CHAPTER 21
Sebastian
SHE CONSUMED ME.
I’d spent months avoiding her, but one errant glimpse, and I unraveled at the fucking seams.
My appearance at the bar was supposed to have been a simple drop-in. Valentine’s Day was a big day for business, and I usually spent it checking in on key places in our portfolio to get a feel for the crowd. I’d already visited four spots before I swung by the Velvet Apothecary.
Then I walked in, and there she was.
Maya was clearly on a date, and she’d been so engrossed in her conversation that she hadn’t noticed my appearance.
I should’ve left immediately, but nothing prepared me for the hot, irrational spike of jealousy that lodged in my chest.
I’d seen her on dates before, but this time was different. This time, she looked… happy, and the sight of her genuinely smiling at someone else hit me like a punch to the gut.
I wanted her to be happy, but I wanted her to be happy withme. No one else. I didn’t care if that was selfish or fucked up.
And even though I knew she had a deadline for finding a husband, and I had no right to stop her, I’d sought her out.
I’d talked to her when I should’ve stayed away. Baited her when I should’ve kept things neutral.
Touched her when I’d known it would ruin me.
My jaw tensed. I stared at the clock, watching the minutes tick toward three.
A week had passed since the bar incident. I’d left before I did something I’d really regret, but she still haunted my every waking moment. My every sleeping one too.
And now, I had to see her and pretend everything was normal.
I drummed my fingers against the table. Restlessness wound tight inside me.
I’d arrived early to get my bearings before our meeting.
Maya wasn’t here yet, but I saw her vividly in my mind’s eye —the heavy-lidded sensuality of her gaze and the way she’d pressed into me, her body language all but begging me to give her what we both desperately wanted.
It was almost enough to make me forget why I’d stayed
away all these years.
Almost.
Two minutes to three.
I should’ve canceled today’s meet-up, but I’d already missed our last one because of a production emergency.
There’d been a spinach shortage for the quiche recipe, and one of the managers had substituted it with fuckingkale before someone else caught it and alerted me. We’d had to
scrap that entire batch.
One minute to three.
Maya should be here by now. She was the one who always said being on time was the equivalent of being late,
and— The door opened.
My drumming stopped. I leaned back and schooled my face into a neutral expression as Maya walked in, bundled up in a long coat and scarf. She’d styled her hair into a braid again, and I curled my fingers against the sudden urge to
tug it loose so I could run my hand through the silken
strands.
“You’re late,” I said.
“You’re early.”
I almost smiled at the reversed roles of our first meeting at the Valhalla Club, but the flare of amusement vanished when she shrugged off her coat and scarf and took the seat across from mine.
Awkward silence descended, punctuated by a fleeting memory of her soft moan.
I removed my hand from the table and fisted it against my thigh.
“Did you fix the production issue?” Maya broke the silence first, her expression unreadable.
I gave a short nod. “I’ve also finalized the menu for the launch party. The starred courses are the frozen foods; the non-starred ones are the regular meals.” I slid the paper across the table.
While she studied it, my gaze dipped unconsciously to her neck. No locket.
A pang hit my chest before I brushed it off. It wasn’t like I’d expected her to wear it after I’d abandoned her at the bar.
Perhaps I could’ve handled my departure more tactfully, but I’d been a heartbeat away from falling apart. If the bartender hadn’t interrupted us, I would’ve tossed away years of careful restraint for one taste of her. My pride, the delicate balance of our relationship—all gone out the window.
Maybe it would’ve been worth it if she hadn’t been drunk, but if I was going to take that risk, I wanted her to know exactly what she was doing and who she was doing it with. I needed to know what, if anything, had changed. Otherwise, I was simply setting myself up for hurt again.
She couldn’t give me an answer, so here we were.
My shoulders tensed again when she glanced up from the
menu. “Looks good.”
We discussed a few outstanding items regarding the launch party before we lapsed into silence again. The clicking of our keyboards filled the room, but the underlying quiet was so oppressive, it was hard to breathe.
I stared at the screen, trying to focus on the guest list instead of the subtle whiff of Maya’s perfume. I was acutely aware of her presence even without looking at her—the slight tilt of her head, the periodic pause in her movements.
She would stop typing, and I’d have to clamp down on my desire to speak.
“That’s it.” Maya slammed her laptop shut halfway through the session, her face etched with frustration. “We have to talk.”
I raised a questioning brow even as my chest loosened with relief.
Thank God. If I had to sit through one more minute of this torture, I’d combust.
“Last week at the bar.” A hint of color darkened her cheekbones before she gathered her composure again.
“What were you talking about when you asked me what changed?”
The question took me aback. I’d assumed she hadn’t remembered at the time because she’d been intoxicated, but when I searched her face, true confusion shone through.
My teeth ground together. I wasn’t sure what pissed me off more—the fact that she was lying, because I had concrete proof she knew what I was talking about, or the prospect that she really had forgotten, and that it’d meant so little to her when it’d meant so much to me.
“If you have to ask, then it doesn’t matter.” I shrugged even as something inside me cracked. I covered it up with a cool smile, my mask firmly in place.
I didn’t enjoy making a fool out of myself, and I certainly wouldn’t do it twice, especially not in front of Maya.
I still remembered how I’d felt the first and only time I’d
allowed myself to be that vulnerable with her—raw and exposed, like someone had peeled back my skin to reveal that I was made of flesh and bone like everyone else. I wasn’t special, and I wasn’t immortal. When someone rubbed salt in my wounds, the sting was equally sharp— perhaps even more so, because I had to pretend it wasn’t.
Maya’s face tightened. “We’re too grown to be playing these games, Sebastian. You and I both know—” She stopped, her cheeks flushing again. “You know what? Never mind. If you want to continue this hot-and-cold act like a child, then fine. But don’t expect me to indulge you anymore.”
I barked out a laugh. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Itmeans you keep going on these dates with these insipid men, pretending you give a shit about any of them, when you know deep down that you don’t. You accuse me of blowing hot and cold? Fine. But at least I’m not the one stringing people along because I’m afraid I’m falling behind in some invisible race that I never signed up for in the first place. You can use your parents’ ultimatum as an excuse, but you’ve been fooling yourself long before that.”
Maya’s nostrils flared. “They’re not insipid, and I’m not stringing people along. I’mtrying to find someone who’s a good match. It’s called stepping out of my comfort zone. You should try it sometime.”
I have, and it didn’t work out too fucking well, did it?
“That’s not hard when your comfort zone is two feet wide,” I said. “Are you honestly trying to tell me that Zeke is your idea of a ‘good match’?”
I couldn’t hear their conversation at the bar, but I could tell just by looking at him that he had the spine of a jellyfish.
Maya would eat him alive.
“His name isZack, and that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have agreed to a second date with him.” Her chin jutted out with defiance. “In fact, I’m
bringing him to Radhika’s wedding.”
This time, the spike of jealousy was so sharp, it pierced clean through my armor. My smile flickered for a second before I recovered. “I guess I’ll see him there. I can’t wait to meet him.”
Maya clutched her pen, her knuckles white. “You’re
going.”
“Of course.”
Maya’s cousin’s wedding was a big deal. Everyone I knew was flying to India for the festivities, and my family was no exception.
“Who are you going with?” Her tone was even, but I spotted a hint of unidentifiable emotion in her eyes before she smothered it.
“No one you know.” I hadn’t planned on bringing a date, but I might have to change my tune. The thought of watching her waltz around with Zeke all night while I flew solo made my blood simmer with something green and ugly.
“Yet I feel sorry for her already.”
“Not as sorry as I feel for Zeke—or you. A week is a long time to waste on something that’ll never get past the starting gate.”
She didn’t bother correcting me on his name again. “I’m not wasting my time. Like I said, I wouldn’t have asked him to be my plus-one if I didn’t like him. He’s cute, nice, agreeable—”
“So are puppies, but you probably don’t want to marry one.”
Cute? Nice?Agreeable? She might as well slip NyQuil in her drink and call it a day.
“There’s that Laurent arrogance,” Maya said. “You still
think you know me so well.”
“I do.”
Her eyes glittered with challenge. “Then please.
Enlighten me.”
“Fine.” I ticked off my points on my fingers. “You hate yes
men, so you want someone who’ll support you, but who’ll also call you out on your bullshit when it inevitably arises.
You need someone who’s not afraid of your ambition and who won’t be intimidated by your success. Their intellectual curiosity should match yours, and they need to hold their own in a conversation because you fucking love to argue, but you can’t respect anyone who doesn’t give as good as they get. You’re not just looking for a partner, you’re looking for an equal, but the reason your search has failed so far is because youhave no equals. The best you can hope for is someone who can keep up with you, but I regret to inform you that Zack the Bleached Blond is not it—no matter how much you try to convince yourself he is.”
Maya stared at me, her breaths heavy in the ensuing silence.
“There you have it,” I said, my tone deceptively casual. “I could go into more detail, but then I’d have to charge you. I
don’t work for free.”
Her grip on her pen tightened further.
“Sometimes,” she said, her voice quiet. “I really hate you.”
I turned back to my computer, my chest cold. “I know.”
After our meeting, I went straight to the Valhalla Club. I steered clear of the bar and chose to brood in the club’s members-only restaurant instead.
However, I only got a few minutes to myself before someone slid into the chair opposite mine.
“You look like shit,” Dante said.
I snorted, my hand toying absently with my glass. I wished it were filled with wine instead of water, but I’d learned the hard way that drinking alcohol when I was this keyed up hurt more than it helped. “Is there a reason you’re choosing to sit with me when there are half a dozen empty
tables around us, or is my company that scintillating?” I asked.
“‘Scintillating’ isn’t the word I’d use,” he said, his tone dry. “I came to grab a quick bite when I saw you here— looking like shit. Figured you could use a distraction.” He paused when the server came by to take his order. After the man left, he asked, “What has you moping around the club
on a Tuesday afternoon?”
“Nothing important.”
“If it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t be moping.”
“I’m not moping.”
“Yes, you are.”
This time, I was the one shooting him an irritated glare.
“It’s rude to invite yourself to someone’s table and then
badger them about their troubles.”
“So you do have troubles.”
I could’ve sworn he’d been less insufferable before he got married. Pre-Vivian Dante would not have given a shit about other people’s “troubles” unless they intersected with his in some way.
However, since he was here and clearly didn’t have plans to leave anytime soon, I might as well take advantage. “You didn’t like Vivian when you first got engaged, right?”
Wariness spread across his face. “It was a complicated
situation. But no, I didn’t.”
“And she didn’t like you.”
“No,” he said, more grumpily.
“So how did you go from hating each other to falling in love and having a kid?”
Dante frowned, his expression pensive. He appeared to give my question actual thought before he answered. “It didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t like a switch flipped one day, and we were suddenly in love. It took months before I admitted to myself that I might not hate her, and it took even more time for me to tell her that.”
“Did you know how she was going to react before you
told her?”
“No one ever knows when it comes to this stuff, and if they say they do, they’re lying.”
“What would you have done if she didn’t feel the same?”
I was turning our meal into an interrogation, but I couldn’t ask anyone else these questions. Xavier would see right through me, and my other friends had different dynamics with their partners. Dante’s situation wasn’t the same as mine, but his came the closest.
“Why would you ask me that?” His scowl returned.
“That’s fucked up.”
“It’s a hypothetical. Indulge me.”
He looked like he was seriously regretting his decision to sit with me, but after a long pause, he said, “If I sensed that she had even a bit of affection toward me—which she did—I would’ve tried to change her mind. That was basically what I had to do after we ran into some, ah,obstacles during our engagement.”
“You mean when she found out you used her as a pawn to take down her father?”
Dante glared at me. “For someone who’s grilling me like this is a fucking job interview, you’re being a real pain in my ass.” He released a long, controlled breath and said, more calmly, “The point is, I put aside my pride and did what I needed to do to win her back. Because I loved her that much.”
I drank silently and turned his words over in my head.
They made sense, but they weren’t applicable to me.
All that time, only for me to hit another dead end.
Dante eyed me. “Why do you ask? Did you fall in love, Laurent?”
“No.” My laugh rang a little hollow for my liking. “I was curious, that’s all. Love isn’t for me.”
“Hmm.” He picked up his wine, his expression knowing.
“That’s what I told myself at first too.”