Chapter 152 A Name Spoken Aloud
POV Sebastian:
I said her name out loud. After everything we went through, I finally managed to speak her name. The past doesn’t seem to hurt the way it used to, and I’m even surprised that I’m only realizing that now.
My brothers draw sharp breaths and stare at me wide-eyed. More than anyone, they know how much talking about… Scarlett messes me up, how much it makes me suffer. But not now. I frown, not understanding what caused this change.
“Scarlett?” Maya asks, making a face, her cheeks turning instantly red.
“Yes. She was my girlfriend… and also each of my brothers’. We used to share her.”
And that was enough for Maya to start spitting every curse word she knows.
My eyes widen at the arsenal coming out of her mouth. I look at my brothers, and they don’t mind hearing her insult Scarlett with every name imaginable. To be honest, they seem to be enjoying it.
“Are you serious?” she pants. “So you actually had a girlfriend?” She glares at me.
“It was almost six months ago. She left us,” I say, with the same sadness I felt that day. “She left because she only loved one of us.”
“Only one of you?” she asks, looking from me to my brothers. “I thought that in a polyamorous relationship everyone loved each other equally.”
I grimace, because she’s right. But that wasn’t what happened to us.
Scarlett loved Luca, and my brothers didn’t feel love for her. I loved her, but my love wasn’t enough. I was never enough.
That was one of the reasons I ended up accepting sharing her with them. At first it was fun and exciting… until it stopped being.
“There was never any equality in that relationship. I doubt Scarlett even knew what that was,” Luca says.
I close my eyes, because it still hurts. Remembering everything we went through hurts.
“What happened?” Maya asks, standing up and pacing back and forth. “Please, tell me.”
My brothers look at me, because they know that if we’re going to tell Maya, it has to come from me.
I was the one who got hurt.
I was the one who pushed my brothers away for a while. Even knowing about her love for Luca, I went looking for her. I went to the Monroe farm, but I found nothing. Everything was closed.
She was gone forever.
I became bitter after that. I couldn’t get close to my brothers. Nothing was the same anymore.
Our relationship only started to improve now.
That’s why we promised that we would never again let a woman come between us. That we would never again live through what we lived with Scarlett.
“I met her first,” I begin. “Scarlett had a way of making me smile that kept my heart racing whenever she was near. She always treated me sweetly. We became friends, and after some time, I was in love with her… and she with me.”
I sigh.
“At least, that’s what I believed.” I shrug.
“So she met you first, and you fell in love quickly?” Maya asks, arms crossed. “And when did she start getting involved with your brothers? Did she cheat on you?”
“No,” I answer quickly. Scarlett never cheated on me. If we started with that crazy idea of polyamory, it was by mutual agreement.
“She got close to my brothers, and one day we decided to go to the waterfall to swim, and that’s where…”
“You started dating?” Maya interrupts, turning even redder.
“Maya, damn it, let him talk. Stop interrupting,” Dominic growls.
Maya sits back down, making a murderous face as she stares at us.
My brother looks at me and nods for me to continue.
“At the waterfall, it was the first time we shared her. It was natural. One minute I was kissing her, and then she was kissing Adrian… then Mikhail, and…”
“I get it. Skip that shit already.”
“Fine.” I rub the back of my neck, knowing the worst part is coming.
“We stayed like that for a few months. We always met at the waterfall. It was better there… to be together without anyone seeing us.”
“The last time we had sex, she said she loved us. I was the only one who returned the feeling. I was the only one who told her I loved her back.”
I fall silent, not wanting to relive all that pain again.
Now comes the worst part.
Now comes the moment that made me lock my heart away forever.
I will never give a woman the power to make me suffer again.
“What happened after that?” Maya asks.
And for the first time since I started telling the story, she isn’t looking at me with anger.
“We got home, and my brothers told me they didn’t love her. That the best thing would be to end it, because for them it was just sex. Nothing more than that. And it wouldn’t be fair to her.”
I knew that if we ended it, I alone wouldn’t be enough. She loved the five of us.
That’s why I agreed with my brothers that we would tell her the right woman for us would be one that all five of us loved… and who loved us back in the same proportion.
But…
“But what?” she urges.
“It was a lie. We never intended to have a woman for all five of us.”
“We were going to tell her at our next meeting, but she went a week without contacting us. And when she finally showed up, she said she couldn’t continue our relationship.”
“She told us she loved only one of us.”
“With the others, it was just a means to an end.”
“Son of a bitch!” Maya screams, standing up again. “And who did she love? I really hope it was you, because otherwise I’m going to hunt that bitch down and beat her.”
I close my eyes, not wanting Maya to see the pain reflected in them.
“No. She said she only loved Luca.”
“In the end, I wasn’t enough for her.”
“Scarlett left, and we never saw her again.”
And the destruction she caused lasted a long time.
I couldn’t stay near my brothers. I spent months without speaking to Luca.
After I accepted that she was gone, I got close to my brothers again… and we made a promise.
“What promise?” Maya asks, her eyes wide, though I think she already knows.
“To never again share a relationship with the same woman,” Luca answers. “To never again let a woman come between us.”
Maya nods, her eyes filling with tears.
“So that means that we…”
“It will never happen,” I say firmly. “That day in the pool was the first and last time. We will never do anything like that again.”
I breathe easier knowing everything is clear on both sides.
We know what Maya wants.
And now she knows what we do not want.
And what we do not want is to be in a polyamorous relationship with her… or with anyone.
What happened with Scarlett will not happen again.
At least, not on my watch.