Page 45 of Release Me

“Did you get your knowledge of covering up bruises the way I think you did?”

I toss the sponge into the sink and pull out some translucent powder to set the makeup. “That depends on how you think I got it.”

“Someone hurt you.” I feel his fingers flex through the fabric of my dress. “Someone hit you regularly, and you had to find a way to cover up the evidence.”

There’s no point in lying when he knows, so I just nod. “But no one hurts me anymore.”

“Because you got away.”

It’s an oversimplification, but it’s still accurate, so I don’t correct him, don’t offer any more of myself than I have to. “I did. And now, I only use my makeup to cover up the bags under my eyes from lack of sleep.”

He tilts his head to the side, searching my face for signs of sleep deprivation, and I have to use the hand not holding the makeup brush to force his head back into the position I had it in before.

“You’re not sleeping?”

“I manage to get a little rest between midnight and three, but after that the baby is up every thirty minutes crying.”

“The baby?”

When I step back to admire my handiwork, it forces him to let me go. Annoyance at our distance is the only change to his other wise calm expression, which surprises the hell out me. I’d been deliberately vague, leaving room for him to assume that the baby keeping me up at night belongs to me just so I can see how he’d react to that. Only, he doesn’t seem to be reacting at all. Where most men become flustered at the mention of a child attached to the woman they’re attracted to, Sebastian is nonplussed. His breathing hasn’t picked up, and his face is still enough to rival stone.

And it doesn’t matter, because I have no children to speak of, but his calmness tells me that I could have a whole brood running behind me and it wouldn’t make any difference to him. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so accepting.

“In the room next to mine,” I say finally, grabbing my makeup bag and putting everything back inside. “She’s real cute. I met her when she and her parents arrived this weekend. Apparently, she has colic.”

“That’s rough,” he says, turning to look at himself in the mirror. I guess he’s satisfied with my work because he doesn’t offer any critiques.

“You know what colic is?”

“Yeah, Zoe, my little sister, had it when she was a baby. It was really hard on my mom.”

I cross my arms and lean back against the wall behind me, surprised by how easily he’s shared this small part of him. It makes me realize that I don’t know that much about him. “How many siblings do you have?”

Sebastian mimics my stance, resuming his position against the edge of the vanity. “Three. Two brothers, one sister.”

“You’re the oldest?”

“Yep.”

“That makes so much sense.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah, you have older brother vibes.”

“Older brother vibes,” he repeats with snark all up and through his tone. “What exactly does that mean?”

I don’t have an older brother, or any siblings at all, so I’m really just going off of what I think an older brother should be like. “It means you’re used to being in charge of everything, and you always think you know what’s best for everybody.”

He smirks, and I hate that I wasn’t able to do anything about that cut on his lip. “Not everybody.”

“Just your siblings?”

“And you.”

One day I’ll learn to stop walking through doors just because he opened them, but today is not that day. “You think you know what’s best for me?”

My mind immediately goes to how he most definitely knew what was best for me as far as this job is concerned, and I bite the inside of my cheek, hoping he won’t bring it up.

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