Chapter 24 MOVIE NIGHT 🍿
Three weeks after the fight, Harper and Sebastian fell into something that felt dangerously close to normal.
They did not talk about it. They did not analyze it or put labels on it or acknowledge that somewhere between the apology and the present moment, they had stopped performing and started living. But it happened anyway, in small increments that accumulated into a routine neither of them had planned.
Sebastian stopped making unilateral decisions about the Adriatic. Harper stopped bracing for him to revert to controlling behavior. They had dinner together most nights, trading stories about their days like actual married couples did. Sebastian learned that Harper got cranky when she skipped lunch, so he started having his assistant send food to the renovation site. Harper learned that Sebastian's father used to criticize him constantly, so she made a point of acknowledging when he did something well.
It was domestic. Comfortable. Terrifying.
And on Friday nights, they watched movies.
It started accidentally. Harper had come home exhausted from a particularly frustrating day dealing with a plumbing issue in the Adriatic's basement, and Sebastian had suggested they order pizza and watch something mindless. They ended up on the couch with a nature documentary neither of them cared about, and Harper had fallen asleep twenty minutes in.
She woke up the next morning still on the couch, covered with a blanket she did not remember getting, Sebastian's jacket rolled up under her head as a pillow.
The next Friday, Sebastian asked if she wanted to watch something again. The Friday after that, he did not ask, just queued up a movie and assumed she would join him. By the fourth Friday, it was simply understood that this was what they did.
Tonight, Harper arrived home at seven to find Sebastian already on the couch, laptop beside him, clearly having left work early for once.
"You're home," she said, surprised.
"I told Amanda to clear my evening. I figured we could order from that Italian place you like and actually watch something with a plot this time." He gestured to his laptop screen, which showed a list of movies. "I made a list of options. Nothing too heavy, nothing that requires thinking. Pure escapism."
Harper felt warmth spread through her chest. "You made a list?"
"Is that weird? I can just pick something if the list is weird."
"No, it is not weird. It is kind of sweet, actually." She dropped her bag and crossed to the couch, looking over his shoulder at the options. "Though your definition of escapism is interesting. You put a documentary about the financial crisis on here."
"I find economics relaxing."
"You're such a nerd."
"Says the woman who spent last Friday explaining the difference between art deco and art nouveau for forty five minutes."
Harper laughed and settled onto the couch beside him. "Fair point. Okay, let's go with the heist movie. The one with the ensemble cast and the impossible plot."
"Perfect choice." Sebastian closed his laptop and reached for his phone to order dinner. "The usual? Margherita pizza and that pasta thing you pretend to share but actually eat three quarters of?"
"I do share."
"You give me exactly four bites and then claim you're still hungry."
"That's sharing."
Sebastian smiled and placed the order, then shifted on the couch to face her. "How was your day? Did the plumber figure out the issue with the third floor bathroom?"
Harper groaned. "Don't ask. The pipes are older than we thought, which means more extensive work, which means more money. I swear, every time we solve one problem, we discover three more hiding behind it."
"That's historic renovation. It is never as simple as it looks." He reached out and started massaging her shoulders, working at the knots that had been building for days. "But you're doing amazing work, Harper. The place looks incredible."
"You haven't been by in over a week."
"I saw the photos you sent. The lobby restoration is flawless. Your aunt would be proud."
Harper felt tears prick her eyes at the mention of Margaret. It happened less frequently now, but sometimes the grief still ambushed her. "I hope so. Sometimes I worry I'm making decisions she would not have made, changing things she would not have wanted changed."
"You're honoring her vision while making it sustainable. That is what she would have wanted." Sebastian's hands stilled on her shoulders. "She left you the hotel because she trusted your judgment, Harper. She knew you would protect it."
"Even if protecting it meant marrying a stranger and tearing up half the building?"
"Especially then. Because you are doing what it takes to save something you love. That is not betrayal. That is devotion."
Harper leaned back against his chest, letting herself sink into his warmth. This was the Sebastian she had fallen for, the one who said exactly what she needed to hear without her having to ask. The one who understood that grief and love could coexist, that saving something sometimes meant changing it.
The buzzer rang, announcing their food delivery. Sebastian got up to answer it, and Harper queued up the movie, dimming the lights to create the theater atmosphere they had somehow established as tradition.
They ate straight from the containers, plates feeling too formal for movie night. Sebastian was right about the pasta. Harper ate most of it while insisting she was being generous with her portions. He did not call her out on it, just pushed the container closer when she kept reaching for more.
Halfway through the movie, during an implausibly choreographed chase scene, Harper found herself relaxing into Sebastian's side. His arm came around her shoulders automatically, like they had been doing this for years instead of weeks.
"This plot makes no sense," Harper mumbled against his shoulder. "There is no way they could coordinate all these moving parts with that level of precision."
"It is a movie. You're supposed to suspend disbelief."
"I'm an architect. I cannot help but notice structural impossibilities." She gestured at the screen. "That building does not have the support columns they would need for that kind of vault. The whole thing would collapse."
Sebastian laughed, the sound rumbling through his chest. "You're the only person I know who watches heist movies for architectural accuracy."
"Someone has to maintain standards."
They fell quiet again, watching the story unfold. The characters were charming and the dialogue was witty and none of it mattered as much as the feeling of being here, safe and comfortable, with someone who was supposed to be temporary but was starting to feel permanent.
Harper's eyes started to drift closed during the third act. She fought it for a while, not wanting to fall asleep and miss the ending, but the combination of a long week, a full stomach, and Sebastian's warmth was too much to resist.
"Hey," Sebastian said softly, his hand moving to her hair. "You're falling asleep."
"No I'm not. Just resting my eyes."
"You said that last week too. You woke up at three in the morning demanding to know how the movie ended."
Harper smiled against his shoulder, already halfway to sleep. "Did they get away with it?"
"You'll have to stay awake to find out."
But Harper was already gone, slipping into that comfortable space between waking and dreaming, where nothing hurt and everything made sense.
She woke up an indeterminate amount of time later to find the movie credits rolling and Sebastian still beneath her, his breathing slow and steady. His hand was still in her hair, fingers tangled in the strands like he had fallen asleep mid caress.
Harper carefully extracted herself and stood up, stretching out the kinks from sleeping in an awkward position. She should go to her room, let Sebastian wake up and move to his own bed, maintain the boundaries they had been carefully preserving even as everything else blurred together.
But Sebastian stirred as she moved, his eyes blinking open. "Movie over?"
"Yeah. Sorry I fell asleep again."
"Don't apologize. You needed the rest." He sat up, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "They got away with it, by the way. The heist. Successfully completed with no consequences."
"Unrealistic but satisfying."
"That is the point of escapism." Sebastian stood, stretching. He was still in his work clothes, though he had lost the tie hours ago. "I should let you get to bed."
Harper knew this was the moment where they said goodnight and retreated to their separate rooms. They had been doing this dance for weeks now, getting close but not too close, intimate but not crossing certain lines. It was safer that way. Less complicated.
But Harper was tired of safe. Tired of pretending that sleeping on opposite ends of the penthouse made sense when they spent every evening together. Tired of maintaining boundaries that felt increasingly arbitrary.
"Sebastian?" she said before she could overthink it.
"Yeah?"
"I don't want to sleep alone tonight."
The words hung in the air between them. Sebastian went very still, his expression unreadable.
"Harper, we talked about this. Taking things slow, making sure we're both sure."
"I am sure. I have been for weeks. Haven't you?"
"You know I have." His voice was rough. "But I don't want to rush this. I don't want you to wake up tomorrow and regret it."
"I'm not going to regret it." Harper crossed back to him, taking his hands. "I'm not asking for anything dramatic. I just want to fall asleep next to you instead of alone. We've done it before."
"That was different. You fell asleep accidentally. This is a choice."
"Yes, it is. And I'm choosing you." She squeezed his hands. "Unless you don't want to. I'm not trying to pressure you."
Sebastian laughed, short and disbelieving. "You think I don't want to? Harper, I've wanted you in my bed since that first night at City Hall when you looked at me like I was some kind of fairy tale prince instead of a ruthless businessman. But I'm trying to do this right. Do not mess it up by moving too fast."
"What if slow is what is messing it up? What if we are so busy being careful that we're missing the actual relationship happening right in front of us?"
He studied her face, searching for doubt or hesitation. Harper held his gaze, letting him see that she meant it. That she was tired of separate rooms and careful distance and pretending this was still just a contract.
"Okay," Sebastian said finally. "But just sleeping. I'm not trying to be noble, I just want to be sure we're on the same page."
"Just sleeping," Harper agreed, though she could not help smiling. "For now."
They went to Sebastian's room, the one with the better mattress and the view of the city lights. Harper borrowed one of his T shirts, because hers were all in her room and going to get them felt like retreat. When she emerged from the bathroom, Sebastian was already in bed, shirtless, the blankets pulled up to his waist.
Harper had seen him without a shirt before, had catalogued the lines of his shoulders and the tattoo on his ribs that he still had not fully explained. But seeing him in bed, in the dim light from the city outside, felt different. More intimate. More real.
She climbed in beside him, hyperaware of every point where their bodies almost touched. The bed was enormous, big enough for three people, but somehow they ended up in the middle together, the space between them measured in inches.
"This is weird, right?" Harper said into the darkness. "We're married, but this feels like a first date."
"We never had a first date. We went straight from strangers to getting married."
"That's true. We did everything backwards."
Sebastian shifted onto his side to face her. "Do you regret it? The way we started?"
Harper thought about it honestly. "No. If we had dated normally, I probably would have talked myself out of it. Found reasons why it would not work. But the contract forced me to just jump in without overthinking."
"And now?"
"Now I'm way deeper than the contract requires, and I'm trying not to panic about it."
Sebastian reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Me too. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For you to realize you could do better than a workaholic with trust issues and a tendency toward control."
"And I keep waiting for you to realize you could find someone who does not come with a crumbling hotel and a mountain of emotional baggage."
"So we're both idiots."
Harper laughed. "Apparently."
They lay there in the semi darkness, the city lights casting shifting shadows across the ceiling. Harper could hear Sebastian breathing, could feel the warmth radiating from his body, could smell the familiar scent of his cologne mixed with laundry detergent.
"Harper?" Sebastian said softly.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for this. For trusting me enough to be here."
"Thank you for not being weird about it."
"I'm being a little weird about it."
"I know. But you're trying not to be, and that is what matters." Harper shifted closer until her head was resting on his shoulder. "Is this okay?"
"More than okay." His arm came around her, holding her close. "This is perfect."
Harper closed her eyes and let herself sink into the feeling of being held. Not as part of a performance for photographers or witnesses, but simply because they wanted to be close. Because being apart had started to feel wrong.
She felt Sebastian's breathing slow and deepen, felt him relax into sleep, and she smiled into the darkness.
This was what she had been missing with David, with all her previous relationships. This easy comfort, this sense of rightness, this feeling that she could be completely herself and still be wanted.
It was terrifying and wonderful and probably going to break her heart eventually.
But for now, falling asleep in Sebastian's arms, Harper decided it was worth the risk.
All of it w
as worth the risk.
Even if the contract said they had only eight months left.
Even if neither of them knew how to make forever work.
For tonight, this was enough.
More than enough.
Everything.