Page 120 of The Sun & Her Burn

Miranda shrugged tightly and huddled deeper within her robe. “I miss her.”

“Sometimes, I miss her, too,” I admitted. “But then I’m grateful she’s gone because it left room for me to let new, better people into my life.”

“Like Linnea.”

“Yes,” I agreed easily.

“You’ll leave us both when you see what this is like.” She indicated herself with a trembling hand and sneer before it collapsed into a pout. “What I’m like.”

“I had a front-row seat last night,” I noted mildly. “And I’m still here. In fact, this morning, I’m going to move you and Linnea into my house with me. It’s time that someone looked after youboth.”

Miranda’s gaze snapped up to mine, and her hand moved to cover her mouth as if she could hide her shock and relief from me. The tears in her eyes spilled over, splashing over her hand and the laminate table.

It had been a long time, before last night, since I had consoled anyone, but I found myself stalking across the kitchen to crouch before her, pulling Miranda forward with a gentle hand on her shoulder so her forehead was pressed into my shoulder. One of her hands clutched my bicep with a shakiness that spoke of weakness and her desire to grip me even harder than she was able to. As if she was worried I would disappear.

“Don’t leave us like everyone else,” she begged with a broken whisper.

“I won’t,” I promised, and I meant it.

When I glanced up from our embrace a couple of minutes later, Linnea had stood in the doorframe, her hair a tousled cloud around her drowsy face. The expression on her face was worth painting, and I wished I had the talent to translate it to a medium that could never expire.

Because it was beautifully trusting. As if she knew I would do everything in my power to protect and care for them both.

It had been a very long time since anyone had depended on me for more than just a salary or a stellar acting performance, and I found the responsibility filled me up like sunshine.

“I won’t,” I said again, this time for.

And when she smiled at me, I had to blink away the sunspots.

Linnea took over with her mother after that, hustling her back into her room to bathe and dress because the movers would arrive in just over an hour, and there was a mass of things to do before then. Seb woke up and ambled into the kitchen, shuffling his feet with his eyes half closed as he went instantly to the coffee pot I had brewed and helped himself. He’d made a face at the contents, complaining in a thicker-than-usual Italian accent that drip coffee wasschifoso. Disgusting. We ate standing up in the kitchen, discussing the particulars of the day as we got the Hildebrand/Kai women moved in, and I loved the casual intimacy of it.

It felt like we were, once more, on the same page. The awkwardness was gone, but not the angst, which lingered on the back of my tongue like a bad aftertaste. Things were not truly resolved between us, not when I wanted him with a fierceness that clouded my judgment, not when I could not have him, just as I could not have had him before.

Having Sebastian meant giving upeverythingI had ever worked for.

It meant the same for him, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not.

It was romantic to think about sacrificing everyone for a loved one, but it was something only done in films and novels. Not in real life when the stakes were staggeringly high.

Or so I told myself as I stared at his mouth while it moved sensually around the words he spoke and at his strong, tanned hands as they moved through the air, highlighting his speech.

Moreover, while he had expressed interest in being friends once more and seemed just as attracted to me as I was still to him, he hadn’t said anything about wanting the kind of love and commitment he’d yearned for a decade ago. We had both changed so much since then, maybe he didn’t yearn for a love that moved the stars and the sky the way he once had.

But I seriously doubted it.

And a small, greedy,dastardlypart of me wondered why he might not want it with me anymore even though IknewI didn’t deserve it after how I had treated him.

I told myself to be grateful to have even this with him, sipping coffee once more in the morning together and talking about our lives as if it was our right to know everything about each other again.

It was enough.

It had to be.

Of course, it wasn’t.

Chaucer arrived with the moving crew promptly at ten in the morning, holding her tablet in hand and wearing an earbud to communicate with whomever she needed to speak to over the course of the move. She was frightening in her efficiency, coordinating the burly men, Sebastian, Linnea, and me until everything was designated for my Carbon Beach house, a storageunit we’d rented out, or a donation to the local wildfire survivors’ charity.

Within eight hours, Miranda was settled in the guesthouse with her most essential items and three nurses who eased Linnea’s nerves by answering her many, many questions.