Page 94 of Worth Every Moment
He freezes, and every ounce of his disapproval rises to meet my anger like a brick wall. “If you can’t tell what the difference is, I’m not going to spell it out for you.”
I rest a hand on my hip, tempted to say nothing. But standing here in this tiny bathroom, surrounded by the scent of his cologne and the warmth of his skin, the longing for this man that I’ve buried deep within me bubbles up. “I want you to spell it out. Ineedyou to spell it out. I’m going to go insane if you don’t.”
He rubs a hand over his jaw; no sign of his dimple. “No.”
“No?”
“I’m not going to give you the truth if you don’t already know it.”
Something flutters beneath my skin, like butterflies chasing a breeze that skips from my heart to my stomach. “Please. Talk to me.”
His eyes dart away, but when he looks back at me, the longing in his gaze is so intense I almost can’t hold it. “Erica…”
He says my name like a lament, and in it, I hear pain and desire and a million other things he doesn’t want to tell me. Fear grips me by the throat, and I’m suddenly questioning why I’m pushing him on this. Why do I need to hear his confession? What changes if I do?
I’m going to drown in this silence because there’s a riptide just beneath the surface.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You don’t need to—”
“I’m already in love with you.” A tiny gasp escapes me and my knees weaken. I reach for the wall to steady myself, but Seb keeps on talking as though I haven’t reacted at all. “Ever since I first laid eyes on you, no one else stood a chance. I have obsessed over you for years. From the first time I saw your face in a high street catalogue my housekeeper accidentally left in the kitchen. That’s why you’re on my bathroom wall, and that’s why I’ve never taken a woman in there. Because even though you didn’t want me, I wanted you and that’s how I could have you in my space, in my life, all the time.
“Every single woman I’ve ever been with since then has been a shadow compared to you. Fuck it, anyone I’ve been with I was imagining you. In my head, it’s always been you. I’ve measured every single one of them against you, and they’ve always lost. It was you I wanted, every fucking time, but I knew you didn’t feel the same. All they were to me was a toxic distraction, over and over again. A distraction from the pain of not being able to have you.” He jerks his head, and that thick lock of hair that always falls over his forehead flips back a little before falling again. I want to brush it off his face. “If that makes me a fucking arsehole, then so be it.”
My heart hammers as his confession sinks in.He loves me. There are a million things I want to ask, but I settle on, “All of them?”
He licks his lips, jaw tensing. “Since I saw you, yes. It might have looked like I was having a good time—and I won’t lie and say I hated it. That wouldn’t be entirely true—but no matter how good the sex, it was always edged with a hopelessness that waspainful, because I knew it was never going to be you. That I’d never be able to be with you in the way I could with them, because it wasn’t what you wanted. BecauseIwasn’t what you wanted.”
His face is etched with what looks like heartbreak, and I feel like a bitch for having forced this out of him.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur.
He sighs. “Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault. I wasn’t going to tell you. I was going to take it to my fucking grave because you’re my best friend and this is the shit that fucks things up beyond repair.” A groan of a laugh escapes him. “I was going to keep it to myself because it makes me sound like a stalker at best, pathetic at worst, but… it’s true. Every fucking word. There’s only ever been one woman for me. I have worshipped the ground you walked on for years, and I made my peace with being your friend because I never thought I had a chance of anything more. But then you were crying in the back of my car, and I thought, ‘hey, maybe there’s something I can do here. Maybe I can help’. And maybe I never should have suggested this fake dating nonsense, but I’d have taken any excuse to be close to you. To move you into my apartment. To be near you. Fuck, I’d do anything for you. And I’m sorry about Abigail. I’m sorry I didn’t think to have her taken off the flight. But really, my mind hasn’t been clear since I saw you lying naked on my bed.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I can’t concentrate on anything other thanyou. Can’t think of anything else. I love you. I love you so fucking much, it hurts.”
I swallow, and the sound of it is deafeningly loud in the silence that follows his confession. “Did you just admit that you love me… in a toilet?”
At my joke, the serious expression on his face melts away, and he looks more like himself, his eyes brightening and his dimple reappearing. “Yeah. It’s a toilet in a multi-million dollar private jet, if that makes it any better.”
“I’m not sure it does,” I whisper, although my entire body is buzzing and I’m smiling.
Seb dips his head as he drags a hand through his hair, then glances back at me. “Sorry. But I’m completely fucked here. I really meant it when I said I can’t think straight. The fact that you just let me go down on you mid-flight… I think my brain melted. I’m surprised my dick didn’t explode and decorate the cabin walls with cum.”
“Oh, my God,” I say on a half-laugh.
He looks a little abashed. “Romantic, right?”
“Disgusting.”
He chuckles, but then his gaze turns sincere and he takes my hands in his. “Erica. Seriously. You have nothing to worry about. When you’re in the room, you’re the only person I see. You’re the only person I’ve ever seen, and when you’re not there, I spend the whole time hoping you’ll turn up. It’s a fucking sickness. Every other woman was just a shitty attempt to cure it. And it didn’t work. None of it meant anything. Turns out, it’s incurable. I think I might be cursed to love you forever.”
My throat swells and the embarrassing urge to cry burns behind my eyes. “That’s awful,” I croak out, trying my best to sound like I’m making a joke. Sounds more like I’m dying though.
“For whom?”
“Them. Those poor women.”
He laughs, loud. “They had a good time. You’ll see.”You’ll see. My stomach flips. He pulls me into him, holding me tightly, one large hand cupping the back of my head. My cheek rests against his chest, and his heart thumps in my ear. It’s the way he used to hold me before we brought this sexual dynamic into our friendship. So comforting. Sosafe. It makes me long for the old Seb, just a little. No, not the old Seb. The oldme. The me who wasn’t so jealous and paranoid that I was picking fights every other minute.
Seb squeezes me a little tighter, drawing me from my thoughts, and his breath ruffles my hair when he speaks. “Reckon we can stop arguing every time you have an orgasm? It’s becoming a thing, and I’m not sure I’m fully on board with it. I’d prefer to snuggle, to be honest.”
