CHAPTER TWELVE

ITWASDAWN the next morning when Laila wrapped a flimsy cashmere sweater around her shoulders and knocked hard on the door to Sebastian's painting cabin or whatever the hell he chose to call it. Cold burned her skin but she didn't care. When he'd have followed her, she'd begged him to get rid of her mother and sister.

Then she had spent most of the night awake, crying on and off, which had predictably set off Zayn and then it was hours to calm him down and then waiting for Sebastian to come find her and then walking through the damned villa looking for him like some nighttime wraith.

She had been feeling raw after that confrontation with her mother and sister. Then, to realize that Sebastian wasn't coming... All her hope and pain turned to blazing anger, fueled by his...indifference to her plight, which he had brought on. And then there was the elephant in between them he was clearly, simply going to ignore.

As if her love would just fizzle out like Nikos's cold or Zayn's bad temper.

She had to thump hard a few more times before the double doors opened with a clunk, and there he was, on the other side of the threshold, looking as if he was the one who had been through a toxic breakup with his family. She didn't wait for him to welcome her inside. Neither did she politely wait for him inside the front lobby or whatever it was.

Pushing past him, she forced herself through the open door and into what was clearly an architectural marvel of a space, because it was all glass walls and high glass ceilings and dawn was like fingers painting the horizon pink and orange.

Once her attention returned to the room itself, she could see a huge number of paintings covered with plastic sheets and a fair number, also half-covered, sitting on easels, spread around the vast room. For a second, she indulged in the idea of unveiling each one with a dramatic flourish and taking a peek. But she had once violated his privacy out of necessity. Now that she knew it was something more than just his privacy, she was loath to do it again, however angry she was with him.

Her anger was already losing steam, and when she turned around to face him, it was to see a bleakness in his eyes that she never wanted to see again. The absence of that easy smile, or the charming mask or even the more real grumpy mood he'd shown her these past few weeks, made her skin prickly with a sense of caution. But it was too late, for she was realizing the freedom to be found in truth.

She wondered if she was getting her wish, finally, if she was seeing the raw, burning center of him, and she wondered belatedly, if that meant that she was going to burn with him. But there was not a speck of fear within her.

"I knew you were manipulating me to a certain extent. I knew you only wanted me because you want Nikos and Zayn in your life but I never thought you would be a coward, Sebastian."

He said nothing. Because, of course, Sebastian Skalas the charming playboy, never lied. He only just twisted the truth enough to make it palatable, for whoever he was serving it to. She had fallen in love with him with all this information at her fingertips, and yet now she felt a strange desolation. "You invited my family here and then, it felt like...why?"

"Alexandros had an extensive background check done on your friends and family recently. He was surprised when he found out who they were, who you were."

"Wow, infringing on privacy much?" she said, wondering even now at how he didn't ask why she hadn't told him. Why she'd kept her infamous family a secret.

"I didn't look, Laila, because it didn't make a difference to me. He mentioned your father was a minor prince."

"The title was mostly honorary at this stage. He had lands, but he sold off parcel by parcel to keep Mama happy. He was a good man but an idealist. He never had a job, and he buried himself in his research of his family's art history, which was his true passion, invested the little we had unwisely because her demands were endless, and lost it all. Then when it became clear that she had left him behind, he shut himself in the flat I rented for months at a time and wasted away to nothing. I couldn't...save him. And I couldn't bear to go into that flat after. All his research, it's all sitting there."

"And you looked after him. And Guido and Paloma and your mother and Nadia."

She shrugged, not even a little surprised at his conclusion. It was a little unnerving but also liberating how clearly he saw her.

She had done that most of her life, she realized now—looked after people. She looked after Baba, at the end, when he'd been heartbroken that he couldn't keep up with her mother's constant demands, and buried himself in his archives and in his research. She'd made him meals, made him coffee, reminded him of his medication for his heart trouble. Then she had looked after Guido and Paloma, who had been dependent on her for their livelihood. She looked after Mama every time she got sick and came home because she was an awful patient and, of course, Nadia couldn't be trusted to even bring her a glass of water. She had looked after even Nadia when she would come home after another one of her spectacular breakups with men who were as shallow as she was, hoping that she and her sister would maybe form a new bond.

When Guido had told her what he'd gambled away, she'd taken care of that, too.

The only person who had ever looked after her was Sebastian, albeit with a goal in mind, but hadn't his care for her come from some other place later?

If she agreed to marry him now—knowing he would devote himself to her and the boys, knowing that belonging to him meant she would never be alone again—would she be happy? Or would she forever wonder about what he truly felt for her? Would she forever trap herself in that toxic place again like she'd done with Mama and Nadia?

What did she reach for? The known, stable contentedness or risk it all for his love?

She rubbed a hand over her gritty-feeling eyes. "Why did you invite them?"

"We were at an impasse. Something happened the last time you were here," he said, spreading his arms to span the cabin. "My goal to convince you to marry me seemed further away than where I'd started. I thought bringing your family here would be a good thing. I thought I could score another point off with you. I didn't realize how awful they are to you." He laughed but it carried no real humor. "Alexandros thought it was important to control the situation since they are in the public eye, too."

She laughed then. But it was not bitter, and she was glad because she did not want to become like her mother, who lived in ideals that had nothing to do with reality, or her father, who had given his heart to an undeserving woman and died of it being broken. "I should've known it's all a game to you."

He shook his head, frustration coloring his words. "You seemed...sad the last couple of weeks, as if you were retreating inward, going somewhere I could not...follow."

"You know why now, Sebastian," she said, throwing the gauntlet back down again. But when he let it writhe in the space between them, she tried to gather her armor back. "I guess it did turn out to be the right thing for me. That confrontation has been coming a long time and I wouldn't have done it, if not for the last three months, if not for knowing that I have you in my corner."

"You were glorious, Laila. You did what you had to do."

"I always wanted to be like them," she said, only now realizing how much it hurt to give up on those you loved.

"You're a million times more beautiful than either of them," Sebastian said, as if he could see through her to that little girl she'd been.

"You know what?" she said, seeing herself clearly for the first time in a long time. Seeing herself through his gaze helped, too, because he'd always wanted her. That much had always been real between them. "I think I'll believe you."

"I also understand how much what I did to Guido hurt you."

"After Baba passed away, he was the one who watched out for me. He...never abandoned me."

"And you didn't abandon yourself, ne?"

"No, I didn't. Even when it was hard. You see all this, Sebastian, and yet you withdraw here and wonder why I would fall in love with you?"

"Laila—"

"What? That wasn't part of the plan? Is it an inconvenient plot twist to the narrative you had mapped out in your head about how this would go?"

She looked like a fury he had once painted, rising out of the mountains, all stark, raw beauty and righteous anger with the gentlest spirit beneath if only one was brave enough and vulnerable enough to seek it. He had drawn it after Mama had left. He hadn't known it then, but he had drawn what he wished she could have been for him and Alexandros.

And finally, here was the woman he'd imagined once, in blood and flesh, taunting him to come closer, boldly declaring her love.

Hair flying in all directions, eyelids swollen and amber eyes red-rimmed, that wide bow-shaped mouth pinched, her frame swathed in his T-shirt, crackling with temper, threatening ruin and yet, promising salvation if only he went to his knees and surrendered.

Sebastian, as he usually did when he finished a huge piece like that, felt inadequate, small, torn apart, feeling none of the succor he thought he would have once he finished. He felt like that child again, wondering what he'd done to deserve this fate and wishing he could change it, even though it was the dream he'd once held closest to his heart.

He had set out to win Laila over to his way. He'd even found her naive and easy in one sense because she was so...fair and logical to begin with. She wanted nothing but their sons' happiness and honest desire between them. She just wanted a place for herself and he'd been happy to give it. But he'd never dreamed of her...falling in love with him, much less declaring it like this, or coming up with a fresh set of demands.

Even saying that made him want to roar and howl in a way he hadn't done since he had been a teenager who had constantly wished he was like his brother.

It had taken all his willpower to let her sister take strips off Laila right in front of him. And then that taunt and Laila's silence in the wake of it.

The bold, brave way she'd held his gaze.

He still didn't know what to make of it. Only that it terrified him to his soul, that he felt...that same sense of powerlessness he'd felt as a kid with his father in the face of her love. Like he didn't deserve it and didn't know what to do with it.

He thrust a hand through his hair. "I don't know what you want from me."

She smiled, and it was fragile and heartbreakingly beautiful. "Why were you so determined to ruin Guido?" she said, surprising him yet again. "Please, I deserve to know. I demand to know."

And he knew that she was hacking away at all the shields he hid behind, tearing away all the blinders and smokescreens he used to keep the world at bay. She was going to bring him to his knees if he wasn't there already and there was nothing he could do to stop her.

"He used to be Mama's chauffeur. One summer, he helped her run away without raising Konstantin's doubts one bit. I wanted to know where she went."

"After all these years?" she said, tears in her eyes.

"I have never stopped wanting to make sure she was okay," he said with a shrug. Not that he had understood that compulsion, either. Like with everything else about his head, he had simply given in. At some point, it had become less about any attachment he'd still felt for Mama and more a reason to continue in the aimless way he'd adapted his life to be.

"But Guido wouldn't tell you?"

"No. Not even when I had the deed to his small house in my control."

"And now? Do you still want to find her?"

He blew out a breath. "I will not say no. But the choke hold has lessened. Alexandros told me recently that she had planned to take me with her when she fled. That she'd packed my passport and my medication in her little bag, that somehow Konstantin might have upset her plan at the last minute, and she had to flee instantly."

"And leave Alexandros behind to your father? Rip you, too, from him? That's extraordinarily cruel," she said, and he could see the rage she was working hard to temper.

"I agree," he said, remembering the bleakness in his twin's face when he had revealed that piece of the past that had tormented him for so long. "I think he thought it would bring me solace after all these years to know that she wanted me with her. I was more attached to her from the beginning and... I wouldn't stop looking for her."

"But it didn't work out like Alexandros thought it would," she said, so damned perceptive.

"Other than ripping him apart for God knows how long with guilt that he'd hidden it from me, no."

"Did you tell him that you would have never abandoned him?"

It felt like the punches kept coming, like he was already on his knees, but she wouldn't leave him until he was bloody and broken. "So sure of me, Laila?"

"I know you, Sebastian. Better than anyone else in the world. Maybe even better than Alexandros."

That piece of truth moved through him like a bullet, ricocheting through the chambers of his chest. And he was beginning to understand why he felt hunted. "I did tell him that I'd have never left him. And in the end, Mama chose her freedom over me, too. I never blamed her for being weak in the face of Konstantin's will."

One lone tear followed the strong cheek down to her chin. Strangely, her tears on his behalf didn't bother Sebastian one bit. Because she understood exactly how he felt? Because she could see who he was beyond all that he had endured?

He felt a cold chill and a hot flare at the very pit of his being. It was the freedom he'd chased all his life—to be seen as he was—and yet denied himself because he'd been determined to be far from the shadow of the past. He'd bound himself in the shackles of the Skalas name as much as Alexandros had done, just in a different way. He hadn't outrun the name at all.

He had almost lost the chance to know about his sons. And now, when he had them within reach, within his home, within his heart, it was not enough. The means had become the end...and suddenly, Sebastian Skalas, one of the most renowned, brilliant artists of their time, a near mythical man who could alchemize emotion into colors, who could pin down the world into one blank canvas in all its glory and its disgrace, didn't know if he was enough. If he could withstand the love of this woman, if he could stand under its shadow and not freeze to ice, if he could ever...return it without conditions and contracts and...the crippling fear that he would lose it all. That something within him—some rot that his father had planted—wouldn't push her away.

"After seeing you with the boys..." he continued, determined to get it all out, because she was hollowing him out anyway, "I knew Alexandros was not wrong in being angry with Mama all these years, in blaming her as much as he did Konstantin for our ruined childhoods. A few hours after that first night, I knew how it could be. How it should be."

She took a grasping, watery breath as if she were the one living through the past.

"And yet, you're here," she said, walking toward him, "making glorious art and loving your sons right from the first minute and being a man in your own right, and being this extraordinarily kind man. I..." She smiled weakly through the tears and straightened her shoulders. "I know what I want for my third wish."

He barked a laugh out then and he thought it might be the little bit of sanity he'd hung on to all these years leaving his system, rendering him into the stark skeleton of the child he'd been born, with dreams and demons all occupying the same space within his head, able to see the world for what it was and for once, loving it the same anyway.

For all he'd blamed Konstantin as the reason, he'd been running away from life, directionless. Running away from the very spirit of the child he'd been, who'd loved endlessly and lived fearlessly.

"What would you have of me, agapi mou?" he said, finally beaten down and admitting defeat. All the battles he'd fought in his life, and he hadn't even seen this one coming.

She reached him and clasped his unshaven cheeks and pulled him down to meet her mouth and it was heaven and hell and the purgatory he'd existed in for so long. It was unbearable pleasure with a twist of pain in its promise. Her mouth was soft, and so incredibly sweet and he was a dying man parched of breath itself. Small hands gripped his shoulders as if she meant to anchor him to her in any way possible. He felt drenched to his soul in the affection of her kiss, in the passion of her response, drowned in her unnamed expectations. But weak man that he was, he couldn't push her away.

She touched her forehead to his, rubbed her nose against his like she did with their sons and smiled against his mouth. Her tears only reminded him of his unending thirst. "I want to marry you, Sebastian. I want to build a life with you. I want to share your art and celebrate your ups and downs. I want to have more children with you. I want to love you for the rest of our lives, and I want it more than anything I've ever wanted in this world. And I want it with you loving me, as only you can."

"Then you might have to wait a long time, Dr. Jaafri," he said, his heart breaking, even as it felt out of his reach. A paradox if he'd seen one and he had seen enough in his life.

"I have time. You should know, patience is one of my virtues, too. I have made all the calculations here—" she tapped her head "—and here—" then her chest "—and it all adds up. My life is here with you and our sons."

"I could grant you a thousand wishes, a million and make them all true. Whatever you ask for. Except this. Don't—"

"I know what I want, and I won't settle for anything less," she said, walking away from him.

At the door, she stilled and turned around. "Remember the academic paper I submitted?"

He nodded, feeling as if he were in a trance.

"It got accepted. I get to present it at a conference in a couple of weeks in London. I'm planning to go away and leave the boys here with you."

"Zayn—"

"Zayn trusts you and loves you, Sebastian. He just needs the push to come to you and without me here acting as a security blanket, it will happen seamlessly. You trust me, don't you?"

If he didn't know her well, he'd have thought she was flexing her newfound confidence and the strength of her hold on him. But he did know her, and he was also aware that her love would haunt him for the rest of his life, reminding him of his fear. He nodded, refusing to give her the words, resentful of the understanding shining in her eyes.

"Paloma will be here just in case."

"Why two weeks?" he asked, though a part of him felt relief that she was going away. That he didn't have to face those amber eyes and the unfathomable trust in them, in the mornings, in the afternoons and during midnights when they checked on their sons. The coward in him wished she'd go away for longer, even, wished he could return to whom he had been before she'd walked into his life, blasting open every defense he'd put up against the world.

But there was also that part that hated the thought of her being out in the world without him. With colleagues and friends and some man who might see what an extraordinary woman she was. He felt torn in two and it was more painful than anything he'd ever experienced.

"I hung on to my father's flat for too long, as a way of keeping him with me. I never stepped foot inside those walls again. But now, I want to sort through his research before Mama decides she will burn it all. I want to do something with it. I want to save it so that our sons can learn about their legacy on my side, too."

"I can arrange for someone to—"

"No. I must do this. Say goodbye properly. Tell him I'm starting a new chapter in my life. And that he's given me everything I needed to thrive, that he was right when he told me that I'm worth everything the world has to offer, just as I am."

"I would have loved to meet him."

She nodded, smiling. "He would have loved to meet you, too. And he would have liked you."

Already he could feel her absence, the one person he'd ever allowed into this space.

"If I'm never ready to grant you your wish?" he whispered, feeling as if he was being attacked from all sides, swept away by a tide he couldn't fight. "If we're forever caught in this...limbo?"

"Never is a long time, Sebastian. As for the limbo, I guess we can both survive in a way, for our sons, remain stagnant and static, instead of choosing something more. But I can't..." She swallowed, her eyes searching his. "...marry you unless you—"

"It doesn't happen because you threaten or beg or demand it. Believe me, I have tried."

"No but it won't happen if you close yourself to it, either. And I want you to give us a chance, to crack open the door, to let me in. You've been hiding in shadows and secrets long enough."

And then she was gone, and Sebastian wished the coming dawn would stop and leave him in darkness for a long time because after everything, it seemed Konstantin's shadow had won and he had lost.

Because the thought of loving Laila, the thought of opening himself to her love, felt terrifying to his very soul.