Chapter 6 Sebastian
SIX
SEBASTIAN
My life is good.
So good that I’m worried that this might all be a fever dream and that I’ll wake up to my angry wife and struggling marriage and not the well-fucked and begging-to-obey whore in the bed beside me.
It’s been almost a week since the day she ran from me and threw a fit about her security team. Since then, we’ve fallen into an oddly comfortable routine that consists of me seeking out my wife and fucking her like a whore whenever the mood takes me.
Our friends have noticed the difference between us, but just sex isn’t enough. I need more. Which is why instead of working, I’m watching the live stream from the hidden camera I had someone plant in my wife’s therapist’s office.
“So, Starling, how has your week been so far?” Dr. Sally Kendrick, Starling’s therapist, asks from her cream wingback chair, her tablet poised on her lap to take notes.
Sighing softly, Starling smiles. “It’s actually been really good.”
“Well, that’s great. Why don’t you tell me about it? How is school? This is your junior year, correct?”
“Oh, well, Sebastian had a meltdown about me going back to campus, and he made my security team stop hiding.”
“Is that why?” Dr. Sally points in the direction of the waiting room, where James, the head of Starling’s security team, is standing sentry just outside the door.
“Yep, that’s why I have a bodyguard. But honestly, if it’d just been one security guy, I probably could have handled that. I have a full team of four huge dudes, and on the first day of school, they were waiting in the driveway, ready to come to school with me.”
“That’s quite an escalation. Did you talk to Sebastian about that? Did he give you a reason for the increase in security measures?”
Scoffing, Starling shakes her head. “I don’t need to ask him. I know why he did it. It’s because he thinks it’ll be harder for me to leave him if I’m literally surrounded by four huge ninjas.”
Dr. Sally purses her lips. “We’ve talked about his fears about losing you before, and you’ve admitted that while you have no immediate plans to leave your relationship, you have used the threat of leaving as a weapon during disagreements.
Have you done that recently? Do you think there’s a reason he’s reacted this way? ”
In the months since Starling started seeing her therapist, I’ve waited for her to tell her the full truth about our relationship and that of our friends.
But she never has. This isn’t the first of her therapy sessions that I’ve spied on.
It’s not the tenth. I’ve monitored every single session since the second time she met with Dr. Sally.
I’m fully aware of the lines I’m crossing, but honestly, I think I’ve shown again and again that there isn’t a boundary I won’t destroy to keep my wife.
I don’t know what was said in that first session. If I’d known it was happening in advance, I’d have had my associate plant the camera before she arrived so I could watch that one too. But I didn’t know she was starting therapy until her security team informed me she’d arrived at a doctor’s office.
I did have my hacker access Dr. Sally’s notes, but they held no specifics about concerns the doctor had about anything I’d done, so I’m guessing Starling skirted around the more morally gray aspects of our relationship in that session, the same way she’s done in every one since then.
“No, I feel like all I do is reassure him over and over that I’m not leaving him, but it doesn’t seem to matter how many times I say it, he doesn’t believe it,” Starling says, sounding exasperated.
“Could there be a legitimate security concern that’s prompted him to change your security arrangements? On our first session, you mentioned that you’ve had a discreet security presence in place for a number of years and that it’s never bothered you. Has that changed?” Dr. Sally asks.
When I first found out about Dr. Sally, I was worried that the doctor would turn my wife against me, that she’d tell her my behavior was unacceptable and borderline abusive.
But honestly, most of the time it seems like Dr. Sally is on my side.
I’m sure if she knew the full extent of the things I’ve done, she’d change her mind, but in the sanitized version Starling has given her, Dr. Sally seems to think that I’m just a concerned husband and not the psycho my wife knows me to be.
“He hasn’t mentioned anything to me,” Starling concedes.
“Do you think he would? You said that there were threats made against your husband and the other men in your life when they were children. It’s what prompted his parents to have trackers fitted, isn’t it?
Given the prestige and wealth the Lockwood family has amassed, I’d imagine that the risk would be higher now that you’re married.
Could you be considered the weakest link?
Or perhaps a bigger target given your stepfather’s wealth too? ” Dr. Sally surmises.
“I’m not close with Harry, though. I don’t have any kind of relationship with him, he’s Evan’s dad and my mom’s husband. He’s nothing to me,” Starling protests.
“I know you feel that way. But to an outside attacker looking to target two wealthy families, you could be kidnapped and ransomed back to either or both families.”
“I suppose. Although surely someone would have told me if I’m actually at risk,” Starling says, reluctant to agree.
“Perhaps that’s a conversation you should have with your husband. Tell me about how school has been with your new security arrangement.”
“I haven’t been.”
“Why not?” Dr. Sally asks, leaning forward a little in her seat.
“I refused to take a full team of bodyguards, so Sebastian threw a fit, called the dean, and swapped me to online education.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I…” Swallowing, Starling’s shoulders slump. “I actually don’t hate it. All my lectures are recorded, and I’ve been watching them once I’ve gotten up and had breakfast. Even working ahead on my assignments, I’m pretty much done by lunchtime each day.”
“So, it hasn’t been too much of an adjustment?”
“Not as much as I thought. I didn’t have any classes with January or Bunny this semester, and with Sammy being so close to giving birth, she’s not at school either. I guess, even if I’d have gone to campus for my classes, I would have been alone anyway.”
“Have you given any thoughts to my suggestion to try and make some friends outside of your group?” Dr. Sally asks.
“I’ve thought about it. I’m just not sure how practical it is,” Starling admits.
“Why is that?”
“Well, because I’m not exactly normal anymore.”
“But Kingsacre isn’t your average school. Ninety percent of its students come from the top ten percent wealth bracket. I’d have thought your lifestyle wouldn’t be particularly different from theirs.”
Tipping her head to the side, Starling acknowledges her point, then exhales. “Maybe I feel different.”
“How so?”
“I’m twenty, I’m married. I live in a beautiful house with a private beach. I drive a car worth more than the house my dad and I lived in. I have a credit card with a limit so high I’ve never dreamed of ever having that much money in my life.”
“You don’t feel worthy,” Dr. Sally says, stating a fact, not asking a question.
“None of it is mine. I haven’t earned any of it.
The only thing I’ve done to deserve it all is catch the eye of a boy with obsessive tendencies.
If he’d overlooked me or spotted someone else, I’d probably still be waiting tables in a shitty diner in North Acres and going to community college. My life is happenstance.”
“Is that why you considered leaving?”
“No…Sebastian can be a lot. He’s extra on steroids.”
“I know we’ve talked about your relationship a lot, but how do you think he’d feel about what you just said?”
Scoffing lightly, Starling’s lips tip into a smile.
“He’d say something crazy, like there’s no way he could have overlooked me, or that I’m the only person he saw, and that he knew the moment he laid eyes on me that we were meant to be together.
He’d try and assure me that everything he has is mine. ”
“Do you doubt his sincerity?”
She shakes her head. “No. I know he loves me. He’s done…” Pausing, she swallows back whatever she was about to say. “He loves me, and he’s shown me that in a million ways.”
“But…” Dr. Sally prompts.
“My life is what people dream about. I’ll never have to worry about money.
If we have children, they’ll never have to worry about money.
If I decide to spend the rest of my life doing nothing but shopping, he’d support me.
But I think a part of me still resents him.
Well, all of them, not just Sebastian, but Evan and Clay and Hunter too. I’m…angry.”
“Could you tell me about that anger?”
“I don’t know how my life would have gone if I’d never met them.
I don’t know if Courtney and I would have stayed friends.
I don’t know if me and my mom would have stayed close, or if I’d have ended up living with my dad anyway.
But even though they know that they hurt me, they’ve never really apologized.
We’ve moved on, and I don’t hate them; not really.
But a part of me wants to hurt them, the way they hurt me. ”
“Do you think hurting them would make you feel better?” Dr. Sally asks.
“Honestly?” Starling questions.
“Of course. This is a judgment-free space.”
“Seeing the pain that Hunter was in when Bunny left him and knowing that I helped her made me feel good. It felt like retribution, and I enjoyed it,” she admits, and as she speaks, a cold look changes her beautiful face into someone I barely recognize.
“Do you think that your refusal to have a relationship with your mom is about you wanting to hurt her?”
Holding my breath, I wait for Starling’s response. My only real regret is destroying Starling and Cassidy’s relationship, and if there’s any hope of repairing the rift between us, I’ll do anything to fix it.