Chapter 17
His finger grazed across the scar at the bottom of her tight stomach and she froze. Of course he would notice it. The scar was raised and lumpy from the struggle she’d had with healing after everything. There were treatments available that would have helped it fade, and she’d always planned on getting them in the hopes that the memory from how she got it would fade too, but by the time she made it to Bell Ridge, the scar was the only thing that was keeping her going. Her permanent reminder of the most precious thing she’d lost and would never have again.
Normally, she was so careful about hiding it. That’s why she liked control in these situations, but of course, she’d lost all sense of herself in the heat of the moment with Sebastian. Fuck. Emma scurried out from under Seb’s warmth and pushed herself up against the headboard.
“What’s that scar from?” He ran his hand up her leg. She recoiled at the touch, pulling her legs in as tight to her body as she possibly could. “Em?”
“This was wrong. We shouldn’t…I shouldn’t.” In an instant, she had her feet on the floor, fixing her clothes to cover her body. Emma wouldn’t be able to look at Seb without falling apart, and she silently prayed that he would just let her go. “I’m sorry.”
And she was, truly sorry. She wanted to give herself to Sebastian more than she wanted her next breath, but she couldn’t be what he wanted, what he deserved. Better to get out now before things went too far and her feelings overwhelmed her senses.
“Emma, wait. Please, stay. Tell me what’s wrong?” She ignored his request. A warm hand wrapped around her arm as she turned to run from the room.
“Let go of me, Sebastian.” She was still facing away from him, which was a blessing as the tears spilled over her lashes. His hand dropped away from her and in a rush, her feet carried her from the bedroom, down the large stair case, and out the front door.
It was the middle of the night, and Emma wasn’t sure where she would go, but she knew that she could no longer be inside that house. She was being suffocated by the secret that still stood between her and Seb. Crickets chirped into the night air and a soft breeze caressed her skin as she walked towards the pond. The moon was bright and large in the sky, and her breathing became more ragged as she thought about all the nights she’d spent talking to the moon. There was once a time when standing directly under it made her feel connected to her mother, and to a future filled with warm hopes and dreams. Now, it just reminded her of everything she’d lost.
The area around the pond was rocky. She’d definitely twist her ankle if she wasn’t careful, even with how brightly lit the landscape was thanks to the moon. How had she let herself forget about her scar? Of course Sebastian would have questions, it was only natural. It wasn’t his fault she would never be strong enough to answer them.
Almost seven years had passed and the pain was still as acute as the day her baby was born. A daughter, somewhere out in the world, taken from her without her consent. The worry flooded her senses, the rocks now digging into her legs as she sat down. She needed to catch her breath, but the air hurt and all she wanted to do was sink into that pain.
Her daughter had been everything to her. A light in the darkness. A sign that things would get better, even if she’d been married off to a monster at eighteen. She promised herself that she would survive so that her daughter would never know a moment of fear, or worry.
“Em?” Shit. That familiar, deep and commanding voice startled her. The rocks knocked together loudly as he walked closer, until finally she felt the warmth of his body next to hers. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
* * *
He was stunned. Standing there in his bedroom alone, Sebastian hadn’t the faintest idea about what had spooked Emma so badly that she’d run. He wiped his hand down his face and quickly marched to the room across the hall.
Sebastian had expected the door to be shut, but there it was, wide open. A quick step inside and he was able to see she wasn’t there. Hadn’t this been exactly how everything started just an hour before?
He ran down the stairs two at a time towards the basement where Nash was still awake, sitting in front of a wall of monitors.
“Where is she?” His eyes frantically searched the screens.
“Do I even want to know what happened between you two that made Emma run from the house in the middle of the night with tears streaming down her face?”
“Fuck if I know. Is she still by the house?”
“Gage went outside when we got the alarm about the front door being opened. I’m sure he’s sitting back, watching to make sure she’s okay. But yeah, it looks like she’s down by the pond.” Nash pointed to the screen that showed the pool and backyard. There was the smallest shadow in the distance by the water’s edge.
“Thanks, Nash. Listen, when I get down there, shut the camera off, okay?”
“I can’t have your six if I can’t see you.”
“We’ve got basically every alarm possible on this property. Turn the fucking camera off.”
“Yeah okay, you got it, Cap.”
Sebastian ran up the stairs, taking two blankets from the basket next to the sofa, and ran out the front door. He stopped briefly to acknowledge Gage and give him a glare that had his friend turning back for the house with a nod.
As he neared the pond’s edge, he could see the tears staining her cheeks. Seb felt like his veins were on fire. He wanted to hurt the asshole who’d left that scar on her body, and clearly left an even bigger one on her soul.
“Em?” He found himself fighting the urge to scoop her up into his arms and never let go as he watched her flinch. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
Emma looked up at him, and the sadness in her eyes shredded his heart. “I’m so sorry, Seb. I don’t know…”
“It’s okay. Whatever happened back there, it’s fine. I just wanted to check on you.” Sebastian spread one of the blankets down on the ground before he sat down beside her, close enough that their bodies could touch, if she wanted. He draped the other blanket over her shoulders, waiting for her to say something.
When she leaned her head against his chest, he quickly wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her onto the blanket with him. Shutters wracked her body as she cried.
“Please, Sprinkles. Please tell me you’re okay.”
“I think I-I’m quite possibly n-not.”
“Can you tell me why?” What if Gunner had been right? Was she still hiding something that could jeopardize them keeping her safe? If it was something about Marco, something that she hadn’t shared that was vital to her safety, then he needed to know. “I know it might not feel like it, but maybe if you tell me, it will help make it feel not so overwhelming. I just want to help.”
He watched her chest rise as she took in a large breath. When she exhaled, she spoke words that took the air out of his own lungs.
“When I was nineteen, I had a baby.”
Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.
“Was the baby?—”
“His?” she nodded. “He took from me what he wanted to, and I had no say.” Sebastian’s arm tightened around Emma. He couldn’t spend time thinking of how much he’d enjoy ending Marco’s pathetic life once he was found. No, he needed to be in the moment for Emma. She deserved his full attention while she shared this information with him. “When I got pregnant, I also had no say in what happened to the baby.”
Emma let out a sob. Her hands moved to cover her face and they sat there, the only sound to be heard a mixture of her cries and the gentle rustle of the wind winding through the trees around them. “I was so afraid he was going to make me get rid of her. I know it was a terrible situation to bring a baby into, but I couldn’t get an abortion. I didn’t want one.”
“I’m so sorry, Em.” What else could he say?
“He didn’t make me get one, Seb. In fact, he acted thrilled about the whole thing. Marco l-let me think things were changed between us. He moved me out of the estate and into his place. I picked out things for a nursery, and I named her. He was different. Kind, attentive. He held my hand and told me how excited he was for the baby.” Her breath hitched as more tears soaked his shirt. “When it was time for her to come, I was forced to have a c-section. That’s what the scar is from. I-I don’t even remember anything about it, other than I was in my doctor’s office for a weekly visit and a nurse mentioned I needed some medicine because the baby’s blood type was different than mine. I’d been given something for that earlier in my pregnancy, so I didn’t think anything of it. But they must have drugged me instead. I woke up hours later in the hospital. I just remember feeling so empty, and delirious from the pain. I tried to ask where my daughter was, but no one would answer me.”
“What happened to her?” his voice was barely a whisper, and he could hear the emotion he was trying to swallow down.
“I was all alone until he came in to my room the next day. He held my hand, and told me I’d never see her. That she was with someone who would be a better mother than I could ever hope to be. All the things I had put together for her nursery, they were with the other woman. He didn’t even keep her name, and he never told me her new one. I don’t know where she is, or if she’s safe and loved. I never got to hold her, Seb. I never got see the precious, little soul who lived next to my heart for nine months. She was just ripped away from me.”
There were more tears, and Emma released a wail that had Sebastian’s emotions choking him. The pain from that experience rolled off her in waves, crashing into him over and over again. He would never understand how anyone could be so cruel to the woman who had the brightest, most vibrant soul he’d ever met. All Seb could do was hold Emma. There were no words that he could ever say to make up for what she’d had to experience.
“Her birthday is coming up and I don’t normally let myself think about it, but with everything that’s happened, how can I not? How can I not wonder what happened to her?”
“Did you ever try to look for her? That’s something we could ask Tracker to do, if you felt comfortable with it,” Sebastian asked when her breathing calmed.
“Do you think he…” Emma swallowed her tears, the burning in her raw throat making her wince. “I mean, you don’t think the Santoro family trafficked her, do you? When Gage said they were trafficking women and children, I wanted to die. I always assumed he gave her to someone in the family to raise, but what if he didn’t? What if he used her to get the money my step-father owed him?”
“Em, I don’t—” his mind was running a thousand different directions all at once. Should he give her hope? Or would it be better for her to help her process the possibility that her daughter was out in the world and would never be found?
“I know, Seb, I don’t want to think of it either. But if he did, if he sold my daughter, how are we ever going to find her? I don’t even know her name. How would Gage even look for her?”
Fuck, it was becoming more and more difficult to keep his emotions in check, and the hope that sat behind the fear in her eyes made him want to burn the world down for her.
“We could start with her birthday, and the name of the hospital where she was born. That should be enough to get him going.”
She looked out over the pond, frozen for a moment as she seemed to think over the possibility of looking for her child.
“I d-don’t want any of the guys to know. They already look at me with pity. I don’t think I could stand them looking at me with more if they knew about Luna.”
“Luna.” He thought back to earlier that night, when he’d found her in the office, looking out the window at the moon. She hadn’t been saying goodnight to it like he thought. She’d been saying goodnight to her daughter. “That’s a beautiful name.” He swept a tear off her cheek before threading his fingers through hers. “Why did you choose it?”
“It’s silly, really. When I was a little girl, before my mom was sick, she would bring me outside each night before bedtime to say goodnight to the moon. When I was pregnant, I did the same. I made sure I got to go outside each night, and I would say good night to the moon with her. I’d take a few minutes to tell her a story about my mom when we’d get back inside. Now, I look at the moon and I feel connected to the both of them.”
“That’s what you were doing tonight. You were talking to her when I walked in to the office.”
“Yes.”
He thought for a moment. “Has it been hard to be around Daisy?”
She sighed. “It was harder with Grace. I didn’t know her, but there she was inserted into my friend group so close to having her baby. With Daisy, it’s just…I’m so happy for her and Hank, and I already love that baby so much. But her pregnancy reminds me of what was taken from me. What I’ll never have. What I’ll never be able to give someone one day.”
“Why wouldn’t you ever be able to have another baby? I know that it will never change what happened, but surely if you wanted to have kids in the future, you could.”
“I told you, he took everything from me. He told me I’d hemorrhaged during the birth. That I had a retained placenta and the only way to save my life was to give me a partial hysterectomy. But I don’t believe that for a second. He wanted to destroy me in every way while leaving me alive to experience all the pain. I’m sure Marco signed off on the additional surgery.”
“I am so sorry, sweetheart. I can’t even say how sorry I am. But I can promise you, when I find him, he’s going to pay for what he’s done. And I’ll never let him hurt you again. Never again, Emma.”
“I’m empty inside, Seb. At the vineyard, you told me you wanted the world to be better for your future children. I can never give you that.”
“It doesn’t mat?—”
“It does. I understand how much it does matter. I just want you to know that I understand if you want to stop whatever was happening between us before you knew. That second date never needs to happen.”
“Fuck yes, it does.” She bit her bottom lip and looked up at him with wide eyes, and fuck if he didn’t want to kiss her right then and there, using his own teeth to rake over the plump flesh on her lips. “Nothing about what you just told me changes my attraction to you. No, wait. It does.”
She pushed away from his chest and he immediately tightened his grip around her and pulled her back to where she belonged. “Everything you just told me makes me realize how truly amazing you are, Sprinkles. So strong. So resilient. So fucking incredible. I’m really trying to be a gentleman here, but there is some caveman thing going on inside my mind that is telling me I need to claim you right here so you know just how completely you’ve taken over my heart, and so that you know you’ll never have to face anything on your own again.”
“That’s everything. I swear, Seb,” she said as a tear tracked down her cheek. “That’s every secret from the darkest depths of my soul. You’re the only other person in the world that knows.”
“Thank you for telling me.” He wrapped his arms around her even tighter than before and kissed the top of her head. “Are you ready to go back inside? It’s getting late and I can feel you shivering.”
“Can we just wait a few more minutes? I know it’s chilly, but I feel warm in your arms.”
“We can sit out here all night if you want. Whatever you need. I’ll be here.”
Her hand reached up and cupped the side of his face. “Would you think less of me if I said I really needed to kiss you right now?”
“Not unless you thought less of me when I tell you all I’ve wanted to do since I saw you crying out here alone was pick you up and pepper you with kisses so I could take away all that heartache.”
“Kiss me, Sebastian. Make me feel better. Make me feel the same hope you have inside you that this is all going to work out, and everything will eventually be okay.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Dipping his head towards hers, he captured her mouth with his. The salty taste of her tears exploded on his tongue. He would do anything to take away her pain. Anything. This woman had completely bewitched him, and he wanted every minute of the rest of forever with her.
She deepened the kiss, and her body shifted. He felt the pressure of her legs wrapping around him as she climbed into his lap. When the kiss ended and he opened his eyes, Seb was painfully hard beneath her. He watched Emma sit back, raising her arms to the buttons on her pajamas and fuck, he lost his mind. The moon was illuminating her, giving her that same ethereal glow he saw as she looked out the window in his office.
“Emma,” he heard the painful restraint in his own voice as he reached up to stop her hands from undoing the next button on her shirt. “I’m trying to be a gentleman, but that whole caveman thing is really crushing my chest right now. Are you sure?”
Her smile reached all the way to her eyes. “You’ve seen all of me, Seb. Show me it doesn’t change how you feel about me. That it hasn’t changed what was starting to build between us.”
He dropped his hands from her arms and pulled his shirt off in one swift move. Her laugh bounced off the gentle breeze and wrapped around his heart. When she went back to her shirt, Seb playfully batted her hands away.
“Mine,” he growled as his fingers slipped into her shirt. A breathy moan escaped from her lips as he circled her peaked nipple with his thumb. Emma’s back bowed, sending her head towards the sky as her hips pressed harder against him.
“God, Sprinkles. You’re so fucking beautiful.” His mouth moved across her collar bone, down to capture the nipple he’d been neglecting. His tongue swirled around the pale blush peak as his hand stroked down her back, across her hips and over her thigh.
“As much as I love foreplay, I really need you inside of me. Now,” she moaned. Her hips rolled her body over his cock, and he fought the urge to bury himself inside her in one swift thrust.
“I don’t have any protection, Sprinkles. But I haven’t been with anyone in two years,” he admitted breathlessly.
“That’s not what the tabloids say,” her raised eyebrow made him laugh.
“Yeah, well, they like to spin whatever story they can, and ‘playboy billionaire bachelor’ is a better sell than ‘celibate billionaire businessman that is waiting until he actually has strong feelings for a woman before he takes her to bed’. You know, it’s all optics. I just want you to know, I’m clean.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, tugging him towards her until their lips crashed together.
“Fuck me, Suits,” she moaned, the use of his silly nickname turning him on more than he’d ever be willing to admit. “Please, I don’t want to wait anymore.” Fuck, he loved when she was bossy.
* * *
Had she really just said that out loud. Who the hell begged for someone to fuck them? Emma had lost all sense of herself in that moment, but from the fire in Seb’s eyes, she could see he enjoyed her begging for him.
Sebastian freed himself from his pajama bottoms and Emma couldn’t help but bite her bottom lip. She’d been thinking about this moment for so long, she was salivating at the thought of everything that was about to happen.
He stroked himself as she moved her hips over top of his length, both releasing a moan as she sank down on top of him.
“Fuck, Em. You feel amazing. Better than any dream.”
“Oh God, Seb. Fuck me, please.”
He laughed, capturing her mouth as he drove his cock deep inside her. Every thrust brought the lava pooling in her belly closer to the surface. “Faster, Seb,” she moaned, arching her back as she slipped her fingers between their bodies.
“Hands in my hair, Sprinkles. Your body is mine.” He moved her hand from between them, replacing it with his own. The way he slowly circled her clit with the lightest touch while continuing to thrust into her had Emma seeing stars.
She pulled on his hair unable to control the pressure as the strongest orgasm of her life washed over her.
“Oh, fuck.” Sebastian thrust inside her one more time before his own orgasm ripped through him. She wrapped herself around him, breathing hard as new tears stung her eyes.
He kissed her shoulder before she turned to look at him.
“No tears, Em,” he swiped away the one tear that had gotten away from her. “Are you okay?”
“Better than okay. For the first time in as long as I can remember, my heart feels like it’s finally beating again.”
Sebastian stood, tugging his sweatpants back into place, and Emma couldn’t help but giggle.
“See something funny, Sprinkles?” he asked as he wrapped the blanked around her body.
“Nope. Just can’t believe we did that out in the middle of your yard,” Emma groaned. “Oh God. Don’t tell me there are cameras out here!”
“Don’t worry about it,” he scooped her up and placed a kiss on her head as he walked back towards the house.
“You really have a thing for carrying me, don’t you?” she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“What can I say? It feels like you were made to fit perfectly in my arms.”