Chapter 35 Chapter 35
Sebastian’s POV
The door closes behind Lena with a soft, final click.
For a moment I simply stand there, hand still on the frame, staring at the empty driveway where the car’s taillights vanish into the black curve of the road. The night air is cool, steady, rational—everything I am pretending to be.
Her absence shouldn’t feel like a physical shift in the room.
But it does.
I inhale. Slow. Controlled.
It doesn’t help.
The house is too quiet now, and it hits with an almost physical pressure—like the silence is observing me instead of the other way around.
I release the doorknob, straighten, and turn back toward the dining area where Wes is still standing as if frozen mid-breath.
Of course he is.
He always did love dramatic pauses.
He’s pretending to look at a message on his phone, but the lie is transparent. His shoulders are wound too tight, jaw set with a little tick he thinks people don’t notice. His surprise at seeing Lena wasn’t mild or polite or even concealed. It was visceral. Immediate. Almost ugly.
It bothers me.
Far more than it should.
I walk back toward the lingering scent of wine and carbonara. The table is half-cleared, candles burned low. Wes stands in the halo of soft light like a man caught in a place he didn’t intend to be.
He glances up when he senses me approach.
“Thought dinner was over,” he says, tone casual but eyes too alert.
“It was,” I answer, my voice even. “You didn’t tell me you were stopping by tonight.”
He shrugs, slipping his hands into his pockets, a gesture I recognize far too well. It’s a cover. A shield. “Plans changed.”
They always do with him.
I lean against the back of the nearest chair, crossing my arms. “You seemed… surprised to see my guest.”
He doesn’t blink. “You didn’t mention you were having one.”
“I didn’t know I was,” I say plain, unadorned. “It was a work errand.”
His jaw tightens a fraction. “A work errand that involves dinner now?”
A coolness threads through me. Not anger—observation.
“Why does that interest you?”
Wes scoffs quietly, but even his scoffs have tells. “It doesn’t. I was just surprised, that’s all.”
Surprised.
That’s a word for it.
He tries to look relaxed.
The boy has learned how to hide from cameras, shareholders, investors—everyone except me. I raised him well enough to read a room, but not well enough to hide his real emotions in front of me.
He shifts again. “I didn’t know you and Lena, she worked that closely?”
“Lena delivered signed campaign documents.” My tone is blunt, business-like. “The board reviews them at dawn.”
He nods slowly, as if trying to swallow that information. Swallow me believing it.
“Right. Work.”
The way he says it is almost poisonous. Jealous, maybe? No. Not jealousy. That would be too simple. Too childish. This is something else—something weighted, burnt around the edges.
I narrow my eyes. “You seem uneasy.”
He laughs once, humorless. “You’re imagining things.”
I’m not.
He looks away before he looks back again—a hesitation I have seen exactly three times in his life. All three times.
So I ask the question that’s been hovering between us since the moment he spoke her name.
“Do you have history with her?”
The air sharpens.
Wes doesn’t breathe for a full two seconds.
Then he does. Too quickly. Too controlled.
“Not really,” he says. “We crossed paths. She’s no one.”
The lie is loud.
Not in volume, but in stillness—in the way the room reacts to it, in the way his shoulders stiffen, in the way his eyes refuse mine for a fraction of a heartbeat.
I don’t push.
Pressure isn’t how you get truth.
Not from Wes.
He shifts his weight again, rolling his neck as if trying to shake off tension. “Anyway. I should head out.”
Of course he should. Running is easier than staying. “You just arrived.”
“And now I’m leaving,” he says with a strained half-smile. “Got an early meeting.”
“Fine,” I say. “Drive safe.”
He starts to walk past me but stops for half a breath, glancing toward the door Lena disappeared through. His expression fractures in a way I don’t recognize on him—like regret peeled open and left exposed.
Then he forces it back down and walks away.
Footsteps.
Door.
Silence.
Again.
I exhale and make my way to the study, the weight of curiosity settling like a stone right behind my ribs. The entire house feels different now—like something has shifted in it, or maybe I’m the one rearranged.
The desk lamp casts a warm circle of light over stacks of documents. I pour myself a drink—something sharp, cold, punishing. The first swallow burns. I welcome it.
There is too much in my head.
Lena’s startled eyes when Wes said her name.
The tremor in her breath.
University.
Old friends.
Uncoordinated, overlapping answers.
And Wes—every micro-expression betraying him.
They know each other.
They absolutely do.
And for the first time in a long, long time, I don’t know which of them I should be more concerned about.
Or why it matters so much.
I rub my thumb along the rim of the glass, jaw tight. The drink lingers bitter on my tongue, but it doesn’t ground me the way I want it to.
I replay the night.
The pasta.
The way Lena watched her own hands like she didn’t trust them.
The way she ate as if starving, trying to hide it.
The tension in her shoulders.
The moment she tried to leave.
The way she said “Thank you” like she wasn’t sure she deserved something simple, like being fed.
She’s… different.
Not in a way I can categorize.
Not in a way that fits neatly into the boxes I use for employees, collaborators, threats.
Not neat at all.
And that—
that is the problem.
I should not be thinking about her now.
Not like this.
Not with this much pull.
But the moment Wes saw her is what keeps replaying the loudest.
The edge in his voice.
The shock in his eyes.
The lie he choked on.
No one.
She’s no one.
If that were true, he wouldn’t have reacted like he’d been punched.
I lean back in the chair, loosen my cufflinks, and stare at the door as if it might hold answers. It doesn’t.
I tap the glass once against the desk, a quiet, rhythmic sound.
Useless thinking.
Dangerous thinking.
But I don’t stop.
Work protocol does not require personal messages.
I don’t text employees.
I don’t check up on them.
I don’t blur lines.
And yet—
The message types itself under my thumb, my mind rationalizing it as basic safety.
Let me know when you get home.
Simple.
Functional.
Unnecessary.
I stare at the screen for a long moment before pressing send.
The message goes through instantly.
Delivered.
Not read.
Good.
She’s still in transit.
I set the phone down, but my mind does not set her down with it. It keeps turning, circling, analyzing, dissecting every detail like a surgeon operating on something living.