know how to deal with her properly. Whenever I tried to establish boundaries, she would go off the rails, go partying, and then call me to extract her from fucked up situations. She couldn’t handle any type of rejection and she knew I would never let her get hurt. She never called Dillon, though. He’s settled and happy. He’s engaged to a nurse and is renovating a house in Devon. I mean, you wouldn’t even know they were related, he’s so well-balanced now. And he won’t put up with her drama. He’s made a good life and he knows he can’t save her. But for some reason, I always thought I could. Fuck, my dad did a number on me, too, but I had no idea how to fix her either! I was supposed to meet up with her in London a few weeks ago and when I told her I couldn’t make it, she decided it must be because I was involved with someone, so she flew out here to surprise me. And scare you off. Which she almost did.”

“She did, Sebastian.” Eden
realized
she was interrupting him, but she didn’t care. This wasn’t as simple as she had hoped. “Can I talk now?”

Sebastian nodded.

“She’s not really your sister, you
realize
that, right?”

Sebastian looked up at her, with a look in his eyes that Eden could only describe as shame.

“I know that you think of her like that, but she clearly doesn’t see you as her brother anymore. And that’s really bad, Seb. How much longer are you going to let her do stuff like this? What if you hadn’t found me? How many women has she scared off? How old is she anyway?”

“She just turned twenty-one. She graduated
university
early and now she’s just freefalling in London. I have no idea what to do with her. She’s just eating through her inheritance and is out of control.”

Eden watched as Sebastian’s shoulders slumped over. His hands gripped his hair. In that moment, she
realized
that she hated Simona for making him like this.

“And what about the other women?” This was a subject that they had never broached. Sebastian knew about her past, but she was completely in the dark as to his. She knew he’d dated, of course, but she had no idea if any of them had ever really meant anything.

“What other women?”

“The other women in your life, in the past, when you’ve dated. Has she succeeded in scaring off many of them?”

Sebastian looked sheepish. “Well, to be honest, there really hasn’t been anyone that I didn’t want scared off.”

It took Eden a minute to
realize
what he was saying. “You mean you let her scare off the women you were with on purpose?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Eden. I’ve never had a relationship like this! I’ve dated women, of course, but never anyone that I wanted to be around for very long. That makes me sounds like an arse, I know, but I just never cared enough, certainly not enough to make Simona think I was choosing them over her. Whenever Simona tried to get her claws into them, it never really bothered me because I usually wanted rid of them anyway.”

“You do sound like an ass, Sebastian. You basically
led
her on! You let her think that it was the right thing to do!”

“No I didn’t! I’ve always made it very clear to Simona that I saw her as my little sister. I just never wanted to hurt her, but today…the way she was with you. The look on your face… She knew you were different. I wouldn’t tell her who I was seeing. I didn’t want her to even know your name in case she lashed out at you. And then you walked right into my office. I mean, she couldn’t have planned that any better.”

Eden didn’t know what to say. This was so much more than she expected. When he had said Simona was his sister, the pain and anguish she had felt all day disappeared and she felt safe and calm again, knowing Sebastian wasn’t married. But this was something else. It felt sordid and twisted. She understood that they weren’t actually sister and brother, but Simona’s
behavior
seemed too out of control for Eden to get a handle on.

As if Sebastian could read her thoughts, he moved across the distance between them and pushed her legs apart so he could kneel between them. He looked up at her, grasping her hips in his hands. “Don’t, Eden, don’t confuse her with us. This isn’t us. I’ve felt a responsibility toward Simona because of my father’s
behavior,
but today I saw how much damage that misplaced guilt could cause. I don’t want her to touch anything we have. I won’t let her ever again. I’m sorry, Eden. I’m so, so sorry. Please, tell me you’re still mine?”

It was the first time he had asked her. She reached her hand up and brushed his
disheveled
hair off his forehead. She wanted to desperately tell him how she felt, how she’d felt when she thought he was married, what it had done to her and how much it scared her. Instead, she gave him what he needed.

“Yes, Seb, I’m yours. Always.”

“Don’t ever run from me again.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise, I’ll never run again.”

“Now kiss me.”

Eden leaned forward, never losing
contact
with his eyes, now dark with desire.