The Reluctant Heiress: A Novella(25)

She just stares at me, gaze steady and piercing, until I stand and follow her from the kitchen. With the alcohol buzzing in my empty stomach, I don’t notice where she leads me until I’m inside the room.

His room.

“Nana, I—”

“He hasn’t been here in months,” she says, with an undercurrent that makes me look sharply at her. But her expression reveals nothing of her thoughts. “The sheets are clean. Sleep.”

I sigh in defeat and cross to the bed, sitting heavily on the edge, as Nona draws the curtains. Without another word, she leaves, the door clicking shut behind her.

I look around the shadowed room, unchanged from Sebastian’s teenaged years. There isn’t much in the way of personal clutter—he’s always been a minimalist.

A baseball bat leans against the wall beside an empty desk. There are no posters on the wall, just framed art that Nona picked for him before he arrived from Italy. The only hint of personality is from the bookshelf, which is crammed top to bottom with a broad range of titles.

Standing, I walk to the small closet and open it. Before I’m fully aware of my intent, I lean forward, burying my face briefly in the sleeve of his letterman jacket. Several shirts and laundered pants hang on the nearly-bare bar, and the shelf above is empty but for a shoebox.

Glancing at the closed door, I give in to temptation, pulling down the box and returning to the bed. I sit, balancing it on my knees, and remove the lid. There isn't much within—a small stack of folded papers and photographs.

The papers are letters he wrote to Nona while away at school, his high school diploma, degrees from Harvard and NYU—all carelessly folded together. And the photographs…

Nona and fifteen-year-old Sebastian standing outside the guesthouse, smiling. The varsity baseball team. His senior class photograph.

The fourth image is of him, Alex, Deacon, and Charles in the backyard, arms draped over each other’s shoulders. They’re young, shirtless, and laughing. Studying the photo, I recall the weight of the camera in my hands. My mother’s laughter coming from somewhere behind me. My dad’s voice grumbling about cleaning up the mess from a broken window.

My thumb brushes across the photo before I put it back in the box. As I move to replace the lid, I see a final photograph resting facedown on the bottom. Pinching a corner, I lift up the picture, worn and creased from being carried in a wallet.

It’s me. Sixteen years old. My face is tilted up, washed in sunshine, and I’m smiling like the whole world is perfect.

Tingles cascade along my body, and a hand flies to my throat. My heart pounds hard against my ribs, but not in panic. Happiness? Hope? I’m not sure. Closing my eyes, I think shamefully of screaming at him in the hospital, of my callous, selfish words. And his face when I rejected him in front of Robert.

“We didn’t do anything wrong. It was right. So fucking right.” And it was. So right. “I want to make you happy. Will you let me try?”

A tear hits the photograph, then another, and I hastily put it in the box. Crossing the room, I shove it back onto the shelf and close the closet door, then rush to my purse and find my phone. I don’t think as I scroll through my contacts and find his name, then press Call.

When the third ring sounds, I jolt and almost hang up, but a second later he answers.

“Candace?”

I clear my throat. “Hi. Guess where I am?”

He pauses. “Alex told me. I’m glad.”

His voice is perfectly pitched to convey mild concern. It makes something inside me quake in desperation.

“Sebastian, I—”

A woman’s laughter, low and intimate, sounds on his end. That trembling place freezes over in a flash. My throat closes. I grip the phone hard enough that my knuckles crack.

No.

I’m sorry.

Please.

“It’s not really a good time,” he says. Distant. Polite. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

My voice shaking audibly, I blurt, “I didn’t mean what I said.”

There’s an unmistakable sound of sheets rustling as he stands. “Yes, you did.” His voice is low and fixed with iron. “You’ve always meant everything you’ve ever said to me, and I’m finally done listening. I’m tired of wanting… You know what? It’s not important.”

“Sebastian—” I fall silent as tears choke my voice.

I found the picture.

Don’t give up on me.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he says gently, firmly. “Whatever makes you happy. I have to go. Take care of yourself, Candace.”

He hangs up.

Slowly, I bring the phone down from my ear, then place it on the nightstand. Careful, precise movements so I don’t fall apart. Then I crawl across his bed, numbly seizing his pillow and burying my face in it. It doesn’t smell like him, though I wish it did.

God, how I wish it smelled like him.





17





I open my eyes to a dark room. Rolling over, I squint at the clock on the nightstand. Nine o’clock. My stomach is tight with hunger, my mouth dry as dust. Groaning, I force my stiff body up, across the room, and into the hallway. Light filters up the stairs, as well as the soft sounds of a television.

Padding barefoot downstairs, I find Nona sitting in her favorite recliner, a padded, floral monstrosity that everyone in the family has tried at one time or another to replace. When she sees me lurking out of the corner of her eye, she points at the two-seater couch. On the low coffee table is a glass of water and a tray of cold cuts and fruit.