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

It was impossible not to run into each other around New York City, where I kept a residence because Mama, Giselle, and Elena lived there, and Los Angeles, where I spent most of my time shooting or attending press junkets. When you ran in the same circles, both cities became rather small.

And Savannah made it a point, as she had in London before, to be everywhere.

Though she had no discernible career, she had made it her life’s work to play the grand puppeteer, connecting people with projects, rubbing elbows with the right financial backers, and introducing up-and-comers to the right casting agents and directors.

She might not have held a title at Tate’s production company, but she was his right-hand woman.

The first year after everything had happened, I refused to even let myself look at her.

To do so seemed to open a crater in my chest, a seismic degree of pain that stole my breath and inhibited me from carrying on a normal conversation.

By the second year, I started to sneak peeks, my curiosity and longing potent counterweights to my calcifying heartbreak.

It felt good, in a strange way, like pressure on a sore muscle, to just look at her after so long.

She was aging as I’d always known she would, like a pearl inside an oyster, maturing into her polished beauty, emanating a worldly, covetous elegance that still made me want to bruise her with love bites and pin her down on my driving cock.

Still, the first time she spoke to me at a Fourth of July party thrown by our mutual friend, I had taken one long inhale of that English garden floral perfume and turned on my heel to leave.

It took another year to capitulate to her gravitational pull. She was relentless, orbiting me at social and professional events until one day, I found myself talking to her about the latest play on everyone’s lips, a musical written and directed by the incredible Ryan Gates.

Somehow, that next week, I found myself accompanying her to the Friday night showing.

We developed a…friendship, of sorts.

One where I was deeply and abidingly in love with her, and she allowed me to be.

It was so like Savannah, not to be able to give up that kind of attention while simultaneously being unable to offer me anything genuine in return. We did not speak of my feelings and certainly not her own, but the chemistry between us seemed so obvious, an electric storm in the middle of any room.

Which made it even more bizarre, perhaps, that after a few years of infrequent outings and lukewarm friendship, Tate Richardson asked Savannah to have me for dinner.

It was agonizing, watching the small intimacies between them, noting how Savannah seemed content in a way she had not with Adam—and me—if not because of a wild passion for her husband, but because of the life and status he afforded her.

He enjoyed social outings and playing the gregarious host alongside her benevolent hostess.

Her cutting criticisms made him laugh, even when they were directed at him, and her tendency toward negativity never seemed to impact his natural jubilance.

They were an odd pair, but well-suited to each other.

And it hurt like a bitch to witness.

My family, who were too clever and observant not to understand the imbalance in my friendship with Savannah—though only Elena and Cosima knew the true story of our past—asked me why the hell I would put myself through those meals and outings with the Richardsons.

I didn’t tell them it was better than no time with Savannah at all, because it would have been too pathetic.

But it was the truth.

No matter how toxic our relationship was, I could not stop myself from longing for her.

Just as I could not stop yearning for Adam.

But I wasn’t a nineteen-year-old boy anymore.

On the cusp of thirty, I was pragmatic enough to know I’d never have any kind of relationship with Adam Meyers again.

We hadn’t spoken in ten years.

Not even when we’d caught eyes at industry events and parties, my gaze magnetized to his no matter the circumstances.

I could find him in a crowd of black and white tuxedos, as if he were under a spotlight.

I could find him with my eyes closed and my hands tied, my soul dragged into his orbit like a comet drawn by his gravitational force.

Not one word passed between us.

Just those looks, those green apple eyes hitting me in the sternum with the force of a sixteen-wheeler for the span of a second before they wrenched free and found someone else to grace.

Once, I had been up for a part in an ensemble war movie he was already tied to.

Against all hope, I’d considered it. Acting had always been our shared passion, a language we spoke that even Savannah could not quite understand.

Maybe, foolish young Sebastian had dreamed, we would share a few comments on set, a handful of lingering looks between takes, and that connection between our hearts would click back into place just like that.

Perhaps then we could be together, even if we couldn't be with Savvy.

The next day, while scrolling through Photogram, I saw his latest post. Adam lounging on a yacht somewhere with water the color of crushed aquamarines, holding Willa Trombley in his arms. She was the actress I met when Adam took me on a tour of Pinewood Studio—the one acting in Andrea Felice’s film the first time I met him.

I had deleted Photogram for a month after that. And told Mali I would not take the role in the war film.

I could stand being in the same universe as Savannah, just barely, but I knew in the marrow of my bones I would not withstand proximity to Adam without breaking into pieces.

So no.

I did not talk about Savannah Richardson and Adam Meyers.

What words were there to explain what they were and were not to me?

What business was it of anyone else?

I smiled thinly. “I have not seen Adam Meyers in a decade, and Savannah Richardson and I only enjoy a passing acquaintanceship. If you want me to talk about a meaningful relationship, it would be better to ask me about my mother or sisters.”

Isla pursed her lips, clearly torn between pursuing what was a sore spot or delving into questions about my only slightly less famous siblings.

As per usual, my sisters won out.

“I hear congratulations are in order for your twin sister, Cosima,” she said with a genuine smile. She had interviewed Cosi many times over the years, too, and as was the case with most people who met my sister, Isla held a warm regard for her. “Pregnant, again.”

“With triplets. She’s due next month, actually,” I said, letting the love I had for my family fill the gaping holes in my chest like a cleansing ocean tide over barren rock. “I do not think Xan knows what he’s gotten into.”

“Xan as in Lord Alexander Davenport, the Duke of Greythorn,” Isla confirmed, as if hearing such a man referred to by a common nickname upset her sensibilities.

Alexander would have loved that.

“One and the same,” I agreed. “Their son, Aidon, is already a little hellion so I cannot imagine what their house will be like. Only that it’s a good thing they live in a manor home that has literally endured wars.”

Isla laughed with me. “You have a number of nieces and nephews. Do you enjoy being an uncle?”

Joy bubbled in my gut at the additional thought of Giselle and Sinclair’s children, Genevieve and Theo, and Elena and Dante’s kids, Aurora, Amadeo, and Chiara.

“I have six, soon to be nine, so to say family vacations feel like a circus would be an understatement. Which is why it is a good thing I have always enjoyed the circus.”

Isla’s smile was warm with interest. Most women seemed to find it wildly attractive that I liked my nieces and nephews, which I thought was setting the bar fairly low.

“Do you want kids of your own someday?” she asked, a little breathy despite herself.

I’d known the question was coming, but it still hit like a dart to the centre of my chest.

Did I want kids?

I was an Italian raised in a family that had and would do absolutely anything for each other. A family that had shattered and reformed into something even more beautiful than its original shape.

Certo , I wanted kids.

I wanted them tomorrow.

But I would never have children with a woman or man I did not love to the very depths of my soul.

If I had a romantic heart before Savannah and Adam, I now had proof that the kind of life-altering, soul-ratifying love I had always believed in was real .

I saw it every time I was with my sisters and their partners.

The palpable love between Giselle and Sinclair that had given them the courage to upend their lives.

The epic romance between my twin sister, Cosima, and her Lord Alexander that had transcended years and overcome murderous fathers and secret society schemes.

The passion between Elena and Dante that had melted my sister’s icy, ten-foot walls and softened her while simultaneously making her the fiercest, most confident woman I knew.

Seeing their love stories play out, witnessing a true happily-ever-after, was almost enough to make me pick up my own pen ten years after I had finished my first and only screenplay, and write again.

Almost.

“Someday,” I said. “With the right person.”

Isla flushed just slightly when I winked at her.

It was early afternoon on a weekday, so Bar Marmont was empty but for the two of us, so when the door opened, my attention was drawn to it naturally.

A woman walked in, the bright Los Angeles sunlight at her back casting her features in shadow but highlighting her slender form.

As if summoned like the devil by her name, Savannah walked into the bar.