Filed to story: Once Upon a One Night Mistake Book PDF Free by Simone Shirazi
With a heavy sigh, he collapsed back into the chair and rolled his eyes. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t simply ignored her words and gone inside, but it probably had something to do with the fact that he wanted answers.
“What do you want, Blair?” he murmured, finally daring to look at her.
She had relaxed now that they were the only two outside, but her normal amusement had shifted into something he couldn’t read. “Just to talk,” she said softly. “We haven’t exactly gotten a moment to do that.”
Sebastian narrowed his gaze, not buying her innocent act. “Unless you’re going to apologize for everything you’ve done and tell me why you cheated on me, I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”
Much to his surprise, she flinched. Half of him was convinced she was just acting like always, but her heavy exhale and the way she squirmed made him think otherwise. However, she quickly composed herself.
“If Taliana wants an apology, that’s a discussion for a different day.” Blair sounded like her previous breezy self once again.
“Blair, why don’t you just fuck o-“
“Please, Sebastian,” she cut in. “Let’s keep this as pleasant and as civilized as possible. If you and Stick Girl can manage it, I’m sure you and I can. And speaking of her, I’m still surprised you two are actually, you know, together. I’m kind of amazed your hatred for each other turned into love so quickly.”
“Things change,” he said, draping an arm across the back of his chair as he stared her down, daring her to call out his relationship as fake. “You and I know all about that.”
“Yeah, we do,” she agreed as she rose from her seat in one fluid motion, moving instead to perch on the arm of his chair. “And it’s a shame things had to change for the worst.”
Her sudden shift in position caught him off guard. Blair was so close now that he could smell her jasmine perfume, its familiar fragrance causing his heart to beat double time. It didn’t help that her voice was so soft and smooth, taking on the tone he’d once loved, and her fingers had found their way to the nape of his neck, stroking patterns on his skin.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, you know,” she continued, her eyes meeting his for one fleeting moment. “We can fix this. We can get back what we had.” She paused, her fingers slipping up to stroke his hair before drifting back down. “We used to be so in love. Everyone thought we would be together forever.”
And then you had to go and ruin it, he thought bitterly.
Half of him knew he needed to push her away and keep her at a distance. But the other half, the weaker half, just wanted to pull her down into his lap and whisper that he missed those days, that he missed what they had.
But he couldn’t. The memory of her betrayal was still too raw. He wouldn’t dare let that happen again.
“Blair, you need to stop.”
Her fingers continued to move, nails raking gently against his skin. “Look, I know we can move past this,” she murmured. “Everything with William wasn’t-“
But he didn’t want to hear it. “I don’t want your excuses,” he snapped. He reached up to pull her hand away from his neck before gently pushing her out of his way as he stood. “I trusted you once. I? loved you. But you threw it all away.” He took a step back, eyes finally meeting hers again. “And once you lose both, there’s no getting them back.”
With one last lingering look, he turned and strode toward the house, almost missing her whispered reply.
“I’m sorry.”
He didn’t bother to spare her a glance as he pushed open the door. “Sorry isn’t going to cut it, Blair.”
28
Avoidance Techniques
Sebastian skipped out on dinner by pleading a migraine. It wasn’t exactly a lie since his brief conversation with Blair had left his head pounding, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.
His mother had sent him upstairs with a couple ibuprofen a few hours ago, giving him plenty of time to recover and gather his thoughts. Now as he came downstairs, the last few guests and family members were making their way out the door. He quickly said his goodbyes and waited beside his mother until everyone had piled into their respective cars.
Arabella closed the door once the last car had pulled away from the curb and let out a heavy sigh of relief.
“Glad that’s over,” she mumbled, mostly to herself, though he felt the same way. She then turned and smiled at her youngest son. “Your friends are out in the backyard if you’re looking for them. Taliana was worried about you when you left so suddenly earlier. Feeling better now?”
“I am,” he replied, smiling as she reached out to pat his cheek lovingly before wandering back into the kitchen.
With a heavy sigh, he trekked through the house and exited through the sliding glass doors. On first glance, he thought nothing of his friends huddled in a tight circle in the middle of the dark yard, illuminated only by the flood lights off the back of the house, but when he looked closer, he realized they were all gathered around Taliana. As he moved toward them, he saw that Marcus was hugging her to his side, and Michael was offering an ice pack for the bruise blooming around her eye.
The next thing he knew, Sebastian was brushing Marcus out of the way and taking Taliana’s face in his hands, quickly inspecting her for any other damage.
“What the hell happened?” he questioned, frowning as he swept his thumb over her purple-tinged cheekbone. “Did you get hit? Who did this to you?” His gaze swept to Marcus, Michael, Jude, and Jacob-who had apparently shown up sometime during dinner. “I swear to god, if any of you laid a hand on her-“
“Relax,” she laughed, reaching out to touch his jaw and recapturing his attention. “It wasn’t any of them, I promise. If it had been, you’d be trying to pull me off of whoever did it before I killed them.”
That didn’t ease his anxiety any. “If they didn’t do it, who did?”
She squirmed underneath his touch and grimaced. “Zak, actually.”
“Zak did this to you?” That was it, he was going to kill the kid next time he saw him. Hell, he should’ve done that a week ago instead of just getting him expelled and blacklisted.
“Well, he was trying to do this to Jude, but I ended up getting in the way,” she admitted, pulling Sebastian’s hands away from her face. “He and Senator Patterson showed up about fifteen minutes after you left. Everything was fine during dinner, but I guess Zak decided he wanted to get Jude back for what he did once everyone started coming outside for drinks.”
“The kid’s psycho!” Jude exclaimed, looking severely traumatized even though there wasn’t a scratch on him. “It’s bad enough he was trying to take a swing at me, but the fact that he got Talia instead is even worse!”
Sebastian looked back to her, raising a hand to her cheek again. “Are you okay at least? I swear to you, the next time I see him, I’ll-“
“I’m fine,” she reassured, smiling despite the situation. “Really, I am. And you don’t have to worry about getting revenge. Zak looked pretty horrified before Senator Patterson pulled him away and promised she’d never let him near me again.”
“Jesus,” Sebastian grumbled, resisting the urge to pull her into a hug to make sure she was truly okay. At that point, he really couldn’t deny it anymore-he most definitely had feelings for Taliana fucking Avilla. “This is so messed up.”
His words had been in reference to his silent admittance, but without that particular knowledge, she seemed to assume he was talking about Zak.
“I know, right?” she sighed, prodding gently at her eye and wincing when she hit a tender spot. “This hurts like a bitch.”
He was unable to keep from gathering her into his arms at that point. Against his better judgement, he buried his face in her hair, inhaling the sweet scent of her milk-and-honey shampoo. “I can’t believe he? hit? you.”
To his pleasure, she didn’t push him away, and instead chuckled as she wrapped a loose arm around his waist. “I can’t believe it either. Kind of a shock, but eh, I’ll live.”