Chapter 3
841 Words
Celeste's POV:
When Sebastian returned, he had changed his clothes. Lydia followed behind him, her cheeks flushed and her eyes still hazy.
Sebastian walked toward me with the same gentle smile.
"You waited a long time," he signed. "Come on. I will take you home."
The car was waiting outside. Sebastian opened the back door, but Lydia slipped in first. Then she softened her voice and pouted at him.
"Sebastian, I want more kisses."
Sebastian gave me an apologetic look and signed with practiced ease, "Celeste, sit in the front. I have something to take care of."
I did not argue. I quietly got into the passenger seat.
The car had barely started moving when Lydia's impatient voice came from the back seat.
"Sebastian, guess whose stockings I am wearing right now. They belong to your wife. I took them from her closet last night."
Sebastian laughed, low and quiet. "You are getting bolder by the day."
Lydia's voice turned coy. "But you love it."
Martin Hale, Sebastian's driver, shot me a sympathetic glance. I stared straight ahead and forced down the nausea churning in my stomach.
The teasing in the back seat continued, growing more reckless with every word.
"Are you going to rip them off?" Lydia whispered. "That would be so exciting."
"Shameless," Sebastian said, though there was laughter in his voice. "Move your hand."
Lydia's soft sounds mixed with Sebastian's low laughter. They pierced through me like needles, one after another.
At last, I could not bear it anymore. I clapped a hand over my mouth and retched.
Sebastian's face went rigid.
"Pull over!"
He shoved Lydia aside. Lydia's head struck the car window with a sharp c***k, and she cried out in pain.
"Sebastian, that hurt! How can you treat me like this because of her?"
Sebastian already had one hand on the door. At her words, he whipped back around and seized Lydia by the throat.
"Shut up!"
The entire car went dead silent.
Lydia's face drained white under his grip. Real fear finally crept into her eyes. She swallowed back her sobs and went quiet.
Sebastian rushed out of the car and crouched in front of me. His brow was drawn tight with worry.
"What is wrong?" he signed. "Where does it hurt?"
I looked at that familiar face and those eyes full of concern. A thick, violent hatred surged up from my chest. I wanted to rip the mask from his face right there.
In the end, I only turned my head away from his hands.
"Is this still about the gown?" Sebastian signed.
I did not answer, but he decided he had guessed correctly.
Sebastian let out a short laugh, took a velvet box from his suit pocket, and opened it in front of me.
"Look at what I prepared for you," he signed. "I was going to give it to you at the gala."
Inside the box lay a brilliant diamond bracelet, its facets scattering the dim light inside the car.
Sebastian lowered his head and reached for the old silver chain on my wrist. I caught his hand.
"Are you sure you want to take this off?" I signed.
It was the first gift he had given me five years ago, a cheap silver chain already darkened with age. I had never taken it off once in all those years.
"It is too old," Sebastian signed. "It no longer suits you. I promised I would give you a better life."
He removed the silver chain and carefully tucked it into the velvet box.
"Do not worry," he signed. "I will keep it in the safe. It is a witness to our love, after all."
He stood and smiled at me. Then he turned and climbed back into the rear seat.
The door closed.
A second later, the velvet box he had handled so carefully was tossed into Lydia's lap without a trace of care.
"There," Sebastian said. "Stop crying. I lost my temper earlier. You wanted this chain, didn't you? Take it as my apology."
Lydia opened the box, her face lighting up with delight. Then she threw me a smug look.
"Sebastian, all I ever wanted was your love," Lydia said. "I am so happy."
She paused, and her voice suddenly softened into something coy.
"Actually, there is something else I want you to see. I prepared it after you left the room last time."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lydia lift the hem of her blouse, revealing a single word written across her stomach in blue marker: Baby.
"Sebastian," Lydia said, "there is a baby in here now. Our baby."
My hand clenched around the new diamond bracelet on my wrist, and its sharp edges dug into my palm. Pain shot up my arm, but it was nothing compared with what that moment did to my heart.
In the rearview mirror, Sebastian said nothing for several long seconds.
But his eyes could not lie. Shock, joy, and disbelief churned there, unmistakable and impossible to hide.
- Writer
