“Everyone knew but him. It was mortifying to hear them talk about him. About my mother. That he was a fool and she was a slut was at one time the most popular topic in the capital. In fact, I learned that word overhearing gossip about her.”
He’d heard it over and over again, with even greater frequency than the times he had overheard the whispers and snickers about his idiot father—the only one who didn’t know about his mother’s infidelity. But, of course, like everyone else, he had known.
“Oh, Sebastian.”
It was incredible the amount of compassion, understanding, and balmy, soothing sympathy she could pack into the single word of his name.
After his childish intervention attempt had backfired, Sebastian’s father had consoled himself with booze and gambling until death.
“I survived,” he said, shrugging her softness away. “In fact, I thrived. I tore down the old house, and I made an incredibly successful profession out of having all the information and never playing the fool. In a way, you could say I am grateful. The lessons they taught me will ensure our children never have to experience the same thing.”
Even if that meant a lifetime of wrestling with the dragon that was his desire for Jenna. Even if it meant asking the same sacrifice of her. He had to. He hoped she understood now, in a way that she hadn’t before, why it had to be this way.