Page 98 of Drawn Together

“Why?”

Sebastian sighed again. “Marfil, I can’t do my job if we keep this up.”

“How does the fact that I want to kiss you affect your work?”

Sebastian looked to my lips and then back to my eyes. “It would be a distraction.”

“No, I can kiss you only when we’re at home. Outside the house, you’ll be able to concentrate as much as you want.”

Sebastian smiled, and my heart fluttered as if I had a hummingbird flapping its wings inside my chest.

“It doesn’t work that way, Elephant,” he said, moving my hand away when I tried to hold his. “We can’t, it’s that simple.”

I pursed my lips, annoyed, but also sad.

“You should be going out with some college guy,” he added an instant later.

“You’re not being serious,” I replied, unable to believe what he was saying.

He stood up, walked to the door, and opened it for me. “I’m being very serious.”

I instantly felt lonely without him beside me.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t be bothered to see me with other guys?”

“I’m not saying anything, Marfil. I’m not here to participate in your life; I’m here to protect you. That’s it.”

I stood up and walked over to him. “That’s not it and you know it, but I’m not going to keep insisting.”

“I’m glad you finally get it.”

“I’m a slow learner, I guess,” I replied in the same cold tone.

“Go to bed.”

“Of course, Mr. Moore.”

I walked down the hallway toward the living room, angry and hurt.

Rico lifted his head as soon as he heard my footsteps and looked at me from his spot beside the fireplace.

“Do you want to sleep with me?”

The dog jumped up, wagging his tail happily, as if he’d understood me.

I heard Sebastian’s door shut behind me, and I sat down on the couch with Rico. I hugged him tightly and began to cry. Why did everything suddenly seem to revolve around the way I felt for Sebastian? Why couldn’t I just forget about it, the way he did? I guessed that was what it meant for me to be in love: suffering like an idiot since no one would ever take me seriously enough to love me back.

CHAPTER 27MARFIL

We took Rico to the vet, who gave him several shots—including rabies—dewormed him, and put him on a special diet for the next month. Then we went home so that I could change, drop the dog off, and meet Tami on Fifth Avenue to go shopping. We needed to catch up. I hadn’t liked the interaction I’d witnessed the night before between Liam and her, and I wanted to ask her if she was okay.

Despite having grown up together—she’d been at boarding school in England since age nine—and having spent years sharing the same dorm room, the same dreams, being for each other the family we didn’t have, I had always felt that Tami had something locked away inside her that she never let anyone see.

I once tried to ask her about it after confessing tearfully what I’d gone through as a little girl—how much I’d wished to have my mother with me, the fact that I still had nightmares about her being killed right in front of me, my strained relationship with my father—but she assured me she had nothing to tell: She was simply a lonely child from a rich London family who had shipped her off to boarding school like so many other parents.

I knew she was lying, and at first it hurt my feelings that she refused to open up to me, but I wouldn’t force her to confess her secrets. I could tell that there was a wall between us thatnever allowed her to fully trust me, but I still loved her. Just looking at Tami made you want to hug her, make her laugh, or soak up that special aura that always surrounded her.

That’s why I couldn’t understand what the hell was going on between her and Liam. He was a good guy, truly, my best friend, and he was always on his best behavior with me. I had often asked myself what I would’ve done if I hadn’t met him in my first year of college. We were a unit; he knew everything about my life, and I knew everything about his. He could sometimes be presumptuous and a bit of a jerk, but I knew it was all a façade. It was simply the secret weapon he used to get girls, and fuck, did it surprisingly work.