Page 7 of Worth Every Moment (Hawkston Billionaires #4)

He stops, lifting his hand away. Phew . “Women?”

“On your row.”

He doesn’t look up, his eyebrows drawing together. “I didn’t know you were watching.”

My heart clenches. Damn . Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted to that. He looks up at me and I give a little shrug, at which the tension in his brow eases. “There are always so many women,” I murmur.

Seb is quiet before he offers me a smile that looks forced at first, but then eases into his usual charming grin. “You wanna go out with me instead? Just say the word and I’m all yours. I’ll quit them all.”

Unsurprisingly for Seb, his tone is jocular, but I take a sharp intake of breath anyway, feigning shock. It’s our usual dance around the topic. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I’m serious,” he says, and this time it gives me pause because it sounds like he means it.

I scan his face, but I don’t see the joke there either, and the lack of it makes every feature on his sculpted face look different…

harsher, but even more handsome. But there’s no way Seb would ask me out.

Not seriously. Not after all these years. If he did, what would I say?

I refuse to think too hard about it, but if he’s going to sound serious, I will too. “I’m not going to finally agree to go out with you just because you hauled me and my broken shoe off the runway.”

He pulls back, the furrow between his brows reappearing. “Why not?”

“Come on, Seb. You know we’d never work.”

A slight huff escapes between his parted lips, and the sound seems to suggest that he expected exactly that response from me. He drags another chair towards us and rests my leg on it. When he’s sure I’m comfortable, he crouches at my feet again. “Do I?”

I swipe a hand in his direction, a playful thwack that he avoids by ducking and making a show of pretending he thought I really meant to hit him. That’s more like it. “Yes. Have you ever had a female friend you haven’t tried to sleep with?”

“Apart from you?”

“Yeah. Apart from me. And given you just asked me out, I’m not sure I count.”

“There’s a difference between a date and sex, Lefroy.”

“Come on. Really. Do you have any female friends you haven’t had sex with?”

He ponders this, and the silence feels heavy. I’m more invested in his answer than I should be. “Amy Moritz,” he says finally.

Thank goodness. The relief that floods me is intense.

If he’d had sex with Amy, one of my closest friends, I don’t know how I’d feel.

It’s not as though I have any claim on Seb.

I’ve never even kissed him. But if he and Amy…

Oh . It would be awful, and I’d rather not know, but at the same time, I need to check.

“I heard a rumour that you had a threesome with her and her backup dancer.”

Seb guffaws. “Did Amy tell you that?”

“God, no.” The answer comes far too quickly, and Seb’s gaze sharpens.

It’s totally reasonable for him to assume Amy’s my source.

But Amy never mentioned it, and I never asked her.

If it hadn’t been Seb, if the rumour had been about someone else— anyone else—I would have asked her outright.

But the memory of the gut-wrench that happened when I heard the story…

horrid . Seb, my best guy friend, and Amy, my best girlfriend?

No. I couldn’t have asked her. “I’m asking you. ”

He looks at me that way he does, as though he’s seeing all my thoughts and feelings at once, and my skin prickles. “I did not have sex with them.” He sounds uncomfortable, making me feel bad for dragging the information from him. But then he licks his lips, and says, “I watched.”

I splutter. “You watched Amy and her backup dancer have sex?”

He lifts a shoulder, signifying that it’s no big deal, while I try not to reveal the gut-wrench that’s suddenly back with a vengeance.

“I did. I smoked a cigar in the corner of the room while they got it on. And in my defence, I was there first, having a quiet smoke. They came in all drunk and excitable, and I just… stayed. I mean, I made my presence known, but they didn’t care, and I was too drunk to move.

I’m not sure I could have got out of my chair even if they had told me to leave.

So yes, I do have a female friend I haven’t tried to sleep with. ”

I hinge at the hips, tilting towards him.

“Veto. I veto that example. It doesn’t count.

Maybe you didn’t have sex with her, but you were in the room while she was.

.. I mean… when they… did you…” I fade off.

What am I doing? I can’t ask him if he enjoyed watching my best friend have sex.

It’s too messed up. How did this conversation take such a lewd turn?

For all the hours we’ve spent together, this feels like the closest I’ve ever come to admitting that maybe he affects me.

Maybe I’m interested in who he has sex with.

Maybe, I care. Maybe, when we hang out, when we’re being ‘friends’, my body suffers an onslaught of chemical and biological confusion. Hormonal urges I can’t control.

Maybe that stuff is true.

He’s watching me so closely, as if he’s reading every shifting emotion on my face, that a rush of heat attacks me. Okay, fine . There’s no maybe about it. I have an enormous crush on my guy friend. My guy friend who’s dated more women than I have pairs of shoes. And I have a lot of shoes.

I’m definitely attracted to him, and he’s so perceptive, so tuned in, that I’m sure he knows.

Or at least suspects. If he took a moment to wonder why I’m asking…

why I care… I couldn’t bear it if he thought I actually liked him.

It would ruin everything. How could we continue being friends? And what about Mum and my career?

He smirks, and that irresistible dimple deepens in his cheek. “Are you blushing?”

Instantly, the heat rises even more intensely to my face. He starts to laugh, but when it eases, he says, “I’ll tell you this much. It’s hard to be in the same room as people who are having sex, and not get turned on. Damn near impossible.”

“Oh,” I say, my voice so weak it’s pitiful.

Awkwardness seeps into the air like a gas leak, and Seb’s eyes dip as he clears his throat. “What are you doing later?”

I lean forward and poke his shoulder. Friendly . “Are you asking me out again?”

“I wasn’t, but I could.” Thump, thump goes my heart . “Would you like that?”

I let out a shrill laugh that sounds forced and makes him frown.

“Not today.” I gesture to my ankle, rapidly trying to divert the conversation from wherever it hadn’t quite gone.

“You’d have to carry me. But seeing as I’m unexpectedly free tonight, you can come home with me and watch a movie.

Get a takeout? An Erica and Seb night on the sofa. ”

The smile that splits his mouth is so delicious, I have to rein in the crazy urge to bite it right off his face. “That sounds better than any date. I’ll call my driver.”