Chapter 20 MARKET DAY
Harper woke to sunlight streaming through unfamiliar windows and the disorienting realization that she was alone in Sebastian's bed.
They had not slept together, at least not in that way. After the kiss last night, Sebastian had pulled back, his forehead resting against hers, his breath ragged.
"Not like this," he had whispered. "Not when you have had wine and we are both operating on confession and adrenaline. When this happens, I want you to be sure."
So instead, they had stayed up talking until nearly three in the morning, curled up on opposite ends of the couch like teenagers afraid to get too close. Harper had told him about her failed architecture projects, her dreams for the Adriatic, and the way she still missed her aunt every single day. Sebastian had talked about his father's impossible expectations, the weight of running a company he had never chosen, and the loneliness of always being the person in control.
Eventually, Harper had fallen asleep mid sentence, and she had a vague memory of Sebastian carrying her to his bed, tucking the blanket around her shoulders, and leaving without a word.
Now, she found a note on the pillow beside her in Sebastian's precise handwriting. "Meeting with investors until noon. Stay. Order room service. I will be back. S."
Harper smiled despite herself and reached for her phone. Seven text messages from Jessie awaited her, each more demanding than the last, asking how San Francisco was going and whether Harper had done anything stupid yet.
She typed back. "Define stupid."
The response arrived immediately. "Oh God. What did you do?"
"Nothing. Yet. Maybe. I do not know."
"That is the most concerning answer possible. Call me when you are back."
Harper took a long shower, borrowed one of Sebastian's T-shirts because her dress from last night felt too formal for a Saturday morning, and was contemplating room service when her phone rang.
Sebastian's name flashed on the screen, and her stomach did something complicated.
"Hi," she answered, suddenly nervous.
"Good morning." His voice was warm and less guarded than usual. "Did you sleep okay?"
"Better than I have in weeks, actually. Your bed is ridiculously comfortable."
There was a pause, and Harper could hear voices in the background. "I am glad. Listen, the meeting wrapped up early. Are you hungry?"
"Starving."
"Good. Get dressed. Something casual. We are going out."
"Out where?"
"It is a surprise. I will be there in twenty minutes."
He hung up before she could protest, leaving Harper staring at her phone and wondering what counted as casual in Sebastian Colton's world.
She settled on jeans, a soft gray sweater, and her favorite leather jacket, the one with the worn elbows that Jessie kept threatening to throw away. She was just finishing her makeup when Sebastian knocked on the door.
He had changed too, trading his suit for dark jeans and a navy henley that made him look younger and more approachable. More like the man who had held her face in his hands last night and kissed her like she was something precious.
"Ready?" he asked.
"For what, exactly?"
"You will see."
They took a cab to the Ferry Building, and Harper felt something shift in her chest as she realized where they were going. The Ferry Building Marketplace was one of her favorite places in San Francisco, all exposed brick and steel beams, the kind of adaptive reuse that made her architect's heart sing.
"How did you know?" she asked as they walked through the main hall.
"You mentioned it once. You said it was the perfect example of honoring a building's history while making it functional for modern use." Sebastian glanced at her, something uncertain in his expression. "I thought you might want to see it again."
Harper felt warmth spread through her chest. He had remembered. A throwaway comment she had made weeks ago, and he had remembered.
The marketplace was crowded with Saturday shoppers. Tourists and locals browsed artisan cheese, fresh produce, and handmade pasta. The smell of coffee and baked bread filled the air, mixing with the salt breeze coming off the bay.
"Come on," Sebastian said, taking her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. "There is something I want to show you."
He led her through the crowd to a small bookstall tucked in a corner. The vendor, an older man with wire rimmed glasses, looked up and smiled.
"Sebastian. Right on time."
"Harper, this is Leonard. He specializes in architectural history." Sebastian turned to the vendor. "Did you find it?"
"I did indeed." Leonard pulled out a slim volume wrapped in brown paper. "First edition, excellent condition. You have good taste."
Sebastian handed him cash and passed the book to Harper. She unwrapped it carefully and felt her breath catch.
"The Adriatic Hotel. A Seattle Story," the title read above a black and white photograph of her aunt's hotel in its 1920s glory, pristine and perfect.
"I did not know this existed," Harper whispered, running her fingers over the cover.
"It was published in 1985, in a small press run. Leonard tracked it down for me." Sebastian was watching her face carefully. "I thought you might want it. For the renovation research."
Harper looked up at him, this complicated man who claimed he did not do emotions yet had somehow found a rare book about her aunt's hotel because he had known it would matter to her.
"Thank you," she said, and the words felt insufficient for what she was feeling.
Sebastian's expression softened. "You are welcome."
They spent the next hour wandering through the marketplace, and Harper watched as Sebastian slowly transformed. The controlled CEO facade slipped away, replaced by someone more relaxed and more present. He tried samples of olive oil and made faces at the ones that were too peppery. He bought fresh sourdough from a baker who clearly knew him by name. He haggled with a flower vendor in Italian and won, presenting Harper with a bouquet of ranunculus as if he had done something heroic.
"You speak Italian?" Harper asked as they walked along the waterfront, bags in hand.
"My mother's family is from Tuscany. She insisted that Claire and I learn." He shrugged. "It is useful for business deals, but mostly I use it to buy flowers, apparently."
Harper laughed, really laughed, and saw Sebastian's expression shift into something she had never seen before. A smile that reached his eyes, genuine and unguarded and almost boyish.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing. You should laugh more often. It is..." He trailed off, looking almost embarrassed. "Never mind."
"No, finish that sentence."
"It is nice. Hearing you laugh." He looked out at the bay, where sailboats dotted the water like white triangles. "I do not think I have heard it much. The real laugh, I mean. Not the polite one you use at galas."
Harper had not realized she had different laughs, but he was right. She had been so busy playing her part, being the appropriate wife, that she had forgotten how to simply exist without performing.
"I guess I have not had much to genuinely laugh about lately," she admitted.
"Then we should fix that."
They found a bench overlooking the water and sat down to eat the lunch they had gathered. Crusty bread, three kinds of cheese, fresh strawberries, and dark chocolate that Sebastian insisted was essential.
"This is the most carbs I have seen you eat in two months," Harper observed as she watched him tear off a chunk of bread.
"I am usually too busy to eat properly. Amanda schedules my meals like business meetings." He handed her a piece of Manchego. "This feels different."
"Good or bad?"
"Good difference." He was quiet for a moment, watching the ferries come and go. "I cannot remember the last time I did something like this. Just wandered around with no agenda, no schedule, no purpose except enjoying it."
"That is sad, Sebastian."
"I know." He turned to look at her, his gray eyes serious. "I think I forgot how to be a person somewhere along the way. I got a job title instead."
Harper understood that feeling more than she wanted to admit. Since Margaret's death, she had thrown herself into trying to save the Adriatic, forgetting that she was supposed to have a life beyond architecture and debt and desperate plans.
"Maybe we both forgot," she said quietly.
Sebastian reached over and took her hand, lacing their fingers together. It should have felt strange, this casual intimacy that had nothing to do with their contract or public appearances, but instead it felt right.
"Tell me something," he said. "Something you have never told anyone."
Harper thought for a moment, turning the chocolate over in her free hand. "Sometimes I am angry at my aunt. For dying and leaving me with the hotel. For putting me in an impossible position where I have to choose between honoring her memory and saving myself." She felt tears prick her eyes. "And then I feel guilty for being angry, because she gave me everything and I am repaying her by resenting her final gift."
Sebastian squeezed her hand. "That is not resentment. That is grief. They are allowed to coexist."
"Your turn. Tell me something you have never told anyone."
He was quiet for a long moment, his jaw working. "I am terrified of becoming my father. He built an empire but died alone and bitterly, with two ex-wives who could not stand him and children who only visited out of obligation." Sebastian's voice was rough. "Every decision I make, I wonder if I am turning into him. If the price of success is becoming someone nobody wants to be around."
"You are not him," Harper said firmly.
"How do you know?"
"Because you are sitting on a bench eating cheese and worrying about it. Your father probably never questioned himself for a second." She shifted closer, their shoulders touching. "And because you remembered a random comment I made about a building and tracked down a rare book. That is not something a selfish person does."
Sebastian looked at her with such naked vulnerability that Harper's chest ached. "I do not know how to do this, Harper. Be with someone. Let someone matter."
"I do not either. David destroyed my ability to trust that anyone would stay." She took a breath. "But maybe we figure it out together. Two emotionally damaged people stumbling through it."
"That is a terrible plan."
"You have a better one?"
He leaned in and kissed her, soft and brief and tasting like chocolate. When he pulled back, he was almost smiling.
"No," he admitted. "I really do not."
They spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the city like tourists. Sebastian took her to a tiny bookstore in North Beach where the owner's cat sat in the window judging passersby. They climbed the Filbert Steps and Harper made him stop at every landing to admire the gardens spilling over the hillside. In Washington Square, they watched street performers and ate gelato, and Harper realized she could not remember the last time she had seen Sebastian this relaxed.
"What are you thinking?" he asked, catching her staring.
"That you look different when you smile. Younger. Less like you are carrying the weight of the world."
"I feel different." He finished his gelato and tossed the cup in a trash can. "With you, I mean. Like I can stop performing for a minute."
"Is that what you are usually doing? Performing?"
"Aren't we all?" He pulled her closer as they walked, his arm around her shoulders. "Playing the role people expect. CEO. Eldest son. The person who has everything figured out."
"And what happens when you stop performing?"
Sebastian was quiet for a moment. "I do not know. That is what scares me."
They walked in comfortable silence for a while, watching the light change as afternoon turned toward evening. The fog was starting to roll in from the bay, turning the air cool and misty.
"We should head back," Sebastian said reluctantly. "Our flight is at eight."
Harper nodded, although part of her wanted to stay in this moment forever, where they were just two people wandering through a city, not a CEO and his contract wife, not a business arrangement with an expiration date.
In the cab back to the hotel, Sebastian kept her hand in his, his thumb drawing absent circles on her palm. Harper watched the city pass by the window and tried not to think about what would happen when they got back to Seattle, back to real life, back to all the reasons this was complicated.
"Harper?" Sebastian said as they pulled up to the hotel.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for today."
"I did not do anything. You planned the whole thing."
"No, I mean..." He struggled for words, and Harper realized she had never seen him this unguarded. "Thank you for laughing. For being real. For making me remember what it feels like to just be."
Harper leaned over and kissed him, not caring that the cab driver could see, not caring about contracts or boundaries or careful plans.
"Thank you for the book," she whispered against his mouth. "And the flowers. And the day."
"We should do this more often."
"What, go to San Francisco?"
"No," Sebastian said, his forehead resting against hers. "Stop pretending we are just business partners."
Harper's heart stuttered in her chest. "What are we, then?"
"I do not know yet," he admitted. "But I would like to find out."
As they rode the elevator up to their suite, Harper clutched her book and her flowers and tried to ignore the voice in her head warning her that this was dangerous, that she was falling for someone who had explicitly told her he did not know how to love, that the contract still had ten months left and an ending written in stone.
But when Sebastian pulled her close as they reached their door, when he kissed her like she was the only solid thing in a shifting world, Harper decided that maybe some risks were worth taking.
Even if they terrified her.
Especially if they did.