Page 12 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

Seeing him would always conjure remnants of the magic I’d felt during our year together in London, the calm and joy and passion he’d brought to my life.

But seeing him now, when I was in the middle of a media shitstorm, was absolutely not what I needed.

His temptation was, and always had been, too strong. I’d resisted him once, but to do it again would take a herculean effort.

Not that he was here to…rekindle anything.

Surely.

My heart beat so hard against my breastbone I thought it might crack in half, the bloody organ falling to the table between us for him to toy with.

“Sebastian,” I said, a little too sharply. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He nodded slightly, studying the can of sparkling water like it held the answers. “I heard about the…scandal.”

My breath caught.

Of course, he had.

It wasn’t exactly low profile, though it hadn’t yet exploded the way it had the potential to. Oscar would not make good on his threat to expose me until I had what he termed “adequate time” to fulfill his list of demands.

“I hate this for you,” Sebastian continued, his voice low and intimate, the way he once spoke to me in the late hours after making love when Savannah lay already asleep between us. “I hated it then, and I hate that it is happening again now.”

“Yes, well.” I cleared my throat. “Obviously, I do, too.”

“I’m sure you have a whole team on it.”

I did. Chaucer had reached out to Mi Cha Lee, the best crisis PR manager in the business, and my agent, Rachel Hoffman, was an absolute gladiator who would go to war before she let blackmail tank my career.

“But I figured,” he continued, “maybe you could use a friend who could understand a little of what you’re going through.”

The words pierced me through the tenderest points of my flesh.

“Pardon?” I breathed, gutted by his kindness.

He shrugged one broad shoulder. “I thought you could use a friend.”

My fingers flexed against the marble countertop.

God, I couldn’t remember the last time someone had made me such a genuine offer.

It would have been irresistible to a saint.

And I was no saint.

“You know,” I said gruffly. “I can’t quite remember the last time someone called themselves my friend.”

Sebastian’s nervous sobriety cracked as his mouth ticked up. “It’s hard to make friends, Adam, when you do not let anyone close.”

“It’s been ten years since we last spoke,” I said mildly. “Perhaps I’ve changed.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Well then, where are your friends in your hour of need?”

His gaze was intensely gold in the honeyed light spilling in through the window. It hurt to look at him the same way it hurt to stare at the sun.

I wrenched my gaze away to look out the window.

“Chaucer is here, somewhere,” I said quietly, an admission.

She was my constant, the silver lining in my split with Savannah.

My ex-wife acquired most of our social circle in London, our house in the Pacific Palisades, and the country home I’d hated in Yorkshire, but I retained Chaucer.

Her keen mind and unwavering loyalty had seen me through my years of excess and sorrow.

Without her, I would probably have killed myself a long time ago.

But Sebastian was right. Other than her, I only had Arthur and Alasdair, the princes of England, and Iker Ferrera, Europe’s beloved soccer star, all of whom could not just fly to California on a whim because I was about to be outed to the press.

“You were always good at evasion,” Sebastian murmured before taking a sip of water, his mouth molding around the can. “But I must know if you need my friendship or if it is like…before.”

The word echoed in my mind.

Before. Before. Before.

Before when I slaughtered his dream of that impossible universe where we might have ended up together.

Before when I unceremoniously banished him from my home.

“You don’t need to be caught up in my shitestorm, Sebastian. You’ve done well for yourself.”

His eyes widened before he smoothed over his surprise with a smirk. “How would you know this? Have you kept up with my career, Meyers?”

There was a folder on my computer labeled “The Universe,” rather melodramatically, where I kept screenshots and downloads of articles and interviews Sebastian had given over the years.

My favourite, which I kept on my phone, was the photo of him accepting his Oscar for Blood Oath with a wide, boyish grin.

A small part of me was proud of him, not just because he was preternaturally talented, but because I’d had a role to play in the inception of his rise to fame.

I wasn’t arrogant enough to think he wouldn’t have made it without me, but it felt good nonetheless that I had given him a little leg up in his life.

“You’re impossible to escape,” I drawled mildly, sitting in one of the barstools and cracking my own sparkling water.

Even with the chaotic memories and the toxic guilt and remorse churning in my gut, Sebastian was doing what he’d always done best.

Putting me at ease despite myself.

He grinned. “Good. I like the idea of you being faced with me wherever you go. Did it make it easier or harder to avoid me all these years?”

“Was it me avoiding you or the other way around?” I quipped. “I don’t seem to recall you reaching out to me or crossing the crowd at award ceremonies to seek me out.”

If I hadn’t once known him so intimately, I wouldn’t have noticed the tightening around his eyes, a minute flinch that meant my well-meaning jab had hit a little too close to home.

“Well,” he said flatly. “We did not end on very good terms.”

“No,” I agreed quietly. “A fact which has plagued me for ten years.”

Our gazes met, a humming resonance in the air between us. I wanted to go to him as much as I wanted to flee. Instead, I sat very still to avoid either impulse.

“I want to help you,” Sebastian reiterated softly, almost the way one would speak to a spooked horse. “If you’ll let me.”

I’d let you skin me alive if it meant your love and forgiveness , I thought rather desperately.

I swallowed down the words painfully and said, “I’ll try.”

He nodded, satisfied perhaps because he knew I would have been lying if I gave him an unequivocal go-ahead. I’d always struggled with being transparent and totally committed to anything other than my craft.

“ Bene ,” he said with a little smile. “ Bene . Well, then, as I said, I know you probably have all the best people on it, but I had an idea that could change things around for you. Completely switch up the narrative for the better.”

“Oh?” I asked, not expecting much, which was always a mistake when it came to Sebastian Lombardi, who could wring miracles and inspire visions.

“Yes,” he declared. “I think you should get married.”