Eighteen months later
I brightened my smile for whichever Sebastian cousin was standing in front of me now—there were too many to remember who was who—then leaned over to whisper to Brett. “Is it bad form to sneak away from your own engagement party?”
His smile didn’t drop at all when he whispered back. “But think of all you’d miss: Silvia’s catastrophe of a dress.”
Oh, this was a game that could make all the small talk tolerable. “Henry Sebastian flirting with the bartender,” I whispered at the next opportunity.
It was several minutes before he got a chance to respond. “Avery attempting to become best friends with my mother.”
“Adrienne Thorne’s obvious attempts to get in your pants.”
That one was a winner.
“Excuse me, I need to talk to my bride-to-be for just a moment,” he said to the cousin then pulled me a step aside. “For the last time, Adrienne Thorne is not trying to get in my pants.”
“You obviously don’t know what a woman trying to get in your pants looks like because she most definitely is.”
He curled his arm around my waist and pulled me close. “Oh, I don’t? Maybe you should show me.”
“Once again I ask, is—”
Before I could finish my question, Brett’s mother’s hand landed at the small of my back, and sure enough, Avery was right behind her. “You two look like you’re plotting something,” Laura said.
“Of course not, Mom.”
“Don’t believe him,” I said. “He doesn’t want you to think bad things about him, but we were just discussing if it was bad form to sneak out of your own engagement party.”
Avery’s eyes went wide with shock. “Yes, it’s bad form! Everyone is here for you. You can’t disappear.”
“Oh, I don’t know if that’s true.” I scanned the rooftop. “It looks to me like most of the people are here for the free booze and a chance to say they attended a party thrown by the Sebastians.”
“A thousand percent true,” Laura agreed. “They don’t give two figs what you do.” I took it as a win that Avery seemed sufficiently shamed. “As to your question, it’s not bad form if you take your fiancée with you. Why else do you sneak away at parties if not to get some?” She winked at her son.
Brett’s face colored, but it was so slight that only someone who had his features memorized as I did would notice. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that.”
“But we’re absolutely going to take your advice,” I finished for him. “Bye now!”
He didn’t protest as I took his hand and pulled him through the crowd, and after disapproving of the route I’d taken down the middle of the party, he took over the lead, pulling me toward the side where a metal ladder led to a higher level of the roof. It was supposed to be off-limits, so of course when we looked up, a familiar ass was already climbing up after his girlfriend.
“Looks like Scott got there first. Again.” He was teasing, though, and not really bothered by it. He’d stopped repeating the Lesser Sebastian joke soon after we officially got together. I liked to think I was responsible, but it probably helped that Brett was given the VP position after Scott left the department. The two were no longer in competition, and their relationship seemed to have improved greatly because of it.
“He can have it,” I said. “We have our own spot.”
“A much better spot. Should have gone there first.” He was already leading me there, but first we had to stop at the bar for champagne.
“I kept a Billecart-Salmon on ice just for you,” Denim said, handing over a chilled bottle.
“You know me so well.” So well that he didn’t bother to try to give me flutes.
“Should I be jealous?” Brett’s hand felt possessive on my back side.
“Only if I should be jealous of Adrienne Thorne.”
We were stopped three more times before making it to our sanctuary. Once by Brett’s sister who had new family pictures we had to ah over in exchange for her oohing over my four-carat diamond—Brett had definitely not gone “lesser” on it, and I hadn’t even had to tell him what I wanted.
Then we ran into Julie, who tried very hard not to talk business but still slipped in a reminder or two for my man, as well as a few for me.
Though I still worked at the office, I’d never been into working during off hours like Brett was. I dragged him away when they began to discuss another sponsorship opportunity. The roped-off area meant for the service staff was just in our midst when we were stopped once more.
“Well, Brett. Look at you. First a VP promotion, then a bride. People will start to think you’re one of us.” Gray eyes under severe brows surveyed me. “Or maybe not.”
I’d never met him, but there was no doubt he was a Sebastian. Fuck hot and confident was a very obvious part of his DNA. There was also no doubt that, as far as he was concerned, I didn’t measure up.
Brett’s hand tightened around my waist. “I’ll pretend you meant that as a compliment. But I guarantee you no one will ever confuse me for one of you.”
“Mm.” He reached his hand out to Brett’s, ignoring me now completely. “I suppose congratulations are in order.”
Brett didn’t extend his out in return. “Nice seeing you, Holt. Next time, don’t feel like you have to bother.”
Not to be insulted, Holt turned the refused handshake into a clap on Brett’s back. “You’re never a bother. Remember that when trying to fit in with the Greats gets you in trouble. I’ll be here.”
Brett didn’t respond except to pull me with him. “Let’s go, Eden.”
“And don’t forget a prenup,” Holt shouted after us.
But we’d moved on, and now Brett was holding up the rope so I could slip underneath. “Can we not invite him to the wedding?”
“Even better,” he said, “let’s pretend he doesn’t exist.”
Any other time, I’d be curious about this Holt Sebastian, but only so I could fantasize about ways that he might die, and tonight was not about the people who tried to make us feel small.
It was about how we were great despite them.
“Do you want to do it?” Brett held out the champagne.
He’d taught me the best techniques, and now I’d become a pro. I took it from him, and soon the bottle was opened with a satisfying pop. “Didn’t even spill a drop.”
I took a swallow then passed it over to Brett, who had plopped down on the couch. Watching him swallow, I had déjà vu, remembering vividly being with him at this very location, nineteen months before. The night that everything changed. I’d been fighting my feelings for him so thoroughly, I only recognized them in retrospect—how I could never stop looking at him, how my skin tingled in his presence, how I felt like I glowed.
Though that night had started a new course for us, so much hadn’t changed between us as well. He was still my best friend. Still the person I turned to first on every bad day. Every good day too.
But now he was also the person I got to wake up to and make love with. Now there weren’t barriers, and rather than ruining our friendship, adding romance had only made us stronger.
I considered sitting at his side as I had that night but decided instead to hike up my skirt and straddle his lap.
“Hello, there.” He offered me the bottle, but I shook my head. I was interested in other things.
“Do you remember much about that night back then?” I didn’t have to say which night. We’d attended other parties at this same bar since then, but we’d picked this location for tonight specifically because it had been special.
“I remember all of it. Especially the dirty parts.” He ran his hands up my thighs, leaving goosebumps in their wake.
“Did you know when we were here, what would happen when you took me home? What I wanted to do to you?”
“I knew what I wanted to do to you.”
“But did you know it would actually happen?”
He thought about it. “I’d imagined it a lot of times, so a part of me always thought it was an option. But yes, there was something different that night. The energy you were putting off—it felt aimed at me in a way that it never had been. I don’t think I knew that I was going to get you in bed, exactly—”
“Excuse me, I got you in bed.”
He smiled, otherwise ignoring my interruption. “—but I knew we would be different in the morning. I’d felt myself losing the battle of resisting you for so long. Then, when I had you naked—”
“When I had you naked.”
“—I kept you up all night because I was convinced that was all it would ever be. I had to get my fill. But we must have fallen asleep at some point, because when I woke up, you were in my arms, and it felt so good and right. If you had opened your eyes and looked at me right then, I don’t think I would have been able to push you away. I would have had to have you again, and once I had you again, where was the point that I could pull away?”
“So if I’d just woken up earlier, we wouldn’t have had to go through those weeks of torment afterward?”
He shrugged. “Would we still have gotten here?”
I ran my hand along the scruff of his jaw and shook my head. “I think I had to learn how to fight for you.”
“And I had to learn how to trust you.”
“And we both had to figure out we were worth more than we believed.”
He took my hand from his face and brought it to his lips and kissed it. Then he looked down at my ring, and I knew him well enough to know what he was thinking. As much as our self-confidence had grown, we were still part of a social structure that had us constantly comparing ourselves to our peers. To our family. The size of my jewel had been determined as much for them as it had been for me.
“Holt...what he said…” He’d pretended it hadn’t touched him, but of course it had.
“I don’t give a shit about him. Where does he fit in on the family tree?” Obviously he was from the side of the family that had the most money and power, which was not Brett’s side.
“He’s Reynard’s son.”
Yep. One of the branches at the top. “Maybe the Greaters should be called the Douches.”
He laughed. “There’s actually a third category of Sebastians—a sub-genre of the Greaters, if you will. The Brutals. Holt is one of those.”
“Eh. I like Douche better.” I took my hand from his grasp and brushed his hair off his forehead with gentle strokes. So we had to live in this world with these assholes. It was a constant battle, but we were grounded. We hadn’t succumbed to the air of entitlement around us. We knew what was important, and it wasn’t the money or the influence. We knew the most important thing was each other, and we’d fight for that every day of our lives.
“You know,” I said, “with all these titles you Sebastians have, there’s only one that matters, and you’re the only one who holds it.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Man for me.”
Then we tuned out the party behind us, and I lost another pair of panties to a Sebastian’s pocket while we celebrated what all our fighting had won.
* * * *
Also from 1001 Dark Nights and Laurelin Paige, discover Slash, The Open Door, Dirty, Filthy Fix, and Falling Under You.