Page 37 of Twins to Tame Him

“Enough, Nadia,” Laila said, tears prickling behind her eyes as they always did when she fought with her sister, when she realized all her childhood dreams of belonging to a loving family would remain just that. God, but not anymore. She had people who respected her, liked her, she had someone like Sebastian in her corner, and that filled her with the courage she’d always lacked. “Having all this, for me, means knowing that I don’t have to worry about food and shelter and education for Nikos and Zayn. Your debts and Mama’s debts would’ve ruined their lives. And yes, I get to wear a few new clothes and a fancy hairstyle and new makeup bought with his money. So what if I get to enjoy a few nice expensive things that have never been within my reach because you and Mama leached every last little bit out of Baba? I find no shame in accepting what Sebastian spends on me when it brings him pleasure. I find no shame in depending on him when he wants the best for our family.”

“You’re nothing but his sons’ mother, Laila. Don’t go pinning all your hopes on him,” Nadia mock whispered, making sure everyone heard her.

Laila turned away. Why was it so much worse to hear your own worst fears in someone else’s words? “You need to leave.”

“Sebastian would marry her today if she agreed,” Annika said, from across the room, forever riding to Laila’s rescue, her dear, lovely friend.

Sebastian straightened from across the room and Laila shook her head to warn him off. She could see a vein ticking away in his jaw, the violent emotions swirling beneath the calm gray. This...ugly showdown with her family was long due and she had to be the one to do it.

Laila could see Nadia’s shock, her mother’s excitement before her sister reverted to her default setting of petty cruelty. “But you haven’t accepted, have you?” Each step Nadia took toward her resonated with her heart’s thud-thud. “Our dear Laila always has high standards. But that’s not it this time, huh? Even you, with your head buried in numbers, must know what a prize you have landed.”

“He’s a man, not cattle,” Laila said through gritted teeth.

“You will ruin this good fortune, just like your papa and...no, this is something else...” Nadia’s stunning brown eyes widened. “You’re in love with him.” A tinkling laugh followed her declaration. “Oh...poor Laila. Of course you have fallen in love. But you should know that a man like that is never going to love you.”

That soft gray gaze found hers in the sea of embarrassment and pain threatening to drown her and Laila didn’t flinch or look away this time. She held Sebastian’s gaze, marveling at the emotion beating in her chest as if it were a life unto itself, and tilted her chin up.

She would not shy away from him, now. But for once, she could not read him, either, as if he had pulled a curtain down to shut her out, too.

For all the shame she had felt all her life that she was different, all the shame she’d been made to feel by two women who should have loved her and protected her, for all the shame she’d felt that Sebastian would see how little she mattered to her own family, Nadia’s petty declaration in front of everyone didn’t cause that prickly emotion.

There was no shame in the fact that she had fallen in love with Sebastian. No wrong, no naïveté, no foolishness and definitely no logic to it.

But she only felt strong in her love, changed by meeting this man who had worked so hard to hold on to his true self, despite everything he’d faced as a child, no less. She’d been fortunate enough to know and love her father, to know and adore Guido, and now she was glad she had met Sebastian, even if it was through nefarious means, that she had borne his sons. That she would always love him for all the freedom he had pushed her to enjoy, whatever the future held for him.

The ache of not knowing how he felt would come soon enough, but for now, loving him was a strength holding her up.

She’d always been naive when it came to her mother and sister, forever hoping that they would change, but she wasn’t stupid. And wherever she and Sebastian fell in the scheme of things, she had enough faith in him that he would always stand with her and their sons, against the entire damned world if needed.

Laila straightened her shoulders, wondering if that little spark of fire within her that was her love had changed how she looked, too. She poked her finger into Nadia’s bony chest hard enough that her sister startled. “You aren’t even clever enough to get on my good side knowing I could help you this time, no? Get out of my life, Nadia, and please, stay gone. Next time you decide to pay a visit, I’ll have Annika call the police on you. Believe me, she’s bloodthirsty enough to take you on even if I weaken.”

Then she looked at her mother, who appeared pale and wan under her tan skin. Maybe finally realizing the magnitude of her errors. Or not.

“If you want to be a part of your grandsons’ life, come back without her. And ask for my forgiveness. Then, maybe, I’ll consider it, only because Baba taught me that love is more important than anything else.”

Laila didn’t wait to see how her words landed. Her throat burned like it had when she’d had the flu and she could barely swallow past the hurt sitting there. But at least, it was done.

CHAPTER TWELVE

IT WAS DAWN the next morning when Laila wrapped a flimsy cashmere sweater around her shoulders and knocked hard on the door to Sebastian’s painting cabin or whatever the hell he chose to call it. Cold burned her skin but she didn’t care. When he’d have followed her, she’d begged him to get rid of her mother and sister.

Then she had spent most of the night awake, crying on and off, which had predictably set off Zayn and then it was hours to calm him down and then waiting for Sebastian to come find her and then walking through the damned villa looking for him like some nighttime wraith.

She had been feeling raw after that confrontation with her mother and sister. Then, to realize that Sebastian wasn’t coming... All her hope and pain turned to blazing anger, fueled by his...indifference to her plight, which he had brought on. And then there was the elephant in between them he was clearly, simply going to ignore.

As if her love would just fizzle out like Nikos’s cold or Zayn’s bad temper.

She had to thump hard a few more times before the double doors opened with a clunk, and there he was, on the other side of the threshold, looking as if he was the one who had been through a toxic breakup with his family. She didn’t wait for him to welcome her inside. Neither did she politely wait for him inside the front lobby or whatever it was.

Pushing past him, she forced herself through the open door and into what was clearly an architectural marvel of a space, because it was all glass walls and high glass ceilings and dawn was like fingers painting the horizon pink and orange.

Once her attention returned to the room itself, she could see a huge number of paintings covered with plastic sheets and a fair number, also half-covered, sitting on easels, spread around the vast room. For a second, she indulged in the idea of unveiling each one with a dramatic flourish and taking a peek. But she had once violated his privacy out of necessity. Now that she knew it was something more than just his privacy, she was loath to do it again, however angry she was with him.

Her anger was already losing steam, and when she turned around to face him, it was to see a bleakness in his eyes that she never wanted to see again. The absence of that easy smile, or the charming mask or even the more real grumpy mood he’d shown her these past few weeks, made her skin prickly with a sense of caution. But it was too late, for she was realizing the freedom to be found in truth.

She wondered if she was getting her wish, finally, if she was seeing the raw, burning center of him, and she wondered belatedly, if that meant that she was going to burn with him. But there was not a speck of fear within her.

“I knew you were manipulating me to a certain extent. I knew you only wanted me because you want Nikos and Zayn in your life but I never thought you would be a coward, Sebastian.”

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