Page 69 of Cohesion

“Riley and me. That’s why we were spending so much time together.”

“Seb…”

“I know. Iknow.” Even speaking it out loud, all these years later, could get him in hot water. Him and Riley both. “It was old. About… nine months before Eli was born.”

Quinn’s lips parted. “Are you saying—?”

“Charlotte and I don’t share the same father as Eli. He was born from a one-night stand that should never have happened.”

“Define ‘should never have happened.’”

That was the crux of the real problem. Where the line between morally wrong and acrimecrossed too close. “No charges were filed. It wasn’t rape, he was just… young. Too young, no matter what he thought he was doing. By the time I found out, he was already in his twenties. Lives here, in Sydney. But if we’d opened an investigation, or allowed one to be opened, it would have destroyed Eli, to know where he’d come from.”

“So you made sure nothing could come of it.”

“Yes.” He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d been young, and his first instinct was toalwaysprotect his siblings. Even now, when they were adults, he would always put them before himself. His mother, Jasmine, had used both Eli and Charlotte as weapons against Sebastian, and if he’d attempted to have her tried as an unfit mother due to one incident of underage sex, and he’d lost, he wouldn’t have seen them again foryears.

As a twenty-year-old law student with crippling debt and two part-time jobs just to feed himself,andhis siblings, Sebastian had nothing to his name, whereas Jasmine had been a well-respected member of the community, all smiles hiding the venom beneath.

Maybe it had been the wrong decision, but it hadn’t been worth the risk to him, especially not considering that Eli would have been dragged througheverything. He’d been far too young to have gone through that.

“Why didn’t you come to me? Why Riley?”

Sebastian sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. How did he explain that he’d never felt worthy of the love that Quinn gave him? He smoothed a hand down Quinn’s chest, fingers curling around the top buttons. “When I look at you, I see… nothing but good. You followed in your dad’s footsteps because you truly believed in what he did. Protecting people. Being their guiding star. You were so pure and so fucking perfect, and I couldn’t let you see.”

Quinn covered his hands. “See what?”

“How much I’m not like you. I didn’t want you to see the parts of me that weren’t good enough for you. I wanted to pretend for a second that I could have your love and deserve it.” Their lives were so different. Quinn had an incredible family and a loving childhood, and his path had always been right in front of him, and he’d walked it with his head held high. Sebastian’s journey to adulthood had been nothing like that. Abandoned by his father, left with his toxic mother, trying so hard to keep it from touching Eli and Charlotte. They were amazing, successful adults now, without any of the trauma that Sebastian had shielded them from. Trauma he’d dealt with on his own. And that he’d left behind him.

But pieces of the past would always stick. There would always be a part of him that wasn’t worthy of the extraordinary love that Quinn freely gave.

“You can’t do that to me, Seb. You can’t treat me like I’m better than you, because I’m not. We’re equal. We have to be equal, or this will never last.” He smoothed his thumb across his bottom lip, caressing over where Sebastian had bit into it. “You are one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. You sacrifice pieces of yourself to protect the people that you care about. Your entire career is about defending people. Your heart is so much bigger than you know, and I’m the one who gave you a reason to close it. I’ll always be sorry for that. I’m not perfect, and I can’t have you look at me like I am. I screwed up, and I’m going to again. So are you. But we’ll navigate it together because we’re not who we used to be, and I need you in my life. I need all of you.”

Sebastian’s throat closed up. Quinn gutted him, made him feel things with such rawness that it was like being skinned alive. Carved out until everything was laid bare, and he had no hope of protecting himself. He had to trust this time that Quinn would take care of him.

“I want to be the one that you turn to, not Riley,” Quinn said. “I trust you, and I can’t ask you to stop being friends with him. Iknowhow important it is to you, Seb. And I’m not that scared kid anymore that was terrified you would leave me.”

“You thought…” If they’d had even one conversation like this back then, maybe things would have been different. Neither of them had been old enough, mature enough, to face it head-on like this.Thiswas their second chance and their happily ever after, and Sebastian would grasp it with both hands.

“Of course, I did,” Quinn said. “You weren’t the only one putting someone on a pedestal. Did you think that I would look at you differently if I knew?” He kissed Sebastian so softly that Sebastian trembled, holding his breath in case it broke their perfect spell. “I would have helped you, Sebastian. Whatever you wanted, I would have doneanythingto give it to you.”

Sebastian kissed him because words were impossible. He didn’t know how else to convey just how much Quinn meant to him.

He’d thought that Quinn catching him and Riley—before Sebastian had figured out how to bring it up—had been the end.

Maybe it was everything they’d needed it to be.

Chapter Nine

Peyton surveyed the quietsuburban street as he got out of Jericho’s black SUV. Something in the air felt wrong. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It was the kind of thing that would have put him and the rest of the team on high alert.

He shut the car door and tried to make sense of it, taking in his surroundings. A tall, slatted wooden fence surrounded the sleek two-storey hardwood home. Immaculate landscaping and a mailbox built into the fence.

“I thought someone was watching the place?” Peyton said. They should have come to greet them, or made their presence known with them this close to the fence. It was obvious at a glance they weren’t “just walking past.”

“Zoe,” Jericho said. He frowned, taking hold of Peyton’s elbow. “She had something important come up and rotated with a guy she vouched for. Just until we found someone else.”

“When was that?”

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