Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Back in my room, we talked for another hour. I asked him to tell me more about himself and Cole. They were both highly successful, which made me feel more like a failure compared to them. Sebastian ran a lucrative company in the financial field, or something like that. Cole was in IT.
While we talked, I struggled to grasp something he said as something I could connect with, but there wasn’t anything. This felt like another family where I would feel like an outsider.
“What’s Cole like?” I asked.
“A stubborn workaholic,” he said affectionately.
I smiled.
There was a knock at the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone but thought it might be housekeeping.
“I’ll just be a moment,” I said when I went to answer it and was not at all prepared to open it to an angry Mark.
I tried to shut the door but he pushed it open. I was no match for his strength.
“Where is the guy?” he asked, his voice raised. I put a hand to his chest to keep him back.
“What are you doing here?” I managed to get out .
“Do you know this guy?” Sebastian asked from behind me.
“Who the fuck are you?” Mark exploded in a way I had never seen before. I had to put myself between him and Sebastian, putting both my hands on him to hold him off.
“You want me to handle this?” Sebastian offered a little more diplomatically than Mark, but I shook my head. I didn’t want this to escalate into a physical fight.
“Here we’re all frantic with worry and you’re meeting up with a strange man in a hotel.” Mark glared at Sebastian over my shoulder.
“Stop, Mark, it’s not what it looks like,” I said, very aware of what it would look like without all the details.
“Really? Then explain it to me.” His chest rose and fell with each heavy breath.
I looked back at Sebastian over my shoulder.
“Can we reschedule this?” I asked Sebastian. “I have to handle this.”
He nodded. “Call me if you need anything.” His eyes moved to Mark, who pushed against my hold.
“She won’t need anything from you,” Mark retorted, flexing his shoulders.
“Stop it.”
Sebastian retrieved his jacket and walked past Mark without giving him a second look. He gave me one last look before he left.
It was only when the door closed that I let my hands drop from Mark’s chest.
“I should have known you wouldn’t be able to keep out of it,” I said with a sigh, angry that he kept doing this to me.
“I give a shit. That’s why.”
I was his best friend’s sister, nothing more.
“You’re acting like some jealous jackass,” I shot back with a glare, going to sit down at the small desk .
When he didn’t immediately reply, I studied him. “You’re jealous?”
“What if I am?” He gave me a direct look that made my heart skip a beat.
That took me completely by surprise. “I don’t know.” I had too much going on to decipher how I felt about that. “Maybe if you fuck someone else it will wear off.” I brushed it off, unable to deal with the emotion of him in the turmoil I was already struggling to manage.
He frowned. “You don’t get it, do you?” He moved closer to sit across from me. “I don’t want to see you with other guys.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.
With a frustrated sigh, he leaned closer. “I don’t want anyone else.” He looked uncomfortable while he spoke the words, like it was something he wasn’t used to doing.
A warmth spread in my chest. “But you said—”
“I know what I said, but that was… before.”
Wow. I hadn’t seen this coming. I didn’t know what to say. For a moment, I was speechless.
“Are you going to tell me who the guy is?” he asked, his jaw tense. And with that, he ruined the moment we were having.
Mentioning Sebastian was enough for my defenses to come up. I didn’t want to play with his emotions but I needed to make a point.
“I’ll tell you everything if you tell me why you don’t have any photos of your family.” I arched an eyebrow at him, knowing he wouldn’t.
“That’s not the same.”
“Really? From where I’m sitting, it looks exactly the same.”
He shook his head, moving away from me to put some distance between us. “It isn’t.”
“Then tell me how it’s different.” There seemed to be one rule for him and another for me.
“I don’t need help. You clearly need someone to help you. ”
The barb hurt. He was reminding me how everyone viewed me. The incapable one who needed someone to watch out for her. Was that what made Mark look at me differently? Was there a part of me that made him want to protect me because he felt I wasn’t capable of doing it on my own?
“I didn’t ask for help. I’m trying to sort this whole thing out on my own, but I can’t because every time I try, you are there to burst in to try and save the day.”
“So, what? You want me to let you do this on your own?”'
“‘Let’ implies you have a choice about this, and you don’t.” I was frank with him.
He frowned. “We slept together.”
“So?” I shrugged. “That still doesn’t give you the right to dictate to me.”
“You’re being difficult, Tracy. Let me help you.”
There was a stubborn part of me that was going to fight tooth and nail to be able to show everyone, including him, that I could sort this out on my own.
“I told you, if you tell me your secrets I’ll tell you mine.” He looked irritated but I continued. “This is about trust. You want me to trust you but you’re not willing to trust me.”
“Stop playing games.” He rose, looking more agitated that I wasn’t going along with what he wanted.
“I’m not playing. This is my life and I need to make the right choice for myself.” I was being selfish on a level.
“Does this have anything to do with Jack?” he asked, grasping at straws. “Matthew went to see him but he said the last time he spoke to you was when you went around to his place to collect your equipment.”
I sighed. “This has nothing to do with him.” I checked my watch and it was getting late already.
“Look, I’m tired and I can do without this whole back and forth arguing that is likely to go on for a while yet.” I rubbed my temple, needing a hot bath and a good night’s sleep .
“I’m not leaving.” He folded his arms.
“If I agree to put a time limit on this, will that get you out of here?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, sounding intrigued by my proposition.
“Give me forty-eight hours and then I’ll tell you everything.”
He weighed it up with a thoughtful look. “No extensions.”
“No extension. Two days. That’s all I need.”
“You promise you won’t do anything stupid?”
“Like what?”
“Meeting strange men in hotel rooms or anywhere else.” He gave me a possessive look that did weird things to my stomach.
I nodded, knowing his mind was probably still going wild with thoughts of what I had been doing with Sebastian in my hotel room.
“And then you and I are going to have a talk.”
“About what?” I asked, finding myself looking at his lips. I forced my eyes higher to capture his gaze.
“About us.” The way he said it made a shiver race up my spine.
“Fine,” I agreed, not wanting to exert any strength I had into that yet.
First I had to sort this out and then, when it was over, I would deal with him. I didn’t want to think about everything that had been said. I didn’t have the emotional clarity to even consider what it meant.
“I need you to keep Sophie and Matthew away as well.”
“That may be tricky.”
“I need time without any of you breathing down my neck.”
He nodded. “For forty-eight hours and that’s it.”
“Yes.” I felt an anticipation mixed with nerves. Two days would be enough to do what I needed to and deal with whatever I had to .
I was reaching a point that I just needed this to be over with, no matter how it ended.
I was running out of time. I was aware of the time ticking by and the promise I had made to Mark.
After a good night’s sleep and a decent breakfast, I called Sebastian and asked him to set up a meeting with his family as soon as possible.
It was short notice but I couldn’t waste any of the time I had negotiated with Mark.
But when I found myself in front of a massive house surrounded by perfectly maintained gardens, I lost my nerve. This was worlds away from my quiet upbringing. I had never wanted for anything but this was something else.
The front door was only a few feet away but I couldn’t move. It had taken me thirty minutes longer to find the place as I had gotten lost a few times, but the fact that I was late didn’t budge me closer to the door. They were waiting for me.
I gripped my purse tighter, trying to build up the courage to put one foot in front of the other. Just get to the door and knock. That’s all you have to do.
I remembered how my first meeting with Sebastian had gone. I had been nervous in the beginning but it had gone much better than I had expected.
For a fraction of a second, I considered turning around, getting back in my car and leaving.
But I squashed the thought before it could take hold.
To get back to some sort of normality, I had to deal with this.
My life had been a bit of a mess since finding out, and if I didn’t do this now it would really start to impact on my business and my ability to earn money, which in turn would impact my independence.
I also had to show Mark and my family that I could handle things, even when they were difficult. I still hadn’t thought about how I was going to deal with my parents when I confronted them.
I shut my eyes briefly. One step at a time, I told myself. First I had to do this before I could take the next step. An image of Mark flashed in my mind. I couldn’t think about all the stuff he had said the day before. He would want answers and there was no more putting it off.
That pushed me into action and I walked over to the front door. I knocked and waited, shifting from one foot to the other. I had agonized over my outfit for a couple of hours. Having changed well over ten times, I had settled on a plain black skirt and white blouse.
The door opened and Sebastian greeted me. “You made it.”
“I’m sorry. The traffic was horrendous and I got a little lost.” I felt like I was babbling.