Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sebastian
I've never been a man who spends much time on self-reflection. In fact, in many ways, I've always felt only weak people reflect on the past and decisions that have already been made. None of us are time travelers, and as such, there's no point focusing on the past.
I can't change it, though. I realize how hypocritical I've been. I've spent over half my life focused on what happened with David. I'd made an oath to myself to never let Sergio or my best friends down, based on the guilt that I felt because of that situation.
And now I’m here, doubting my entire life's philosophy. Am I cold? Am I being stubborn? Am I weak?
My emotions twist up inside me whenever I think about Willow. She’s like a Venus flytrap: so innocent looking but wanting to consume me whole. I want to believe her. I want to trust her.
Jack's words replay in my head: Sergio doesn't always make good decisions, and that has nothing to do with you or Willow.
I think about Sergio and how many different times his heart has been broken.
I remember the time he spent ten thousand dollars and took his best friend to Cancun only for them to get alcohol poisoning at a cheap bar.
There was another time he met a girl in Mississippi, flew her to Beverly Hills, and took her shopping on Rodeo Drive.
I think about the time he went scuba diving in the Maldives and then realized that he didn't like being in deep water and paid twenty thousand dollars for the boat to be turned around.
Sergio has always had problems, and I've known that.
But he couldn't help it. He was just reaching out, trying to find someone to believe in him and to love him. I was all he had—all he still has.
But yet I do wonder, in the back of my mind, what went on between him and Willow? Had they had any sort of meaningful relationship, or was it like she'd said—they just chatted for a couple of months, met once or twice, and nothing really happened?
I look at my watch. It's 11:00 p.m. I should go to sleep, but still, I find myself wandering along the corridor to Willow's room. I’ve been back for two nights, and we haven’t spoken since she’d told me she wanted Jack.
There’d been no dinner, no nothing. I need to see her which is why I’ve stopped outside her door.
I shouldn't go in. There's nothing good that can happen if I walk in. I debate knocking, but I know she won’t tell me to let myself in.
So I open the door.
For a few moments, my heart stills because the bed is empty. I wonder if she's gone—if she's escaped. But then, a couple of seconds later, she walks out of the bathroom, her hair flowing down her back. She's wearing an oversized T-shirt, and startles at seeing me.
She has a toothbrush in her mouth and shoots me a questioning look.
“Hey,” I say.
“What are you doing here?” she asks in a muffled tone.
“I wanted to talk to you about the contract.”
She nods slowly and holds up a finger. Then, she walks back into the bathroom. The faucet turns on, and then a minute or so later after she rinses out the toothpaste, she returns to her room. She walks over to me and stops right in front of me.
“So, what do you want to say?”
“I wanted to discuss exactly what the terms are because you said you don’t really understand it.”
“Is this where you’re going to tell me I have to sleep with you?” she asks, placing her hands on her hips, eyes narrowing in challenge.
“No.” I scowl at her. “I’m not the sort of man who will force a woman into having sex with him. You either want it, or you don’t. I’m not going to make you sleep with me. Do you really think that little of me?”
“It’s not like you think anything positive about me,” she says, her lower lip trembling, as her gaze softens.
I grab her hand and pull her toward me. “I would never force myself on you, Willow. I’m not that sort of man, and I want you to know that.”
“Oh, but you’re married me for shits and giggles. You already slept with me.”
“And I slept with you because I find you beautiful. That wasn’t a lie. I slept with you because you’re sexy and wanton, and my body craves you.”
She swallows and doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are veiled as she lowers her eyelashes, and I wonder what she’s thinking.
I put my arm around her waist and guide her toward the bed. She takes a seat, and I sit next to her. Her T-shirt rides up so that I can see the creamy skin of her thighs. Is she wearing panties? I want to ask her. I want to touch her. I want to see for myself, but I won’t.
She peeks over at me while playing with her hair. “So what do you want, Sebastian? You marrying me makes no sense. What revenge do you think you’re getting on me? Is it just so that I’m locked in your room like a princess in a tower?”
“That wasn’t the plan,” I say with a grunt. “But I am having doubts about…” I pause. “I’m just having doubts.”
She stares at me, and I run a finger across her lower lip.
“What are you thinking, Willow?”
“Does it matter? Does any of it matter?”
“It matters. I only want to understand.”
“I want to understand as well.” She closes her eyes and leans back on the bed. “This is just so fucked-up.”
I lean back as well, our shoulders pressed against each other.
“You think I’m fuckedup?”
“What do you think? I already called you Hannibal Lecter.”
“I guess it could be worse,” I say, chuckling.
I roll onto my side and gaze at her. She mimics my position.
“How could it be worse?”
“You could have called me Hitler. You could have called me Mussolini.”
She sighs heavily, clearly not in a playful mood. “This doesn’t even feel real. It feels like I’m in the middle of a bad dream and I’m hoping to wake up. I’m so desperate to wake up.” Tears well in her eyes and then race down her cheeks, and she swipes them away quickly.“I’m not going to cry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry about what, Sebastian?”
I rub her shoulder and then pull her into me. At first, she resists, but then she nestles her head in the crook of my neck. When she begins sobbing, I rub her back. I know it’s odd to be comforting her when I’m the one who’s put her in this position.
“You don’t believe me. You don’t trust me. You never loved me. And I’m just sitting here day by day waiting to find out what’s going to go on.” She looks up at me. “I’m sorry about your business. I’m sorry about everything. But it’s not my fault. I wish you would believe me. I wish you would.”
A choked sob rattles out of her. “I’m sorry and I’m mad at myself.”
“Why are you mad at yourself?”
“I’m mad at the fact I’m allowing you to be the one to take care of me when you’re the one who’s making me cry. You’re the one who has me imprisoned. Is this what Stockholm Syndrome feels like?”
Her words pierce through my heart. I pull away from her and sit up.
“I don’t want you to think of me as some sort of captor. I don’t want you to think of me as an evil person.”
“What do you want me to think of you as, Sebastian?”
I stare at her and shake my head. She looks beautiful. And sorrowful. There’s an ethereal quality to her and my heart aches to touch her. My heart aches to be with her.
“I don’t know.”
Her phone starts ringing then, and she grabs it from the nightstand.
“It’s the Magnolia Club,” she says. “They’ve been calling me.
They want to know when I’m going to come back.
I can’t lose this job, Sebastian. Brielle and Katherine can’t take my role.
I know you think I have these offshore accounts where I’m hoarding money, but it’s not true.
I need the money. Can I please go in tomorrow evening? ”
I stare at her, and in every iota of myself, I feel like she’s being sincere.
And suddenly I doubt everything that I know.
My world is turning upside down because I believe her.
Yet it makes no sense. It makes no sense whatsoever.
I’d only casually glanced at the bank records Louisa had brought.
Maybe I needed to do a more forensic accounting of Willow and her accounts.
“You can go,” I say, not even realizing I’m completely going against everything I initially thought when I brought her here in the first place.
“Thank you.” She reaches for me and hugs me, then pulls away quickly when she realizes what she’s done. “Thank you.”
I press my lips against hers, waiting to see if she’s going to pull away, but she doesn’t. She lifts a hand to my cheek and I kiss her deeply. With a rumble of need, I pull her up onto my lap. She wraps her legs around me and grabs my face, kissing me back hard.
I run my fingers up underneath her T-shirt and learn she’s not wearing a bra.
I pull off her shirt to see if she’ll complain.
She says nothing. She pulls my T-shirt off and we just stare at each other.
There’s raw sensuality in the air. There’s sexual chemistry, and I know that neither one of us can resist each other in this moment.
She digs her fingers into my skin, intending to hurt, but I relish the pain.
I push her down onto her back. I kiss the side of her face.
I kiss and suck on her neck. Her fingernails dig into my back as she runs them down.
Is this really happening? All I had to do was give her what she wanted?
I tug at her nipples, then kiss and lick down her stomach, grabbing her panties with my teeth and ripping them off.
She moans as I slip my fingers between her legs and rub slightly. I kiss back up her body, slipping a finger inside her. She cries out, then pushes me onto my back. I slide my fingers out and she rolls on top of me.
Fiery need burns blazes in her beautiful eyes.
She grabs my boxers and pulls them down the middle of my thighs, takes hold of my cock, and pumps it up and down. She peers down at me, her hair in front of her face, as she positions herself on top of me. She grabs my palms and holds them, lowers herself down on me, and then I’m fully inside her.
Intense. Sexy. Hot as fuck. Being inside her erases all my stress and worries. I’m only able to focus on her. Only her.
She rocks back and forth, and before I know what’s happening, she’s grinding up and down.
Her breasts are moving and bouncing, and I’ve never felt such an amazing feeling in my life.
She fucks faster and leans down to kiss me, her teeth biting into my lower lip, drawing blood.
I feel her fingers on my sides, digging into my skin.
“Ow,” I growl.
She doesn’t care. She digs harder, continuing to rock back and forth until she’s at the edge.
I grab her hips and bounce her up and down as fast as possible, thrusting inside her until she’s coming hard and fast. She screams in pleasure, and I feel myself about to burst inside her.
I pull out, and come all over her stomach.
Seeing my seed all over her taut belly is so damn gratifying.
I lie back down next to her. We’re both breathing heavily now. What we’ve just done was the height of sexual need.
She turns to look at me, glaring. “This means nothing, you know?”
“I know,” I say, though my heart feels sick.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” she says. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I’m sorry.”
My words quell the fire in her and she relaxes, gaze turning softer.
“I get it. We both wanted it.” She runs her fingers lazily down my chest. “So I guess the sex part wasn’t fake then.”
“None of it was fake.”
“Marrying me was fake,” she says. “Loving me was fake.”
“I never told you I loved you,” I say bitterly.
She nods. “That’s true. But you made me think that you did.”
I’m silent.
“You have to know that, right, Sebastian? You asked me to marry you. Anyone would think that the person they were with loved them if they asked them to marry them.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“You know, it’s hard to be mad at you.” She looks at me as she touches the side of my face. “I hate you so much. You ruined my life. And yet, I just can’t detest you. And I hate myself for it.”
Tears of shame roll down her cheeks and she quickly turns on her side, away from me, as if to hide them from me. She grabs a pillow and hugs it to herself.
“Can you leave now?”
I don’t want to, but I want to respect her wishes. I stand up, grab my boxers, and pull them on.
“I can stay.”
“I don’t want you to stay!” she shouts.
“Okay.” I grab my T-shirt off the floor and head toward the door, looking back at her one final time before exiting.
Just moments before she’d been all-powerful, taking charge and now she looks fragile and broken, like a wounded bird.
I suddenly realize I’m the predator and I don’t like seeing myself that way.
When I get to my room, I grab my phone and call Jack. He answers on the second ring, yawning.
“Hey. Everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” I say, my head pounding. I feel sick to my stomach.
“What’s wrong, Sebastian?” he asks.
“I have a question for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have an investigator that you trust?” There’s silence on the other end of the phone. “Something’s not adding up here. I don’t know what it is, but I’d like your help. I’d like someone else to do some investigating into this matter. You still there, Jack?”
“Sorry—yeah.” He clears his throat.
“Is everything okay?”
“It’s great, man. I’ve been waiting for this call,” he says, voice shifting. “I’ve been thinking something was up myself, and I’ve been wanting for you to come to that realization. I’ve already got an investigator on it, actually. We should get some information soon.”
“Oh? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you weren’t ready to hear it,” he says. “And I respect our friendship enough to know when I shouldn’t step over the mark.”
“So you think Willow isn’t as bad as I’ve been making her out to be?”
“I don’t know,” Jack says. “I try not to make any judgment calls until I have the cold, hard facts. But I’ll tell you that when I met her, she didn’t seem like a cold-hearted seductress to me.
I know you said she’s a good actress, but I trust my gut instinct, and my gut instinct says that this whole situation is not what we’ve been led to believe it is. ”