Page 64 of Worth Every Moment (Hawkston Billionaires #4)

SEB

M y blood runs cold as Dad leans away from me, a smug grin on his face that I want to cut off with a knife. I scrunch in a tight fist the tiny piece of paper Dad passed to me. I don’t need to read it again. I know what it fucking said.

Love is a great weakness, Sebastian . If you don’t marry Diana Marchetti, it won’t be you I ruin.

It’ll be her. Erica Lefroy. She’ll never work again.

I’ll make it so no one will hire her. Her reputation will be so utterly destroyed that she’ll never work as an actress.

She can kiss the role in Taming the Beast goodbye.

Hollywood will never open its doors to her.

He could do it too. And I don’t doubt for a second that he would.

Matt nudges me, nodding towards Erica as she moves through the tables, looking slightly unsteady on her feet. How many glasses of wine did she drink?

“What was that about?” he whispers. “What was on that piece of paper?”

I side-eye him with a slight shake of the head. This is too big, too complicated, too much of an almighty fuck up, to share with him.

I half rise from my seat, but my father leans across Matt, who tilts back in his chair to make space.

Dad grips my hand, his fingers pressing onto mine.

“Don’t even think about leaving this room.

” He glances over at the two bodyguards standing either side of Antonio Marchetti.

Is this going to turn into some kind of wedding massacre if I get out of my chair and follow my fake-not-fake girlfriend out of the room? Surely the fuck not.

I lean towards him, growling, “You could have taken me down. That, I would have understood.”

“I would never have done that. Destroy my child’s reputation and risk damage to the company?

The family name?” A cruel laugh spits from his mouth.

“You’re a fool if you ever believed I’d do that to you.

” He lifts his hand to gesture along the high table, where our family sit like kings.

“I’d never do that to us . But that…” He nods at Erica, a disdainful curl distorting his lip.

“ She has no impact on my business. My family.”

His words drain every positive emotion I’ve ever felt. I’m a fool . The joker in the pack .

When I went to him this afternoon, I handed him the keys to the fucking kingdom, and I didn’t even know it. He might not have known how much I cared for Erica before that, but afterwards there would have been no room for doubt, and he would have known exactly how to control me.

I’ve been outplayed by the master of the fucking game.

“You made it so easy, Sebastian,” he croons, as though he’s read my thoughts.

I stand, throwing the napkin from my lap to the table. Given the fact he doesn’t want a scandal attached to our family name, I’m calling his bluff. He’s not going to set the fucking security on me if I leave the table. “Enjoy your celebration,” I spit as I walk away.

Outside, the air is warm and windy, the scent of the sea in the breeze.

The sun is low in the sky, casting a pinkish tinge across the rare clouds.

Palm leaves rustle in the trees overhead.

I can’t see Erica, but the only place it makes sense for her to go is our cabin.

I run, heart thumping and panic clawing at my throat.

I have no idea what I’m going to say to her, or how I’ll explain what just happened.

I see her up ahead, stumbling across the sand.

She’s taken off her shoes, and the dress she’s wearing has a slit up one side, exposing her legs when the breeze steals the fabric.

Long dark hair flows down her back. She’s still elegant, but even from here, I can see how each step wobbles as the sand shifts beneath her bare feet.

“Lefroy,” I yell, running to close the distance.

She doesn’t look back. I yell again, closer this time, and she halts like I’ve yanked her by force, heels digging into the sand as she turns.

Tears track her blotchy cheeks. The sight of her hits me like a blow to the solar plexus, and I slow my approach.

“You with all your talk of love… it’s bullshit.

” Her voice is thin, as though she’s already screamed into the wind so hard she’s made herself hoarse, but it’s her words that root me to the spot.

“You don’t love me. You never have. And you know how I know?

Because you don’t know what love is. You’ve never been loved.

No one has ever loved you. Not your mother or your father.

And certainly not me.” Tears are streaming down her face, and although there’s a truth to her words that hits like bullets, I know she’s lying about that last part.

She’s got to be lying. Hasn’t she? She swipes at her tears with one hand.

“Thank God this was only business. This was only my career. It worked. I got what I needed. I got the film role. Thank God I didn’t let you in.

” She strikes her chest, banging right against her heart.

“Not really. Because you would have fucked it. Ruined it. You would have destroyed me with this.”

“Erica—”

“Fuck you.” She thrashes an arm at her side, releasing her heels, which fly out of her grip and land in the sand.

“I’m alone in the middle of nowhere.” She points out at the sea.

“I didn’t come here with my friends. I came here with you .

What am I supposed to do now? You have to get me off this island.

Send me home. I don’t want to stay here. ”

“Let me explain.”

“Explain what? Did you know? All this time, did you know this was coming?” Erica slaps her hands to her cheeks.

“Is this why you were looking at those photos of her on your phone? Because even when we were living together, you knew you’d be marrying her?

” She draws in a rough gasp. “Is this why she’s here? ”

I can’t fucking deny it, and in the beat of silence, she reads it on my face.

“Oh, you bastard,” she whimpers.

“You said you needed three months. You put this end date in. I agreed.”

“You didn’t tell me why !” She barrels towards me, her arms flapping like wings.

I easily grip her wrists, holding her still.

Her jaw is tight as she stares at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?

You had months to mention it. But you didn’t.

You just let the clock tick down, and you didn’t explain.

” Every word sounds like a cry for help.

She tears her hands from my grip and I let them go.

“You never asked. Not once did you ask what would happen after our time was up.”

Helpless puffs of air slip out of her mouth.

“Don’t try and escape this on a fucking technicality.

Never in a million years did I consider that you might be getting engaged to someone else when this arrangement was over.

That never crossed my mind. I don’t see how it could have.

How could I have asked about something so unexpected? ”

I rub a hand over my eyes, trying to stem the panic that’s crawling up my throat and spreading beneath my skin.

“God, I wish you had. I longed for you to ask. Do you think I wasn’t desperate for you to say, ‘Hey, Seb. I like you. I like being with you. You mean something to me too. I’d like this to last longer than three months’.

But did you say it? Did you say any of that?

Not once. Not once did you suggest you might want this to be more than it was.

Before the last few days, you never came close to saying any of that. ”

“I did ask. I did . Back when this began, I asked if we’d still be friends when it was over, because your friendship was, and always has been, important to me.

” She presses her hands together in what looks like a desperate prayer.

“And you said yes. You promised me yes . And the whole time you knew it was going to end this way.” Through gritted teeth she lets out a scream.

“And when I asked today— today —you said I was insane to think this would ever end. You lied. You fucking lied to me.” Her hand finds its way into her hair and she tightens her grip on the roots.

“You looked me in the eye and told me you loved me. And I believed you because I didn’t think you could possibly still intend for this to end on schedule… not after…”

Her voice breaks, taking with it my heart, shattering it into pieces. “I’m sorry. I should never have slept with you.”

Her chest shudders with shaking breaths, tears falling as she raises her red-rimmed eyes to me. “Please don’t say that. I don’t want this to be something we regret. Don’t make me hate you any more than I already do.”

All I want is to hold her. I want to be the one to comfort her, to ask her what bastard piece of shit would do this to her. Who the fuck would treat her this badly?

Me. I would.

“I never knew if you cared,” I say. “Not really. Not the way I did.”

She screws up her face like I’ve struck a blow. “It was implicit. You knew. You didn’t need me to say anything. You knew . You always know everything. I said I was yours. All of me . Don’t pretend you didn’t fucking know.”

“Know what?”

Her nostrils flare on every breath. “Don’t make me say it. Not now.”

The warm breeze tugs at her dress and teases loose strands of her hair as we stare at one another, each a mirror of the other’s agony.

“I didn’t know . I hoped.” I close my eyes as pain like I’ve never known tears through my chest. “I still hope.”

The silence is heavy with those three unspoken words.

I wish she’d say them. Admit that she loves me too.

I don’t know why I’d wish such a fate on her, to love a man like me when I’m abandoning her, but part of my soul aches to hear her say it.

To know I’m not the only one losing my mind. Losing more than my mind…

“Is it your father?” she says. “Are you doing this for him?”

I’m doing it for you. “I have no choice.” It comes out low and hopeless.