First Comes Marriage (Aster Bay #3)

Chapter Seventeen

The rest of the evening passed in a blur—Baz and Richard discussing the stock market, Maryann not-so-subtly reminding Sabrina to dress appropriately for the party tomorrow—and before Baz knew it, Maryann had shown them to the guest room in the south wing of the house.

Once they were alone, he toed off his shoes by the door and loosened his tie. Sabrina flopped backwards on the bed, spreading her arms and legs like a starfish—well, at least as far as the form-fitting skirt of her dress would allow. The fabric slid up her thighs as she stretched out on the bed, revealing another few inches of creamy skin. Taunting him. Tempting him.

“That was awful,” she sighed.

“Not as bad as I expected.”

She turned her head to face him, her eyes tracking the movement of the muscles beneath his shirt as he set aside his jacket and unbuttoned his vest. Christ, he liked her eyes on him too much.

“What did you expect? A literal firing squad?”

He slipped off his vest and set it on top of his jacket. “They were more welcoming than I thought they’d be.”

“To you, maybe.” She sighed and returned to staring at the ceiling .

“Your mom is put out she didn’t get to plan the wedding. She’ll get over it and—”

“She’s always like this.”

He sat on the bed beside her as he pulled his tie over his head, tossing it onto the pile with his other clothes. And then he waited for her to say whatever else was swirling through her mind, whatever it was that put that crease back between her eyes. She drew in a shaky breath, and when she spoke, she kept her eyes focused on the ceiling.

“When I said earlier that I shouldn’t have asked you to come… That wasn’t about you. They were always going to like you. ”

“They didn’t like me when I was engaged to Holly.”

“That wasn’t about you either.”

“Then what was it about?”

She gave a little half shrug, her eyes still fixed on some unseen spot on the ceiling. Baz lay down beside her, nudging her over to make room for him, and fixed his own eyes on the ceiling. More white. Though Maryann probably had a fancy name for this particular shade of white. Ecru, or alabaster, or snow drift.

“When I said that earlier, what I meant was, you’re already doing this amazing thing for me. With the health insurance. It was selfish to ask you to put on a show for my parents. To put you in a position to have to defend me. To tell them I’m a good businesswoman,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.

“I believe I said brilliant. ” He turned his head to watch her.

“You only think that because you don’t know me very well.”

“I didn’t say anything tonight that I didn’t mean.” Her eyes drifted his way, but only for a moment before she fixed them back on the ceiling. “What happened in Maine?” he asked softly.

Her lips contorted into a look of disgust, her eyes narrowing as they turned glassy. “My studio was thriving. People traveled from all over to book one of my break-up parties. ”

Ahh yes, the infamous penis smashing parties. He’d ask more about that later.

“I had a good life there. I had a regular coffee shop and the woman who cut my hair knew exactly how I liked it and I lived in a house where I could walk down to the beach to read at night. And I had Jordan.”

Baz held his breath, his heart pounding. He hated this guy already.

“His pottery was locally famous, and he had mastered this decorative technique—sgraffito. No one could do it like him.”

Her voice had gotten small, brittle, and all he wanted to do was gather her in his arms and hold her. But that wasn’t what this was. A few nights of whispering through the wall and one kiss—no matter how incendiary—didn’t give him the right to treat her like she was his. She wouldn’t want that anyway. Right?

“We got married three years ago, right after I sold him half the business.” Baz sucked in a breath and instantly hated himself for it when she winced in response. “That was my parents’ reaction too. They hated him from the beginning. My dad refused to give him his blessing before we got married.” She paused, shaking her head, though whether she was disappointed in her ex or her father, Baz wasn’t sure. “I thought we were going to be partners—in everything. I thought he loved me.”

“What happened?” He hardly recognized the deadly calm of his voice.

“He was having an affair with the florist next door.” She turned her head to look at him then, a tear sliding over the bridge of her nose and into the comforter beneath her cheek. He brushed the pad of his thumb over her cheek to wipe away the trail it left behind. “He said he wanted a family. Children. And I…” She blinked away the ghosts in her eyes, tucking away whatever she’d been about to say, and continued. “He didn’t want me anymore. He said he wanted it to be easy. To marry her. They’d already decided which room to turn into a nursery. In the house we lived in together. The house that was only in his name. They’d picked out wallpaper and everything.”

Baz couldn’t take the sadness in her eyes. He wrapped her up in his arms, bundling her against him. Her arms went around his waist and she let him clasp her to him, nestling her beneath his chin as he loosed a string of muttered curses and oaths to castrate the man if he ever crossed his path.

She buried her face in his chest and exhaled the last of her story. “He wouldn’t give up his half of the business. Of the studio I built. I didn’t want to leave my little house and my coffee shop and the life I’d made for myself there. But the divorce had been dragging on for over a year. And the florist who slept in my bed with my husband was pregnant. He was never going to let me have the business. He said he needed it to support his new family. I let him buy me out so I could be done with it. To be done with him.”

He rubbed circles over her back, pressed a kiss into her hair, even as his stomach dropped. “You were still in love with him.”

“What? No.” She pushed herself up enough to meet his eyes. “No. I realized as soon as he told me about the affair that I didn’t love him anymore. Maybe I never had. Maybe I was stupid and mistook infatuation for something more.” Her eyes scanned his. “I am not still in love with him.” Baz swallowed around the lump forming in his throat and tilted his chin to show he believed her. “I couldn’t stay there and watch the bastard run my business. He turned the place into a paint-your-own-mug thing, a glorified bar with a side of arts and crafts. I needed to start over. So I left.”

Her eyes blazed with anger. She’d never looked more beautiful.

“Why Aster Bay?”

Her eyes dropped to his lips before returning to meet his gaze, and his hands suddenly felt heavy, clumsy as he settled one on her hip .

“Aunt Lucy is there. And it seemed like a good place to open a pottery studio. Quirky small town stuff, you know? And…”

“And?”

“And you were there.”

He sucked in a breath, some wild, impulsive thing crashing around inside his ribs, like a bird let loose in too small of a cage. “You thought I hated you.” His hand slid across her lower back, shifting her closer, settling her hips against his own.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips as she nodded, the painted nails on one of her hands digging into his bicep. “I wanted to be close to you. Even if you hated me.”

“Why?”

A pretty pink spread over her cheeks and he imagined where else she was pretty and pink. He ached for her, a fact she must have known with their bodies pressed so tightly together.

“Because you were the last person to look at me like maybe I was something special.”

“No maybe about it, wildflower.”

Her eyes darted all over his face, tracing his brows and the line of his jaw, his lips and the slope of his nose. He felt each sweep of her gaze like a fingertip on his skin, a touch too soft to be satisfying, too heavy to be ignored. He wanted her eyes on him all the time, on every part of him. Wanted to watch as she mapped the muscles of his torso, as she discovered the carved lines at his hips. Wanted to see the realization dawn in her eyes that the thick ridge of his cock pressing into her belly was hard for her. To peel back the layers of her fancy clothes and be the one to uncover the real Sabrina beneath.

She rocked her hips against him and he sucked in a breath, his hands digging into her soft curves to keep her still. With that one small movement, he knew how it would be between them. The way they’d burn so brightly it would hurt, how she’d burrow under his skin and stay there long after they’d gone their separate ways .

And maybe that was okay. Maybe he couldn’t be the man she wanted forever, but he could be the man she wanted right now. He wasn’t made for forevers. Maybe this, right now, the two of them together, maybe that would be enough.

“Sebastian?”

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me.”