2. Sebastian
CHAPTER TWO
SEBASTIAN
I had never heard Lily Sawyer swear. Had never heard that cool but biting tone pass between her plump lips before. My eyes blurred, glazing over the computer screen as I heard her cutting “ Fuck off, Sebastian ” over and over in my mind. It was driving me to distraction.
What had I expected? For her to smile and announce all was forgiven and invite me and the lads to sit at her booth?
Okay, yes, a small part of me had hoped for that exact response.
Lily was good and kind, and I’d expected that with time she would have forgiven me.
I was so stunned by her response in the bar that I had, in fact, fucked off. Without another word. Zac lingered behind, saying something to Lily and her friends, but he caught up with me and Harry outside.
“I thought you were going to apologize?” Harry asked as he and Zac hurried to keep up with me. I strode quickly down the Cowgate and turned through the dark cluster of buildings, climbing my way up toward South Bridge, a straight shot to our apartment on the Royal Mile.
“Are you going to speak ever again?” Zac queried.
I glanced at them, not quite sure what to say.
The truth was, as soon as I saw Lily enter the bar, I’d known it was fate. All summer the woman had plagued me, because I genuinely liked her and wanted to be friends. And I didn’t like that I’d hurt a friend. I’d told the guys I was going to apologize, smooth things over.
That had been my intention.
Instead, I’d stupidly spoken to Lily like nothing had ever happened.
The first words out of my mouth should have been sorry.
And when she told me to fuck off, I should have said sorry before I did.
Moron.
I startled in my computer chair at the sudden ring of my phone. With a groan, I got up and crossed the room, swiping the phone off my bedside table.
Juno calling .
With a sigh, I answered and flopped onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling. “What?”
“Well, that’s a charming way to answer the phone, brother.” My sister’s familiar voice was nice to hear, contrary to what my greeting might have suggested.
“Sorry. Shit day.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t sleep much last night.”
“Why?”
I huffed at her interrogative tone. Juno was two years older than me and still treated me like a younger brother she had to protect. “Why are you calling?”
“Have you heard from Mumsy? Or Pa?”
I lifted my phone to tap on the screen. There were two unread messages. One from each of our parents. “Yes, but I haven’t looked at what they want yet.”
The thought of finding out filled my gut with dread.
“They’re already arguing over Christmas. They’re both demanding we spend Christmas Day with them. I think we might need to split up. Each take one of them.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Bloody hell.” It was impossible that we’d gotten to this place as a family. Ever since my parents announced at the beginning of the summer that they were divorcing, I’d lived in a state of disbelief.
My entire life, my parents had been sickeningly in love. They used to joke how they couldn’t quite fathom they’d raised two children who were so commitment-phobic, considering how happily married they were.
I’d honestly thought they were taking the utter piss when they’d sat Juno and me down and announced their separation. Neither would tell us what had caused this sudden devastation between them.
Whatever it was, they were angry. Bitter. And my sister and I were caught between them like Ping-Pong balls.
“I’m sick of this excrement,” Juno huffed. “I swear I’m going to divorce both of them.”
“You’re an adult. You can’t divorce them,” I muttered tiredly.
“I can symbolically divorce them. It starts with blocking both their numbers and taking back their copy of my flat key.”
“The flat they bought, you mean?”
“Oh right. Fuck. Does that mean I’m stuck with them?”
“Yes. Because you love them,” I reminded her. “Even though you don’t like them very much.”
“Ha! Diplomatically said. When, in fact, I’d quite like to shove both their heads up their respective arseholes, but I can’t because their heads are already currently shoved thoroughly up their rectums.”
My lips twitched. “It’s always a delight talking to you, Junebug.”
Her tone softened at the use of her childhood nickname. “You sound … off. What’s going on? Why didn’t you sleep last night?”
Sitting up with a groan, I considered telling Juno about the situation. My sister was a straight talker and sometimes even gave good advice. “I … I hurt a friend. And she won’t let me near her to apologize.”
“ She ?”
At her puerile tone, I growled, “Hanging up now.”
“No, no. I’m sorry. Okay. Details. I need details.”
So I told her. How I’d “infiltrated” Lily’s life. Misled her. How it was all a stupid mistake that got out of control.
“Hmm,” Juno mused after I finished speaking. “There is much I’d like to dissect about why you’re so invested in this girl, but in fear of you hanging up on me, I will just say, find a way to apologize.”
“Excellent advice. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”
I could practically feel her rolling her eyes at my sarcasm. “I mean, bump into her somewhere she can’t tell you to fuck off or run away from you. And lead with the apology this time, little brother. Your face can’t get you out of this one, apparently. For that, I already like her a lot.”
“I don’t use my face to get out of anything,” I grumbled. I used my charm. My face just helped people to be open to my charm.
“Right. Apologize first.”
“Got it.”
“Did you check your messages from Mumsy and Pa yet?”
With a sigh, I tapped the screen on Mum’s text first.
Spoke to Lady Sarah Shrewsbury. Her daughter Lady Amelia has started at Edinburgh. I promised you’d befriend her. Very pretty girl. Here’s her number …
Irritation thrummed through me. “Mine isn’t about Christmas. She’s trying to set me up with Amelia Shrewsbury.”
“I thought she was five.”
“Almost. She’s eighteen.”
“Oh, listen to you, you old fart at twenty-two.”
“This is the third text like this in a matter of weeks. What the bloody hell is happening?”
Juno sighed. “Mother has decided she’s all about Granny and being a ‘seen’ member of the royal family.
Prudent matches are now important to her.
She tried to set me up with Foster Fairly last week.
I told her if she gives him my number, I’m going to answer it as a fake escort service. A really dirty one.”
I chuckled despite my indignation. My whole life, my parents had skirted the edges of the royal family.
We’d attended important royal functions and I’d gotten on rather well with my late great-grandfather, King Henry.
My grandmother was his youngest daughter, Princess Mary.
Grandmother, being a bit of a black sheep party girl in her heyday, had never bothered that Mum and Pa weren’t much for the pomp and circumstance of the crown.
But she seemed happy to welcome Mum back into the fold.
And apparently that meant foisting aristocratic men and women at me and Juno.
Why was beyond me. We were twenty-ninth and thirtieth in line to the throne.
We provoked the bare minimum of interest from the public.
Most people didn’t know who Juno and I were.
Society pages talked about us only sometimes.
Now and then some magazine or newspaper would do a piece on the lesser- known members of the royal family, but that was as far as our fame or importance stretched.
Otherwise, we were merely the Thornes. Children of Paul Thorne and Lady Clarissa Hanover.
Our father was from Leeds, a self-made millionaire out to prove himself.
By the time I was born, my father was a billionaire hedge fund manager.
By the time I was ten, he’d retired our family to a country estate in Norfolk where he and my mother lived happily like landed gentry of old, checking in on their vegetable patches each day and involving themselves heavily in village society.
It was an idyllic life, one mostly free of the trappings of royalty, and one filled with so much love, I’d known from the abysmal state of my friends’ family lives how lucky we were.
I still couldn’t comprehend how our family had fallen apart.
“Where did you go?” Juno asked suddenly.
“Just wondering how we got here. Do you think one of them is having a midlife crisis?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know, Bastian. But I do know that I might never forgive them for doing this to us.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. “Yeah.”
“At least we’ve got each other, little brother.”
“Yeah. At least we’ve got each other.”
“So … how are you planning to apologize to this mysterious girl who you only want to be friends with?”
I ignored her snort at the end. “I do just want to be friends with her. When have I ever wanted to be more?”
“Hmm … well?”
“She’s a psychology student. I think I might start there.”
Juno cackled down the line.
I frowned. “What?”
Her laughter filled her words. “Trust you to pick … a friend who is studying how to psychoanalyze people. Good luck with that.”
“She’s not like that.” And Lily wasn’t. Yes, I knew she planned on becoming a psychotherapist, but I never felt under a microscope with her. Which was probably why she’d make a damn good one.
“No need to get defensive,” Juno teased.
“I’m not defensive.”
“You really like this girl, don’t you?”
“As a friend,” I bit out between clenched teeth. “I’m hanging up now, Mother .”
“Ugh, that was just rude.” Juno hung up before I could.