CHAPTER 41
Maya
I COULD’VE HEARD A PIN DROP IN THE SILENCE.
Everything in Sebastian seemed to stall. A thousand emotions flashed across his face before it settled into cool neutrality.
“Explain.” His voice was calm, soft.Lethal.
This wasn’t how I’d planned to tell him. I’d wanted to gather concrete evidence first in case I was wrong, but when he’d told me his Prague story, and I saw how devastated he was, I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t let him think the food poisoning was his fault when there was a strong chance it wasn’t. In fact, it might not have been food poisoning at all.
“I hired someone to do a thorough sweep of the scene after the event,” I said. Unlike with my Pittsburgh hunch, I had a plausible excuse for hiring a professional instead of trying to play investigator myself. “The staff cleaned most of it up, but they missed a few things—including this.” I held out a piece of shiny silver foil. “My team found it under the fridge. Do you recognize that blue?”
His brows pulled together. He examined the foil and shook his head. “What is it?”
I pulled up something on my phone and showed it to
him.
The foil itself wasn’t anything special. It was part of the packaging for hundreds of products. However, this particular piece had a tiny strip of blue at the edge where it’d been torn off. It was an incredibly distinctive, recognizable shade of blue that’d caused an uproar in the marketing world when a company trademarked it years ago. I’d seen it in dozens of articles about the legal battle over the trademark —and, more recently, in my parents’ medicine cabinet.
It matched the blue on the packaging of Aldolace Laxatives perfectly.
Sebastian put the pieces together immediately. “You think someone slipped laxatives into the food?”
“It would explain the guests’ symptoms,” I said.
“Vomiting, diarrhea, high fever, and severe abdominal pain.
A large enough dose of this stuff can mimic food poisoning so thoroughly that it’ll fool even professionals. Luckily for us, whoever did it was sloppy and left this behind.”
“If someone did it.”
“If,” I allowed. I wasn’t totally sure yet. The team I’d hired was still confirming whether the foil could, indeed, be traced back to laxatives. Even if it was, there were other explanations for its presence in the kitchen. It could’ve been for personal use, or someone from a previous event could’ve left it behind. Still, the timing and circumstances were suspicious.
Sebastian’s jaw tensed as he processed the implications.
He didn’t say it, but I saw it in his eyes—a tiny spark of hope that I might be right, and he wasn’t to blame.
“Let’s say someone did sabotage us. It had to have been one of the kitchen staff,” he said. “That narrows the suspect pool down by quite a bit.”
“Yes, but there’s a small chance it could’ve been someone else,” I said. “There were people coming in and out all day, especially during prep.”
“Right.” His throat worked with a swallow. “When will you
know for sure?”
“Hopefully within the day. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”
He responded with a terse nod, but his tone softened a moment later. “How are you doing? The past few days couldn’t have been easy for you either.”
“I’ve been better, but I’m surviving.” I gave him a small smile. “I’d love some food though. I haven’t eaten all day.”
“No lasagna.”
I huffed out a laugh. At least he could joke about it. It was a tiny step in the right direction, but it was a step
nonetheless. “No lasagna.”
We ended up ordering pizza.
We sat cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by two giant pies, an order of garlic knots, a chocolate lava cake, and a two-liter bottle of Coke poured into red plastic cups.
“The rumors are true,” I said, tearing off a piece of bread.
“Grease and carbs make everything better.”
“Don’t forget sugar.”
“How could I? That’s my number-one stress reliever.”
Sebastian’s mouth curved. He seemed to be feeling better, though an air of melancholy still clung to him.
I’d tried to give him space over the past week. We’d debriefed on Friday night, after everyone else had left, but he’d refused to discuss anything other than logistics. I knew he must’ve been reeling from the launch, and I didn’t want to make him feel worse by pressuring him to talk about it before he was ready.
But it’d been five days, and he hadn’t answered any of my calls or a majority of my texts. I’d heard Michel put him on administrative leave, and I’d been worried enough to risk my father’s wrath by coming to see him.
I needed to make sure he was okay. I wouldn’t know what to do if he wasn’t.
Sebastian’s eyes searched my face. “Now that we’ve
eaten, you can tell me the truth,” he said. “How are you really doing?”
I finished my garlic knot, chewing slowly so I’d have more time to formulate an answer.
The past week had been so hectic that I hadn’t had time to truly sit down and process. I’d hung on to my crisis plan with bloodied fingernails, letting my to-do items carry me through the days so I wouldn’t have to endure the torture of overthinking. It was only late at night that my repressed emotions found their way to me in bits and pieces—panic that the failed launch marked the end of my career, dread over what horrible new headline would hit us next, anxiety over whether people were mocking me behind my back.
I hated how much I cared what others thought, but I’d chased external validation my whole life.
If the food poisoning was Sebastian’s worst nightmare, the PR disaster was mine. If I let it, my mind would conjure a thousand scenarios where people were laughing at me.
Of course she failed. She sucks at her job. She just got to
where she is because she’s rich.
I knew she couldn’t hack it.
Literally anyone else would’ve done a better job.
What a loser.
Once the spiral started, it was impossible to stop, so I let it run its course. But amidst the recent chaos, I also found something I’d never expected—freedom. When you hit rock bottom, the only place to look was up.
The worst thing imaginable had finally happened, and I was still standing. The crisis wasn’t over, but it had passed its peak (hopefully). The noise was getting quieter, and people were starting to disengage as other news scandals caught their attention.
Neither I nor my family would emerge unscathed. The scars from this experience would follow me forever, but they weren’t fatal. I’d imagined I would collapse under the weight of my failure if and when it happened, but I was still
standing.
I told Sebastian all of this, hoping he’d understand.
“Don’t get me wrong. I wish this never happened,” I said.
“But a small part of me is almost glad it did? Not the people getting sick part, but the part where I realized that the monsters of my imagination are worse than reality.” I toyed with the pizza crust on my plate. “I putso much pressure on myself to excel because I was terrified of what might happen if I didn’t. It was a pride thing at first. I wanted to prove to myself and everyone around me that I was capable of making my own mark on the world. Of course, I also wanted to beat you.”
Sebastian’s mouth tipped again, and I allowed myself an answering smile before I continued. “Eventually, it got to a point where I defined myself by my achievements. Who would I be without all those medals and trophies holding me up? What would I do if I didn’t have some new goal to chase? I thought it would get better after I reached big milestones, but it got worse. Now, instead of proving myself as a newcomer, I have to prove that I haven’t lost my touch.
So I kept setting bigger goals and telling myself that the next one would beit, you know. The Ultimate Thing that would make me feel complete. I wouldn’t have to prove myself anymore.”
The flames crackled in the electric fireplace. They weren’t real—it was June, too hot for a real fire—but their phantom warmth gave me the courage to continue.
“I thought the launch would be my Ultimate Thing, but after… what happened, I realized thereis no Ultimate Thing.
The goalposts willalways keep changing if I let them.” I let out a sardonic laugh. “It’s funny that it took the biggest failure of my life to figure that out. I can’t even tell you how I did it. I was sitting in an emergency meeting, and it just… hit me. Total clarity. And now that the worst-case scenario has happened, it’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.” I wasn’t sure if that sounded insensitive,
considering Sebastian’s own turmoil, but he’d asked for the truth. He wouldn’t want me to sugarcoat things for his sake.
“I don’t have to wait for the other shoe to drop. I just have to survive, which I guess is its own kind of accomplishment.” I exhaled, a little embarrassed by my long ramble. “I don’t know if any of that made sense.”
“It did. All of it.” Sebastian’s expression sobered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I was so lost in my own self- loathing, and I should’ve… I shouldn’t have ignored your calls.”
“We both needed alone time to process. I knew you’d be there if I really needed you.”
“You have a lot of faith in me, Sal,” he said quietly.
“Maybe more than I deserve.”
“I doubt that. You know me.” I shrugged. “I don’t give anyone anything they haven’t earned. No participation
trophies here.”
His laugh made me smile again.
“I do have something for you though.” I retrieved a foil- wrapped candy from my purse and handed it to him.
Sebastian took it. His eyebrows hiked up. “A chocolate bonbon?”
“It’s one you gave me when the listeria crisis happened,”
I said. “Chocolate doesn’t expire for a long time, so it’s safe to eat. I thought… it might make you feel better.”
He stared at the bonbon nestled in his palm, his expression unreadable. “You kept it this entire time?”
I blushed, suddenly self-conscious. “I didn’t want to eat it,
but it would’ve been a waste to throw—”
He cut me off with a fierce kiss.
I melted into him, my self-consciousness scattering as quickly as it’d emerged.
I’d been worried the fallout from the launch would tear us apart. Neither of us dealt well with failure, and we’d both invested a lot in the event. It would’ve been easy to cave to our personal demons instead of dealing with them together.
The longer I’d gone without hearing from him, the more I’d worried. But now that I was here, those fears evaporated
like mist under the morning sun.
We were going to be okay.
Our moment was interrupted by an incoming call. I reluctantly broke away from Sebastian, and my stomach dropped when I checked the caller ID.
“Where are you?” my mother asked the second I picked up. “Dinner starts in ten minutes.”
Shit. I’d completely forgotten about our family dinner tonight. “I’m still at the office,” I lied. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.
I got caught up in work, and there’s a ton left to do. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it tonight.”
I expected her to leave it at that. My mother hated talking about work these days, but she said, somewhat suspiciously, “Neha was just at the office. She didn’t see you.”
I held back a groan. Of course, Neha showed up theone day I left early. She was an exec in our finance department, and she usually worked from home. “We must’ve missed each other. It’s a big building.”
My mother harrumphed. “If your father can make it to dinner despite work, you can too.”
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated, genuinely apologetic. “By the time I get there, dinner will be over.” I glanced at Sebastian, whose brows had dipped into a sharp V. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise, but I have to go.”
She grumbled and muttered something about “the disrespectful generation,” but she let me off the hook after I promised to help her organize our next dinner.
“Was that your mom?” Sebastian asked, correctly guessing who’d been on the other end. “I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me.”
“I’ll be okay. I chose to be here. If I get in trouble, I can handle it.”
I’d much rather eat pizza with Sebastian on the floor than trudge through another strained family dinner. Neha was
upset with me for not breaking up with Sebastian, my mother was upset with my father about the Laurents, my father was upset about, well, everything. It wasn’t exactly a
recipe for fun.
“Maya…”
“Don’t. I want to be with you right now. No one else. This is the only place where I…” I swallowed, my voice hitching.
“I can breathe.”
Sebastian’s frown softened. He set the bonbon down.
“Come here.”
I obliged and climbed into his lap. He kissed me again, long and sweet enough to make my tension melt.
A storm continued to rage outside, but inside these four walls, I was safe.
My phone pinged, interrupting the moment.
I reluctantly broke away from Sebastian and checked my new text. I expected a work issue or a pointed message from Neha about my absence at dinner, but my stomach flipped
when I read the sender’s name.
“What is it?” Sebastian asked.
“It’s the investigator I hired.” My heart thumped to a frantic beat. “They confirmed the foil is from Aldolace Laxatives’ packaging.”
His arms tensed around me. “Okay.” His calm, even voice was back, but I heard the first flicker of fury simmering beneath the surface. “So what now?”
“Now we have to link this”—I tapped my phone—“with evidence that someone tampered with the food.”
“Can your guy do it?”
I shook my head, my brain churning. The discovery raised more questions than it answered, but it confirmed the most important fact—we had a concrete enemy. And if we had a concrete enemy, we could beat them.
“We need someone more specialized and who can work fast,” I said. “We don’t want to draw this out.”
Any investigator worth their salt could uncover the
saboteur given enough time, but time was a luxury we didn’t have. The urgency of our response was measured in hours and days, not months. If we waited too long to clear our names, our reputation and finances might’ve already crashed and burned beyond repair, regardless of the investigation’s outcome.
“You have a person in mind,” Sebastian surmised.
“Yes…” I dragged the word out, already knowing how he’d react to my suggestion. I’d brainstormed next steps for this very scenario, and I kept circling back to one name. “You know him. We both do. Working with him is our best bet, but you’re not going to like it.”
Sebastian’s forehead crinkled. When I tapped my phone again, realization dawned, and his mouth flattened into a straight line. “No.”
“He’ll get the job done. You know he’s the only one who can feasibly work with our timeline.”
“I also know you can’t trust him as far as you can throw him.” Sebastian’s jaw clenched. “There has to be another way.”
“If you have other options, I’m all ears.”
He remained silent, his scowl deepening.
I understood his reluctance. The person I had in mind didn’t always follow the letter of the law, to put it mildly. His morals were suspect, his motives even more so, but he was the best in the business. Several of our friends had used him in the past, and they’d all agreed he was a consummate professional—if he agreed to the job.
After a long pause, Sebastian sighed and nodded.
With his reluctant blessing, I set aside my own reservations and called Christian Harper.