The Billionaire’s Burden(15)

My stomach twisted nervously, almost doubling me over.

This conversation was not going somewhere pleasant.

"I know." I final replied as his silence remained steady, "Alissa went with you."

"Yes." He replied, nodding, "But also my father."

"Oh." I said, blinking slowly as I struggled to keep up with where Sebastian was headed.

All that I felt currently was confusion.

"He joined us last minute. He wasn't supposed to go. He and Mother had a vacation booked." Sebastian frowned, tracing the tips of my fingers with my own.

Each of his warm movements sucked me in, faster and faster.

I nodded, still uncertain what he was looking for me to say or what dots I was supposed to be connecting. I couldn’t come up with anything at the moment.

"Macy, he left my mother." He finally managed to say, "He served her divorce papers just before he came out to London with us.

"He's divorcing your mother?" I sputtered, jaw dropping, "He's actually leaving her?"

It must have been for Alissa, there was no one else that he'd be leaving Karina for, right?

No wonder she'd been spending so much time around me lately, perhaps she was lonely. Was she so desperate for a friend that she would cling to me?

And that awkward family dinner when Sebastian returned seemed even doubly cringe worthy now. How difficult must that have been for Karina to sit through?

If I were her I would have been chugging wine as well.

"Poor woman." I whispered softly, giving a long, slow shake of my head, "That’s terrible."

"I knew of Father's affair." Sebastian continued, head lowered like the weigh of the world was hanging from it, "But I always thought if we all ignored it, that it would just fade away eventually. That he would lose interest, that's always what happened before."

"Scum." I muttered bitterly, angrily glaring at the table, "What kind of man does that? And the way he flaunted it right in front of her face."

But I hadn't done anything about it either. I'd just joined them along in ignoring the problem behavior.

My heart twinged guiltily. I should have said something, I should have called him out for his cruelty.

I hadn't, though, and now it was too late. At the very least I could attempt to tolerate Karina better, especially now that I realized what she was going through.

Perhaps if I'd made even the slightest attempt to see her as a person instead of my bitter mother in law I would have been able to support her.

"Don't say that." Sebastian whispered, beautiful dark brow creased with internal torment, "I know that nothing he did was right, but he's still my father."

"And he treated your mother so wickedly." I pressed, frowning at him, "Do you think he should just be excused for being so heartless?"

"No, of course not, but he's not the one I'm spending time thinking about. I want to focus on my mother right now."

"Sure." I said with a soft sigh, giving up that argument for now.

I couldn't tell Sebastian how to feel about anyone, especially not his own father. Even as his wife, that wasn't my place.

Sebastian was going through something very complicated and very difficult right now, and I would just have to see him through to the light at the end of the tunnel.

"I'm sorry." I finally said, "Karina didn’t breathe a word."

Would it have been different if I did know? Would I magically have known the right words to say? Would I have been able to make it all better?

I'd never been good at comforting others.

“She doesn’t handle her emotions well.” Sebastian murmured, “She doesn’t like anyone to know when she’s in pain.”

I bit my lip, nodding slightly. That behavior reminded me closely of someone else in the family.

"I want her to live with us." He finally said, lifting his chin once to search my eyes, "Not if you're against it, but she needs me...she needs us right now. Whether or not she would ever admit it."

"Of course." I responded quickly, trying not to give my mind a chance to linger on that thought.

Surely this ginormous mansion was big enough for the both of us...right?

Maybe even after all of this she would be a bit more tolerable, though I highly doubted that.

I was trying to be optimistic, but not to that extent of fantasy.

"Thank you, Macy." He whispered, squeezing my hand in his grasp, “I don’t think you’ll ever know how much this means to her, and to me.”

We gazed at each other, stillness of the night outside, my heart thumping slowly inside my chest.

What did he feel when he gazed at me in such a way? Did my eyes pierce his soul the way it felt that his did to me? Did the feeling of my hand securely in his make Sebastian feel safe and sheltered by my heart?