Chapter 37 Chapter 37
Sebastian’s POV
When I step into the building, the morning air inside the company feels sharper than usual—overly bright, overly awake, like it’s daring someone to ruin my mood. Unfortunately, the challenge succeeds before I even reach my office.
Lena’s desk is empty.
Not just empty—untouched. No bag. No coffee mug. No laptop warm from being used. I pause mid-stride, scanning the area as if she might’ve simply ducked beneath the desk to tie her shoes.
She hasn’t.
I don’t know why this irritates me so quickly or so deeply. She has every right to move, breathe, exist without my personal permission. Yet the absence pricks me like a badly placed thorn.
I turn to the nearest employee—one of the interns who always looks like she’s seconds from sprinting.
“Where is Ms. Sawyer?”
The girl freezes, gulping as if she has been summoned by God and death simultaneously. “S-she stepped out, sir.”
“Stepped out,” I echo flatly.
“Yes, sir. Just a moment ago.”
Of course. Lena vanishes the one morning I need her to be steady, predictable, exactly where she should be. An unreasonable expectation, perhaps—but I don’t care for reason right now.
My phone vibrates.
I glance at the caller ID.
Victoria.
Immediately, every muscle in my body tenses in a way that’s become almost muscle memory. My thumb hovers over the screen. The last time she called, she wanted more money. Before that—money. Before that—money wrapped in faux sentiment about “our history” and “our son.”
I settled her generously last time. More than generously. She shouldn’t have a reason to call for at least another year. Unless she made poor decisions again. Unless she burned through the settlement. Unless she—
The phone vibrates again, persistent.
I decline it.
This woman is not how I plan to begin my day.
I find one of the employees who interacts often with Lena—Anita, sharp-eyed and painfully punctual.
“Tell Ms. Sawyer to come to my office the moment she returns.”
“Yes, Mr. Lancaster.”
I walk into my office, shutting the door behind me. For a moment I breathe into the quiet, expecting it to settle my agitation. It doesn’t.
My phone rings again.
Victoria—again.
I press decline without hesitation.
A few seconds later, it rings a fourth time.
Persistent. Desperate. Too dramatic.
She wants something, and I refuse to be dragged back into her vortex. I toss the phone face-down on the desk, its screen flashing silently like an accusation.
I attempt to work, reviewing quarterly numbers, but my focus skids every five seconds to the empty space where Lena should be.
Where is she?
Why did she step out?
With whom?
Why does it bother me so much?
I’m halfway through a profit margin spreadsheet when a knock sounds against the door.
“Enter,” I say, sharper than intended.
She steps in.
Lena.
Her hair is slightly wind-tossed, her breathing uneven, her eyes… guarded. Guarded is not her usual morning expression. She’s typically focused, steady, briskly polite. Right now, something looks tightly wound beneath the surface—like she ran a mental marathon before stepping inside.
“You asked for me,” she says.
“Yes,” I answer, leaning back in my chair to study her more fully. Something about her energy is off. Tense. Shaken. I don’t like not knowing why. “You weren’t at your desk.”
“I stepped out for a moment.”
“For what?”
I don’t mean for it to sound like an accusation, but it does.
She hesitates, only a fraction of a second, but I see it.
A lie forms in that pause.
“I needed air,” she replies.
Air? At eight in the morning?
Not impossible. But the look in her eyes says otherwise.
I tap a pen against the desk, observing how her shoulders stiffen. Something did happen. Something she won’t say. And a part of me—an unwelcome, unfamiliar part—burns with the urge to ask who upset her, what happened, whether someone hurt her, whether—
I shut the thought down before it spirals.
“We’ll address your absence later,” I say. “For now, I need an update on Sienna.”
“Sienna?” she asks cautiously. “She called in sick this morning. She asked for a sick leave.”
“Who did she send that request to?”
Her eyebrows knit. “I… don’t know?”
Exactly.
“You don’t know,” I repeat, displeasure curving around each syllable.
“Well, she said—”
“That’s the problem,” I cut in. “She said. She didn’t follow any protocol, and you—apparently—accepted that.”
Lena’s lips part, clearly offended. “This is the first time it’s happened. I—”
“Enough.”
The word slices through the room, harsher than I planned. She straightens, jaw tight, eyes shimmering with restrained fury she refuses to show. A smarter man would ease off.
I am not a smarter man this morning.
“She is slothful because she believes she can get away with anything,” I say. “And she believes she can get away with anything because her immediate lead—who is supposed to set an example—behaves unpredictably as well.”
Lena inhales sharply. “I do my job—”
“Yes,” I snap, “when you are here?”
It’s too harsh. I know it the moment the sentence leaves my mouth. She flinches—not dramatically, not visibly to anyone else, but enough for me to feel it.
Goddamn it.
I shouldn’t care.
I shouldn’t notice.
I shouldn’t be affected at all.
But I am. Too much.
She presses her lips together. “It only happened today. I stepped out for—”
“I already said enough.”
Silence thickens between us.
She looks at me—not the defiant way Sienna does, not the submissive way others do—but with a hurting kind of disappointment. And the strange, unwelcome truth is: I don’t want to be the cause of that look.
I grip the edge of my desk until my knuckles stiffen.
Why does she affect me like this?
Why is she the one person I can’t keep at a safe professional distance?
Why does she look like someone I’m failing, even when I’m right?
She exhales, steadying herself. “I apologize, Mr. Lancaster.”
The apology is polite.
But the emotion behind it isn’t.
It’s forced.
Tight.
Barely civil.
A thread pulls inside my chest. I tell myself it’s irritation—nothing else.
She turns slightly, preparing to leave.
“Wait.”
The word escapes before I approve it.
She stops, eyes flicking back to me. There’s something vulnerable in the way she stands, hands clasped lightly in front of her, spine straight but tired.
I rise slowly from my chair.
I should keep my distance.
I don’t.
I step closer—not enough to break a rule, but enough to feel the pull, the tension, the awareness crackling between us.
For a moment—one reckless, dangerous moment—I imagine reaching out. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Tilting her chin up. Closing the inches between us until her breath mixes with mine. Kissing her until the guarded look inside her cracks open and she lets me in.
The thought is wildfire, consuming, intoxicating.
I crush it.
I cannot want her.
I cannot allow this.
I cannot let myself slip into the softness she creates.
So I force coldness into my tone, sharp enough to cut both of us.
“Remember why you’re hired.”
The words land between us like a blade.
Her eyes flicker—hurt, confusion, something she buries before it fully appears.
“Of course,” she says.
Professional.
Controlled.
Distant.
And then, without another word, she turns and walks out of the office.
The door clicks shut behind her.
And I’m left standing there, the taste of regret sour on my tongue, wondering why the hell pushing her away feels like losing something I never should’ve reached for in the first place.