Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
Rare for me to say this, but now’s not a time for a joke. At all.
Bash
He was reeling, forcing down the bile that burned his esophagus. In his arms, Arabella leaned against him limply. As if the purge of her story had rendered her boneless.
“Arabella? Angel,” he whispered, “let’s sit—I can feel your legs trembling. Please. I’ll get you some water.”
It was minutes or hours before she finally nodded, tilting her head up to look at him. Instinctively, he touched his lips to hers. He could taste the salt from her tears. Or was it from his?
Bash smiled softly at her and guided her to the couch’s soft embrace, knowing she would bristle at pity. “Be right back, my queen.”
If she replied, he didn’t hear it over the loud roar of emotions in his ears.
In the kitchen, he filled a glass with ice water, his hand shaking under the refrigerator’s dispenser, the other hand gripped in a fist. He downed the glass himself—his mouth as parched as his heart was shredded—and then filled a second glass for Arabella.
When he returned to the living room, she was sitting criss-cross on the couch, Chicane tucked between her legs. Wordlessly, she took the proffered glass and drained it, likely both physically and emotionally dehydrated.
Bash sat by her side, reluctantly leaving just a hint of space. He suspected she still needed it, but he longed to pull her into his lap. Wrap his body around her and be her shield in every way.
Her liege man of life and limb.
What he’d promised her teasingly in Miami—echoing the Duke of Edinburgh’s pledge to the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth the Second—held powerful truth.
“Sebastian, there’s—” she croaked out, then cleared her throat. “There’s a part two of this story. One I’m not sure I can share right now.”
“Then don’t, my queen.”
He reached over to pet Chicane, intentionally passing his hand over hers, needing to touch her in some small way. When she didn’t flinch, he counted it a small victory in the emotional warfare of past trauma. He could see the agony in her eyes, the emotional exhaustion bowing her body.
“How about an intermission?” he offered. “A change of subject until you are ready, whenever that is. I could tell you a bit about my life. If, uh, if you wanted,” he added, not at all surprised by the onset of uncharacteristic nerves she managed to bring out in him.
Because he only got nervous when something truly mattered.
Or, in this case, someone.