Page 7 of Taming the Beast (Fairy Tales of New York)

“I understand why you’re like this, Seb,” she said, steeling herself to stick with the plan to go in guns blazing and bear any fallout.

“Like what?”

“All ‘I don’t give a shit about anything or anyone’.”

“There’s nothing to understand.”

“You think? Our paths may have crossed only a handful of times-” Well, four, including this evening, although none of them had been exactly chatty. “But Zel has talked about you a lot over the years and I think I know you well enough.”

“You don’t know me at all.”

She lifted her chin and took a breath. “It’s because of the accident, isn’t it?”

And that got a reaction.

Finally.

Seb’s jaw clenched. His eyes flashed. His entire body went still. “What?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” she said, not taking her eyes off him for even a moment even though his face was beginning to darken ominously. “When Zelda first mentioned you at school she said you used to be great. Fun. She said you used to be a wonderful big brother. She showed me a picture of you. On her phone. From before the accident. You were laughing. You looked relaxed. Happy.” As well as gorgeous, sexy and from that moment on very much the stuff of her pathetic adolescent dreams. “Then she said you changed. Virtually overnight. And knowing what I know, it doesn’t take a genius to work it out. You were driving the car when the accident happened, weren’t you? And what with that nightmare you had-”

He went even stiller. “What nightmare?”

“The one you had the night I stayed here. The one that woke me up.” The one that had first terrified her, then made her ache for him. “You were thrashing about, Seb. Crying out. Calling for your parents. You sounded as if you were in a lot of pain.” And all she’d been able to do was stroke his face and whisper that everything was all right while her heart turned inside out. “So I can make a pretty good guess at how the accident affected you,” she continued, blocking out the memory of that because it had no place in this conversation. “You had the death of your parents on your conscience. You’d made your sister and yourself orphans. You were wracked with guilt. Tormented by it. Why else would you suddenly drop out of university and enlist in the French Foreign Legion, if not to escape?”

“Stop it, Mercy. Right now.”

His eyes shot her a warning and the expression on his face was bleak and she nearly thought better of it, but she had to go on, and anyway what was he going to do? Frogmarch her out? Bodily remove her? That wasn’t very likely, was it? “No,” she said firmly. “You need to hear this, and I’m going to tell you if it’s the last thing I do. You might have gotten away with distracting me last time, but not this time.”

Seb stared at her. “Distracting you? What the hell are you talking about?”

As if he didn’t know. “Don’t bother denying it,” she said witheringly. “I’d been here barely ten minutes before you had me up against the wall, losing my mind and my train of thought along with my intention to tell you what was going on with Zelda.”

“I don’t remember you protesting.”

Mercy inwardly cringed. “I didn’t. And it’s not something I’m particularly proud of, although that’s nothing new when it comes to you.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw and if it had been anyone else she’d have said her comment had stung. “Yes, well, we all have burdens to bear,” he muttered.

And it was time to rid herself of the rest of hers. “You’ve caused Zelda enough misery, Seb, and it has to stop or you’ll lose her forever. God knows you’ve been doing an excellent job of it, pushing her away again and again. You hurt her badly, sending her to all those boarding schools when she needed you the most and then packing her off to Switzerland after we got caught drunk on that wine. I don’t think you realize how much.”

“She brought everything entirely upon herself.”

“No,” said Mercy, her voice beginning to tremble with anger and frustration. “She didn’t. You did.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Me?” he said. “How the hell do you figure that?”

Easily. “Do you feel any responsibility whatsoever for Zelda’s behavior, Seb? Because you should. I’ve known her since we were fifteen. She’s one of my best friends. I’ve seen her go through things I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and it’s all been because of you. Every drink she threw down her throat, every drug she took, every single bad decision she made could have been avoided if only you’d been the kind of brother she needed. You’re five years older than her. She became your responsibility and you washed your hands of her. All she wanted was your attention. Why do you think she played up so much? All she’s ever wanted was your attention. Now she’s resigned herself to not having it, to not having you in her life, but it still cuts her up. And despite all of it she still wants to talk to you.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“Neither can I. Especially since she’s moved on so brilliantly. She’s been clean for years now. And do you know that once a month the four of us – me, Zel, Dawn and Faith – all meet up in a pub? In a pub. Do you understand how hard that must be for Zel? But she sticks to her virgin mojitos and deals with it. Magnificently. I’ve never met anyone stronger, yet you weaken her. You take her down. So if you have any modicum of humanity left in you you need to sort yourself out, Seb. Whatever’s going on in your screwed up head, fix it. Let Zelda in. Surely, after everything you failed to do in the aftermath of the accident, after letting her down so badly and then not even helping her when she went off the rails, you owe her that much.”

Mercy stopped, breathing hard, her head spinning, her heart pounding, emotion rushing through her. She had to have gotten through to him. She had to…

“You know nothing, Mercedes,” he said, his face blank and his tone horribly bored. “Nothing.”

“I know you’re wallowing,” she shot back.

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