Silas gathers me up first, pulling me into his chest, while Max settles behind me, pressing kisses into the back of my neck. Sebastian stays close, his hand finding mine, threading our fingers together.
I drift off to sleep surrounded by them.
Chapter39
Sebastian
The media is still in a frenzy. Photographers camp outside my office building, snapping pictures of nothing, desperate for a glimpse of the spectacle they think they understand.
I’m used to the attention by now. But Genevieve isn’t, and I hate what this is doing to her. Silas has mitigated the issue as well as he can, but the vultures are still circling.
I can manage my own destruction. I’m built for it. But watching her pay for it too? It makes me want to tear the city apart and make people pay for what they’ve done.
Still, there’s a strange peace underneath the anger. A sense of inevitability. No amount of whispered gossip or pixelated photos will ever touch what we’ve built. What we’re still building.
Genevieve gave me a second chance. It guts me in ways I’m still trying to understand.
There’s nothing casual about it. Nothing clean. Loving her isn’t a simple thing. It’s brutal and consuming and so far outside the careful lines I spent my life drawing that sometimes I hardly recognize myself. But it isn’t just her anymore.
It’s the child she’s carrying. It’s Max and Silas, standing beside her, not as obstacles, but as part of the life she’s chosen to build. A life I never expected to want—and sure as hell never expected to be invited into.
After what I did, I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I was the one who broke us. I was the one who ran. If she was willing to let me come back at all, it was a goddamn miracle.
And the truth is, I don’t want her to give them up.
I’ve seen the way they look at her. I’ve never seen them like this—never seen them want anything the way they want our girl and the life she’s growing inside her.
It should make me jealous. Maybe it would have, once. Now, it just makes me grateful.
Because I know the man I was before wouldn’t have been enough. Not on my own.
She deserves the world. And if it takes three of us to give it to her, then so be it.
I head toward the car, hitting the unlock button on the fob, the lights flashing in the early dusk—illuminating a silhouette I thought I’d rid myself of for good.
Heather.
She’s leaning against the hood of my car like she owns it, one heel propped against the tire, arms crossed, expression carefully arranged into something soft and coy.
For a split second, I consider turning around.
Not because I’m afraid—she’s hardly a threat. But because I don’t waste time on things that don’t matter, and Heather Langley has been irrelevant for a long time.
"Move," I say, voice flat, disinterested.
Heather’s smile doesn’t falter, but there’s a twitch at the corner of her mouth she can’t quite hide. “Sebastian. You can’t tell me you didn’t miss me even a little.”
"You’re blocking my car.”
She laughs—a sound so forced, it barely sounds real—and pushes off the hood. “Oh, come on, Sebastian. Don’t be like that.”
I don’t respond. She fills the silence the way insecure people always do, by talking too much.
“I was just thinking…” She trails a finger along the curve of the hood, deliberate. "You and me...we could have a lot of fun together. No expectations. No messy feelings. Just good old-fashioned entertainment."
She flashes a smile meant to be seductive.
I tilt my head slightly, studying her with a cold, detached interest. "You’re really not good at reading a room, Heather."