16. Sebastian
16
SEBASTIAN
I was preoccupied with my meeting earlier that day with Andrea while I waited for Savannah outside of Sexy Fish restaurant a few weeks later.
Andrea and I had decided to make Blood Oath as an independent film. The studios wanted to glamorize it too much, strip it of the raw, earthy grit I’d always envisioned for Roberto and his harrowing journey through 1920s New York. Andrea and Adam had the connections to get enough funding to do the project on our own terms without studio funding, and it seemed like an impossible offer to pass up.
Adam thought the Sundance Film Festival would be the perfect vehicle to launch the film and get bids from various studios after it performed well. I envied his confidence in the script and worked hard to emulate it.
The problem was, the only people who had ever encouraged me were my sisters, and I knew they were wildly biased.
I wasn’t afraid to admit that living with the Meyerses and watching the way they operated so confidently in life had rubbed off on me. Their secret was simple. They believed they deserved the best because they were willing to work hard to earn it and wouldn’t settle for anything less. It was manifestation on a level I’d never considered for myself, but the magic, Savannah had assured me one night over dinner, made their dreams attainable.
And so, I chose to believe in myself.
How simple and terrifying a concept.
I was so lost in the complicated maze of my thoughts that I didn’t notice the couple exiting the restaurant at first even though they were only a handful of yards from where I’d parked the car and was leaning against the driver’s door. It was only when I heard the laughter, light and soft, transient as a wispy cloud dissolving in the sun that my attention was hooked.
When I turned my gaze to Savannah, she beamed at an older man with a thick head of steely grey hair wearing what I could now recognize as an extremely expensive navy pinstripe suit and a gold Rolex that flashed harshly in the entrance lights.
As I watched, he raised that bedazzled wrist to smooth a lock of Savannah’s hair back into her bun and then let his hand linger against her cheek.
What was even more shocking was that Savannah let him. It was hard to tell from my angle with her facing away from me and toward her lunch date, but I thought she might have even been smiling for him.
That same soft, confused little smile of vulnerability I’d thought for certain she’d only given Adam and me .
Unease skittered with eight legs down my spine and nested uncomfortably at the base of my back.
I pushed off the car, ready to do what, I wasn’t certain, when she rocked forward on the tips of her high-heeled shoes and pressed a single kiss to the side of the man’s cheek.
He blushed like a man much younger than him might have, but I understood.
That was the power of Savannah Meyers' regard.
What I didn’t understand was the level of intimacy I was witnessing.
She wasn’t a naturally warm person, so the privilege of intimacy with her was infrequent and hard-won. When people lingered too long over any aspect of physical affection at parties or luncheons or dinners that I’d witnessed her at, she always deftly blocked or ended their advances.
I racked my memory going over Savannah’s schedule for the day and only came up with the lunch meeting with an unnamed bigwig from a studio in California.
He didn’t seem like a stranger to her, though.
They seemed closer than I ever wanted to imagine her being with someone other than her husband or me.
They parted slowly, tension pulling like taffy in the air between them as Savannah backed away and then turned to walk toward the sidewalk.
It was only then that she noticed me.
There was just a slight pause in her step, one pearlescent high heel raised delicately over the asphalt before she resumed her gliding stride toward me.
But it was enough to speak of something a little like guilt.
“Hello, darling,” she greeted breezily as she approached, and I opened the car door for her automatically out of habit. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long.”
I didn’t respond with my normal flirtatious banter because something uncharacteristic stirred in my gut.
Jealousy .
After she slipped into the Rolls, I closed the door and peered over the roof at her lunch companion. A limousine pulled up in front of the restaurant, and the driver got out to open the door for him. The grey-haired man seemed to sense my gaze and caught my eye just before lowering himself into the vehicle.
I bristled at the small smile he shot my way, and it was utterly irrational.
I knew it.
But I was Italian, hot-blooded and probably too passionate for my own good.
So when I got into the town car to drive Savannah home, the words I spoke burned as they passed over my tongue.
“Who the hell was that stronzo ?”
“Sebastian,” she scolded coldly, checking her makeup in a little compact mirror. “Don’t speak to me like that.”
“Like what, a jealous lover?” I dared to retort, meeting her gaze briefly in the rearview mirror.
“This is hardly appropriate.”
“Because I’m just your lowly driver?”
“Don’t be so young . It’s unbecoming.”
“I’m eighteen, Savvy. I am young. Is that beginning to wear on you? Is that why you kissed that man?”
“Sebastian, you can hardly call a kiss on the cheek anything lewd. You’re Italian for god’s sake. You kiss everyone on the cheek in greeting or parting.”
“ Si , so I know I do not kiss my mama like that.”
I’d only seen Savannah roll her eyes once before, but she did it then in a manner that wasn’t at all playful. Snapping her compact closed, she stuffed it just a little too aggressively in her purse.
“You can’t just flip a switch on this thing between us when it’s convenient for you,” I said, my voice low and rough, dredged up from deep in my gut. “I’m not just your driver. I’m not just your… toy.”
“Sebastian,” she said again, this time on a sigh that softened her rigid posture and had her looking small against the black leather seats in all her neutral-toned finery. “I do not think of you as my toy.”
“Oh? Then tell me, I have been inside you nearly every day since I moved into your house. I’ve wiped your smudged makeup from your tired eyes after a vigorous fuck. I’ve eaten the sound of my name out of your beautiful mouth and stroked your hair until you’ve fallen asleep in my arms. How do you think of me? Because this stopped being a simple agreement almost the moment it began.”
“It’s more than sex if that’s what you’re implying,” she said stiffly, her entire posture defensive.
“Of course, it’s more than sex,” I said too loudly, my gloved fingers squeaking on the steering wheel with the force of my grip. “But you won’t give me anything about your past or how you truly feel about me. You’ll only give me honesty in the dark of your bedroom.”
Silence descended in the car, the quality of it static and uncomfortable against the skin. I could tell by her expression she was irritated and confused, and I wondered if anyone other than Adam had dared to speak to her so bluntly.
A small corner of my heart ached at the thought that I had pushed too far, but I refused to give in to the fear. She may have been older and in a position more powerful than my own, but that didn’t mean she inherently knew better than me.
When it came to matters of the heart, I was beginning to believe—despite my lack of experience and their years of it—I might actually know better than Savannah and Adam Meyers.
“His name is Tate Richardson,” she said after an interminable period of time. “He’s one of the biggest producers in Hollywood. It was just a business meeting.”
I swallowed thickly past the mass of questions lodged in my throat. Jealousy urged me to pry. Who is he to you? Why are you so close? What does he mean for you and Adam? For you and me?
I wasn’t blind.
It was obvious Savannah and Adam had problems in their marriage and had for longer than I’d been around to witness them. It wasn’t that they quarreled, necessarily, but from the beginning, I’d sensed a distance between them. It wasn’t natural, more than a dedicated barrier they’d erected from either side. As if they were afraid, even after years of marriage, to take the final plunge into intimacy together.
Even so, they seemed lighter now. They laughed together more often and seemed to delight in the time we spent as a threesome.
I thought Adam would say the same thing and felt momentarily shocked by the fury I felt on his behalf.
“Sebastian,” Savvy called softly just as the automatic gates slid open on her Chelsea estate. “Please don’t be cross with me. He’s just an old friend.”
I’d been raised by women and therefore taught to trust my intuition, and something about that encounter had just felt illicit. Savannah’s brief hesitation after had only underscored my suspicion.
But who was I to be the jealous lover? I was just the help.
So I nodded curtly. “ Va bene , if you say so.”
When we pulled through the gates, I opened the car door for her, then briskly made my way around the house to the path that led to the carriage house. She didn’t call after me, but I could feel her gaze like a hand grasping at the hem of my coat.
I just needed the space.
Seeing her like that had brought my insecurities to the surface.
Because I was aware enough to admit that I’d never be fully satisfied with this status quo. Unable to love her, to possess her in every way. The animal in me yearned to own her.
Maybe if she loved me back, it would be different.
Maybe if she told me I wasn’t alone in feeling this way, I could silence the impotence and jealousy that reared its head. I knew it would continue to arise again and again for as long as this arrangement lasted.
Being a third in a marriage wasn’t even the problem. I never felt “other” or extraneous when it was just the three of us together. Sometimes I even wondered if they both enjoyed me more than they enjoyed each other.
But I was a romantic man, and no amount of exposure to British culture could change the fundamentals of who I was.
I wanted an epic love.
The kind of passion that made you call in late to work and go out of your way to surprise and cherish each other. The kind that made you want to crack open your chest and offer up all of your insides on a silver platter.
And porca miseria!
I wanted that with her.
The door slammed against the opposite wall as I pushed into the little cottage I spent very little time in. I looked around the space, searching for something to ground me. Moving across the room, stopping only to flick on the record player so that Frank Sinatra’s voice filled the space, I grabbed my notebook, shucked my jacket and driving gloves, and threw myself into a chair at the little kitchen table thrust up against the wall.
Through the mullioned window, I could see the garden bursting with blooms as spring rolled across London. Everything was green and white with little pops of colour that appeared like little rebels fighting to be seen against the almost austere British garden.
I wondered idly if I’d brought colour to the Meyers’ lives and if it was warmly received or unwelcome. It seemed to me that I made them uncomfortable as much as I brought them joy.
Tapping the pen against my mouth, I let my gaze wander away from the heavy boughs of the blooming hydrangea bushes and tightly cropped box hedgerows to peer at things only I could see in my mind’s eye.
The problem, I thought, was that Savannah was the dream, and I was the dreamer. Could I ever really know her point of view without imposing my desires on her thoughts and actions? Maybe if she would actually communicate with me, but she and Adam both seemed too reluctant to speak about anything involving their histories or feelings.
Ducking my head, I wrote the title of the screenplay that was taking shape in my mind.
The Dream & The Dreamer .
“Sebastian.”
I jerked my head up, heart racing at the shock as I found Savannah lingering in the doorway to the cottage. She seemed hesitant to enter, and I wondered if it was because she didn’t want to invade my space or because it was beneath her to enter the home of the help.
There must have been something cruel in my gaze because she visibly swallowed hard and took a delicate step over the threshold.
“You come in here, you won’t like the Sebastian who greets you,” I warned her, feeling the sneer on my lips, the primal restlessness in my limbs that made me want to stalk and hunt and roar. “I don’t feel like tending to a duchessa at the moment.”
She stared at me, hands held in front of her almost primly even though her chin jutted up slightly at the familiar haughty angle. “Maybe I don’t want to be treated like a duchess right now.”
I scoffed slightly, writing over the title of the new screenplay until the words were indented, the paper nearly torn by the force.
“Maybe I want to be reminded of what it feels like to fuck in the grass like animals,” she said, her voice quiet but unyielding. “Maybe I want to fuck like you hate me because… because I feel safe knowing you never would.”
“Never could,” I corrected, sliding her a dark look with my eyebrows raised. “You want to be honest with each other, finally? You want to address the elephant in the room with the three of us when we play your games?”
She sucked in a sharp breath but hesitated again.
I pushed back sharply from the chair as I stood, sending it screeching across the hardwood. When I stalked forward, she shivered but held her ground. She was so slight, and I towered over her even in those ridiculous heels.
I slammed my hand against the wall beside her head, caging her in beside the open doorway. Her pupils blew wide, eyes dark and yearning for all the aggression barely leashed inside me.
“I’m not in the mood to play your games,” I warned her. “I’m in the mood to fuck you exactly the way I want. Hard and rough. I want to leave marks on all this pretty skin so when you walk out of here tomorrow in your Chanel or Dior, the bitemarks on your neck match your pretty lipstick.” I reached for the hem of her skirt and dragged my short nails up the inside of her thigh until I could cup her cunt in my palm. “I’ll leave you so sore and used, you’ll teeter on those high heels you love to wear. And when people wonder what happened to make you so unusually dishevelled, you’ll know it was me .”
Her mouth dropped open on a little exhaled moan, and I took it as the acceptance it was meant to be.
I sealed my lips over hers and fucking took .
This wasn’t about being a tool of her pleasure or Adam’s extra hands or cock to tease her.
This was about taking the woman I’d lusted after for months and never fucked alone.
About taking the edge off the enormity of emotion that roiled around inside my skin looking for an outlet when she never gave me one.
It was about making her mine .
The kiss was messy, teeth clashing, tongues coiling. She was too short to keep it up for long, so I lifted her with one palm across her pert ass and pinned her against the wall.
The front door was still open, but the idea that we could be caught stoked the fire higher in both of us.
I’d never felt so fucking possessive in my life.
There’d been many girls before Savannah, one-night stands and casual flings, but no one had collided with my life like a meteorite, changing my future landscape forever.
“God, Sebastian,” she breathed, trying to fumble with the buttons of my white shirt and then giving up when they were half-undone to push the fabric over my shoulders, bunching against my biceps so she could suck and bite at my shoulders. “I need you inside me.”
“I’ll fuck you when I’m ready,” I said, almost coldly, the way Adam liked to talk when he started dominating both of us.
That’s what I wanted in my space with la duchessa . I wanted to be the one in control, to unspool every inch of her until she was laid bare.
I shifted my hand to the side of her lace panties, curled them in the placket, and tugged . They snapped across her hips and dropped to the floor at our feet.
“Those are four-hundred-pound panties,” she informed me, but the effect was lost because her cheeks were flushed, and she had to pant around the words.
“And this will be a four-hundred-pound worthy orgasm,” I promised darkly, testing the wet entrance of her pussy before deftly unbuttoning and unzipping my trousers.
A second later, I was at her entrance and thrusting inside her glorious pussy.
“ Cazzo ,” I cursed, nipping at her bottom lip as she dropped her head back against the wall on a gasp. “You were made to take my cock, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” she hissed, legs locked around my hips for leverage to grind back against me. “Made for you.”
“Your pussy and your sweet mouth and your wicked mind,” I listed, punctuating each with a hard thrust. “Every inch of you is perfect.”
She closed her eyes and turned her head away from me, which was unacceptable. I wrapped my hand around her throat, her eyes springing open to land on mine in shock.
“Watch me while I fuck you,” I ordered, squeezing just a little bit, her pulse pounding against my thumb. Her pussy spasmed around me, and I knew she liked being manhandled that way. “You’re mine right now, and if I want to tell you about how beautiful you are and how much I love your tight cunt, you’re going to listen to me.”
When she only stared at me a little dazedly, panting hard, nails carving half-moons into my shoulders, I flexed my hand tighter just for a second and leaned in close to snarl softly, “Isn’t that right, fighetta ?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please, God, Sebastian, I need to come.”
“No, not yet,” I reminded her. “You wait until I tell you to.”
She whimpered, but the sound was fuel to my fire. Inspired, I pulled her off the wall and walked us to the kitchen table, knocking my notebook aside to lay her flat back against the wood. I held her legs at the ankles and drove deeper inside her snug pussy.
She gasped, hands reaching overhead to brace against the window.
“More,” she begged.
I set a punishing pace, hair falling over my sweat-dampened forehead, pulse hammering in my cock, my throat, and my chest. I could see the hummingbird thrum of it in her pale neck as she tossed her head back on a loud moan.
She wore a thin turtleneck that obscured her sweet breasts from view, and I didn’t have the patience to take it off, so…
“Sebastian,” she gasped as I dropped her legs on either side of my hips and used both hands to tear the bottom of the shirt, rending it all the way up to her sternum, then tossing the ruined ends up to reveal those braless tits. Pink-tipped and small, each a handful that was so fucking pretty I wanted to ruin them with bruises and cum.
“Six. Hundred. Pounds,” she panted on each thrust, but it wasn’t a complaint.
The sound of her wet pussy leaking all over my dick was the loudest noise in the room.
“You wanna come for me, don’t you?” I taunted, twisting her nipples the way I knew she loved. “You want to forget everything else in your head but the feel of my cock getting you off and the sound of my name as you scream for more.”
“Sebastian!” she called out, face screwed up in a near grimace as her climax tore through her.
I gathered her shaking legs in one hand and drove harder inside her clutching heat so she spiralled higher and higher. She didn’t realize it, I knew, but she chanted my name like a hymn.
Like she was moved to divine madness by the feelings moving through her.
Feelings I’d given her.
I tossed my sweaty hair out of my face as I chased my own orgasm and noticed movement outside the window.
Adam stood on the stone path to the cottage amid the flowers and greenery in a bespoke suit he’d worn to a business meeting.
He looked like he’d been standing there for a while. Gaze glazed and fixed on his wife being fucked hard by the chauffeur.
“Your husband’s watching you be my good slut,” I told Savvy, trailing my palm from between her breasts to the top of her groin, thumb stroking light and quick over her swollen clit. “He’s staring at us through the window.”
She gave a keening cry, animalistic the way she’d wanted it all along. “My God.”
“No, just me and your husband,” I corrected, grinding into her as deeply as I could, pressing hard on her clit so she made that fucking gorgeous sound again. “Owning you together.”
The next climax took her by surprise, wrenched from her with a guttural scream, hands smashing against the window frame like she wanted to be sure Adam knew I was making her come this way.
I lifted my gaze from the gorgeous woman stretched out before me, clenching on my cock like a wet vise, and found Adam palming the huge outline of his rigid dick.
The sight of the two of them enraptured by me tore through all my remaining restraints, and I came with a bestial shout that I knew Adam would hear through the walls. I poured myself into Savvy’s greedy pussy, letting her milk me for all I was worth as fireworks and pinwheels of color burst behind my squeezed-shut lids. The pleasure was so intense I felt like my body would never unclench, locked forever in this intensity of feeling spurred by the gravitational pull of both my lovers.
Finally, I slumped forward over Savannah, kissing the side of her face before resting my nose in the hollow of her throat to drag in deep breaths of that freesia scent. After a moment’s hesitation, she locked her heels behind my back and twined her arms around my neck, one hand delving into the short hairs on the back of my head.
“You make me feel…” She let out a little sigh. “You make me feel like everything I’ve ever wanted to be.”
“Smart, successful, sexy as hell?”
Her short chuckle was hollow.
“I wish I was the kind of woman who deserved you,” she whispered into my ear.
I frowned, pulling away slightly to question what she could possibly mean by that when someone cleared their throat in the doorway.
We both looked to the left to see Adam leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed and eyebrow cocked. He looked absurdly posh for the little cottage, and for a moment, I thought he wasn’t real, just a mirage I’d conjured from one of his movies.
“Well, that was quite a performance,” he drawled, adjusting the Patek Philippe watch on his wrist as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “If you’re quite done, though, I came home with the intention to take you both out tonight.”
“Oh?” Savannah asked with polite mildness as if we weren’t naked and caught in a cinch on the kitchen table.
One of the house rules was not to fool around seriously when one of the Meyerses wasn’t in attendance, and while technically Adam had arrived to play voyeur at the end, it hadn’t been intentional.
But he didn’t seem angry.
Even though he was being almost absurdly indifferent, I caught a sparkle in those glass green eyes that told me he found the whole tableau amusing.
“Yes, dinner and the theatre. I thought Sebastian should see Cecilia Mycroft on stage before she retires. She’s in that production of The Glass Menagerie in the West End.”
“Oh yes,” Savannah agreed, pushing me gently away to sit up and right her clothes. After a moment, I pushed her hands away and smoothed the ragged hem of her turtleneck down before buttoning up her blazer. “I’ve heard wonderful things even though I can’t say I like the old bat.”
“Savannah,” Adam scolded with a cluck of his tongue. “She’s an icon.”
She sighed. “Yes, well, so is that child star, Jace Galantine, and you won’t see me lining up to see him in his next rom-com.”
“She’s a snob, really,” Adam told me conspiratorially.
I laughed, lifting Savannah off the table and back to her feet, then lingering with my hands on her hips as she found her balance on orgasm-weakened legs.
“Not when I’m fucking her against a wall or a kitchen table,” I quipped because there was still something skittering nervously around my gut like I’d done something shameful.
Adam cocked his head slightly as he studied me and then sighed, stalking forward and stopping only when we were toe-to-toe. He was just slightly taller than me, so I had the pleasure of meeting those long-lashed eyes head-on.
I startled slightly at the feel of his hands on my shoulders, pulling my shirt up my biceps and rebuttoning it without taking his gaze from mine.
“I like to watch you fuck my wife,” he said bluntly. “I like knowing she brings out the beast in you and you in her. That you couldn’t wait a second longer to get inside her even though I wasn’t here to play. You weren’t leaving me out just because I wasn’t physically in the room.” He leaned close to whisper in my ear, his stubble scraping deliciously against mine. “I know I’m always at the back of your mind urging you on. I know you’re getting hard again just thinking about how I plan to punish you both tonight after our outing.”
“Punish?” I breathed, then cleared my throat of the embarrassing breathiness.
“Mmm, I have to punish you both. Of course. But I think a little edging would do you some good. Teach you some restraint. Some patience.” His hand fell between us to grip my damp, half-hard shaft. “I think Savvy and I shall tie you up and have our way with you for a few hours.”
He put my cock away, zipping up my trousers and buttoning the fly before giving me a little pat there like I was a good boy.
“Would you like that, sweetheart?”
“Very much,” Savvy agreed with a coquettish grin. “But first, our date night.”
Date night .
It occurred to my slightly dazed brain that Adam had arranged a date night not just for his wife but also for me. In fact, because he wanted to show me something he knew I’d love.
My heart swooped just a little looking at my lovers standing side by side.
“Is it safe?” I found myself asking even though I didn’t want to ruin the mood.
Adam only grinned and clapped me on the shoulder. “Friends have been known to go for the occasional meal. Anyway, Andrea is meeting us for the play, too. Apparently, he thinks Cecelia would be good for Maria in Blood Oath .”
I tried not to feel disappointed that Andrea would be there when we’d become such good friends.
“I thought you wanted to be careful,” I said because I couldn’t just let myself have this apparently.
I guess it was because I always waited for the other shoe to drop. I was living a fantasy, and there were always expiration dates for fantasies.
“We’re celebrating,” Adam informed me with a shared smile with his wife before picking up a little black gift bag I hadn’t noticed by the entryway.
Savannah plucked it from his fingers before he could hand it to me. “I want to hand it to him.”
Adam rolled his eyes dramatically at me but let his wife have her way. As soon as she handed it off, he pulled her into his front and wrapped his arms around her to watch me.
“What are we celebrating?” I asked, a little bemused as I pushed the tissue paper aside and unearthed a red leather box.
“We have officially secured 15 million quid from Tore Deo Ltd,” Adam announced with a massive movie star grin. “Congratulations, Sebastian Lombardi, your first film is officially on the road to production.”
“ Madonna Santa ,” I breathed, forgetting the box in my hand as I lunged forward to wrap both Meyerses in a bear hug. “I cannot believe this is happening.”
“Believe it,” Adam said with a laugh, pounding a hand on my back like we were two mates and then shifting his grip to squeeze my neck so I’d pull back enough to look him in the eye. “This is the first of many accomplishments in your life.”
I scoffed, but Savannah reached up to grab my chin and tilt it down so she could glare at me properly.
“Do not be dismissive of your talent, Sebastian. I wouldn’t have been attracted to you otherwise,” she sniffed.
Laughter ripped through me so forcefully I tipped my head to the ceiling and unleashed it like a howl at the moon.
When I was finished, tears in my eyes, they were both smiling these small, tender smiles I wanted to cast in bronze and keep forever.
“Open your present now,” Savvy ordered, pulling at my hand still holding the box so it was between us.
I moved back just enough to have room to open it, Adam’s hand on my shoulder, Savvy’s arm around my waist. My breath caught as I pushed the lid up to reveal a Patek Philippe watch glittering in a bed of cream satin.
It was rose gold with a thin frame of rectangular diamonds around the face and a black face strewn with stars like a snapshot of the galaxy.
“For the man who wants to move the sun and the stars,” Savannah explained.
My gaze jerked up to look at her, but her smile was merely proud and a little smug. When my gaze averted to Adam in question, he shuttered his lids and looked away.
Because he’d told Savannah about our conversation in the gardens of Pinewood Studio. About what I wanted from life.
But he hadn’t told her the whole truth.
I didn’t want to move the sun and the stars like some great influencing mover and shaker of Hollywood stars the way Savannah did, or to be the brightest planet in their orbit like Adam.
I wanted a love so powerful it moved the sun and stars.
Changed the course of my life forever.
Became my new gravity.
Savvy didn’t get that because I wasn’t sure she knew a love like that could exist, and I hadn’t told her that was what I wanted.
I’d told Adam.
And he had bastardized it and then added insult to injury by giving me a watch that symbolized something I knew he would never give me.
Based on the conflicted look in his eyes, he knew it too.
“For the man who wants to rewrite the rules of the universe,” Adam amended softly, half apology, half entreaty.
I swallowed the hurt that sprang metallic as blood on the back of my tongue and stared at the most expensive gift I’d ever received in my life, rubbing my thumb along the diamonds.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured.
Savannah obviously mistook my melancholy for overwhelming gratitude and slid her other arm around me in an affectionate embrace.
But Adam just stared at me as I hugged her back, his eyes dark and troubled. When my face came close to his as I curled around Savannah, he ran a thumb over the edge of my jaw and pressed it to the center of my lips.
“I hope you succeed,” he whispered.