The Brightest Star Read online

  It was his beautiful eyes—the color bright with tears, pinched together as if he was in physical pain—that hit her the hardest.

  He meant what he was saying. He meant it, but she didn't know if it was enough for her to be able to forgive him.

  But then again, she also didn’t know if she had it in her to resist him, either.

  She opened her mouth, still unsure of what she was about to say, when he held up a hand, silently asking her to give him more time. She nodded in agreement and sat back in her chair, the gentle rocking soothing her turbulent emotions.

  Sebastian struggled at the best of times to find the right words. Communication had clearly not been his strong suit—which was never more evident than two years ago when the house he and Brighton had put their hopes and dreams in slipped through their fingers.

  Because of him.

  Because he'd gambled away the money they had scrimped and saved to buy their first house together, without the help his parents had so generously offered.

  It was supposed to be the best day of their lives and the first day of their future. Instead, it was the worst day. The last day.

  The end of three years of having the best girl in the world at his side.

  He hadn't just gambled away their money. He'd gambled away her love, too.

  “I'll never forgive myself, for not telling you. Talking to you. Asking you to help me.” Sebastian watched as Brighton blinked rapidly, the first sign that she was on the verge of tears.

  He may have been a terrible poker player, but time hadn't dulled his ability to read her tells.

  She was hurting. Still. Because of him.

  Shit.

  “I don't know what I expected that day. I knew—I'd known—that the money was gone but I didn't want to admit it. To disappoint you.”

  Brighton pushed up out of her rocking chair, her short hair shaking with the motion, brushing against her cheeks before she used both hands to tuck it behind her ears, her bottle green eyes flashing with anger. “Disappoint me? You embarrassed me. You hurt me. And then, to top it all off, you left me.” She took a deep breath, angry tears spilling out, making sad trails down her face. Her voice dropped into a whisper, as she spoke the words that felt like an arrow to his heart. “You broke my heart.”

  A direct hit.

  A painful reminder that he'd broken everything between them.

  And he didn't know how—or if—he'd be able to fix it. But God, how he wanted to.

  Chapter Three

  Brighton fell back against the soft cushion of her rocking chair, still feeling Sebastian’s presence though he’d left after he said what he came to say. Just as he’d promised when she’d agreed to let him come here. The chair swayed back and forth as she blinked back tears, the last two hours damn near overwhelming her. In her mind, Sebastian stood at the threshold of her apartment, while a broken dryer and clattering dishes overlaid the sound of his honeyed voice telling her he was sorry.

  So fucking sorry.

  The ache in her chest intensified. The pit in her stomach swelled. Her bad day had gotten infinitely worse and, yet, somehow, better.

  “I broke my own heart, too. Please. Please, you have to know it wasn't about you.”

  She didn't know that. She'd often wondered in the days, weeks, months after he’d left and taken her heart and hope with him what else she could or should have done. Were there signs? Should she have known?

  Was her trust in him truly misplaced?

  She didn't then, and still now, want to believe that. Because aside from this one fault—this huge, life-changing failing—Sebastian was a good man.

  “It started as fun. I won, and the high was intense. You remember, don't you, how competitive I was?”

  She did remember that. She often teased him about it. About the fact that their friends jokingly refused to play board games with them anymore because invariably Seb would get too worked up.

  It's all fun and board games until someone upends half a bottle of expensive vodka on a houseplant.

  At the time, it was funny. Frustrating, sure, but mostly a laugh to be shared the next day among friends. Now, though, Brighton couldn't help but wonder if she'd messed up just as much as he had by missing the signs.

  “I couldn't stop. I wanted to win; I'd do anything to win. And then I lost it all.”

  Lost it all was an understatement. They'd signed off on a contract to buy their house. Paid a deposit, picked paint colors, talked about adopting a rescue animal because moving from an apartment to a beautiful house with a fenced in yard meant they could finally have a pet. If they could agree on what kind of pet.

  But in the end, it didn't matter that she'd wanted a cat and he'd wanted a dog. Because when the phone rang to say that their one joint account was empty, that the bank had cancelled their loan approval, the argument became about something else entirely.

  “It wasn't your fault, Bright. I know you well enough to know that you're wondering what you could have done. But the answer is nothing. Nothing.”

  And wasn't that the kicker? If he hadn't hid it, maybe they could have salvaged something, anything from the wreckage. But hide it he did. Until he couldn’t anymore.

  “I left because you deserved better. Better than a man with no money. No future. No control. If I’d stayed, if you'd just forgiven me like I think maybe you would have, I wouldn't have had a reason to get help. To get better. To make it right.”

  Would she have forgiven him? Maybe. Probably.

  Yes.

  She'd loved him hard. Their relationship had developed quickly, after a chance meeting at the library where he was using the printer—his own recently bought one not working—and she was checking out audiobooks for a long drive to a family wedding.

  It hadn't mattered that they didn't know each other well; what mattered was that intense connection. It felt like a blaze of heat surging under her skin. It felt like the excitement of Christmas morning coupled with the happiness of a birthday party complete with three flavors of cupcakes.

  It felt like everything. And for three years, it was everything.

  So, yes, she would have given him the chance to make it right. Gambling addiction was a disease, she knew that. Her anger wasn't about the addiction itself; it was about the lies, the loss and, ultimately, the desertion. But Sebastian had said he'd had to leave to get better. Which made her wonder, now he was back, did that mean he was really, truly better?

  “I haven't gambled since that day. I've thought about it, I won’t lie and say I haven't because, fuck, sometimes I miss it. The adrenaline. The thrill of winning.”

  His words still rolled around her head as she lifted herself wearily from the rocking chair. She stood there, frozen for just a moment, as she took in the slight dent in the couch cushion where he'd sat.

  It was an achingly familiar sight, that little wrinkle in the light grey material—the perfect offset to the darker walls—that showed he’d been here. Even the couch remembered him, she thought as a dark chuckle escaped from her mouth.

  Brighton sighed, shaking her head to knock loose the memories of nights spent watching movies, making plans, making love on that couch that continued to flood her mind. In the grip of her anger, she didn't want to remember the good things. The great things.

  The earth-shattering things.

  But how do I forget?

  It was the hardest simple question she could ask herself. How do you let go of something that had the power to hurt you, when it also had the power to heal you?

  In the days and months after he left, when all she had left were those good and great and earth-shattering things, that’s what helped her through. The knowledge that it wasn’t always so bad; that the man she’d loved and trusted with her heart—not to mention her money—was a good man with an addiction that changed him. Changed them.

  Changed her.

  But not irrevocably. She’d needed those reminders so she wouldn’t get lost to the anger that wanted to overtake her co
mpletely, because that wasn’t who she was. Not then, and not now. That had never been who she was. She was a silver lining kind of girl, and that was something she was immensely proud of. In a world that focused on the bad, she wanted to find the good . . . even when sometimes it was hidden so deep, finding it seemed impossible.

  Like one of those stupid magic-eye puzzles that she’d never solved in her life. Not once.

  A long sigh escaped her. She wasn't going to find answers right away. Or ever, her brain mockingly told her.

  She forced herself to look away from the only evidence that Sebastian was back in town, aside from the tracks her tears had left behind as they'd fallen fast and free. She forced herself to head into her bedroom—a room so small that her king bed barely fit—and lay down atop the worn-but-loved cover, her head propped against a wall of pillows.

  Her head throbbed, her heart pounded. A broken hand dryer, a broken door, her ass on display as she toppled a table, and the return of her ex all in one day. Was it any wonder that the final words he'd spoken to her—his hand white-knuckling the doorknob to let himself out of her apartment—echoed through her head as she closed her eyes for a well-deserved nap?

  “I can tell you I'm sorry a thousand times, Bright, but it won't be enough. It won't ever be enough. But if I show you how sorry I am . . . if I show you I've changed, maybe I can make it right? Maybe I can win back your trust.” He squeezed his eyes closed as tightly as his grip on the door, breathing in deep before looking right at her, “And your heart.”

  Chapter Four

  Pulling it closed behind him, Sebastian paused briefly before turning around and resting his forehead against the door.

  Her door.

  Two years of therapy and distracting himself with gym time and reciting numbers to ward off the daily—sometimes hourly, if it was a bad day—urges to gamble didn't prepare him for seeing her in an apartment barely big enough for just her.

  She hadn't uttered a word after leveling him with confessions of a heart broken by him. But she hadn't needed to, either.

  It was all on her face.

  It had always been on her face.

  Her anger. Her pain. Her sympathy.

  He'd looked for pity, for hatred, praying to a God he'd only rediscovered through the various Gambler’s Help groups he'd attended since facing the truth.

  Get help, or lose everything without a hope of getting it back.

  Sebastian knew how lucky he was. The son of a doctor and an accountant, both of whom had themselves come from money, he'd always had the best in life. Private schools, overseas vacations, new cars, top of the line electronics, clothes, shoes. Money hadn't been an issue until his gambling had made it not just an issue but the issue.

  The one that made the foundation of his relationship with Brighton crumble.

  The one that made his stoic, controlled mother cry and his logical, contained father shake with sorrow.

  The one that turned adrenaline into shame, victory into failure, dreams into nightmares.

  His parents had ushered him away to a private facility to begin rehabilitation; a place he could feel the temptation but not satisfy it as he learned how to control himself.

  The first few days felt like a special kind of torture. And if he was honest with himself, he felt like he'd earned it. After all, Brighton, his Bright Star, had gone pale with the shock, then fallen to her knees—literally fallen, as if her legs couldn't hold the weight of her slight body as well as the burden of his betrayal.

  “Have you spoken to her?” His mom gave a slight shake of her head, her mouth turned down at the sides, her sadness evident in the way her shoulders slumped, her brow pinched and her words barely raised above a whisper.

  “She isn't there anymore, at your old apartment.” A shrug of her shoulders, as if to say “what can you do?”

  “No, she would've had to move. The lease . . .” His chest ached as he thought of Brighton, of where she might be now that he was a voluntary “prisoner” of the Morning Star Rehabilitation Facility. He had to clear his throat twice before he felt able to continue. “Was cancelled. The lease was cancelled because we had to give notice, so the landlord could find new tenants.”

  Sebastian knew he'd failed. Himself. His parents. But most of all, her.

  Everything reminded him of Brighton. Even the name of the rehab center brought to mind waking up early and watching his Bright Star slowly wake up, stretching and mumbling, making outlandish promises of all-day loving or five course French cuisine if only he'd let her sleep five more minutes.

  You look beautiful today, he would tell her amidst her bribes, before letting her sleep a little longer. Always the same, every morning. She worked from home, for herself, and had tasked him—on the very day they moved in together—with making sure she was up and about before he left for the day. But she was too pretty, too damn cute to bully into getting out of bed.

  And besides, the reward for five more minutes was more than worth it.

  “Do you think you can find out if she's okay?” His mom nodded, knowing that he didn't want to contact her. He was certain that if he did, she'd cry and yell and then, because she had a soft heart for him, find a way to forgive him.

  He didn't deserve her forgiveness. Not yet, anyway.

  No, when he went back to her—and he would go back to her—he'd be ready. To make it right. To earn her forgiveness and her trust.

  To win her heart all over again. And this time, he'd hold onto it forever.

  He didn't know how long he stood there, outside her apartment, forehead pressed to the door, his gaze on the dated floral carpet that lined the hallway. Certainly it was long enough that he heard the faint sound of her moving around, before silence reigned.

  I wonder what she’s doing, he thought, trying to picture the small rooms. Surely there couldn’t be much more in there than what he’d seen. A bathroom, a bedroom, and then . . . walls.

  Walls that kept him away from her, rightly so, but were too close to each other for his liking. His Bright Star should have room to shine, to work, to live.

  Not a little apartment with subtle reminders of the past and a kitchen table that looked like a heavy dish of food would send it crumbling to the floor.

  A sigh escaped him. He was still a long way from winning her back, but at least he was back in the game. She hadn't walked away without a word—not even as her lightly freckled cheeks flushed with color after he gestured to her skirt, her panties, her even-better-than-he'd-remembered ass. Instead, she hurried to cover herself, took several breaths, and squared her shoulders, leaving Panera with her head held high.

  He was proud of her. A lesser person would have cried, cussed or cracked, but not Brighton. She handled herself with a grace that admittedly had been missing earlier and with the confidence of a woman who knew that the patrons of that particular Panera got one hell of a free show with their soup and salad.

  Walking away from her apartment was hard, but necessary. He’d left his office to get lunch and failed to return. Luckily, with his father as his employer—a man who was well aware of his plans to right the wrongs of the past and set the path for a future with Brighton—he was able to shoot off a text message to him, letting him know he would be back later than planned from lunch, hinting it was Brighton-related, but keeping it vague.

  He didn't want to jinx anything.

  Or answer any questions.

  Walking through the doors of Figures Accounting, he smiled for the first time since leaving his girl alone to think about his apology, and his pledge.

  To earn back her trust and her heart.

  He strode through the front lobby, headed towards his office, only to find his best friend, Declan, seated in front of his desk. A desk which proudly proclaimed that it belonged to Sebastian Figures via the nameplate that typically sat exactly centered and the framed degree hanging on the wall. Now, however, his nameplate was being closely examined by Declan.

  “Man, you didn’t stand a chance, d
id you?” Declan’s smile was mocking as he laid the nameplate back on the oak and reached out to pull Sebastian into the half-handshake, half-hug that men seemed to favor. “With a name like Figures, it figures you’d be an accountant. Or a math teacher.”

  Sebastian tried to subtly straighten the nameplate, so that it was again in the exact middle of his desk—exactly one inch from the front, to lessen the chances of it falling off—but it was clear from the frown that replaced Declan’s smile that he wasn’t successful. “Fuck no,” he laughed, trying to keep the conversation at accounting, figures and math teachers, and away from inevitable questions. “I liked math and even I was a little shit in class. Can you imagine dealing with that, plus all the idiots like you who couldn’t add two and two?”

  The punch Declan landed on his shoulder was expected and welcome. It meant they were falling back into the old habits of their friendship. Declan mocking his name, Sebastian questioning Declan’s intelligence. “Five,” came the response, another clear indication that Dec was happy to keep the status quo.

  The joke was on Sebastian, however, when it came to busting his friend’s balls about his smarts. Declan Young was far more successful than he—even if you didn’t factor in Sebastian’s lost years as he struggled to overcome his addiction. Like Sebastian, Declan had grown up with wealthy parents but instead of following in his father’s footsteps as Sebastian had done, Declan had followed his passion for sports and become one of the most sought-after agents in the business. His client roster was jam-packed with the highest earners in sport—and he didn’t discriminate when it came to clients. Male or female, football, baseball, golf or other, if he thought they had the talent, he nabbed them before his competitors even got a whiff.

  “What are you doing here, man?” Sebastian gestured to the seat in front of his desk and circled around to settle into his office chair. “I didn’t know you were in town.”