Page 28 of Overnight Inheritance

“I’ll tell you what.” Security near the front door looked over, so she dropped her voice to a harsh whisper. “None of your business is what’s happening.”

Heath angled his shoulders to exclude Sebastian, and, if anything, Seb was grateful. Mae wasn’t in danger, and there were about a thousand places Seb would rather be right now. But she wanted him there, so he waited.

“Since when do we keep secrets?” Heath hissed.

Mae’s eyes widened and even Seb could see that that had been a trigger of some kind.

“Since you started it.” Her voice was laced with barely contained anger. “Finding out about our father and Sarah. The inheritance. You did it on your own, without telling me, until it was pretty much all settled.”

Heath rocked back, shock all over his face. “Hang on, that’s not fair. You know why that was.”

“I know your own justification for it, sure,” she said, pointing a finger at his chest. “Now I’m doing my version of how to approach all of this on my own. So you can back off.”

“But—”

“I. Said. Back. Off.” Her voice was low and lethal and both men took a small step back.

Heath glared at his sister for a long moment, then headed back to their private dining room.

Once he was out of sight, Mae’s face filled with pain and her shoulders slumped. Sebastian reached for her and brought her into the circle of his arms, holding her tight. She felt good there. Right. As if nothing in the world could be bad as long as she was there.

“You don’t fight with him often, do you?”

“No,” she said against his shoulder as her arms wrapped around his back. “But that one had been coming for a long time. I hadn’t forgiven him for keeping secrets. Still, I shouldn’t have done it here, or in front of you.” She tipped her head back. “I’m sorry. That must have been uncomfortable to see.”

“Not as uncomfortable as it would have been for you to be in the middle of it.”

“And what’s worse is I’ll have to apologize to him later. He was out of line, but I shouldn’t have lost my cool. Not in public, anyway.”

“Do you want me to get you out of here?”

She sighed and pulled back. “Thank you for offering, but no. We need to go back, finish the dinner, and then I can go. It’s not just Heath’s night, it’s Freya’s too, and I really like her.”

“Then, let’s go.” They disentangled themselves and walked back to their table with a respectful distance between them, but the imprint of her body still hummed against his.

Sarah and Lauren watched their approach, one with an expression of concern and the other looking intrigued. They took their seats as Freya was whispering to Heath, her brows drawn together, but her fiancé merely gave a curt shake of his head and mouthed, “Later.”

The whole scene was excruciating, even compared to dinners with his father. The difference was that he hadn’t cared about his father from quite a young age, so he could easily dismiss or ignore whatever he was saying. He’d grown very accustomed to tuning his father out. But, he realized, he cared a lot about Mae. He didn’t want to be the cause of a rift with her family, especially with her brother after all they’d been through together.

Worst of all, what if Heath had been right? Seb hadn’t set out to take advantage of Mae, but maybe, subconsciously, that was part of what he’d been doing? He was Christopher Newport’s son, after all. Even his own mother thought he was like Christopher, so perhaps he’d been kidding himself about his own motives all this time?

While stilted conversation went back and forth around the table, Seb took his cell from his pocket, set it on his thigh, and typed a message to Mae.

I don’t belong here. I should leave.

He heard her phone vibrate and saw her look down seconds before his cell vibrated on his thigh.

You can’t.

He turned to her and raised his eyebrows, snagging his water glass at the same time for cover. His phone vibrated again.

You said, whatever I want, I could have it.

A bolt of heat shot through his system.

Mae...

He didn’t know if that had been a warning or a plea, but, either way, he couldn’t look at her.

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