Page 126 of The Sun & Her Burn

“It’s how my life works,” I said unequivocally. “I’ve had thirty-nine years to test its effects, and I won’t risk it now. Not with you.”

“What if I want to take the risk?” Linnea said, stepping closer so she could palm my own throat, brush a thumb over my rabbiting pulse point. “I may be younger than you, Adam, but I know how hard life can be. I’ve had blood on my teeth for a long time, and I’m not afraid to take one on the chin for you when I have to. A little hardship isn’t enough to drive me from your side. Not now, and especially not if you give me your trust.”

“If I had known how lovely you were when Sebastian suggested this arrangement, I wouldn’t have brought you into my mess,” I told her honestly, ignoring her plea.

Instead, I reeled her in by the neck and pressed a kiss on her forehead before releasing her and turning toward the door.

“Don’t wait for me,” I said.

And I meant don’t wait up, but I also meant don’t wait for an old, broken man to change his mind.

Linnea didn’t say a word, so maybe she finally understood me.

It should have made me happy, probably, but as I closed the door without looking back, I felt sick enough to lose the contents of my stomach in the bushes beside the garage.

24

LINNEA

“Are you sure about this?”

I tore my gaze from the rare rainy skies of Los Angeles out the window to look at Sebastian in the driver’s seat. He was wearing black jeans that skimmed his powerful, long legs and a crisp white dress shirt with black buttons undone to the top of his chest. It should have been a professional outfit, but the way the Italian wore it was distinctly sinful. He looked exactly like a man who could convince a holy saint to sin with a flex of his full mouth into a seductive smile and the shine of his golden gaze.

It was exactly what we were banking on, really, so I was glad he had come to play.

I was similarly dressed in a fairly conservative wrap dress, a colour of bruised blueberries that almost exactly matched my eyes. A pair of stilettos was on my feet, the same gold as Seb’s irises. Beneath the fabric, though, I wore a creation that had taken me weeks of careful hand sewing to bring together. Italian lace was extremely delicate, as was the silk I used to accent the plum-coloured corset and thong set. I fiddled with the claspwhere the stockings connected to the garter belt through the slit in my dress and watched as Seb’s stare slid to my legs before jerking back to watch the road.

Was I sure about this?

The plan I had concocted in the thirty seconds it took me to locate my phone after Adam left and call Sebastian to come over wearing something sexy. I wasn’t even sure it would work until I hunted down Chaucer in her office in the basement and asked her very pleasantly to tell me where the hell Adam’s sex club was. She was Adam’s number one, his manager but also his assistant, friend, and secret keeper.

I was shocked she told me without hesitation, typing the address into the map app on my phone.

She’d shrugged at my look of astonishment and offered blandly, “If Adam won’t look out for his own happiness, someone should.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant herself or me or both of us, but it didn’t matter.

She was right.

I would force happiness down Adam’s throat if I had to, which was basically what the plan consisted of.

Showing up at Bacchanalia Sex Club with Sebastian in tow in order to seduce our reluctant Brit intofinallygiving this a chance.

Us.

Together.

“Yes,” I said, and my voice was sure. “Are you?”

It was a more complicated question for Sebastian, I knew. He and Adam had so much history between them, years of stagnated pain that was just starting to properly heal now that they were addressing it. But I knew Sebastian in a way I was only beginning to know Adam. We had been friends for a very longtime, and even though it was over distance, our postcards often served as diary entries.

I wanted a love, he’d written me once,that moved the stars and the sky.I thought I found it a long time ago, but maybe I was wrong.

Only half wrong, I thought, or maybe hoped.

To see Seb and Adam together was to believe in soulmates.

I didn’t think Savannah deserved to be considered in that equation, but I desperately, wistfully hoped I might be.