Sebastian: The Complete Series (20 page)

“Because I'm special.” I looked out of the window and stopped breathing. “He always tells me that. I'm different, I'm not like the others. Not yet…”

“And when he thinks you’ve changed?”

“I don’t know. He moves on to someone else.”

“I want you to call the police up now. Right now, Sebastian. You can give them all my details and I’ll speak to them direct, but we need to do something soon. Just in case this guy is stalking you, or planning anything. This could help.”

“I know. I will do. I’ll do it now. Thank you.”

Robert groaned again. “I want to be there with you right now. You’re slipping away. Do you have someone there who is going to look after you for me?”

“For you?” I smiled softly. “Yeah, I’ll be okay. Thank you for doing this.”

“I’ll call you again, if that’s alright?”

“I’d like that.” I wanted to say a lot more, but I didn’t. “I’ll keep you updated with this, but I don’t want to bother you.”

“You’re no bother… I’ve missed you. A lot.”

“You sound pissed off about it, like you always do.”

“Yeah, I'm pissed off. I miss you. I'm worried as hell about this prick and I can't get you out of my head. Any guy I fuck all I think about is you. You’ve totally spoiled me for anyone else.”

I chuckled a little, but that made my head swell up and I felt suddenly happy. “That’s a big compliment.”

“We could meet up. But… not through the agency. Just me and you… I don’t want to pay for you. I want you to
choose
to be with me for me, not the money. Unless you really need it… Do you need it?”

“No, I'm good. I earn enough. So, a real date? Just me and you?”

“Yes. We don’t have to have sex, I just meant… talking.”

“Talking? Robert, please. I’d have you on your back and straddling your thighs in under five minutes.”

Robert laughed, and then cleared his throat. “Don’t, you’ll get me hard and I have a meal to go to with my parents.”

Leigh and Harry were out of the bedroom and warming their food up in the microwave. After Harry having a meltdown earlier, I didn’t want to continue talking to Robert and make things even worse between us. “I gotta go. I’ll call you up, or text you. Let you know how it went with the police. Enjoy your dinner.”

“I’ll be thinking about you the whole time. I really meant it when I said I want to be there with you. I could… I could come down now.” He sounded unsure, and I couldn't deal with him being there right then. My head was all over the place.

“I just need to sort this out first. I need time to… I just need time.”

“I understand.” He was disappointed. I could tell by the little lost boy voice he had going on.

“We’ll meet up again, Robert.”

“Again? Not soon?”

I bit my lip. I was always torn over him. “When I speak to you, when I'm with you, all I want to do is just give in and be with you. But then you leave me with your money and I doubt everything.”

“So, meet me with no fucking money and see how you feel.”
Now
he was pissed off.

“That's a big step for me to take. And right now… I just, I need time.”

“I'm not a fucking nutcase.” He sighed heavily. “Look, I get it. I just told you some bad news, but I'm not like that. You trust me.”

“I do.” But right then I didn’t trust anything or anyone one hundred percent, and he could tell.

“Call me soon, Sebastian. I have to go.”

“I’m sorry, I really am.”

“So am I. I'm really fucking sorry, Seb.”

I
should have called the police up as soon as I put the phone down, but I couldn't. I stood still, taking in the information I just found out. Not just about Anthony, but about Robert wanting to talk. It weighed me down like a four hundred pound bloke sitting on me and Harry noticed as soon as he got in the sitting room, his plate forgotten on the dining table as he quickly moved to me.

“What’s happened?” He turned me to look at him and stared firmly into my eyes. “Who was that?” I could almost see him answer his own question, the realisation of who I’d been speaking to leaking through him. “Robert? Seb, you have to stop this.”

“No, it’s not… he told me something. Something about Anthony.” I stepped back from him, running my fingers through my hair before I went through the conversation with Robert and showed him the picture of Anthony. “I don’t know what to do.”

Harry took the picture and stared at it. “It’s him. It’s how he looked when I first met him years ago.” He closed his eyes and shuddered. I knew how he felt. To be in a person’s bed who had done such disgusting things… Who would want that? “Shit! I knew he was strange, but to do freaky crap like that? I only saw him the once, but that was enough.” Harry folded his arms across his chest while he looked at his feet, deep in thought and not sharing them with us.

I was sitting beside Leigh on the sofa, his hand grasping mine as he spoke. “You have to call the police. This guy sounds dangerous.”

Harry pursed his lips together. “You should call Harriot first.”

“Harry!” Leigh sat up and stared at him. “The police first.”

“You don’t get it.” Harry was pacing around the room as he spoke. “She knows more people who could help than they do. She doesn’t want men like him messing with her escorts, and she definitely doesn’t want her escorts to go to the police. They'd have to know how you met him, Seb, and that would lead back to Harriot. She wouldn’t take kindly to them being in her face right now.” Harry and Leigh shared a long look. I knew Harry didn’t like what he was saying, he wanted the police to be involved, but he was also looking out for me in ways I didn’t understand, and Leigh defiantly didn’t get it. “Let’s call her. I’ll go with you and talk this out together.”

“And if she can't do anything, then you go to the police, right?” Leigh shook my hand and I nodded.

“Of course. I don’t want Anthony following me around, but maybe this is all wrong and it isn't him. We don’t know. It sounds bad, but…” I drifted off. I was sick of thinking, tired of worrying. “I just want it over with.”

“I’ll call her while you calm down. I think she’ll ask where you found this out, and I don’t think she’ll like you and Robert talking outside of dates. That’s how she lost Dominque.”

The name meant something to me, and I frowned while I thought about where I’d heard it, trying to stop the jumble of thoughts about Robert and me and her not finding out being my main concern. “Who’s he?”

Harry was flicking through his phone while he talked. “The guy you replaced at the agency.”

“Wait…” I held my hand up. “He fell in love with a client, and what? She fired him?”

“No…” Harry pressed the phone to his ear and gave me a soft look but one filled with worry. “He left
with
his client.” He reacted to my shock and shook his head quickly. “That never happens, Seb.” An obvious lie, because, hello! It happened. “Don’t think it’s the norm.” He turned from me. “Harriot, we have a problem.”

He left me and Leigh sitting together—me with a hundred questions, wanting to be nosy and listen in. Leigh moved closer, holding me while he tried to reassure me everything would be okay, but there was nothing okay about this whole situation.

It was all wrong, and I couldn't see a way out. I just wanted to close my eyes and let everyone else sort it out then wake up in the morning when my life was back to normal. Normal… that was a word my life had never been, maybe ‘as it used to be,’ would be better. Before I left Yate’s Wine Bar. Before I met Robert. Before I joined the agency. Before I met Anthony.

I sat back, letting Leigh hug me, resting my head on his shoulder while he stroked my hair. I wanted my mum. I wanted to sit like this with her and spill my guts, but then… A small smile worked its way onto my lips. My mum would fly off the handle. Not because I was an escort, but because I’d put myself in danger. Because I’d let myself get hurt by falling for a guy who paid me for sex.

I decided the best option was to get drunk, and not just drunk, oh no. I mean, paralytic— remember stage five? That was me minus the lip gloss. I’d downed a bottle before he got back in the room, no idea how long he’d been gone, but on an empty stomach, it hit me fast and he gave up trying to talk to me after a few minutes and just let me drink and dance.

It helped. For a short time anyway.

The morning came around so fast I thought I'd fallen through a time hole and landed in the next day. A quick glance at the digital clock beside me told me it was eight a.m. and time to go back to sleep. No one else was moving around, there was no sound of life outside my bedroom door. I'd been up late, playing music too loud, talking all night about stupid things which I thought were funny at the time, but looking back in the harsh light of the cold morning sun told me Harry and Leigh hadn't shared my laughter. They’d humoured me, let me act out to soothe me in their own way.

It’s always an embarrassing time recalling what you’ve done while pissed. A long groan slipped through my lips when I remembered coming onto Leigh. It was at that point—me draped all over the poor thing—that Harry dragged me off him and put me to bed. At least he managed to get me out of most of my clothes, well, he must have done, because I didn’t remember doing it.

Despite the sun shining brighter than…yeah, I got nothing. I mean, nothing’s brighter than the sun, so… Anyway, it was fucking bright! Like I'd woken up
on
the sun—I fell back asleep with my face pushed into the pillow and the duvet up to my chin. It was a couple of hours later when sound filtering through my bedroom door woke me up. I lay still, hoping Harry and Leigh would leave me alone to wallow in my hangover before they coaxed me out to begin
the talk
.

It was only when I heard Harry’s ‘I-went-to-Eton-and-I-am-considerably-posher-than-you’ accent that I knew something wasn’t right, because he only played up his posh voice when he felt intimidated or out of control.

I sat up in bed, my head feeling like it was in zero gravity. In fact, I’m pretty sure my whole body thought I'd woken up on the Mir space station because when I started to walk, my legs were doing that weird slow motion lifting action, and I felt like a big marshmallow. I managed to make my way to the door before I gave out and leaned my head on the wall beside it, taking deep breaths and feeling like I was going to slip to the floor in a big heap. I hadn't eaten in over a day at that point and the alcohol was still affecting me in a big way.

Harry was talking, not loudly, but clearly and slowly. “This is my home. It’s not just his. I have no idea who you are. Why should I trust you? Why should I believe anything you say? I'm not naïve. I've done this job too long. I want you to leave now. I'm sure when—”

“Harry…” Leigh’s soft voice made me smile, but I also wanted to kick the shit out of him, because I wanted whoever was at the door to fuck off and leave us alone.

“Leigh, please don’t.” Harry was already giving in. The dickhead. Falling for Leigh’s unspoken pleas and big green eyes when he shouldn’t be.

I had a feeling it was someone from the agency. Not Harriot because Harry would have let her in and dragged me naked in the front room to talk to her. Knowing I couldn't leave him to deal with my crap, and hating I had to leave my safe cocoon, I opened the door and glanced down the hallway to the apartment’s door.

I could see Leigh and Harry dressed in just loose jogging pants, Harry with no top on and Leigh holding what looked to be one of his cardigans around his naked chest. I listened to them bickering about what to do as I walked closer. The door was partially closed, not allowing me to glimpse at who was there.

I think I grunted, not sure, but I'm confident it wasn’t a known word in any vocabulary in the world. Harry’s shoulders sagged and he breathed out loudly, not needing to turn around to show me how disappointed he was I was behind him and
sort of
conscious, but Leigh jumped a foot in the air before he spun around, holding his chest as those big green eyes met mine.

“Erm…” Leigh—like me—just stopped, words failing him.

The door crept open as Harry stood back, still not looking at me directly and keeping his gaze on the person outside. That was when I saw who was there. It was also the point where my body gave up its fight with itself. Shock, plus alcohol, plus no food in over twenty four hours… Well, I felt my entire blood supply disappear and my light headiness turned into a spiralling, kaleidoscopic mess. “Robert…”

I never actually hit the floor when I began to lose consciousness. Robert had me in his arms when my eyes slipped closed as I lay limp, half on the floor, half pressed up against his kneeling frame, listening to his words and letting them calm me in a way they shouldn’t. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”