Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Take the things that hurt and turn ‘em into smarts. And that pain?
Make it your strength.
—From Remy’s Badass Bitch Affirmations
Remy
What the hell had possessed her to say that?
Remy experienced a stunningly raw moment, desperate to snatch the words from where they hung in the air and shove them back where they belonged.
Buried.
Hopefully Sebastian would let it go. See her mortification—her horror at the uncharacteristic blurt—and let it pass.
Remy lifted her gaze from where it was fastened on her lap, darting a look at his face. She caught a brief glimpse of sensitive, dark brown eyes filling with tears, and then he was moving next to her, drawing her into an embrace that should’ve been unwelcome. But perplexingly…wasn’t.
Remy allowed herself to be folded into something that, out of context, looked like a basic hug. But inside, emotions and thoughts exploded like fireworks, leaving her struggling to breathe and think straight.
At first, she just leaned against him, rigid, unmalleable within the discomfitingly soothing succor of his arms. The steady drum of his heartbeat susurrated under her ear. Remy closed her eyes and tried to settle her mind and her heart to that gentle, consistent rhythm.
How could something so inherently emotionally uncomfortable be so…comfortable?
It was her first clear thought. Her next was that never, ever had she been held like this. Not by a man. And especially by someone who barely knew her and certainly not the travesty that had been her life decades ago.
Despite everything that screamed at her to push him away—to walk, hell, run away—something deep inside of her that had long been neglected fought to the surface, battling against every defense she’d painstakingly built.
And won.
Won this shocking, dismaying, astonishing bubble of grace. To be consoled. Soothed. Solaced.
Cherished.
On a shudder and a swallowed sob, against everything shouting at her not to ever, ever let her guard down, Remy slowly relaxed her rigid muscles and simply…
Was.