Melting Steel: An Alpha Billionaire Romance by C.M. Seabrook Read Free Book Online Page B

I were just going through the guest list for the wedding...” She rings her hands together.
    The fucking wedding again.
    “And?”
    She takes a deep breath, then the words tumble from her lips in one big rush, “Asher’s family are close friends with the Sullivan’s, and his parents have asked that they be invited. I told Asher that it wasn’t a good idea, but he insisted. I know with your history–”
    “No.” I love my sister, but there are some things I’m not willing to do…even for her. Facing Abby’s parents again is one of them.
    “It’s my wedding.” Becca blinks up at me, her eyes already shimmering with unshed tears.
    “And as long as I’m paying for it, they’re not coming.” It’s a low blow. The money is just as much hers as mine. But my father was old-school, and a bit of a prick. He left her share of the money in my name until her thirtieth birthday, or until she married.
    It’s one of the reasons I’m so against her and Asher. I doubt either of them would be so eager to tie the knot if there weren’t a quarter of a billion dollars at stake.
    Not that I totally disagree with my father’s decision. Becca’s always been impulsive. If she’d received the money four years ago when Dad died, I have no doubt she would already burned through it.
    “Henry, please. Asher thought–”
    “I don’t give a shit what Asher thinks.” I rub the back of my neck and ignore the pained look she gives me. “They’re not coming.”
    “It was ten years ago. At some point, you need to move on. I know you don’t want to tell them the truth, but maybe–”
    “They know the truth.” I laugh bitterly. “Abby is dead because of me.”
    “Only you believe that.”
    A low, dark chuckle forms in my throat. “You think I don’t know that they blame me? Shit, her father called me a murderer in front of the entire church at the funeral.”
    “He was grieving.”
    “Yeah.” I drag my fingers through my hair and look away. “And he was right.”
    “No.” She shakes her head, brown eyes full of sympathy. “If they knew what really happened–”
    “It wouldn’t make a damn difference.” I push my chair back and stand, turning my back and glance out the window at the city below.
    “If anyone was to blame it was her parents. Or the asshole who–”
    “Don’t.” I turn on her, jaw clenched, every muscle vibrating with tension. Becca’s the only person I ever told the truth, and sometimes I regret telling her. Better to have people think I was responsible than to look at me with the pity I see in her eyes now.
    “I’m just saying, you weren’t the only one who missed the signs.”
    I know she’s right, but they weren’t the ones that found her. They didn’t get the panicked call that night saying she couldn’t take it anymore. She practically told me she was going to take her life. I should have gone to her right away. Not waited, because I was fucking some girl, whose name I can’t even remember.
    If I’d gone when she’d called, I could have stopped her. She’d be alive. Probably married with children by now. Not buried ten feet in the ground, rotting, her ghost haunting my dreams every night.
    Sure, the Sullivan’s were shitty parents. I get that it isn’t every parents’ wildest dream for their eighteen-year-old to come home knocked up, but they practically disowned her when they found out. Told her to get an abortion or they’d dissolve her trust fund. Fucking assholes.
    They assumed the baby was mine. The fucked up thing is that other than in the second grade behind the portables at school, we never even kissed.
    But Abby was terrified to tell them who the real father was. Some low-end asshole from the wrong side of the tracks. She loved the guy, gave him her virginity, and in exchange he gave her an ectopic pregnancy and an STD.
    Her parents still don’t know the truth. I never told them and I never will. Not for their sake, but for Abby’s memory. What the hell do I care