Chapter 9
Penelope Miles
Painful warmth seeps into me as Sebastian’s delicious woodsy scent fills my nostrils, and I cling to him despite my resolve to push him away.
The horrors are too close. Even with his hard thighs under my ass and his massive arms wrapped around me, I shake from the nightmares replaying in my memories.
“What’s wrong, sweet pea?”
The concern in his voice—along with the agonizing reminders of what happened when he turned his back on me—implodes my fear and transfers the energy into a catastrophic explosion of anger.
I push out of his arms, stumbling on my wobbly legs, but pull his coat tighter around me as I shrug away from his attempt to help me regain my balance.
“Don’t call me that, especially not in that tone. I’m not your sweet pea, and I don’t need your condescension,” I snap.
His thick eyebrows shoot up into his hairline before settling into a frustrated scowl.
“I’m not being condescending—”
“Do you really think so little of me?” I interrupt.
“What? I never said—”
“You didn’t have to.” His expression darkens, but rage fuels my courage and my tongue refuses to stop. “It’s fine. Keep believing the lies. You’re just going to abandon me again anyway.”
“Penelope,” he warns.
“I didn’t lock myself in!” The admission explodes from my chest. I can’t control my mouth any more than I can stop the way my body wakes every time he’s near.
“Not today and not fifteen years ago. No matter what my brother said about me, I am not a useless klutz. I know how to work doors, for flipping sake.”
My chest hurts from breathing so hard. Sebastian reaches out, grabs the empty sleeves of his suit coat, and tugs me closer.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
I roll my eyes and lean away from him, but he pulls me forward until I stand between his thighs.
“Someone locked me in,” I explain as though to a dullard.
The heat emanating from his legs burns my chilled flesh even through all the layers of clothes between us.
“Who?”
His acceptance of my admission shocks me out of my anger, and I blink at him as though waking from a fever-induced dream.
“What?” I ask.
“Who locked you in?” he repeats.
The lack of skepticism in his voice is too good to be true. I try to shuffle away, but he pulls me closer and closes his thighs around mine. My heart gallops in my throat as he surrounds and traps me.
Warmth pulses between my legs. My nipples harden and lips tingle.
“Which time?” I ask.
“I don’t need you to tell me about today; I can just check the security footage. Tell me about fifteen years ago,” he demands.
My hope shatters, and I slump in his suit coat, his grip on the sleeves preventing me from retreating. Instead of feeling confining, the fabric wraps around me like a supportive hug. His scent wafting from the threads heightens my desire even as pain slices through my heart.
“You don’t believe me,” I accuse.
He lifts a single brow, transfers both sleeves to one fist, and wraps a gigantic hand around my hip.
“You’d never lie about something like this, Penelope. I believe you; I’m just trying very, very hard to not be angry.”
“Angry? You don’t have the right—”
“You hid something from me for fifteen years. You turned me into the bad guy through ignorance. I have the right,” he growls.
I pause and swallow as I sense the eerie stillness emanating from him. The murderous rage hidden in his gaze isn’t directed at me, but it’s frightening in its intensity. He flexes his thick fingers around my hip. Liquid warmth floods my panties.
“Why are you acting like this?” I ask.
“Because you’re mine, sweet pea.”
My insides melt. I want the possessive, overbearing, protective beast lurking in his eyes even as my logical, independent self balks at his claim.
“I’m not—”
“You don’t get to kiss me like you did and then pretend like we’re just friends,” he rumbles.
I stutter the most ridiculous lie of my life.
“It was just a kiss.”
He twists his grip on his sleeves, tightening the fabric around my back, and leans forward to emphasize his words.
“It’s more than I’ve ever given anyone else,” he states.
My brain screeches to a halt. He must be joking.
He slips his hand to the small of my back, but his fingers are so big his thumb brushes the underside of my shoulder blade and his pinkie teases the upper curve of my butt.
I lift my chin and swallow. Even with him sitting in the chair and me standing in my shoes with hidden platforms, his eyes are slightly higher than mine.
There’s no way this behemoth hasn’t had women throwing themselves at him daily. Statistically, he should have kissed dozens, if not hundreds, of others.
I sneak a hand through the front of his suit coat and flatten my palm on his chest. His impossibly wide, muscular chest.
“You don’t have to pretend,” I say in a voice so thick I hardly recognize it.
“I’m not pretending. I gave you my first kiss, and I expect you to take all my other firsts and lasts, too,” he murmurs.
His face is too close. I want to lean forward and test the silky smooth skin of his lips with my tongue.
“You’re teasing me again,” I accuse in an embarrassingly breathy voice.
“Not teasing. Flirting. Hoping. Praying,” he clarifies.
Footsteps and the sounds of arguing filter in through the door to the hall.
“Am I taking you out to dinner tonight so you can tell me who hurt you, or should I follow you home?” he asks.
Panic quickens my heart rate.
“Dinner,” I acquiesce.
He leans forward, ignoring my plight, and brushes his nose back and forth against mine.
“It’s a date, sweet pea,” he murmurs before planting a quick kiss on my cheek and scooping me off my feet.
I squeak and fist my hand in his shirt, but he settles me in the chair, uncurls my fingers, and tucks my chilled hand inside his jacket as he kneels in front of me.
The door opens less than half a second after he wraps the coat sleeves around me, bundling me inside with his delicious scent and residual body heat.
He angles his shoulders so his back is to the door and his bulk hides me from those entering the room.
As coworkers and chaos descend, I struggle to process what happened through the fog of terror clinging to my mind, but as my panic recedes, regret rises.
When I later spot Sebastian alone in his office, I knock on his door. He calls me in, so I step inside and shut the door. Butterflies attack my stomach as he quirks a brow.
I stand awkwardly with my heart in my throat and his borrowed suit coat draped over my arm.
“I’m not going on a date with you,” I blurt.
He leans back in his office chair and rests his chin on his steepled fingers.
It doesn’t matter whether he’s friends with my brother or not anymore. There’s too much between us to take this any further. I can handle being friends, but if we get romantically involved only to break up later, I’ll never recover. There’s too much at stake.
“So you’ve come to tell me who locked you in fifteen years ago and why you waited until now to tell me?” he prompts.
“I…” My mouth dries and throat closes. I can’t form the words.
“Sit down, Penelope,” he says with a gesture to the two chairs in front of his desk.
I drape his jacket over the back of one and sit in the other.
“How do you know Ms. Kim?” he asks.
I close my hands into fists and take a deep breath.
“Did she shut the server door today?” I ask.
He props his elbows on his desk and rests his forearms along the edge as he nods.
I suck down a deep breath, rub my forehead, and trace the curved bars in my eyebrow before exhaling.
“She went to our high school,” I admit.
His quiet curse echoes through me.
“But she wasn’t part of the group that locked me in the closet,” I say.
He scowls.
“You don’t have to protect her, Penelope. What she did today was dangerous and unforgivable. She will face every legal charge my lawyers can think of to ensure she never works in this industry or area ever again,” he vows.
The vindictive resolve in his voice steals the breath from my lungs. No one except him has ever stood up for me so fiercely before.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because she put you in danger.”
His short response leaves much unanswered, but a large part of me rejoices in his unbending tone.
“I’m not protecting her,” I argue. “She really wasn’t part of the group that locked me in the closet,” I say.
He tilts his head and leans forward.
“Then who did?” he asks.
“The popular girls.”
I try to play it off with a shrug, but he weaves his fingers together and leans forward. His attention on my face sends chills down my spine and heat through my veins.
“Why would the popular girls pick on you?” he asks. “If anything, I recall the academic overachievers were up in arms because of your scores, but everyone else wanted to be your friend to see if your smarts could rub off on them.”
I stare at him as my brain tries to fit this new information in with what I already know. No matter how I restructure things, his version doesn’t match.
I scoff and shake my head.
“I was the freak in the circus, Sebastian. No one wanted to be friends with me for fear of catching my disease,” I say.
He scowls, leans back in his chair, and crosses his arms over his chest.
“You’re wrong, pipsqueak. Everyone was head over heels for you. They thought you were so cute and smart and—”
Horror drains the blood from my head.
“You told them off, didn’t you?” I accuse.
He freezes as though caught in an ambush. His pupils shrink, and he flattens his lips.
“Your brother and I shut down a less-than-respectful discussion in the boys’ locker room once, but I never—”
I jump to my feet and hug myself for fear of flying apart.
“Sebastian! How could you? Everything is all your fault! I thought—”
“We were only protecting you,” he defends.
I curl my nails into my sides until the scars itch and burn.
“Did you ever explain that I was Samuel’s sister or did you just use my age to shut them up?”