Chapter 33 Chapter 33
Sebastian’s POV
The first thing I notice is the sound.
Heels. Slow, deliberate, echoing against marble — the kind of sound that doesn’t belong in this house at this hour. I’m not expecting anyone. Everyone invited tonight is already here or gone. The staff knows better than to use the main hall once dinner service ends.
I pause in the corridor, glass in hand. My reflection in the window looks half-feral — shirt sleeves rolled, collar open, hair an unmade wreck from the number of times I’ve dragged my fingers through it tonight. My head aches from smiling for the board, from deflecting questions about the breach, from pretending the world isn’t one inch from burning.
Then I see her.
Lena.
Standing in the archway like she’s walked straight out of a fever I haven’t recovered from. Folder clutched tight to her chest. Eyes wide, cautious. The last person I expect to see standing in my home.
For a second, my brain simply blanks. Then the rest of me catches up, too slow, too aware.
“You work overtime and deliver paperwork now?” My voice comes out lower than I intend — humor and something else tangled in it.
She startles slightly, shoulders tensing before she straightens. “I—Tessa said you needed this urgently.”
Of course she did.
I take the folder, glance at the cover, the signature mark of my own initials printed at the top. “It could have waited until morning.”
“It had dawn written in bold red letters.”
Her tone is dry, unimpressed. I almost smile. Almost.
She glances behind me, and her expression shifts — polite detachment. “Am I interrupting?”
I follow her gaze. The dining hall behind me is mostly cleared now; wine still breathing in crystal, chairs pushed back in perfect symmetry. “Dinner just ended.”
“So no,” she says.
“So no,” I echo.
I should say goodnight. Thank her for bringing the file. Walk away.
Instead, I hear myself ask, “Hungry?”
She blinks, caught off guard. “No.”
Her stomach betrays her in the same second — a small, traitorous sound that hangs between us. My eyes flick downward, then back up, slow enough to make her shift her weight.
Right. That decides it.
“Come.”
She frowns. “No, really— I’ll go.”
“You’re here. You’re hungry. Sit.”
Her hesitation is short-lived. Curiosity, or exhaustion, wins. I gesture toward the kitchen annex — the smaller one, tucked away from the spectacle of the formal dining room. Warmer light. The scent of garlic and basil still lingers.
The chef appears like he materialized from the walls, silent and efficient. “Carbonara,” I say, then add, “Two plates.”
Lena hovers by the counter as if she doesn’t know where to exist. I nod toward the stool opposite mine. “Sit.”
She does. Slowly. Her eyes track everything — the immaculate counters, the minimalist layout, the quiet hum of the built-in espresso machine. She looks like she’s cataloguing proof that I’m human.
“Is this normal for you?” she asks finally, tone cautious.
“What part?”
"Inviting employees into your home. Feeding them pasta at ten p.m.”
“No,” I answer. “Neither.”
Something flickers in her eyes. A faint, unreadable amusement. She picks up her fork when the plates are set in front of us.
She eats with purpose, not grace. No pretense. I find myself watching the rhythm — the small twist of the fork, the concentration in her expression, the faint, nearly imperceptible sigh when she tastes something she likes. It’s grounding. Human.
“You were ready to sprint out of here,” I say eventually.
She doesn’t look up. “It’s your house.”
“So?”
“So… people like me don’t exactly fit in places like this.”
There’s no bitterness in her tone, but something in it lands heavy. I rest my elbows on the counter, studying her. “People like you?”
She finally meets my gaze. “People who don’t wear power like it’s skin.”
Interesting choice of words.
“You think it’s skin,” I murmur. “It’s more of an armor.”
“Same thing,” she says. “One just hides the wounds better.”
I should stop the conversation there.
But I don’t.
“I suppose you think you see through mine?”
She smiles — sharp, deliberate. “I didn’t say that.”
She’s wrong. She absolutely did.
For a while, we eat in silence. The air between us hums with the kind of quiet that feels like pressure, not peace. I tell myself to focus on my plate, on the night’s agenda, on the half-finished reports waiting upstairs.
Instead, I watch the way the light touches the curve of her cheek.
She has no idea how disarming she looks sitting in my kitchen.
When I move to reach for a file left on the counter behind her, my arm brushes her shoulder. Just a glancing contact — but it hits like static.
She goes still.
I don’t apologize.
And I don’t move
Three seconds. Maybe four. Just enough for something unsaid to start taking shape in the space between us.
Then I force myself to step back. “You should be careful who you eat with in this company,” I say evenly.
She lifts a brow. “Excuse me?”
“People watch. They talk. Lunches become rumors.”
“That a warning?”
“Consider it… professional caution.
The way she looks at me then — sharp, defiant — makes me regret saying anything at all.
“You don’t get to guard my choices,” she says.
Her voice is calm, but her grip on the fork tightens, knuckles pale.
I study her — the courage, the fire. I could defuse it. I don’t.
“I guard what belongs to me.”
The words come out before I can decide whether I mean them. They hang there, dangerous, wrong, truer than they should be.
She stares. Not angry — something else. Something that feels too much like recognition.
The silence stretches again. She looks at me like she’s waiting for me to take it back. I don’t.
Her chin lifts just slightly — barely an inch — but it’s enough to undo me. The distance between us feels electric. Unforgiving. I feel my control fracture, subtle but real.
Then, mercifully, something breaks the moment.
A sound — distant but distinct — the soft chime of a phone vibrating somewhere in the other room. I don’t even look at it. I just breathe.
She drops her gaze first. The spell breaks.
I push my chair back, stand slowly. “Don’t stay late tomorrow,” I say.
She looks up. “Why?”
“I don’t like wondering who walks you out.”
Then I turn and leave before I can hear her response.
The hall swallows the sound of my footsteps. For a moment, I think that’s the end of it — that I’ve successfully walked away from whatever that was.
Then I hear another voice — low, familiar, and very much unexpected.
“Dad?”
The word stops me cold.
My son’s voice.