Page 68 of The Moon & His Tides

“Believe it,” Adam said with a laugh, pounding a hand on my back like we were two mates and then shifting his grip to squeeze my neck so I’d pull back enough to look him in the eye. “This is the first of many accomplishments in your life.”

I scoffed, but Savannah reached up to grab my chin and tilt it down so she could glare at me properly.

“Do not be dismissive of your talent, Sebastian. I wouldn’t have been attracted to you otherwise,” she sniffed.

Laughter ripped through me so forcefully I tipped my head to the ceiling and unleashed it like a howl at the moon.

When I was finished, tears in my eyes, they were both smiling these small, tender smiles I wanted to cast in bronze and keep forever.

“Open your present now,” Savvy ordered, pulling at my hand still holding the box so it was between us.

I moved back just enough to have room to open it, Adam’s hand on my shoulder, Savvy’s arm around my waist. My breath caught as I pushed the lid up to reveal a Patek Philippe watch glittering in a bed of cream satin.

It was rose gold with a thin frame of rectangular diamonds around the face and a black face strewn with stars like a snapshot of the galaxy.

“For the man who wants to move the sun and the stars,” Savannah explained.

My gaze jerked up to look at her, but her smile was merely proud and a little smug. When my gaze averted to Adam in question, he shuttered his lids and looked away.

Because he’d told Savannah about our conversation in the gardens of Pinewood Studio. About what I wanted from life.

But he hadn’t told her the whole truth.

I didn’t want to move the sun and the stars like some great influencing mover and shaker of Hollywood stars the way Savannah did, or to be the brightest planet in their orbit like Adam.

I wanted aloveso powerful it moved the sun and stars.

Changed the course of my life forever.

Became my new gravity.

Savvy didn’t get that because I wasn’t sure she knew a love like that could exist, and I hadn’t told her that was what I wanted.

I’d told Adam.

And he had bastardized it and then added insult to injury by giving me a watch that symbolized something I knew he would never give me.

Based on the conflicted look in his eyes, he knew it too.

“For the man who wants to rewrite the rules of the universe,” Adam amended softly, half apology, half entreaty.

I swallowed the hurt that sprang metallic as blood on the back of my tongue and stared at the most expensive gift I’d ever received in my life, rubbing my thumb along the diamonds.

“It’s beautiful,” I murmured.

Savannah obviously mistook my melancholy for overwhelming gratitude and slid her other arm around me in an affectionate embrace.

But Adam just stared at me as I hugged her back, his eyes dark and troubled. When my face came close to his as I curled around Savannah, he ran a thumb over the edge of my jaw and pressed it to the center of my lips.

“I hope you succeed,” he whispered.

17

SEBASTIAN

“You’ll cause an accident,” I warned Savannah as I caught her gaze in the rearview mirror of the Rolls.

She pulled her gaze from the glowing screen of her phone to fix me with a haughty look that asked the question for her.