Page 36 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)
“Both,” he admitted with a truncated shrug. “I spoke with Savannah a few days ago. After so many years, I think…I think the hope I harbored is finally dead.”
I nodded slowly, processing the tangible grief in the room. “Okay. I’m so sorry, Seb. I won’t lie and say I think she was ever good enough for you, but I hate that you’re hurting.”
Absently, he rubbed at his chest as if to soothe the ache behind his breastbone. “Me, too, I think.”
I chewed on my lower lip, twirled a silver ring around my finger, and took the plunge. “Take your time to mourn. But remember, losing someone can mean you have room in your heart for someone new. Someone who might love you better than she ever did or the ghost she became for so many years.”
“I hope that’s true,” he murmured, finally stalking forward like a runner off the starting line to haul me into his arms.
It was just a hug. His strong arms wrapped around me so tight I couldn’t quite breathe, his nose against my neck, his mouth hot on my collarbone. But it was the most intimate embrace I’d ever had. I held him close, hands shifting through the crisp waves of his raven-black hair.
Incrementally, he relaxed into my hold.
It reminded me of hugging Adam, how on guard he’d been at first, how hard it must have been to trust me enough to hold him.
Sebastian and Adam were two very different men, but they shared one vital characteristic. They both felt so much that they often didn’t know what to do with it or who to trust with it.
I decided then and there that it would be my life’s mission to be that person for them both.
The door banged open suddenly, Rozhin stepping through and coming to a sudden stop at the sight of me tangled up with a man who was decidedly not the blond-haired Adonis known as Adam Meyers.
My supposed boyfriend.
We locked eyes over Sebastian’s back, and her jaw flopped open.
Seb stepped back casually and turned to face her, his charming smile spreading smoothly across his features.
“Hello,” he said in that rich, sexy accent. “You must be Rozhin.”
Ro, who had never been dumbstruck a day in her life, blinked back at him.
“Linnea has told me a lot about you,” he continued easily, stepping forward to offer his hand. “It’s good to know she’s had a friend in her corner while she’s been in town. It’s lovely to meet you.”
“Lovely,” she echoed, swaying to the side to meet my eyes and widen hers comically before she extended her hand to him. “Lovely to meet you too, Sebastian Lombardi.”
Seb chuckled. “Sebastian is fine.”
“Sure, sure,” Ro agreed, still holding his hand. “Uh, what are you doing back here with Lins?”
He moved slightly to angle his body so he could shoot me a wink. “I haven’t seen my best friend in a few days, and I missed her. I’m sorry to intrude on your workspace.”
My best friend .
Even though that wasn’t exactly what I wanted from him, hearing Seb call me something so intimate made my blood warm as if I’d swallowed distilled sunshine.
“Any time,” Ro said, finally recovering enough to bat her lashes at him. “In fact, you should come by more often.”
“Ro,” I murmured, a flash of possessiveness clutching my chest. “Behave.”
Ro stuck her tongue out at me, making Sebastian laugh.
“I should get back to my family, anyways,” he said. “But I was hoping you might join us for a drink, trottolina ? I would like to introduce you to my family.”
It was my turn to blink dumbly back at him.
“She has a date with Adam Meyers,” Ro interceded on my behalf. “He’s picking her up.”
Something dark and greedy crossed Sebastian’s face almost too quickly to notice it.
“ Bene , I would like to introduce our Brit to my family, too,” he announced. “ Andiamo , Linnea. Let’s go.”
He reached his hand out for me, and Rozhin’s eyes bulged in surprise as I stepped forward to take it. It wasn’t wise to show casual affection for another man, let alone a fellow movie star, when I was dating Adam, but I trusted Ro enough to indulge in the need to be close to him.
After nearly a week without seeing him, in the wake of a kiss that had rocked me and left me utterly disoriented, I wanted to hold Seb’s hand like I needed my next breath.
The casual affection reminded me that, no matter what, we had been friends for years and would remain so for years yet. Unlike Savannah Richardson, I never intended to let Sebastian Lombardi go.
“You better fucking call me later, girl,” Ro muttered as I passed her.
I rolled my eyes at her, but she just lifted a finger to point at me the way a scolding mother might have.
Sebastian didn’t let go of my hand as we crossed into the restaurant and weaved through the tables toward the large round top in the corner where his sister, brother-in-law, and now mother sat.
I tried to pull back, but he held fast.
“ Stai fermo ,” he murmured to me as he pulled me close to tuck my hand through his arm as we reached the table. “Be still, Linnea. They will love you.”
Daniel Sinclair stood as we stopped at the table, a gentlemanly almost archaic thing to do that made me instantly like him. Miranda would have swooned, and not just because he was gorgeous, with shoulder-length dark red hair and vibrant blue eyes set in a tanned face.
“Sebastian,” he said, his voice faintly French. “Who is this?”
“May I introduce Linnea Kai,” Sebastian said, and he did it so…proudly. As if I were famous or important and not just a girl.
To my horror, tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
“Linnea,” his brother-in-law repeated with raised brows and a small, enigmatic smile. “Good to meet you. I am Sinclair, Giselle’s husband.”
“Oh Linnea .” Sebastian’s mother, a gorgeous older woman with thick, long, black hair with ribbons of silver strands, stood up to grasp me by the shoulders and kiss me on either cheek. “Sebastian has told me about you. You are the girl who loves the ocean, si ? You smell of its salt.”
I laughed a little weakly, overwhelmed. “Yes, I guess I am.”
When I looked at Sebastian, he was smiling widely, eyes glowing like miniature suns.
“You can call me Mama,” his mother offered kindly. “Everyone does.”
“Or, if that is too familiar, her name is Caprice,” Giselle said, standing up to extend her hand across her mother’s body. There was crimson and fuchsia paint dried on the inside of her wrist. “My name is Giselle. I’m so happy to meet such an old friend of Seb’s.”
“I can’t believe you told them about me,” I muttered, a little embarrassed even though I was also immeasurably pleased.
Dad and my uncles knew about Sebastian, of course, because they always teased me mercilessly about the postcards and letters I wrote to him, but that was different somehow.
“ Certamente , I did,” Sebastian agreed with a small frown as he ushered me to an empty seat. “You are important to me.”
“I love your dress,” Giselle complimented as we settled at the table. “It’s so delicate, it almost looks like sea foam.”
I grinned. “That was exactly what inspired it, actually, so thank you.”
She lifted a fine red brow. “You made it yourself?”
“Linnea is an accomplished designer,” Sebastian said, sliding an arm along the back of my chair the way a lover might. The press of his bare skin along my shoulder made me shiver. “She is always wearing something new and beautiful.”
I blushed and swatted at his chest. “Stop singing my praises. I like you enough already without you being so over the top.”
“Over the top?” he repeated with mock outrage. “Me?”
“You are prone to dramatics, Patatino ,” Caprice said with a cluck of her tongue.
“Since he was little,” Giselle agreed, grinning at me.
“ Patatino ?” I asked, intrigued by the nickname.
“No,” Seb protested strongly.
“It means little potato,” Giselle explained.
“He was born with his head shaped like this,” Caprice explained seriously.
I looked at Sebastian, who wore a fierce expression of regret, and burst out laughing.
That was how Adam found me, sitting at a table with Seb and his family, the Italian’s arm across the back of my chair like a flag staked in the ground declaring his territory.
I felt him before I saw him.
A crackling of energy, a lightning strike at the front entrance.
Sebastian turned at the same time as I did, both of us locked into that familiar abundance of commanding magnetism.
Adam stood beside the hostess stand in a slightly mussed black suit, the top buttons on his dark green shirt undone and the sleeves rolled up, the blazer tossed over one shoulder and hooked by one finger. I wondered if he’d headed to the airport straight from his last interview in the city.
“He does not look happy,” I murmured.
“No,” Sebastian said, a dark note of glee in the word. “He does not.”
“What game are you playing?”
His response was a smoky chuckle.
Adam noted the expression, his own glower tightening. He stalked through the restaurant like a wild cat through the jungle, completely homed in on his prey. Diners tittered as he moved by them, but he didn’t seem to notice.
The center of his attention was solely Sebastian and me.
A shiver rolled through me as my blood flashed hot and cold with a curiously arousing mix of fear and anticipation.
The Adam I knew was unfailing polite, probably do to his upbringing in the peerage and his brief stint in the British Armed Forces, but he eschewed every nicety as he finally approached the table. Instead of greeting the diners, or even acknowledging them, he kept his eyes trained on me.
I swallowed thickly as he stopped at the side of my chair, braced a hand along the back of my neck under the thick sweep of my —nestled tightly against Seb’s arm—and used the other to grip my chin to tip my head back.
His eyes were hard, glittering emeralds, almost inhumanely beautiful as they dominated my vision.
“Sunbeam,” he rasped in a possessive growl a moment before he bent to claim my parted mouth.