Page 65 of Sebastian

“Your girlfriend?”

“Yep. I wasn’t lying when I said you’re mine.”

“Girlfriend,” she whispered. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I’m okay with the title. Actually, more than okay.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, kissing the top of her head. “Is that cute waitress going to be waiting to fight me out in the back alley?”

Sebastian laughed. “What are you talking about?”

“It just seems like you know Ellie well.”

“Not like that Em. Jesus, she’s young enough to be my daughter.”

“She just seemed shocked when you introduced me, that’s all.”

“Probably because I’ve never brought anyone here to eat before, certainly not a woman I care so deeply about,” Sebastian sighed. “And if you must know, Ellie is one of the students who won a scholarship I set up at the local college. When I first met her a few years back, she was running herself into the ground trying to help her mom pay all of their household bills while keeping up with her studies. She’s a terrific kid, and I hated to see how stressed she was at such a young age. So, I set up ten scholarships, and she was one of the first recipients.”

“Wow, that’s very generous of you.”

“I don’t want my money just sitting in a bank when it could be used to help people. What am I going to do with billions? I just want to leave the world a little better than I found it, you know?”

“The world’s problems aren’t on your shoulders, Sebastian. You don’t have to be the person that solves everything.”

" I know?—”

“Do you?” She placed her hand on his leg. “Because back at the pharmacy, when you spaced out on me, it felt an awful lot like maybe something triggered you back into a bad place. And maybe now you’re thinking about how you can make sure nothing bad ever happens again.”

“When it comes to you and your safety, I will.”

“So, it was about Marco? I thought maybe it was something from your time in the SEALs.”

“It was. The light flashes in the booth, it just brought me back to my last mission.”

“What happened?”

“A lot I can’t talk about because it’s still classified, Em.” His stomach clenched and he pulled her in closer to his chest. “You should know that I was responsible for the deaths of two teammates.”

She blinked rapidly at him, her hazel eyes trying to pull the truth from his soul.

“Sebastian, that can’t possibly be true.”

“It is. I was the team leader. We had gotten intel from a source we’d vetted and used numerous times before that a wanted, high value asset was going to be in a nearby town. I believed the informant and put together a plan based on his intel. I should have seen the signs. The shaky hands, the sweating. His desperate need to get back to his family.” He wiped his hand down his face. “We were ambushed that night. The two members we lost were like brothers to me. One was just married, another had a wife and a little kid at home waiting on his return. I sent them back to their wives in caskets, Em.”

“I’m so sorry. But that wasn’t your fault. You have to know that. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was. I made the call to use the intelligence to move on that particular asset. If I had taken more time to vet the information, if I had waited on a second confirmation, we wouldn’t have walked right in to a trap.”

Sebastian knew the decisions he’d made on that last mission were coloring the way he was approaching keeping Emma safe. His stomach clenched as he thought about returning to the house and hearing the update that Agent Wilson delivered to the guys. Would he make the right decision when it came to how the team would attempt to capture Marco? How would he make sure no one was hurt or killed this time? He wasn’t meant to lead the team any more in situations like this. It’s why he’d been happy to see his team start working with the FBI while he took a back seat and worked on his charitable business ideas.

“Does it make sense now?” Seb ran his hand over his face.

“What?”

“Why I’m so protective of you? I barely survived losing them, Em. If I lost the woman I’m falling for?—”

“You aren’t going to lose me. I’m right here. And this is where I’ll be, annoying you with my independence and teasing you about your snobby coffee orders, until you get tired of me and run the other way.”

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