Page 44 of Capricorn

“That’s beside the point. Marriage or not, I don’t like this apathetic state of yours.”

“You speak of happy marriages, but I’m the one who needs help? Is Dr. Price aware you suffer from delusions of grandeur?”

He smirks. “No delusions here. I’d probably make a terrible husband anyway.”

“I don’t need therapy,” I bite out. “Especially not from Dr. Price.” The name lands with scorn.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“Why do you care?”

He settles next to me, and a sigh of resignation slips out.

“You remind me of Talitha.” He tilts his head, locking his eyes with mine. “She didn’t just pass, Novalee. She killed herself.”

I gape at him, his words illuminating every moment I’ve spent in his presence. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

As I study the paintings, the realization settles in. They’re a merging of the two people we loved and lost.

“Will you tell me about her?” I ask, bringing my attention back to him.

His gaze drops to the floor. “She was submissive…like you.” Dormant grief laces his voice, softening each syllable. “Made for me in every way.”

I recall Mr. Bordeaux and his relationship with Loren, or Pax and the woman he calls slave.

“What do you mean by submissive?” I lean on the arm of the couch. “I’m not like that.”

“It’s an umbrella term for many dynamics. Talitha gave me control of her life and body because she needed the freedom it gave her.”

“How is that freedom?”

“Giving me the reins took the pressure off her. She thrived. Hell, we both did.”

“I understand that’s what worked for you and her, but I want…something different.”

I want Sebastian.

As if we’re tuned to the same wavelength, I swear he hears the unspoken words.

“You might not want or need it in the same way she did, but I see it in you. You have the same type of submissive spirit as my Talitha.”

He pauses, staring into the flames, a faint smile curving his mouth. He seems lost to the memory while the firelight dances across his features.

“She was smart and gifted, with the most breathtaking voice I’ve ever heard. She dreamed of performing at La Scala in Italy someday. She would’ve made it there, too, if not for…”

With a heavy breath, he lowers his face into his hands, fingers raking through his drying hair. He stays like that for a long moment, inhaling and exhaling, words failing him, then his rough voice breaks free again.

“She was bipolar, unresponsive to meds, haunted by things that happened before I met her.” For a beat, his gaze finds mine. “I would’ve done anything for her, but you can’t love someone out of their pain, no matter how hard you try.”

His anguish wraps around me as if it’s my own. Disquiet spreads over us like a blanket, and we’re both transported to the past, our gazes fixed on the flames, ensnared in the same trance.

Until he moves.

It’s a slight shift, his warm and solid thigh brushing mine, but it’s enough to crash land me back on this couch with him, planting me in the present.

Because that bit of contact explodes in the space between us, inching him closer, my name a raspy sigh on his lips. That tone is all gravel and need, a longing for something more weighing down his lids.

It’s powerful.

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