Page 19 of Twins to Tame Him

Just like that, the exhaustion clinging to him vanished, changing the panorama of his face. “And Zayn?”

Two simple words and the entire universe seemed to expand with the hope pulsing within them.

For a second, Laila considered lying, then abandoned the idea. Sebastian’s devotion to his sons was a rare quality and his actions toward her shouldn’t be her barometer to judge him. It was easier said than done, though. “You know how his little body stills and he won’t even blink when he’s really invested in something?”

Sebastian nodded.

“He gets like that every time Nikos asks after you.”

His chest rose and fell, his lips pursing inward and then out. And then in the blink of an eye, he switched personas. “I hear you have a hot date. Is that why you’re shopping?”

“I’m meeting a friend for a drink.” When he watched her, unblinking, as if she was hiding state secrets, she said, “I thought the advantage of this whole arrangement was that I could take a couple of hours out of my life for myself.”

“Of course it is. Unless you told this friend who the boys’ father is, and he leaked it to the press.”

“Fahad would never do anything that would hurt me.”

“Maybe not,” Sebastian said, getting a belligerent look in his eyes that she was beginning to recognize as possessiveness. “Then how would we explain why the press was coming after you today? Alexandros doubled the security around the villa.”

“Maybe they were here because they wanted to get a look at you and your arm candy?” Laila burst out.

“My arm candy?” With a curse, he rubbed his hand over his face. “You saw the tabloid?”

“It’s none of my business.”

When she tried to move forward, he blocked her, his hand on her elbow. Even disheveled, the man packed a punch with his magnetic presence. “You aren’t upset, then?”

She shook her head, avoiding his gaze.

“If I tell you that she came onto me and kissed me, and the photographer caught us right as I untangled myself? That I have no interest in her or anyone else? That she and some friends orchestrated that whole scene in some stupid welcome joke since I’ve been MIA?”

Laila folded her arms, feeling that strange tension gather in her belly again. It was that irrational, inconvenient want she felt near him. “It doesn’t matter, Sebastian.”

He leaned in closer, trapping her against the glass wall behind her. “It doesn’t matter that I propose marriage to you and then turn around and sleep with the first woman I come across that’s not you?”

Laila stilled, sensing a sudden change in the very air around them. He was...angry. Blisteringly so. He hadn’t been this angry when she’d revealed the news about the boys. And she knew instantly that she had made a mistake, that she had rubbed salt on a wound that clearly festered. “Since I didn’t accept your proposal, it’s not...”

He laughed then and it was so bitter that she felt nauseated. His lean body tightened with tension. “Maybe Alexandros is right that I’m a fool to offer you all that I have.”

Laila didn’t give a damn what Alexandros thought. She did care, however, that she had misjudged Sebastian through her own insecurities and created strife between them. “I hate to say this but your history made me believe the clip, Sebastian. You’re notorious for this kind of behavior, for changing partners on a whim, for chasing every high, for excessively wild risks. What was I supposed to do when you disappear after three weeks with us and then show up with a woman clinging to you plastered all over the internet?”

“You could have asked me. Or is my word not trustworthy, too?”

“If you say you didn’t kiss that woman, you didn’t kiss that woman,” she said, rushing through the words. “But we’re...opposites. You thrive on excitement, and risks and bending society’s rules and I’m a boring, dull statistician whose deepest, darkest wish is to stay in and listen to old maestros on precious records. That’s why your proposal won’t work. You’ll eventually tire of me.”

“All of this based on a gossip rag that caught me at a bad moment?” His tone could cut through glass and she knew this was the real Sebastian.

“All of this based on a relationship that I’ve once seen go up in flames, where the...parties were just like us,” she said, biting her parents’ mention at the last second. “We have nothing in common except the boys.”

“Oh, wow, so this is the statistician extrapolating data?”

Laila sighed. “You ended up at a raucous party the first night out in three weeks. You...were itching to get away the last few days. You...”

“Because I was beginning to get one of my bloody migraines. It’s not a pretty sight for anyone and they claw me under for a few days. I didn’t want to frighten the boys or you. And I ended up at the bloody party because I wanted to come back to the villa and needed something to numb the pain. Like an edible. It’s the only thing that helps.”

Suddenly, his disheveled state, the dark shadows under his eyes, the faint tension thrumming around him made...so much sense. Why hadn’t he told her? “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you suffered from—”

He stepped back from her, shaking his head. And Laila had the suddenly dawning fear that she had lost something that she didn’t know she needed—his willingness to build something between them. That fear made her articulate something she’d have never allowed herself—a right to him and his secrets, to his real self. “You could have told me you were unwell. Or that you needed to get away, that you get...restless when it begins. Just one line, Sebastian and all of this could have been avoided. How do you think a marriage would work between us if you won’t even give me that at this stage?”

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