Chapter Twenty-One
Alice couldn’t believe Sebastian was actually here on her front porch.
She flung the door open and stared, taking in his dark, tousled hair.
He looked healthy and vibrant, with high cheekbones and a nose that was a little too big for his face but somehow made him seem even more handsome.
His white dress shirt was open at the collar, exposing the strong column of his neck, and his soulful eyes looked at her as if he wanted to lay the world at her feet.
“Alice,” he said, a world of emotion packed into that single word.
He said it as though in prayer, with hope and yearning and regret.
Longing was carved into every line of his expression, and his dark eyes were like a window straight into his soul.
He extended the bouquet of peonies, and when she didn’t reach for them, he lifted her hand to wrap her fingers around the stems of the bouquet.
She took them, too stunned to move, to speak, to jumpstart her brain that had stopped functioning.
Flowers weren’t the only thing he’d brought. A Louis Vuitton suitcase sat at his feet. “Can I come in?”
Was this a dream? It could not be happening, but when she tried to speak, her tongue wouldn’t move; all she could do was gape at him.
“Alice? What’s going on?” Jack had come to stand beside her and stared at Sebastian with surprise and a healthy dose of contempt.
Of all the ways she’d imagined running into Sebastian again, not once had she pictured Jack striding forward to speak for her because she was too dumbfounded to form a single sentence.
“You can take that bag and crawl back beneath whatever rock you’ve been living beneath,” Jack said in an oddly calm voice.
Sebastian acted as if he hadn’t heard. “Alice, it’s starting to rain. Let me inside and we can talk.”
It was starting to rain. She couldn’t leave him standing outside. Mrs. Wieland, the nosy neighbor next door, might snap a photograph and stir up the hornet’s nest of publicity again.
She stepped back and gestured him inside. Sebastian smiled in relief and lifted his suitcase, while Jack sputtered in outrage.
“Why don’t you tell him to jump off a cliff?” Jack bit out.
“I can’t leave him outside in the rain.”
“He left you outside to get arrested and hauled to jail,” Jack said in a tight voice.
“Hey, I didn’t know anything about that,” Sebastian said, already walking down the corridor into the main room of her townhouse.
He set his bag down and craned his neck to look all around the interior, his admiring gaze taking in the wall of books, the mantel with its collection of Meissen figurines, the lace, the dried flowers.
“I love this place,” he said. “It suits you.” Then he saw the mess of the disassembled grandfather clock on the table. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Yes,” Jack said at the same moment Alice said, “No.”
Sebastian heard only Alice. “Good,” he said as he smiled into her eyes. “I’ve been traveling since daybreak . . . English time. It’s good to finally arrive.”
“Seb, what are you doing here?” she finally managed to choke out. “I thought you were in rehab.”
His shoulders sagged, and a world of hurt bloomed in those soulful eyes.
“I got out yesterday. Alice, I didn’t know anything about what was happening to you until I got my phone back.
They took it from me while I was in rehab, and the first thing I did was start looking for you. Alice, I am so sorry.”
He reached for her, but she stepped back, holding the flowers before her like a shield.
She’d seen that soulful Sebastian Bell expression a million times .
. . in every movie he ever starred in. It’s what had made him famous.
Her blood began flowing again, her brain unlocked. Anger began to replace her shock.
“I got suspended from the college because of you,” she said, beginning to rally.
“I know and I’m sorry,” Sebastian said, one hand extended palm up as though begging her to take it. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“How?” Jack demanded. “She was less than a year away from tenure, and that stunt in the UK has ruined her chances in academia forever.”
Sebastian glanced between Jack and Alice. “Who is this guy?” he asked.
“He’s my friend,” Alice said.
“Boyfriend,” Jack corrected.
The news seemed to hit Sebastian like a physical blow. He recoiled at first, then swallowed hard, nodded a few times, then geared back up. “It’s nothing less than I deserve, I suppose. Alice, I messed up. Please give me another chance. Give us another chance.”
He sounded so desperate. It ought to be pathetic, but the earnest appeal in his upper-crust British accent sounded exactly like the climactic groveling scene in a million romance movies and she was only human. It got to her.
“It shouldn’t end this way,” Sebastian continued, his voice breaking with anguish. “All I’m asking for is a few minutes alone with you.”
Jack bristled. “I’m not leaving her alone with a coke head.”
The spell broke and Sebastian shot him an annoyed glare.
“I haven’t done cocaine in 145 days,” he defended.
“Or 144, if we take the time change into account. I am determined to be brutally honest in all things. Alice, I want to be a better man. You did that for me. From the day we met on that train to Berlin, I knew you were the right woman for me. When you’re near, I feel like I can conquer the world. I can certainly conquer drugs.”
Jack scoffed. “Didn’t look like it from what I saw on Twitter.”
Sebastian didn’t take his eyes off her. “I stumbled and I fell. I messed up, but I’m back. If you’ll have me, I will lay the world at your feet. You are my North Star, and together there’s nothing we can’t do.”
Anger began to unfurl, because it was a direct quote from one of his movies. She threw the flowers against his chest. Petals scattered, and Sebastian flinched.
“You messed up your life and got to do a stint in a luxury rehab center in the south of France; I got slapped with a restraining order,” Alice said.
“There are pictures of me in handcuffs all over the web. Strangers all over the world have accused me of doing horrible things. The people at my college want to fire me. Do you know how humiliating that is?”
“Guilty,” Sebastian said, holding up his hands in supplication. “It won’t happen again.”
She bit off a cynical laugh. “It won’t happen again because nobody in the world will hire me.”
“I would,” Sebastian said. “You could be my wife.”
The sentence knocked the breath from her lungs, but she recovered quickly. “Is that a marriage proposal?”
Sebastian muttered a curse under his breath, then leaned over to pick up the abused peonies. “I hadn’t meant to spring it on you like this,” he said. Sebastian sank onto one knee. “Alice, I love—”
“Oh, get up!” she shouted. “Do you seriously think I would consider any kind of proposal from you? I could get arrested for even being in the same room with you.”
Sebastian stood, looking sick at heart. “Really? I didn’t realize. Maybe British law doesn’t apply over here?”
“She shouldn’t have to risk it,” Jack ground out. “Why are you here? Is this some kind of trick? A scheme to fix your reputation?”
Once again, Sebastian didn’t look at Jack, just kept his gaze locked on her as he spoke. “Alice, it’s not a trick, I swear it. All that stuff that got leaked to the press, that was Graham’s fault. Please give me another chance to prove that I love you.”
He kept talking but it was as if his voice came from far away.
Months of humiliation. Having her career yanked out from beneath her, enduring the snide looks and delighted whispers.
The first issue of the student newspaper this semester had editorial cartoons about her, and student essays were exploring themes of female enablers and female stalkers.
“Seb, for the past few months I have been hanging on to my sanity by a thread. I’ve finally found a new purpose, and I won’t let you waltz in here and drag me back into the whirlwind.”
“Alice, please—”
“You heard her,” Jack said. “You can walk out of here on your own two feet, or I can throw you out.”
“Jack, don’t!” The only thing that could make this worse was if Jack got into a fight and landed in a hospital, bleeding uncontrollably from a hemophiliac crisis and it would all be her fault. “I’ll be okay. Sebastian knows what we had is over, and my life is here in Virginia.”
“Does he?” Jack asked. “Then why did he bring a suitcase, prepared to spend the night with you?”
It was a good question. She turned to Sebastian for an explanation, and once again he smoothly put her at ease.
“Alice, I would never presume such a thing. I checked into a hotel in town an hour ago. The suitcase has a script and study materials for my next movie. I didn’t want to leave it unprotected in a hotel and brought it with me.”
“Prove it,” Jack said.
Sebastian scoffed. Even his scoffing seemed elegant and refined. “Really?” he drawled in that lofty, upper-crust tone.
“Yeah, really,” Jack replied. “I think it’s a bogus story and you came here with your roses and groveling apology, planning on sliding right back into Alice’s life.”
“First of all, they’re peonies, not roses. Peonies are Alice’s favorite flower, and I went to three different florists to find them.”
“Along with your overnight bag,” Jack pointed out.
“Look,” Sebastian said a little more firmly.
“Maybe you don’t understand how scripts for upcoming movies can be big business.
I am contractually obligated to keep the script in a secure location, and the hotel isn’t secure.
Everyone behind the check-in desk at the hotel recognized me and wanted an autograph.
I’ve had hotel staff riffle through my belongings on more than one occasion and can’t risk letting this script out of my sight.
It’s the second season for The King’s Redemption, and yes . . . those can be worth a lot.”