CHAPTER 37
Maya
I THOUGHT MY FATHER AND MICHEL WOULD REALIZE the ridiculousness of their fight and reconcile within a day. A
week, at most.
I was dead wrong.
Two weeks had passed since our disastrous dinner at the Laurents’ house, and our families were still locked in a cold war. Instead of dwindling, my father’s ire had ballooned to epic proportions during that time.
In his eyes, Michel’s refusal to apologize or acknowledge any wrongdoing was worse than his dinner with Charles Whitaker. It was an unforgivable betrayal, and he’d forbidden our entire family from interacting with any of the Laurents.
I got a small reprieve because I had to work with Sebastian on the launch, but my father was so unforgiving that we were too nervous to meet up outside of work. My father had eyes and ears everywhere—more so now that he had a reason to suspect we might rebel, considering he was the only one mad at the Laurents—so we communicated solely via texts and calls.
Even then, I had to be careful. Out of an abundance of
caution, I’d changed Sebastian’s name in my phone in case a notification popped up at the wrong time.
My mother and I both tried reasoning with my father, to no avail.
“Yvonne and I are supposed to go to Switzerland soon.
You can’t expect me to cancel when we’ve been planning this for months,” she argued. But my father didn’t bend, and she ended up canceling the trip.
She didn’t talk to him for days after, but it didn’t matter.
Once my father made up his mind, there was almost no changing it. The same went for Michel.
It was like watching two grown men act like teenagers throwing temper tantrums. I would’ve pressed the issue harder, but I hadn’t seen my father this enraged since my uncle Raj cheated him out of twenty thousand dollars during a blackjack game gone wrong. I’d been a child then, but I distinctly remembered all hell breaking loose.
My father didn’t care about the money. It was the principle of the matter, and he hadn’t spoken to my uncle, his own brother, since. That’d been almost thirty years ago.
If he found out I was breaking his No Contact rule, he might actually disown me.
Thankfully, my father’s anger wasn’t enough to overshadow his business sensibilities. We were careful to shield his falling-out with Michel from the press, and they begrudgingly showed up to the joint press conference Sebastian and I had scheduled ahead of next month’s launch.
It was held in a hotel ballroom in Midtown. Our fathers occupied the middle two seats while Sebastian and I sat on opposite ends of the table. For forty-five minutes, we smiled for the cameras and answered questions about the collaboration. My father and Michel even riffed off each other for a few jokes that made everyone laugh.
If I didn’t know better, I’d assume they were still the best of friends, but I sat close enough to sense the tension rolling
off my father in waves.
I was also hyperaware of Sebastian’s presence three seats down from mine. I avoided looking at him for fear my longing would give us away, and our secret glances would be captured on video for the world to see.
But he was there, slipping beneath my skin and filling my lungs. I didn’t have to look at him to hear the smooth timbre of his voice or envision his wry but easy smile as he answered a particularly obvious question.
It was a special kind of torture to be this close to him and notbe with him, but at least we could still interact under
the guise of work.
Thank God for small blessings.
The press event ended, and I made sure to say bye to every reporter before they left. Ezra was also here, but I liked to connect with the media personally. It generated a lot of goodwill.
Soon, the room was nearly empty. I checked in with Ezra, but my skin tingled halfway through our debrief. I glanced over, my breath catching when I saw Sebastian watching me while he spoke with someone fromFood & Wine.
The tingles sparked and intensified. The air between us grew taut, as if someone had strung a live wire between us, making it hum with everything we couldn’t say.
I ended my conversation with Ezra and moved toward Sebastian—I could use work as an excuse—but my father stopped me with a sharp look.
“The conference is over. Let’s go.” He didn’t acknowledge the Laurents. Michel was already halfway out the door, his movements purposeful, like my father didn’t exist.
“Dad, please.” Most of the reporters were gone, but I kept my voice low just in case. “I know you’re upset with Michel, but this can’t go on forever. You’ve been friends for decades.
Don’t let Charles Whitaker, of all people, drive a wedge between you two.”
My father’s mouth tightened. “I told you, I’ve made up my
mind. We’re not discussing this anymore.”
“But—”
“Stop.” He held up one hand. “This isn’t up for debate.
Michel has had plenty of opportunities to admit he was wrong, but he chose not to. If he’s willing to throw away our friendship for the sake of pride and one dinner, then that friendship wasn’t worth much to begin with. It doesn’t matter how many years we’ve known each other. Once trust is lost, you can’t win it back.”
Michel wasn’t the only one who was letting his pride get in the way, but I was smart enough to keep that observation to myself.
“Let this be a lesson to you as well,” my father warned.
“You and Sebastian have been working closely on the launch, but you know what they say. Like father, like son. You can’t trust him.”
I stiffened. “He’s nothing like his father,” I said. “Don’t take your anger out on him. Without Sebastian, we wouldn’t have a product line. He’s gone above and beyond for this project, and he hasn’t done anything wrong.”
A hint of suspicion crept into my father’s eyes. “Since when do you defend Sebastian Laurent? I had to twist your arm to get you to work with him.”
Shit. I shouldn’t have tipped my hand, but I’d let my impulses get the better of me.
My heart raced as I cobbled together an excuse. “I’m not defending him. I’m telling the truth. He’s annoying and arrogant, but he’s not Michel. I don’t like accusing people of things they haven’t done. That’s all.”
I was too afraid to look at Sebastian again, but the heat of his gaze scorched my cheek. He was standing less than a dozen feet away, yet he’d never felt so far.
“Perhaps, but it’s better to be safe than sorry,” my father said. “Once the launch is over, you are to delegate the rest of your collaboration duties to Ezra. You will not speak to anyone from the Laurent family,including Sebastian. That is
an order. Are we clear?”
I swallowed the urge to argue some more. Trying to get through to him when he was like this would be harder than knocking down a brick wall with a toothpick. I was better off
saving my energy for a future battle.
“Crystal,” I said.
Sebastian pushed me up against the side of a filing cabinet, his mouth desperate against mine as I hooked my legs around his waist. The old metal contraption rattled in protest, but I barely noticed.
“Right there. Right—God.” I moaned when he thrust inside me, his cock stretching me to the limit. He fisted my hair, his mouth trailing down my neck as he dragged his teeth over the sensitized skin.
We usually took things slower, but we were so wound up that we’d skipped the foreplay and gone straight to the main event. It didn’t matter. I was still dripping wet, my mind fracturing as he fucked me so hard that the cabinet shook with every brutal stroke.
This was the first time we’d had sex in two weeks, and it showed in the urgency of our movements. We didn’t even wait until our clothes were off. I’d unbuttoned his shirt, he’d shoved my skirt up around my waist and pushed my panties to the side, and— I cried out when he hit my most sensitive spot. Lightning streaks of pleasure arced down my spine, and I instinctively clenched around him, making him groan.
“You feel so fucking good.” Sebastian tightened his already viselike grip on my hair. Tears sprang to my eyes at the electric mix of pain and pleasure. “Your pussy was made for me, wasn’t it? Do you get yourself off at night, thinking about what I’d do to you the next time I saw you?”
“Yes.” My nails dug into his shoulders. I was trembling,
my orgasm edging closer and closer to the brink. “Yesyesyes.
I… I…” He thrust into me again, and I lost the ability to form words.
“You what?” He released my hair to grasp my chin, forcing me to look at him. His eyes were dark and fierce with hunger. “What do you do, Maya?”
“I think of you,” I whimpered. “Only you.”
The hunger in his eyes flared into raw, primal need. He let go of my chin and gripped my hips with both hands, holding me steady as he slammed into me so hard, it knocked the breath out of my lungs.
Just like that, I came apart. My orgasm tipped over the edge, making me scream so loud he had to clamp a hand over my mouth to muffle the noise. It reminded me of our first time in the stairwell, which only made me come harder.
Sebastian cursed as he found his own release. His muscles went taut, and his thrusts became erratic as his cock twitched and pulsed inside me. His hand left my mouth, and I gasped in a lungful of air as we gradually came
down from our dizzying highs.
“Fuck,” he panted. “That was…”
“Incredible.” I rested my head against the cabinet, trying to catch my breath. “But risky.”
We were in a cramped back office in the hotel’s administrative wing. I’d told my father I needed to wrap up some paperwork with the hotel, and I’d waited for him and Michel to leave before asking the event manager for a place where I could make a “quick but highly confidential call.”
Sebastian had snuck in after I’d told him where to meet me.
We didn’t have much time before someone came looking for us, but I wasn’t ready to leave. Not yet.
“Risky, but worth it.” He kissed me again, his voice unbearably tender compared to the roughness of our sex. “I
miss you so fucking much.”
My chest squeezed. “I miss you too.”
Sneaking around wasn’t the same asbeing together, and
the longing in his eyes told me he felt the same.
Sebastian pulled out and gently unwound my legs from around his waist. He cleaned us both up with a handkerchief he kept in his pocket. His movements were slow and careful, like he was trying to drag this out as long as possible. Once he finished, he wrapped the handkerchief in a tissue and slipped it into his pocket. We couldn’t risk the office owner finding it in the trash later.
“It’s killing me not to see you every day,” he said quietly.
A hundred replies crowded my throat, but I swallowed them so I didn’t start tearing up. I didn’t want to make him feel worse, so I settled for a hoarse, “Me too.”
I didn’t tell him that I’d wanted to run to him earlier and burrow myself into his chest. We could take the next flight to Paris, London, anywhere but here, where we lived under a microscope. We could pretend we were normal lovers, free from the expectations of our families and their petty
squabbles.
But we couldn’t.
This was our first truly private moment since our fathers’ falling out. Our shared space at Singh Foods HQ was right by my father’s office, so we were always on edge there, and video calls weren’t an adequate substitute for seeing him in person.
Sebastian pressed his forehead against mine, his breaths slowing into an even, steady rhythm as I ran my fingers leisurely through his hair and traced lazy circles on his back.
I just wanted to feel him, to breathe him in and assure myself that he was real.
“You think our dads will ever pull their heads out of their asses?” he asked in French. He was fluent in English, but he reverted to his native language when he was particularly frustrated.
I laughed, the sound tinged with melancholy. “Maybe.
Maybe not,” I said, also in French.
“The universe insists on fucking us over every time things
are going well. I’m starting to take it personally.”
I didn’t laugh this time because he was right. From the mystery asshole who’d sabotaged his letter in boarding school to our families’ unprecedented feud, our relationship had been marked by obstacle after obstacle. After years of lost time, we were finally together, but we had to sneak around like teenagers.
A few months ago, I would’ve taken our troubles as a sign that we weren’t meant to be. But honestly? Fuck that.
Sebastian and I had made it through a lifetime of animosity and misunderstandings. We’d make it through this too.
Still, I winced at the prospect of choosing between him and my family. I didn’t want to wait another fifteen years before we could openly be together. That might sound like an exaggeration, but my father was notorious for holding long grudges.
“We can’t wait for them to reconcile on their own,” I said.
“They need a little push.”
“Let me guess,” Sebastian said. “We’ll be doing the pushing?”
“You areso. Smart,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood. I squealed with genuine laughter when he wrestled me to the ground and tickled me with a mock scowl.
Someone knocked on the door, and we froze, our laughter evaporating beneath a cloud of dread.
“Ms. Singh? Can I come in?”
Fuck. It was the event manager.
“Uh, one moment, please,” I called out, my voice a pitch higher than I would’ve liked.
I scrambled to my feet and fixed my hair and clothes while Sebastian squeezed himself between the wall and the farthest filing cabinet. It was the only feasible hiding place in the otherwise open office.
Once I made sure he was properly concealed, I opened the door to the event manager’s tight smile. I smiled back,
my pulse pounding.
“Sorry about that. The call took longer than expected.” I slipped out of the room and shut the door firmly behind me.
“Thanks so much for letting me use the office. It was, um, very private. Exactly what I needed.”
“You’re welcome.” The manager glanced at the closed door. “Shall I escort you to the lobby? The layout of this floor
can be confusing.”
My smile felt stitched on. “Sure.”
I followed him through the maze of hallways to the elevator. I hoped Sebastian was able to get out without anyone seeing him. The administrative wing was pretty quiet, so he should be okay, but I wished we’d had the chance to say a proper goodbye. Who knew when our next
non-work-related moment alone would be?
My chest tightened.
We couldn’t keep going like this. Wehad to find a way to restore our fathers’ friendship, preferably before we all died of old age.
I mentally added it to my to-do list. Other major items included: bridesmaid duties for Priya’s wedding, telling our families Sebastian and I were dating after our fathers (hopefully) made up, and, oh yeah, pulling off the biggest, buzziest launch in the food world next month.
No pressure or anything.
My mind was spinning, but as I stepped into the elevator, my panic crystallized into determination.
I’d get it all done. I had to.