My pulse quickened. “Sure. Of course. Why don’t I tell Magdalene she can go?”

“If you don’t mind. She’s been staying pretty late all week. So that would be great.”

“Of course.”

“Let me run. We’re down a few people.”

“Okay. See you later.”

I ended the call and handed the phone back to Magdalene. “Sebastian asked me to stay so we could . . . uhhh . . . talk about Marmaduke’s training. Why don’t you go home? He said you could use a night of getting out early.”

She smiled and looked over my shoulder at Birdie, then leaned in to whisper. “Mr. Maxwell has been cranky this week.”

“Has he?”

She nodded and winked. “Hopefully your talk about Marmaduke’s training will have him feeling better.”

“Oh . . . it’s . . . not what you think.”

She raised both her eyebrows.

I sighed. “Okay . . . so maybe it is what you think. But it’s . . . it’s . . . I don’t know what it is, Magdalene.”

She smiled. “He’s a good man. Have patience with him.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so instead I just nodded.

After Magdalene left, Birdie took a shower. She came out to the living room and asked if I could braid her hair. About nine thirty, she yawned, and I tucked her into bed. Then I sat in the living room waiting for Sebastian. I kept replaying what he’d said to me on the phone over and over. “We need to talk.” No good news came after an opening line like that. A horrible feeling of dread loomed over me as I waited. I felt hurt, and he hadn’t even ended things yet. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what exactly he would be ending. It wasn’t like we’d defined anything. All I knew was that we had started something, and to me that something was special.

By ten thirty, I was still sitting on the couch but now bobbing my knee up and down, feeling like I might jump out of my skin. I hadn’t heard from Sebastian again. On the phone, he’d said an hour or two, so hopefully that meant he’d be here any minute. Deciding I needed to calm down, I went in search of wine in his office.

I knew where the key was kept, because I’d watched Macie raid the locked cabinet last weekend. But when I went to grab it from the desk drawer, a framed picture snagged my attention. I picked it up and stared at a photo of Sebastian and Amanda. It had been taken in the hospital. Sebastian had one arm around his wife’s shoulder while she cradled a newborn Birdie. They were both smiling and looked so happy.

Was this how it would be if we were together anyway? Framed photos of his first love all over the house? Living in the shadow of another woman? How exactly would that work if he got married again? Would the photo of his new bride slide into the frame right over the one from his first wedding? Maybe him dumping me tonight was for the best.

Yeah, definitely for the best.

“She was born three weeks early.”

Sebastian’s deep voice startled me and I jumped. Unfortunately, the frame slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor, landing facedown with a loud clank.

The hand that had been holding the frame flew up and covered my heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry.”

Nervous, I bent to pick up the frame. I felt nauseous when I turned it over.

Cracked. The glass was cracked.

I shook my head. “God, I’m so sorry. It’s broken. I’ll replace it.”

Sebastian walked toward me and slipped it from my hand. “It’s fine. No big deal.” He set the frame facedown on his desk and our eyes caught. “Sorry I’m so late.”

“I wasn’t snooping. I just came in to see if you had any wine and . . . I guess the photo caught my attention.”

Sebastian nodded. He walked around to where I stood and pulled open the drawer. Taking out the key, he unlocked the liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle of red wine. He tilted it to show me the label. “This okay?”

“Does it have alcohol?”

He chuckled. “Got ya. Fill your glass to the brim.”

“Thank you.”

Sebastian uncorked the bottle and filled one glass, then stuffed the cork back in.

“Aren’t you having any?” I said.

He handed me the very full glass. “Maybe later. I need to keep my head clear right now.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Come on. Let’s go sit in the living room.”

Together we sat on the couch. While I sipped my wine and waited, Sebastian held his head in his hands and stared down at the floor. It made my heart hurt that he looked as pained as I felt. The man had been through so much; I needed to make this easy for him. So I took a giant gulp of liquid courage and set my glass down on the end table before moving closer to him.

“Sebastian . . . it’s okay. I get it. You don’t have to say anything. We had fun, but you don’t want more than that. It’s fine. You don’t have to feel bad.”

“Is that what you think? That I feel bad because I’m done with you?”

My brows drew together. “Isn’t that what you’re stressing over? Hurting my feelings?”

He started to laugh maniacally. Shaking his head, he pointed to the glass I’d just set down. “Give me that, will ya?”

I handed it to him and watched as he downed the entire contents of my glass. Offering it back, he said, “Fuck a clear head. I just need some balls.”

Was he saying what I thought he was saying? I fought to not let my hopes get up. “I don’t understand.”

He raked his hands through his hair and turned to face me. “How was your date tonight, Sadie?” He’d said the word “date” weird, almost spitting out the “t,” as if the word itself sickened him.

“It was . . . fine.”

“Well, I’m glad. Then at least one of us had a good evening.”

“You didn’t have a good night?”

“Let’s see . . . I broke the handle off an oven, burned my arm twice, put in three orders wrong, and almost fired a waitress who did nothing wrong. And that was all before six o’clock.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I couldn’t focus, Sadie. The thought of you going out with another man—no less a half dozen men while speed dating—makes me feel violent.”

“It was eight actually.”

He scoffed. “Thanks. That makes me feel a hell of a lot better.”

I’d been so certain that he was coming home to break things off that even though he’d just told me he hated the thought of me dating anyone else, I still guarded my heart.

“If you didn’t want me to go, why didn’t you tell me that? Or better yet, why didn’t you even call me this week?”

“Because I feel like I’m not supposed to want another woman all to myself.”

I swallowed. “But you do? You want me like that?”

Sebastian looked into my eyes. “I want you in every way, Sadie. And that scares the shit out of me.”

I smiled sadly. “If it makes you feel any better, you scare me, too.”

“I want to move on. But I have so much guilt about doing it.” He shook his head. “Did you ever play tug-of-war in school when you were a kid?”