Chapter 33
Olivia
Holding Out For A Hero - Elise Lieberth
Seeing the shock on Sebastian’s face tonight when Teddy shouted about the surprise party had been the highlight of my night. That rare smile, the way his eyes lit up, it did something to me.
That feeling doesn’t last long.
Now, the balcony light spills, soft and golden, through the cracked window as I hover in the hallway. I hadn’t meant to overhear. Not really. I’d gone in to grab my bag, and that’s when I heard their voices carrying from upstairs, drifting down through the open stairwell.
Sebastian’s first. Then my brother’s. Everything else faded. The laughter near the fence, the clinking of bottles, the scraping of chairs, Sandra muttering as she roped Xavier into helping clean up. All of it blurred into silence, with Bradley’s voice cutting through it all.
“You’d tell me, right? If something was going on?”
In an instant, my breathing had stopped. Because my name hadn’t been mentioned, but it didn’t need to be. I knew exactly what, or whom, they were talking about.
Temporary.
That word carves itself deep into my chest. I’d just managed to dodge Bradley as he slipped away.
I should’ve kept walking. Should’ve grabbed my bag and left.
But before my brain can catch up, my feet are already moving.
The door creaks just enough beneath my fingers to make him turn.
Sebastian’s head snaps toward me, eyes widening for a split second before they narrow.
Cautious. Calculating. I see it… the moment of realisation as he looks past me toward the cracked door. He’s always been good at reading a room. But lately, I’ve gotten better at reading him, too. His brows draw tight. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough.” I pause, letting it settle before asking, “When were you going to tell me?”
I lean against the doorframe. The silence that stretches between us is taut and humming, like a live wire. Sebastian takes a careful step closer, hands flexing at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them. With me. With this.
“I think we should have this conversation back at home.”
My brows pinch. “Why?”
His eyes flick to the hallway behind me. “Because this isn’t something I want to talk about in the middle of a party,” he says quietly. “I don’t want it hanging over everything you worked so hard to put together.”
I lift a hand, stopping him before he can keep going. “It’s your night, Sebastian. Not mine.”
He drags a hand across the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean for you to hear… all that.”
“But I did.”
He swears under his breath and steps closer again, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him wash over me. My pulse kicks. My ribs tighten. “Liv… I wasn’t lying,” he says softly, “about it being temporary.”
The words sting, but I refuse to let them show on my face. “I figured,” I murmur. “I’m not here to beg for something you can’t give.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?”
Sebastian hesitates, and that hurts almost more than the answer itself.
His head drops for a beat, and whe looks at me again, it’s as if something inside him finally snaps.
He’s standing close enough that I can see the muscle of his jaw clench, the twitch of restraint in his fingers.
But he doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t close the space.
Doesn’t allow himself. And I don’t know whether to be furious or heartbroken.
His voice is wrecked, so low it barely reaches me. “Wanting you wasn’t supposed to happen.”
My lungs collapse.
“But it did. And I can’t switch it off.”
The confession detonates something in my chest. Everything I’ve been trying to hold together tonight splinters. “Then don’t,” I say softly. “Don’t fight it. Don’t pretend this hasn’t been real.”
His flinch is immediate, eyes closing like it physically hurts to hear. “It’s not that simple.”
I step forward, just an inch. “Then make it simple, Sebastian.”
I can already feel the hesitation coming, the weight behind it. “I… can’t.”
That—those two stupid words—stings sharper than I expect. I let out a breathless laugh, though it holds no humour. “Why?” My voice breaks with exhaustion. “Why can’t you? Is it because of Teddy? Because of me? What the hell are we even doing, Sebastian?”
He stares at the floor. Silence stretches so long, I can hear my pulse in my ears.
“You know why.”
“No, I really don’t.” My arms cross tight over my chest, hands digging into my flesh to keep them from shaking.
“We’ve had sex, Sebastian. More times than I can count.
” I huff out a breath, biting down on the crack in my voice.
“We’ve had breakfast. Dinner. I’ve spent more time at your place than I’ve spent with my own family.
I know how you take your coffee. I’ve heard you laugh in your sleep.
And I’ve watched Teddy countless times while you worked those late night shifts. ”
His head lifts. Eyes find mine. And this time, they don’t hide. “I’m not pretending it meant nothing,” he says quietly.
“Then what are you doing?” My voice is soft but tight. “Because it sure as hell feels like you’re trying to rewrite what this has been.”
He exhales slowly. “I can’t give you what you want, Olivia.”
My jaw tightens. “You don’t know what I want.”
“Yes, I do.” His voice rises, fraying at the edges. “You want more. Fuck, you deserve more, but I don’t know how to give it. I don’t know how to just give myself over to someone anymore.”
My heart lurches. You already have, I want to say. Why can’t you see that? But I swallow the ache pushing up my throat and nod slowly, because it’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart. “Right,” I whisper. “If that’s how you feel, then… I appreciate the honesty.”
He steps forward, just slightly. “Olivia—”
“No.” I cut him off again, firmer this time.
“You don’t owe me more than that.” I pause, my jaw clenched, then let out a shaky breath.
“I mean, you do. But I’ve heard enough. Loud and clear.
” I keep my arms folded tight across my chest like it’ll hold everything in place.
“I just needed to hear it to my face. Not through a fucking door.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word. His lips part like there’s more coming, but nothing leaves his mouth. Just silence. Thick and suffocating. “I’ll still pay you for the next couple of weeks,” he says eventually, the words brittle, barely hanging together. “Just so you’re covered.”
A small, disbelieving breath escapes my throat. “Sebastian. Don’t bother.”
His brow tightens, confusion bleeding into concern. “Olivia—”
That’s the third time now. It’s not sweetheart. Not Trouble. Just my name. Cold and clinical.
“It was never about the money,” I manage, and my voice finally breaks.
Just a fraction, but enough. Something flickers across his face—regret, maybe, or something closer to guilt.
That familiar haunted look, like he’s trying to fix a problem he created with hands that only know how to destroy.
He shifts like he’s going to reach for me, but I take a step back before he can.
Because if he touches me now, even the smallest brush of his hand, I’ll fall.
I’ll crumble right in front of him. And I can’t let that happen. Not tonight. Not like this.
“I should go,” I say, softer this time. More to myself than to him. “It’s been a long night.”
He breathes out hard, like he’s wrestling with the same instinct—to say something, to do something, to close the space between us and make it all disappear. But there’s nothing left to say that won’t hurt. Nothing that’ll soften the truth.
“I meant what I said earlier,” I whisper, my voice cracking again as I look up at him.
“About you.” His chest rises and falls heavily.
“You don’t see it, but you’ve been surviving for so long, you don’t even know how to live anymore.
And maybe that’s why this”—I gesture between us, at the ruins of what we could’ve been—“was never going to last.”
And that’s the part that really breaks me. Not just that I believed in him, but that I said it out loud. I let the words pass through my lips, let them take shape and grow. I told my mum about him. Not just in passing. I confided in people. And now it was all for nothing.
That’s what guts me.
Because my family doesn’t hear much about the people I let in. Not unless it’s real. Not unless I’m already halfway gone. I told my mother, and she smiled like she knew I was falling, and now I get to explain why he wasn’t what I thought. How I got it wrong. Again.
There’s a slow, rising burn under my skin, something ugly and furious that coils in my stomach and claws its way up my spine.
But I keep my expression even. Because I won’t cry in front of him.
I won’t give him that piece, too. Still, I can’t ignore the ghosts of all the nights I stayed too late.
The ones where I tucked Teddy into bed and stayed curled up on the couch with Sebastian, talking about everything and nothing until he pulled me into him like he couldn’t sleep without me there.
I can still feel the shape of him, the heat of his breath on my neck.
All of it… for what? Just something temporary.
Deep, deep down, I knew that though. I’m not na?ve.
I’m not some starry-eyed girl who thought love would fix everything.
But God, I still let myself hope. In the smallest, stupidest way, I believed maybe the way he looked at me wasn’t just lust. That maybe the way he touched me, the way he held me when he thought I was asleep, meant something. Maybe he was falling too.
But maybe doesn’t mean a thing when someone still chooses fear over you.
Sebastian looks at me now, and for a second, the mask slips. I see the man beneath it. The one I’ve been holding on to.
“Happy birthday, Bash.”
Then, because I’m too soft, because part of me still stupidly cares, I lean in and press a quick kiss to his cheek. His skin is warm under my lips. Rough. Familiar.
When I pull back, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe, it seems. His eyes close for half a second, his jaw tightening like he’s bracing for something that’s already hit.
My gut is telling me he doesn’t want this—not truly, no—but that he’s drowning in his own head, stuck between want and fear, between what he feels and what he’s convinced he’s only allowed to have.
That assumption doesn’t make this easier. It just makes it sadder.
Because loving someone doesn’t mean waiting around for them to learn how to love you back.
It doesn’t mean shrinking yourself to make room for their damage.
It doesn’t mean suffering quietly while they figure out whether they’re brave enough to choose you.
So, before he can say anything else, before he can step closer or whisper another apology I won’t survive hearing, I turn away.
Because if he can’t choose this? Us? Then I have to choose myself.