Page 106 of Bid For Me

My heart skips a beat, and a surge of anger and dread rushes through me all at once.

Seb.

I freeze for a moment, my whole body rigid, before the reality of the situation starts to sink in. He’shere. In the bed. With me.

My stomach turns as I try to untangle myself from the mess of sheets and limbs, pushing at his arm, but it’s like he’s glued to me, his presence overwhelming in every sense.

What the fuck is he doing here?

Without thinking, I smack his chest hard, my hand stinging from the impact. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demand, my voice low but sharp, cutting through the heavy silence of the room.

He stirs, a low groan escaping his lips, and I feel the movement of his body against mine. I brace myself for the usual cocky, arrogant response. He’ll throw the contract in my face, tell me it’s his right. Maybe he’ll even claim that he was just fulfilling his part of the deal.

But instead, when his eyes open, there’s none of the smugness I’m expecting. His face crumples with guilt, his features contorting as if he’s in pain. It takes me a moment to process it, and then it hits me.

Seb is sorry.

“Elle. Fuck.” His voice cracks. “I don’t know where to begin. I’m so fucking sorry.”

My breath catches in my throat. The weight of his apology hangs in the air between us, thick and suffocating. The guiltin his eyes makes my chest tighten, the anger mixing with something else I can’t quite name.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, his voice rough and broken. His hands are trembling as they move to touch me, to steady himself, and I can’t tell if it’s from the emotion or something else.

“Sorry?” I scoff, pushing myself up onto my elbows, trying to create some space between us. I’m furious, but there’s this knot in my throat that I can’t shake. “Sorry for what, Seb? Foreverything? For tricking me? For working with your father to fuck me over?”

His jaw clenches, the frustration clear in the way he exhales sharply, but it’s followed by the softest of apologies. “Never. I would never do that, Elle. I swear, I didn’t know what he was doing. I didn’t know about the prenup – about how he threatened you.”

I stare at him, confusion and disbelief clouding my thoughts. “You didn’t know?” I whisper, the question barely leaving my lips before I snap again. “Then why the hell didn’t you ask me? Why didn’t youtalkto me? Why storm off? And why the fuck did you kiss me and then leave?”

“I should’ve stayed. Should’ve listened,” he admits, his voice cracking. He sounds like he’s unraveling, his whole demeanor breaking down in front of me. “I should’ve trusted you. I didn’t – god, Elle, I didn’t want to believe he could do that to you. I thought...He said…Now I...I see how wrong I was. I’m sorry. So fucking sorry.”

By the time he’s finished saying absolutely nothing, there’s tears in his eyes and total devastation on his face. I shake my head, the ache in my chest growing. His words are tearing at me, unraveling the wall I’ve built around my heart, but I can’t let him in – not yet.

“You don’t get to apologise for this,” I say, my voice shaking. “You don’t get to undo all the damage with five little letters, just because you finally see the truth. Sorry doesn’t cut it Sebastian. What you did last night was downright cruel.”

I want to leave but there’s something in his eyes that stops me. The rawness of his regret. The way he’s looking at me like he’s lost and willing to do anything to fix it.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right,” he murmurs. His voice is barely above a whisper, but it’s the most sincere thing I’ve heard from him. “My father was manipulating us both, but that’s no excuse for how I reacted. I should have known better than to believe a word he said. He was too fucking gleeful. I knew something was going on. Fuck!”

I want to be angry. I want to lash out, to tell him to leave, to tell him this is too late. But a part of me –the part I hate –wants to believe him.

And that’s the part I can’t trust right now.

“I promise you, Elle. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix us.”

I pull back from him, every muscle in my body rigid with conflict. His words hang in the air, thick and heavy, but I can’t bring myself to trust them. Not yet. Not after everything that’s happened.

“I don’t know if you can fix this,” I mutter, my voice tight with frustration, my throat raw from the strain. “I don’t know ifwecan be fixed.”

His eyes – those damn eyes that usually hold so much confidence, so much control – are now wide with something vulnerable, something raw, that makes my chest ache even more. He reaches for me again, his fingers barely grazing my arm, like he’s afraid to touch me too much, to break the fragile truce between us.

“I’ll make it right, Elle. I swear.” His voice is soft, but the conviction is there, under the weight of his remorse. “I’m not going anywhere. Please... give me a chance to show you.”

I take a deep breath, pushing the tears back. God, I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to feel sorry for him. He’s the reason I’m in this mess. He’s the reason I’ve been questioning everything. But still, I can’t ignore how much his sincerity hurts, how much it makes me want to believe thatmaybe –just maybe – he truly didn’t know what was happening.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Maybe.