Chapter 25 THE NIGHTMARE
Harper was drowning.
Water poured through the ceiling of the Adriatic, cascading down the walls in sheets, warping the restored wood, cracking the marble floors. She ran through the hallways trying to find the source, but every door she opened revealed another flood, another catastrophe, another failure.
The renovation was falling apart. Years of work undone in minutes.
She could hear her aunt's voice echoing through the building. "You promised, Harper. You promised you would save it."
"I'm trying," Harper shouted into the empty ballroom, water rising around her ankles. "I'm trying but it is not enough."
The water kept rising. Knee deep now. Waist deep. She could not breathe, could not move, could not stop it.
"You failed," her aunt's voice said. Except now it was not Margaret anymore. It was David, standing in the doorway watching her drown. "I told you you would fail. I told you that you sacrifice everything for lost causes."
The water reached her chest. Her shoulders. Her chin.
"Harper."
She was going under, the Adriatic collapsing around her, everything she had fought for dissolving into ruins.
"Harper, wake up."
She gasped awake, thrashing against hands that were trying to hold her, fighting against the weight of blankets that felt like water pressing down.
"Hey, hey, it is okay. You are safe. It was just a dream." Sebastian's voice, steady and close. His hands on her shoulders, grounding her. "You are safe, Harper. I have got you."
Harper's eyes focused slowly. Sebastian's bedroom. City lights filtering through the windows. No water. No collapsing walls. Just Sebastian kneeling beside her on the bed, his face creased with concern.
"I am sorry," she gasped, still trying to catch her breath. "I did not mean to wake you."
"Do not apologize. You were having a nightmare. A bad one, from the sound of it." He brushed sweaty hair back from her forehead. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Harper shook her head, then changed her mind and nodded. Her heart was still racing, the images from the dream too vivid to dismiss. "The hotel was flooding. Everything we restored was being destroyed, and I could not stop it. My aunt was there, and David, and they were both telling me I had failed."
Sebastian pulled her into his arms, and Harper went willingly, pressing her face against his bare chest. His heart beat steady beneath her ear, a counterpoint to her own racing pulse.
"It was just a dream," he said quietly. "The Adriatic is fine. The renovation is ahead of schedule. You have not failed at anything."
"But what if I do? What if something goes wrong and we lose it anyway? What if I am putting all this money and effort and time into something that is going to fail despite everything?"
"Then we will deal with it. But Harper, nothing about the project suggests failure. The structural work is solid. The restoration is beautiful. You are doing everything right."
Harper pulled back to look at him. "How do you know that? How do you know I am not making terrible decisions that will come back to haunt us?"
"Because I have watched you work. I have seen how carefully you research every choice, how you balance preservation with practicality. You are not reckless, Harper. If anything, you are too cautious."
"Someone has to be cautious. The Adriatic is all I have left of her."
"No," Sebastian said firmly. "The Adriatic is a building. What you have left of your aunt is her spirit, her determination, her absolute refusal to give up on things she loved. And Harper, you have all of that. It is in every decision you make, every fight you win, every problem you solve. She is not in the walls. She is in you."
The words hit Harper like a physical blow. She felt tears spill over, hot and unexpected. She had been holding everything together for so long, being strong and capable and refusing to acknowledge how terrified she was of failing Margaret's memory.
"I am so scared," she whispered. "What if I am not enough? What if I cannot save it?"
"You are already saving it. Every day, you are bringing it back to life." Sebastian cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs wiping away tears. "And Harper, even if something went wrong, even if the worst happened, that would not mean you failed. It would just mean you fought as hard as you could for something that mattered."
"That is not very comforting."
"I know. But it is true." He pressed his forehead to hers. "You do not have to be perfect, Harper. You just have to keep showing up. That is all anyone can do."
Harper took a shaky breath, trying to calm the panic still thrumming through her system. The dream had felt so real, so immediate. She could still feel the phantom sensation of water closing over her head.
"Will you stay?" she asked. "Just until I fall back asleep? I do not want to be alone right now."
"I am not going anywhere." Sebastian settled back against the headboard and pulled her against his chest. "I will stay as long as you need."
Harper curled into him, listening to his steady breathing, letting it slow her own racing heart. His hand moved in slow circles on her back, a gesture so unconsciously soothing that she felt her muscles start to relax.
"Tell me something," she said quietly. "Something that has nothing to do with hotels or contracts or any of this."
Sebastian was quiet for a moment. "Like what?"
"I do not know. A good memory. Something that makes you happy to remember."
"That is a surprisingly difficult question." He thought about it. "Okay. When I was eight, my father took me sailing. Just the two of us, which almost never happened. He was always working or traveling or dealing with some crisis. But that day, he cleared his entire schedule, and we spent six hours on the water."
Harper tilted her head up to look at him. "What was it like?"
"Perfect. He taught me how to read the wind, how to adjust the sails, how to feel the boat respond to every small movement. And for those six hours, he was not my father, the CEO or the perfectionist or the man who was impossible to please. He was just someone who loved sailing and wanted to share it with his kid." Sebastian's voice went soft. "I remember thinking that if I could just be good enough at sailing, maybe he would look at me that way more often. Like I was worth his time."
"Did he?"
"No. We never went again. He was too busy, and eventually I stopped asking." Sebastian was quiet for a moment. "But I still have that one perfect day. That is something."
Harper felt her chest tighten with sympathy for eight year old Sebastian, desperately trying to earn his father's attention. "I am sorry."
"Do not be. We all have complicated relationships with our parents. At least I got that one good memory out of it."
"Do you still sail?"
"Sometimes. When I need to think. There is something about being on the water that makes everything else feel less urgent." He looked down at her. "I could take you sometime, if you want."
"I would like that." Harper settled back against his chest. "Your turn. Ask me something."
"What is your earliest memory of the Adriatic?"
Harper smiled in the darkness. "I was four, maybe five. My parents were still alive, and we came to visit Aunt Margaret for Thanksgiving. The hotel was full of guests, and Margaret was running around managing everything, but she took time to show me the ballroom. It had these enormous chandeliers that looked like frozen waterfalls, and she let me turn on all the lights. The whole room sparkled."
"That is a good memory."
"Yes. She told me that ballrooms were magic spaces where people came to be their best selves. Where they danced and celebrated and forgot about their problems for a few hours." Harper's voice went soft. "After my parents died, I used to hide in that ballroom when things got too hard. I would sit in the corner and imagine I was at some grand party where everyone was happy and nothing hurt."
Sebastian's arms tightened around her. "You were so young. Too young to lose your parents."
"Margaret saved me. She had no idea how to raise a kid, but she tried. She let me cry when I needed to cry and gave me space when I needed space and never once made me feel like a burden."
"That is love. Real love. The kind that shows up even when it is hard."
Harper thought about that. About Margaret taking in an orphaned niece despite having no parenting experience, no partner to share the load, no certainty that she was doing the right thing. About Sebastian, who claimed he did not know how to do relationships but kept showing up anyway, kept trying, kept holding her when she fell apart in the middle of the night.
"I think you are better at love than you give yourself credit for," Harper said quietly.
"What makes you say that?"
"Because you are here. Because you did not tell me to go back to my own room when I woke you up with my nightmare. Because you are holding me like I am something precious instead of something broken."
"You are not broken, Harper. You are grieving and stressed and carrying too much, but you are not broken."
"How do you know?"
"Because broken people do not fight the way you fight. They do not show up every day determined to save something everyone else would have abandoned. They do not take risks on contract marriages with strangers because they refuse to let go of what matters." His hand moved to her hair, fingers combing through the tangled strands. "You are one of the strongest people I have ever met. Even when you are scared."
Harper felt more tears threaten. She had spent so long trying to be strong, to prove she could handle everything, that she had forgotten it was okay to be scared too. That strength and fear could coexist.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"For what?"
"For staying. For not making me feel weak for needing you."
"You are not weak. And Harper, needing someone is not a weakness. It is just being human."
They lay in comfortable silence for a while, Harper's breathing slowly evening out as the adrenaline from the nightmare faded. The dream felt distant now, less real than the solid warmth of Sebastian beneath her, the steady rhythm of his heart, the safety of his arms.
"Sebastian?" she said, already halfway back to sleep.
"Yes?"
"I am glad it is you. The contract, the marriage, all of it. I am glad it is you."
She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head. "Me too, Harper. Me too."
Harper let herself drift, secure in the knowledge that Sebastian was not going anywhere. That whatever nightmares came, he would be there to wake her. That she did not have to face everything alone anymore.
The last thing she registered before sleep claimed her was Sebastian's voice, barely a whisper in the darkness.
"Sweet dreams, Harper. I have got you."
And for the first time in months, she believed it.
She slept deeply after that, no more nightmares, no more drowning. Just darkness and warmth and the peaceful knowledge that someone was keeping watch.
When Harper woke in the morning, sunlight was streaming through the windows and Sebastian was still there, his arm still around her waist, his breathing still slow and steady with sleep. She watched him for a moment, taking in the softness of his expression without the usual tension he carried when awake.
He looked younger like this. More vulnerable. Like the eight year old who had one perfect day with his father and spent the rest of his childhood chasing that feeling.
Harper carefully extracted herself from his embrace and padded to the bathroom. When she emerged, Sebastian was awake, propped up on one elbow, watching her with an expression she could not quite read.
"Good morning," she said, suddenly shy.
"Morning. How are you feeling?"
"Better. The nightmare feels less real in daylight." Harper sat on the edge of the bed. "Thank you for staying. And for everything you said."
"I meant all of it." Sebastian reached out and took her hand. "Harper, you know you can come to me when you are scared, right? You do not have to wait until you are having nightmares."
"I know. I am just not used to having someone I can turn to."
"Well, get used to it. Because I am not going anywhere." He pulled her back down beside him. "And if that means holding you through nightmares or listening to you stress about plumbing or watching you fall asleep during movies, then that is what I am going to do."
Harper felt warmth spread through her chest, the kind that had nothing to do with physical proximity and everything to do with being seen, being known, being chosen despite all her fears and flaws.
"Sebastian?"
"Yes?"
"I think I am falling in love with you."
The words escaped before she could stop them, honest and terrifying and completely true. Sebastian went very still, his gray eyes searching her face.
"You think?" he asked softly.
"No. I know. I am falling in love with you, and it scares me because the contract says we have eight months left and I do not know what happens after that."
Sebastian pulled her close, his face buried in her hair. When he spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. "Then we figure it out. Together. Because Harper, I am falling too. I have been for weeks. Maybe months. And I do not care what the contract says. We will find a way to make this work."
"Promise?"
"I promise. No matter what happens, we will figure it out."
Harper let herself believe him, let herself sink into the possibility that maybe this could wo
rk, that maybe they could build something real out of a business arrangement.
It was terrifying and uncertain and completely worth it.
All of it was worth it.
For this. For him. For them.