Page 50 of My Brutal Alpha

As the group of us worked to take down the decorations, Sebastian wordlessly went back and forth, bringing all the gifts inside, and Zoe and Lydia were washing up in the kitchen.

Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary as Ethan kept up his antics, entertaining all of us with his endless chatter. But despite the day going well, I couldn't help but notice the subtle shift in Sebastian's demeanor. He was quieter than usual and didn't engage much with me.

Assuming he was tired or busy, I just kept my head down and helped.

Eventually, it was mostly cleaned up by the time the guys had to head out, leaving me with a few last-minute things.

It was only me in the backyard, picking up some remaining garbage, when I suddenly felt a harsh presence behind me.

Turning around, I found Sebastian looking at me intensely, looking more angry than I had seen him in a while.

"What the hell happened the other night?" he demanded, eyes sharp and lips fixed into a scowl. "When Zoe showed uphere crying about being hurt by you and your parents. What was that about?"

He didn't seem to be holding back any of that anger since nobody else was back there with us, and that sudden shift in him caught me off-guard.

Blinking back at him for a moment, I took a second to regain my bearings. But of course, well aware of how disastrous that night went, my stomach dropped.

It seemed he waited all day to confront me finally, and there was no avoiding it.

I let go of a breath. "Zoe agreed to meet with my parents so that we could convince them of the lie. They acted like they were taking the bait, but neither of us saw it coming. They blindsided us, and it didn't matter what we tried at that point, they just wanted me to accept Nora. But—"

His eyes narrowed by a fraction more. "But you obviously aren't faking anymore, right?"

Surprised then, I didn't think he would've been able to see through me. I assumed he had just been angry about his sister's upset, not that he was onto us. "I—"

"There's no point denying it," Sebastian snapped, stepping toward me. "You had this whole facade going, but you pulled Zoe into your mess, and her feelings have grown for you—which you're trampling all over."

"It's not like that," I managed to say, finding myself in the exact situation I never wanted to be in. "I apologized, and we made amends. I'm trying to be better for her."

"You might be acting all lovey-dovey now, but I know you're just going to hurt her all over again," he muttered, not letting up on his anger. "And don't assume I know nothing about you messing around with her behind my back. How you twowere seeing each other and decided to keep it to yourselves. She told me everything that night. So don't play dumb with me."

Cursing to myself on the inside, I knew I was completely caught out and in the worst possible way.

It didn't matter how I spun it, I would look like an asshole regardless.

I went behind his back while seeing his sister. I discovered a mate bond with her, and I broke her heart right after. Then, I proceeded to do the same thing all over again, sweeping her up in my baggage. That was why I rejected her in the first place—to prevent exactly that from happening, but I still failed anyway.

"What, having nothing to say now that it's time to actually fess up?"

Despite his fury that seemed to build more and more with every passing second, I pulled in a breath and tried to maintain whatever I could of my dignity.

Regardless of being caught red-handed, I had to at least try and defend myself.

"Listen, I know how it all sounds, and I'm sorry for hiding it from you, but this isn't for nothing," I began, grasping at straws. "I only called things off with her before to avoid any problems because I knew it would be an issue. But we have a mate bond, and even while we tried ignoring it for the sake of the plan, we just couldn't. It's real, and I care about Zoe more than anything. I mean well, and I'm genuinely trying to do right by her."

Sebastian's eyes flared. "Don't even get me started on the mate bond..."

My brows furrowed, surprised that someone like him, who had experienced his own bond, couldn't register my sincerity enough to trust me. "You know I wouldn't put herthrough all this shit if I didn't really care about her. You also know that I can't help who I have a bond with."

"Maybe, but you could control who you had sex with," Sebastian growled at me, jabbing my chest with a finger. "That's my sister—my little sister! You could've hooked up with anyone, but it just had to be her, right?"

Even if I was trying to keep things as civilized as possible, Sebastian wasn't interested, and the more he pushed, the more my own anger flared. The more my end of the bond pulled in defense of itself.

"If I had known having sex with her would cause the bond to snap into place, then I wouldn't have, as much as I liked her. But there was nothing I could do about it after the fact," I returned, tone clipped. "In fact, I rejected her and broke her heart with my own because I knew you'd react like this. I tried to fix things as best as I could not to jeopardize our friendship, but even then, it wasn't good enough. Nothing would be good enough, right?"

Sebastian clenched his jaw as he held my gaze, eyes burning with his wrath. His voice came out low and tense, brimming with venom. "You jeopardized it the moment you even entertained the idea of getting with her."

He wasn't wrong; I did exactly that. At the time, I knew it would cause problems. I knew that spending time with Zoe, one-on-one away from the others, would be an issue.

---