The True Luna's Forbidden Temptation - Chapter 58: Chapter 58

Analise
“Are you alright?” Sebastian asks, taking a few steps towards me.
I swallow hard as I watch him approach. He looks so magnificent, so effortlessly handsome and powerful under the moonlight. His tall frame seems to dominate the tiny space, and I am vaguely reminded of how closely he’s standing in front of me.
“Analise? I asked if you’re alright?”
I realize that he’s already asked me the question twice.
I turn away, feeling embarrassed.
“Yes. I’m alright. You actually didn’t have to do that. I could have handled them myself.”
I turn towards the garden. Sebastian walks to stand to my right.
I feel his presence—solid, inevitable, like gravity itself. Below us, the garden sprawls in shadowy patterns, while above, a crescent moon hangs like a quiet spectator.
The silence between us feels electric, charged with all the things we don’t say to each other.
I grip the metal railing. It feels cool beneath my fingertips. The contrast reminds me that I’m here, now, alone with the man who made tonight possible.
Sebastian Reid Blackwood—the enigma who’s been circling my life like a shark. And like before, it feels the same as before. Sebastian feels so far, so untouchable. Yet he never fails to come to my rescue when I need him the most.
“This gala is impeccable. I’m surprised your people managed to pull it off on such short notice,” I say, breaking the silence.
“I pay the best people in the corporate world,” Sebastian replies. “I would be disappointed if tonight wasn’t flawless.”
“Everyone’s talking about how SB Capitals came out of nowhere to become such a force.”
He turns slightly, moonlight catching the sharp line of his jaw. “Everyone loves a dark horse story. And that’s exactly what SB Capitals wants to be. An invincible force that came out of nowhere.”
“And even now, you keep quiet about your company.”
He shrugs. “It’s not yet time for me to reveal my aces.”
The breeze lifts a lock of my hair. Suddenly, Sebastian reaches out and tucks it back behind my ear.
I turn and find him studying me. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me, as if he’s memorizing every detail of my face.
I feel my heart pounding loudly inside my chest, the way it has never raced for Tyler.
‘How come Sebastian makes me this nervous?’
And this isn’t the first time I felt like this with Sebastian around.
I shake the thought away. I’m in the middle of a war. This is not the time to be entertaining strange feelings like this.
“Why did you do it?” I ask. “Why build SB Capitals when you already have Blackwood Corporation? From what I heard, Blackwood is a giant.”
Sebastian shifts, angling his body toward mine. The movement is subtle, but suddenly the space between us feels different, charged with intention.
“Blackwood is what I inherited,” he says, his voice dropping lower. “It’s from a father I never met, passed down through grandparents who saw me as nothing more than a successor. The next in line. A necessity.”
The bitterness in his voice surprises me. I’ve always thought Sebastian liked his destiny. I thought he liked wearing his power like second skin.
“You don’t sound happy to be heading Blackwood Corp.”
“Blackwood wasn’t given to me because anyone believed in me. It was mine by blood, by obligation. By default.”
I stay quiet, sensing there’s more.
“But SB Capitals?” His expression softens, just barely. “It’s mine. I built it from nothing. Every decision, every risk, every success and failure—they’re all mine. No legacy to uphold, no family traditions to maintain.”
I think about my own position at Luxe Emerald—the family business I was born into, the expectations laid at my feet since childhood. “I understand you. Luxe Emerald has been mine since my mother died. But I feel no connection to it. But TL Glam? Every success and failure of that company was because of my hard work.”
His piercing blue eyes find mine, and for a moment, I feel seen in a way that’s both thrilling and terrifying. “We’re not so different, you and I.”
I nod. Sebastian and I always seem to be two pieces of the same same puzzle. There’s history between us—complicated, unresolved history that neither of us has been brave enough to address.
“Is that why you kept your distance from SB Capitals’ public image?” I ask. “To separate yourself from it?”
“Partly.” He turns back to the garden. “SB Capitals is my... insurance policy, I suppose. If someday I walk away from Blackwood Corp, I’ll have a fallback. Something that’s truly mine, not tied to family obligations or expectations.”
“You’d walk away from Blackwood?” The idea seems impossible. The Blackwood name and Sebastian have always been inseparable in my mind.
“Who knows? Maybe that’s not so impossible at all.” He lets the word hang between us. “There are things about my family that you don’t know, Analise. Things that might make more sense someday.”
The cryptic answer frustrates me, but before I can press further, he turns to me with an unexpected smile—teasing, almost playful, so at odds with his usual guarded demeanor that it catches me off guard.
“For now, keep SB Capitals safe for me, will you?” he says.
I blink, unsure I’ve heard him correctly. “What?”
“SB Capitals. Take care of it for me.” His smile fades, replaced by something more serious. “You’re the only one I trust to understand what it means to me.”
The statement hangs between us, weighted with implications I can’t fully grasp. My pulse quickens as I try to decipher what he’s really saying.
“Sebastian, why did you keep your ownership of SB Capitals a secret to me for so long?” I ask, my voice steadier than I feel. “Why reveal it now?”
He turns away, hands gripping the balcony railing so tightly his knuckles whiten. The silence stretches, swells, becomes almost unbearable.
“Sebastian?” I prompt, softer now.
The moonlight plays across his features, highlighting the struggle written there. When he finally speaks, his voice is low, almost a whisper.
“There are reasons, Analise. Reasons I can’t explain right now.”
I wait for more, but he offers nothing else.
There he is again, with his cryptic non-answers.
Even when we were younger, he said a lot of things to me that until now, do not make sense.
Like that last time, he said, “I reject you.”
I never forgot those lines, and how broken he looked when he said them.
‘What the hell does that even mean?’
All of a sudden, the voice inside me howls. As if it understands what Sebastian said to me in the past. But I have no idea.
‘How can he reject me when I’m not even pursuing him?’
I study his profile in the dim light, this man I’ve known for years yet never truly known at all.
Sebastian Reid Blackwood, with his piercing blue eyes and carefully guarded heart. Always watching, always one step ahead, always holding something back.
The night wraps around us, quiet except for distant music drifting up from the party inside the ballroom.
We are alone in the balcony.
Close enough to touch.
Separated by an invisible barrier.
The question is… will either of us be brave enough to breach it?