Chapter 13
“Hey, you made it!” Charlotte squealed in delight as she found Sebastian and Leona at the entrance, taking it all in. She took Leona’s hands in hers and grinned. “Well? What do you think?!”
“It’s breathtaking,” Leona said honestly, looking at her. “Thank you so much.”
“You really outdid yourself, Charlie,” Sebastian agreed. He needn’t voice his thanks, he knew she already knew how grateful he was.
Everything was going off without a hitch. People were bustling around, enjoying living in another time period. He hoped it didn’t dredge up any bad memories for Leona and make her sad. That’s the last thing he wanted.
“Would you care to dance?” Sebastian asked, holding his hand out to Leona. “I have already told Charlotte not to make a big announcement in your honor.”
“He made me promise,” the blonde huffed.
Leona smiled and took his hand. “Thank you. I would love to dance.”
They walked out to the middle of the ballroom and fell into step together. Leona gently placed a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder as her other one gripped his tightly. His hand settled on her waist and the other kept her hand company. They stepped in time together, flowing perfectly with those waltzing around them.
“I want to know more about you,” Sebastian said as he looked down at her.
“What do you want to know? You know I’m an open book for you, Seb.”
His head quirked a bit and the corners of his mouth upturned slightly. “Seb?”
“Oh no. Is that one of your off-limits nicknames?”
“No,” he laughed. “Nobody has ever called me that. Charlie calls me Sebby and Victor goes for Bas sometimes. Never Seb.”
“Can I call you Seb?”
“Sure. That’ll be off-limits for you.”
“I’ll take it.”
She smiled widely at him, her lipstick still perfectly in place. “Why does Charlotte call you Sebby?”
“God knows,” he said, shaking his head. “Vic and I met her in college in New York a decade ago. She kept calling me ‘adorable,’ and it always pissed me off. So she coupled that with ‘Sebby’ and it just stuck. I don’t mind it so much now. But she’s the only one I’ll allow to get away with it.”
“You do look like a Sebby.”
Sebastian glared at her, but the expression melted with her giggles. He pulled her closer to him and they spun around once. “You changed the subject. Tell me more about you. I know I ask questions about your present, but what about your past? What was your family like?”
“For the record, you changed the subject,” Leona teased, earning her an unamused look. “My family was fairly normal. I had a sister called Petrie. My father was Robert and my mother was Daisy. We weren’t peasants, but we weren’t any sort of royalty. We got by just fine, had a small-sized estate. We did have this large garden in the back where I spent much of my time as a girl. The flowers were just beautiful. My mother really lived up to her namesake,” she said fondly. “We never wanted for anything, but we also never asked for things outside our reach. I took it for granted. I always wanted something outside of my mundane life. I wanted to travel, I wanted to marry a rich lord, and ride horses all over the world. I wanted adventure.”
She sighed sadly to herself, thinking about it. “But of course, when I met Gideon, everything changed. He was my sense of adventure. I was a fool.”
“You didn’t know,” he said reassuringly.
“Still,” she shrugged. “I miss them dearly. When Gideon changed me, he planted some story that I had a riding accident and was too mangled to be seen. My parents and sister mourned me deeply. It was horrific to watch from a distance. He forbade me from seeing them after I turned. He said it went against our laws. I later found out that no such laws existed — outside of his personal reign. I watched them for years after that. I was there when my father died, my mother, and eventually, my sister. Gideon disappeared from their life soon after I ‘died.’ I always wonder what they thought. If they truly believed that I was dead or if they were suspicious… But I’ll never know.”
Sebastian regarded her thoughtfully. It broke his heart. He couldn’t imagine sitting on the sidelines, waiting for his loved ones to die. Not getting to say goodbye. He didn’t have the same poetic relationship with his blood family, but he would absolutely feel the same way about losing Charlotte and Victor.
“What about your family?” Leona asked, sliding her hand from his shoulder to the back of his neck. Her fingers toyed with the curls she found.
“Charlotte and Victor are all I have. My parents are long dead,” he admitted. “My father was an abusive alcoholic the world is better off without. My mother was a frail, scared woman who was too weak to protect her son and stand up to her own husband. They got married out of principle. I wasn’t planned, so he wanted to make an honest woman out of her. I wish he hadn’t,” he sighed. “I didn’t spend much time at home from the time I was a teenager to when I went to college. Victor’s family practically adopted me. He taught me manners, how to conduct yourself in public, and that even if you didn’t have money, you could still trick people into thinking you had money. So I sat up straight, I came out of my shell and learned how to negotiate a deal, I learned how to schmooze politicians. All of it.”
“But… you work with art,” Leona said.
“I do,” he said. “But it wasn’t always that way. I wanted to be like Victor. I wanted to be successful. I didn’t want to act like I had money, I wanted to have money. I wanted to have everything I’d ever wanted. When I was younger, I thought money was the key to everything: a happy life, success, love. I found out it wasn’t. I pursued my passions, and Victor and Charlotte both encouraged that. He has never tried to make me into something I’m not. I cannot say the same for the other people that have flitted in and out of my life.”
Leona carefully played with the locks between her slim fingers. “How did your parents die?”
Sebastian sighed. He hadn’t ever told this story before. The only two people who really knew everything experienced it happening. He wasn’t sure where to begin.
“It happened after I got home from college. My dad came home too drunk, stumbling in in the middle of the night. The only reason I was even at the house was because Victor and Charlotte were celebrating graduation with his parents and I didn’t want to intrude. My mother requested me home so she could do something similar for me, though we just shared in a cheap bottle of wine and talked. It was always easier when it was just us at home. She was more relaxed. I tried to protect her, but after a while… it just became impossible. A growing boy should not have to worry about fending off a grown man from beating him and his mother to a pulp,” he muttered. “But… he came home and they got into a fight. I was about to leave when things just… shifted. It was worse than it had ever been before. He was accusing her of all sorts: cheating, stealing his money, abuse. I didn’t believe a word of what I heard… but even if it had been true, nobody deserved that betrayal more. Things escalated and escalated until I heard this loud pop. Then two more. I ran into the room and saw my mother on the floor in a pool of her own blood. Shot dead. The bullets killed her instantly. My dad turned the gun on me and I tackled him to the ground. I just… saw red,” he said, his eyes distant. As if he were back in that moment again. “I got the gun from him after it went off a few times. I still don’t know how it didn’t get me. All I remember is pulling the trigger as many times as I could toward him and… that was it,” he said. “Both of them… gone in an instant.”
Leona stared at him, completely horrified. How could a man so sweet and gentle have such a turbulent youth? How had he come out so… normal?
“The police came and arrested me. I have a record so it was expected. I called Victor in a panic when I got booked into the jail, and he bailed me out. He paid off the courts and the district attorney and made everything go away. The justice system is so corrupt in the parish that I’m not sure if a jury could have been convinced of self-defense.”
“How could you possibly get off on a murder charge? It was self-defense, but…”
“The unknown power of a family in all the high places,” Sebastian teased, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Victor has never gone into much detail about how he pulled it off. But I know that money talks, and the Labasques have more money than I can even comprehend. I had to do some community service, but that’s a far cry from life in prison. From the small parts Vic’s told me, his dad went and sweet-talked the DA. They’re pretty good friends, given his father is also a politician, but… I shudder to think about how many zeros were on the check he had to have written.”
“Wow,” Leona said. “Well… I’m glad you’re not in prison.”
Sebastian chuckled softly. “That makes two of us. After all of that got brushed under the rug, I officially moved into the Labasque Manor and tried to regain my footing. They helped me build my art business and soon I got enough money to move out. They offered to buy me a home, furnish it, everything, but I wanted to do it off my own back. I owe them everything I have,” he said. “You can understand why I am not giving up their mortality so easily.”
Leona frowned and moved both her hands to cradle his cheeks. “Thank you for telling me, Sebastian. I know that couldn’t have been easy to relive. I feel much closer to you now,” she murmured. “You are a wonderful man. Though we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, I feel like I’ve known you my whole life. There’s nothing you could say that could scare me away.”
Sebastian leaned into her touch, his entire body melting. She was like a warm blanket on a snowy day. Everything around him ceased to exist when he looked into those gorgeous, bright eyes. He gently moved his hand to hold the back of her head, the other one sliding around her waist to pull her closer. Dipping his head down, he leaned closer to her, Leona’s eyes fluttering closed as she gave into his touch. The distance between them almost closed?—
“Well, well, what is going on here?”
Sebastian didn’t recognize the voice, but when Leona immediately tensed, as if fear had completely paralyzed her, he knew who this was.
Gideon.