enticing.
But Sebastian’s eyes are still on me. I feel the weight of his gaze and it’s like standing at the edge of a fire pit, entranced by flickering flames and soothed by heat. My whole damn life I’ve wanted a man to look at me like that—like I’m the only woman in the room. Like I’m all he can think about. All he wants. His hand brushes the back of my neck and I shiver.
“I don’t think I should like it,” he says eventually.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t help wondering what you’d look like up there.” He shakes his head, a frown creasing his dark brows. “And that is not something I should be thinking about.”
My breath is a bubble in the back of my throat and my heart matches the rhythm of the music. “Why not?”
“Because you were about to marry my stepbrother two days ago.”
Hearing the truth is like having a bucket of ice water dumped on me. I don’t want to think about Mike and Sebastian’s relationship—shaky as it is. I don’t want to think about the fact that they’re connected, that they’re family.
They’re not actually related, and they hate each other. What’s the big deal?
I most definitely don’t want to think that if by some Sliding Doors–type scenario I hadn’t decided to vanish out of the bridal dressing room, I might be married right now to a man who would never love me.
“Are you worried about where your loyalties lie?” I ask softly.
“They don’t lie with Mike, I know that much.” He still hasn’t looked at the dancer, even as she begins stripping off her stockings and swinging her hips in time to the music’s heavy bass. “But I don’t want to ruin things with Dad. And...”
“And what?”
“Maybe there’s part of me that wonders if you’re only interested as a means of revenge.”
If him bringing up the wedding is a bucket of ice water being dumped over my head, then this is like being slapped with a wet fish.
“You think I’m only here because I want to give a big ‘fuck you’ to Mike?”
Maybe that’s exactly what a bad girl would do, use sex not only for pleasure but as a weapon. The thing is, however, revenge was never part of my plan. Not even for the most fleeting second. My attraction to Sebastian is as pure and natural as it comes—his relationship to Mike is a downside, not a plus.
Why is it a downside if you’re only looking for a one-night stand to tick off your list? It’s no one’s business who you sleep with.
In my peripheral vision, I notice that the dancer is at the microphone now and is talking to the audience. But the pounding in my head is drowning out everything she’s saying. I can only focus on Sebastian.
“Look, if you think for one second this has anything to do with Mike, then you’re dead wrong,” I say. “And you came to me yesterday. Why? Because you thought I was going to rat on you to your folks about helping me escape the wedding?”
Sebastian opens his mouth to respond, but I hold up my hand to cut him off. No fucking way. I have listened my whole damn life like a good little girl and now it’s my time to speak. Only, something changes in the air—it’s lighter somehow. Literally. There’s a giant spotlight shining down on me as if the heavens have opened up and God himself is shining a torch in my face.
The audience cheers and I blink, my head slowly turning to the stage.
“It looks like we have a volunteer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hand go up so fast.” The redheaded woman beckons me forward.
Oh shit.
She must have seen my hand go up as I was talking to Sebastian. What on earth have I done? There’s a man in top and tails coming toward me, hand outstretched. I want to recoil, back away. Hide. I hate the spotlight.
But that’s Previous Presley talking. Good Girl Presley.
If I want to be bad and spontaneous and free, then I need to do things I wouldn’t normally do, right? I need to change.
I look at Sebastian. There’s a challenge in his dark eyes, a daring. If I’d been here with Mike, he would have been mortified. But let’s be real—Mike would have turned tail the second he figured out what this place was. Trashy, he would have called it. Classless.
But Sebastian is here, with me. He wants me—I can feel it in