Chapter Nineteen

  Sebastian

  Shock kept me rooted in place as Jasper fled. I stood there for several moments trying to figure out exactly what in the bloody hell had just happened. When I finally convinced my legs to move, I paced the length of the living room.

  With every step, frustration and irritation built inside me…at both Jasper and myself. Whatever was wrong, he’d bailed and hadn’t talked to me about it. Try as I might, I couldn’t extinguish the embers of anger smoldering inside.

  Or the annoyance squarely directed at myself for being completely uncertain how to handle whatever this was. On a good day I was a self-centered diva used to getting my own way. Although I couldn’t deny that the time spent trapped in medically induced silence had had an unexpected effect on me, growth wasn’t an overnight process. And a lifetime of selfish behavior didn’t exactly lend itself to knowing how to repair a fracture when I hadn’t the slightest clue how it had broken.

  A deep sigh penetrated the heavy thoughts surrounding me and brought my attention up to my very annoyed sister standing in the doorway, her arms crossed, toes tapping.

  I frowned over at her. “What are you doing home so soon? And what is the attitude about?”

  “I had some concerns about the contract and my afternoon clients cancelled, so I came home to talk to you about it instead.” She dropped her arms to her sides, but the disdain rolling off her was still palpable. “You’re pacing and Jasper is gone. That man has been here practically all day every day since you finally pulled your head out of your ass long enough to admit that you wanted to make way more than just music with him.” She narrowed her gaze and crossed the room to stand a foot away from me. “What did you do?”

  Half of me was offended by the accusation, but the other part recognized it for exactly what it was. Accurate. Committed relationships had been so far off my radar that when things even hinted at something more than hookups and playtimes, I’d ended it—and not always in the nicest of ways.

  But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t explain how my weeks spent in silence had managed to change me, to wake me up to the fact that I needed far more than a series of meaningless, temporary, sex-and-sadism-only relationships. It had made me crave stability, depth and meaning. And damned if I didn’t want that with Jasper.

  “This time…nothing.” I ran my fingers through my hair and locked them behind my neck. “I told him about the debut we were planning in LA, and I made damn sure to mention the limo and the suite, thinking he’d love it. But instead, he freaked out and left. He didn’t say a word to me other than making it pretty clear that he didn’t want to go.”

  A light inside my brain flickered. Some of the pieces of the fragmented parts of his past, the precious few he’d shared, clicked into place. Everything had changed when I’d mentioned the limo. “Siobhan, what kind of car does Jasper drive?”

  Her expression morphed from irritation to confusion. “I don’t know. I don’t think he drives here.” She shook her head. “And what does that have to do with anything? Sebastian, you didn’t answer me.”

  My anger and frustration disappeared as realization dawned. A million thoughts ricocheted through my mind. I could fix this. “We haven’t committed to the performance in LA, right?”

  “No…” She drew out the single syllable slowly, her voice coated in suspicion. “I was concerned about some of the rights they wanted to hold on to. That’s what I wanted to discuss.”

  Perfect. “Do you still have an in at Seattle Opera?” Siobhan had sweet-talked her way into the hearts of many of the directors at Seattle’s stunning glass-front opera house throughout various galas and benefits we’d been invited to.

  Siobhan pursed her lips. “What devious little things are you plotting in that brain of yours?”

  I gripped her upper arms tightly. “Just trust me, okay? I’m doing everything I can not to fuck this up, Siobhan.” The vague tugging at my heart, the distant notion that had been hanging at the periphery of my consciousness for the past few days, slammed into my reality with speed and precision. “I love him. I’m not going to screw up.”

  By the gods, I did. I loved him.

  She snorted and patted my cheek twice. “About damn time you figured out that detail. Now, whose ass do I need to kiss at the Seattle Opera house for you and exactly what kind of favor are we looking for there?”

  Her instantaneous support managed to settle some of the racing of my heart. Some. I wanted desperately to run to Jasper and reassure him that I understood…after we discussed how taking off without talking to me at all would be something that had to change. But I couldn’t do that until the T’s were crossed and the I’s dotted on my plan.

  And if I did say so myself, it was a rather brilliant one.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jasper

  I was a complete and total asshole.

  Pacing didn’t help. Meditation didn’t help. All the various grounding techniques my counselor and I had developed to get me through the panic attacks when they rose didn’t help.

  Absolutely nothing could change the shame and guilt weighing on me for hours once the initial fear and anxiety dissipated, until the autumn sun began to fade and the first fingers of darkness crept across the sky. I called myself every colorful word I could think of then created a few new ones because I didn’t think the normal ones were effective enough.

  It had been a long time since I’d been hit that hard and possibly never just from the possibility of riding in a car. The last time I’d had an episode like that, it had spelled the end of that relationship, because Carter couldn’t handle a meltdown quite so epic. The small voice inside my heart reminding me that Sebastian was nothing like Carter in all the best of ways wasn’t loud enough to be heard over the screams echoing in my mind.

  The nausea had finally dissipated and most of the tremors that had taken over my entire being had stilled by the time I’d gotten home, but I was left with a level of regret I couldn’t figure out a way to ease. I knew I needed to talk to Sebastian, but I didn’t know where to start.

  I collapsed onto the couch and dropped my head to thump against the back. I closed my eyes, and the images of twisted metal and flames shooting out of overturned vehicles, the ones that always haunted me during and shortly after an attack, were replaced with Sebastian.

  His face, his smile—the wicked ones and the genuine ones—and his intent stare as he ran his long fingers over the piano keys with grace and divine capability overtook all the bad memories. A measure of serenity replaced the last remaining tendrils of anxiety and fear.

  That was until a rap at my door startled me back into the harsh reality that I was, once again, sitting alone in my loft, nursing my trauma-scarred brain back to health and cursing myself for being here. I had less than zero interest in finding out who was on the other side of the door, but to prevent incessant knocking, I dragged myself to my feet and across the room.

  The man who had been the focus of my calming was standing on my doorstep. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but shock stole my ability to speak.

  He gave a far too enticing grin and my knees weakened at the sight. He dipped his chin to indicate the precious little ball of fur in his arms that I hadn’t noticed until that moment. “Siobhan assured me that I should bring her. She said I was easy enough to resist on my own, but you’d never turn me away if I had Mimi with me.”

  She wasn’t my dog and I knew damn well she was far more than simply a pet to Sebastian and Siobhan and, hell, even to me, but in that instance, I couldn’t care less about any bounds I was overstepping as I collected her from him and held her close to me. She snuggled herself immediately against me, wriggling her head into my neck and calming the pulse that had shot up as soon as I’d seen Sebastian.

  I stepped back so he could enter, tightening my grip on the warm creature cocooned in my arms. “You probably don’t want to actually mention to her that she was right.”

  I tracked his gaze as he took in the funky and eclectic apartment I loved, a stark contrast to his refined and pristinely decorated home. It was perfect imagery for us.

  “This used to be a warehouse, right?” He voiced the question as he walked around the perimeter and ran his hands across the exposed brick. “I remember the conversion was big news.”

  He was being considerate and it was sweet and charming, but his small talk when we were both highly aware of the much bigger conversation we needed to have was kicking up the nerves that had barely settled. “Yeah, it is.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and gathered up the few remaining scraps of courage I had left in me. “Sebastian, I—”

  “Listen, we—”

  Just as quickly as we’d both started speaking at the same time, we stopped.

  He held up one hand and walked a few steps closer to me but still allowed me personal space, and my soul nearly wept at the consideration. “I’m working on the whole not being a selfish prima donna thing, but this is one time I need to go first…not just want to.”

  I slowly nodded and rhythmically petted Mimi’s quite obviously now-slumbering form.

  “My great-grandfather died when I was fifteen, but before that, Siobhan and I would spend summers with him when Grand-père and Maman would take us back to France. He was a soldier in the French army during the war and some of the things he saw stayed with him, decades later.” He took a few more steps closer to me until he was only a foot away.

  Oxygen caught in my lungs as what he was saying processed through my brain. He understood. The tears that had threatened fell unchecked.

  He laid one hand on mine, still clutching at the sleeping dog. “Is this okay?” he asked as he gently laced his fingers through mine.

  I could only give a jerky nod and a sniffle in reply. He understood. The one single thing I hadn’t thought someone as untouchable as Sebastian Chevalier could do would be to understand the fallout from surviving a traumatic event, but he did.

  “It’s okay.” The two words were uttered softly, but with a sincerity that stitched back together some of the tattered shreds of my bruised heart. “It’s okay that you’re still dealing with things, and however you need to process that is okay too. But next time you talk to me. Even if talking is nothing more than you telling me you need a minute, you’ll talk to me.”

  “I’m sorry.” Simply saying the phrase that had been begging to be spoken opened wider the floodgates I’d barely contained. Rivers of the painful emotions I’d silenced for so long ran down my face. “I’ve been in therapy for years and…no matter how much we’ve tried to get me through it, I can’t get in a car or a bus. The best I can do is the train, but that took a lot of work and patience. And I should have told you all that.”

  I lowered my gaze to the floor and shook my head. “And you also deserve way better than someone with limitations like this—someone you can take to performances and vacations and…hell, just out to dinner without a prerequisite of it being within walking distance from a train station.”

  He released his grip on my hand and, within half a second, pulled me into a firm embrace so tight that Mimi wriggled to be let free. I set her gently on the ground and she was quickly off to explore the new terrain as Sebastian held me close again.

  “We will definitely work on this whole communication thing more and it’ll be easier, the more you trust me.” He dipped his chin and cupped my face, forcing me to lift my eyes to meet his. “But we need to be crystal clear about one thing right now.”

  Every nerve ending on my body tingled with a mixture of fear and anticipation. “What’s that?”

  He moved to grip the back of my neck. “This is not a dealbreaker for me. We can work on helping you with this if you want to or we can make adjustments in our lives to accommodate your comfort, but this does not change the fact that I love you. If anything, I’m so fucking proud of how strong and resourceful you’ve been to find a way to live your life in spite of it all.”

  I took a step back and held up both hands. “Wait! Hold on one second. Did you just say you love me?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sebastian

  That whole conversation had gone better than I’d expected…right up until I’d made the unceremonious declaration of love, which hadn’t been part of the speech I’d rehearsed on my drive over, but in that moment, it’d felt so damn right that I’d just gone for it.

  Jasper jumping away from me like a frightened rabbit was very much not the reaction I’d been going for.

  I took a deep breath and did everything within my power not to recoil at the distance he’d placed between us. “Yes. Somehow, in the middle of what I thought was the worst time in my life, losing my voice, I realized that while I loved my life, I wanted more.” I couldn’t fight the smile that spread across my face. “Then this accompanist strolled into my sphere, laughing at my shitty attitude and with the most unruly hair I’d ever seen and…suddenly I had a ray of light in the hell I thought was my world.”

  He tilted his head to the side but didn’t move any closer. “Say it again.”

  Some of the burden weighing down my shoulders lightened. “I love you.”

  Jasper took a hesitant step toward me. “In spite of the anxiety-riddled mess that is my entire existence?”

  I shrugged. “How about because of it? Jasper, I love your complete package. I despise the fact that you’ve been through something so traumatic it’s left you with lifelong scars physically and emotionally, but I love the person you are, and if we erased that, we would be erasing part of you.”

  The sobs that had briefly subsided following my less-than-romantic proclamation of love returned in full force as he launched himself into my arms. Holding him close cleared away the last remaining concern that clouded my mind and I lost myself to his embrace.

  He sniffled into the crook of my neck. “You know I love you too, right? I mean, probably not as much as Mimi, but I do love you.”

  I growled and nipped his earlobe. “I would take that as an insult if I wasn’t certain she’d be offended by anything less than total devotion from all the humans in her life.”

  Jasper pulled back within the circle of my arms. “You’re okay with me not coming to the debut? I mean, I’m not actually okay with not going, but you aren’t mad at me because…because I can’t?”

  By the gods, I hated seeing his uncertainty, but I loved being the one to reassure him. “First of all, even if you were going to miss the debut, I would never be mad—not when the reason is so far out of your control.” I grinned at him, treasuring the secret I held. “But you are definitely going to be right by my side for the first live performance of La Restauration d'un Homme.”

  The edges of his wide, brown eyes tinged with fear. “I told you that there is no train from LAX to…anything. I can’t—”

  “And I’d never expect you to.” I softened my voice. “I’ve called in a few favors.” I shot him a wink. “Although, the reality is I’m doing them a favor by performing there, but anyway, we are going to perform the debut of our opera at the Seattle Opera House. It’s in a month, chiot, so we will need to spend all of our time between now and then…practicing.”

  He gave a cheeky and mischievous smile. “Did you say our opera?”

  I frowned at him. He was a handful and I fucking loved it. “Yes, well, I suppose if I can share Mimi with you, sharing La Restauration d'un Homme is a natural next step.” Unable to resist a moment longer, I leaned down and softly kissed his full lips. “And you had a large hand in not only making the opera better, stronger and more emotional, but also its composer.”

  Epilogue

  One month later

  Jasper

  The great Sebastian Chevalier was an asshole.

  I’d thought that the first day I’d met him and I thought it again as I watched him from the wings as he charmed the sold-out crowd packing into the Seattle Opera house for his debut. Our debut. He was born to be on stage—not simply singing, but performing. The audience was enraptured immediately as soon as he opened his mouth to speak and share the story of how La Restauration d'un Homme had come to be.

  We would forever argue about which one of us was the siren, but tonight left not a doubt in my mind. He would have tempted every sailor in the ocean to their death, and they would have gone joyfully.

  Asshole.

  Just as we’d practiced, he held an arm out to me and I crossed the stage to take it as he introduced me and the small role I’d had in helping him craft his masterpiece—the one he hadn’t hesitated a moment in sharing with me.

  He ended his speech and I snagged Phoebe from the stand where she’d been perched, gleaming with a fresh coat of wax. I held her in position as the pianist took his place. Although I fairly often thought he was impervious to normal human limitations, sitting to play the piano was wholly incompatible with the notes he needed to reach as he performed, so we had spent the past month working with an accomplished player who sounded nearly as good as Sebastian.

  Nearly.

  I lost myself to the ebb and flow of the music, energy coursing through me at the crescendo and serenity taking over as I pulled my bow across the strings for the final note. Since I had every part of the piece firmly committed to my memory, I’d kept my eyes shut throughout the performance to fully immerse myself in the song.

  I kept them closed through the cheers that began to die off then rebounded again. I snapped my eyes open, taken off guard by the resurgence in applause, only to find Sebastian on one knee in front of me with a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

  Yes, Sebastian Chevalier was an asshole. But he was an asshole that was holding a blue velvet box he opened to display a black ring, the inside of it a bright gold.

  “Too much?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh through the tears that tracked heedless down my face. “For you? Maybe a little too low key.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11