Chapter 8 FIRST CRACKS
Harper had been living in the penthouse for five days, and she was starting to understand the rhythm of Sebastian's life.
He woke at 5:30 AM without an alarm.
He drank his coffee black while reading financial reports on his tablet.
He left for the office by 7:00 AM and rarely came home before 8:00 PM.
When he did come home, he was polite, distant, and careful not to invade her space.
It was all very civilized.
Very controlled.
Very much like living with a particularly well mannered stranger.
Harper was working at the dining table, spread out with blueprints of the Adriatic and her laptop open to three different tabs about historic preservation grants, when Sebastian came home early.
It was only 6:30 PM, and he looked tense in a way she had not seen before.
"Hey," she said, glancing up. "You are home early."
"The conference call got moved up." He loosened his tie with one hand, already pulling out his phone with the other. "I will be in my office. Try to keep it down out here."
The words were clipped, businesslike.
Harper felt something prickle at the back of her neck but pushed it aside.
He was stressed.
People got stressed.
It was not personal.
Except twenty minutes later, she heard his voice through the closed office door, and it was very definitely personal.
"I do not care what the projections say, Richard. The numbers do not work." Sebastian's voice was cold, sharper than she had ever heard it. "If we cannot get the variance approved, the entire Oak Street development is dead in the water, and I am not interested in excuses about why your team dropped the ball."
Harper tried to focus on her work, but his voice carried through the door with perfect clarity.
"Then fire them. I do not pay you to manage incompetent people, I pay you to get results." A pause. "No, that is not my problem. That is your problem. And if you cannot solve it, I will find someone who can."
The tone was brutal.
Efficient.
The voice of someone who saw people as replaceable pieces in a machine that only mattered when it served his purposes.
Harper's stomach twisted.
"I have built this company by not accepting failure, Richard. You know that. Everyone knows that." Another pause, longer this time. "Good. I expect an update by Friday. And Richard? Do not disappoint me again."
The call ended.
Silence settled over the penthouse, heavy and uncomfortable.
Harper stared at her laptop screen without seeing it.
That voice.
That cold, calculating tone.
It reminded her of every warning Vanessa had given at the gala.
It reminded her that Sebastian Colton had not built a billion dollar company by being nice.
The office door opened, and Sebastian emerged looking marginally less tense but still carrying that hardness around his eyes.
"Sorry about that," he said, his voice back to its normal register. "Work crisis."
"Sounded intense."
"Just part of the job." He moved to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. "People need clear expectations. Otherwise projects fall apart."
"Clear expectations," Harper repeated. "Is that what you call threatening to fire someone?"
Sebastian's hand paused on the glass.
He turned to look at her, and his expression was carefully neutral.
"You were listening."
"Your voice carries." She closed her laptop. "And for the record, threatening people is not the same as setting expectations."
"I was not threatening. I was being direct about the consequences." He took a drink of water. "Richard has been with the company for eight years. He knows how I operate. He knows what is required."
"And what is required is perfection or else you will replace him?"
"What is required is doing the job he is paid extremely well to do." Sebastian's jaw tightened. "This is how business works, Harper. Not everyone gets a trophy for trying."
"I am not talking about trophies. I am talking about the way you spoke to him. Like he was disposable."
"In business, everyone is disposable. Including me." He set down the glass with more force than necessary. "That is the reality of running a company. You make hard calls. You hold people accountable. You do not let sentiment cloud judgment."
Harper thought about Vanessa's words at the gala: Sebastian is brilliant at making you feel like you are the center of his world right up until you are not useful anymore.
"Is that how you see people?" she asked quietly. "As useful or not useful?"
Something flickered across Sebastian's face.
Anger maybe, or hurt.
It was gone too quickly to identify.
"That is not fair."
"Is it not? You just told someone you would replace them if they could not solve a problem. How is that not seeing them as disposable?"
"Because Richard is not just someone. He is the VP of Development and he made a critical error that could cost the company millions. This is not personal, it is professional."
"Everything is personal, Sebastian. People are not spreadsheets. You cannot just "
"I cannot what? Run my company the way I see fit?" His voice rose slightly. "I did not ask for your opinion on my management style."
"No, you asked me to marry you and move into your home and pretend to be in love with you while you build luxury condos where my aunt's hotel used to stand." The words came out sharper than Harper intended. "So forgive me if I am a little concerned about how you treat people when they stop being useful."
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Sebastian stared at her, his expression unreadable.
When he finally spoke, his voice was carefully controlled.
"That is what this is really about. You are wondering when I will do the same thing to you."
Harper wanted to deny it, but the words stuck in her throat because he was right.
That was exactly what she was wondering.
"The Adriatic is safe, Harper. That is in the contract. I cannot touch it."
"I am not talking about the hotel."
"Then what are you talking about?"
"I am talking about what happens when this arrangement stops being useful to you. When Marcus backs off or the board is satisfied or twelve months are up and you do not need a wife anymore." She stood up, gathering her papers with shaking hands. "What happened to me then? Do I get the same treatment as Richard? A polite thank you and a replacement?"
Sebastian ran a hand through his hair, frustration evident in every line of his body.
"This is different."
"How?"
"Because it just is." He looked at her, and for a moment, his guard dropped enough that she could see something raw underneath. "You think I wanted this? Any of this?"
"I do not know what you want, Sebastian. That is the problem."
"I want " He stopped, jaw clenched. "I want this arrangement to work. For both of us. And that means not psychoanalyzing every business call I make."
"And it means not treating people like they are disposable when they make mistakes."
"In my world, mistakes have consequences."
"In everyone's world, mistakes have consequences. But there is a difference between accountability and cruelty."
Sebastian's eyes flashed.
"I am not cruel."
"You are cold." The word hung between them. "That call was cold. Calculated. Like you had already written him off before he had a chance to fix the problem."
"That is not " Sebastian stopped, turning away from her.
He braced his hands on the kitchen counter, shoulders tight with tension.
"You do not understand the pressure of running a company like this. The constant decisions, the people depending on you, the shareholders, the board, the competitors waiting for you to slip up."
"You are right. I do not understand that." Harper's voice softened slightly. "But I understand people. And people are not machines, Sebastian. You cannot just switch them out when they malfunction."
He was quiet for a long moment, staring down at the counter.
When he spoke, his voice was tired.
"My father used to say the same thing. That I was too hard on people. That I needed to be more forgiving."
"Was he right?"
"He was weak." The words came out flat, final. "He let sentiment ruin him. Made business decisions based on loyalty instead of logic, and it nearly destroyed the company. When I took over, I swore I would never make the same mistakes."
Harper thought about what Claire had mentioned at the engagement party, about their father and the complicated legacy he had left behind.
"So you went the opposite direction. No sentiment. All logic."
"It has kept the company alive."
"Has it kept you alive?"
Sebastian finally looked at her, and the exhaustion in his eyes was startling.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means you are so busy being efficient and logical and perfect that I am not sure there is anything else left." Harper moved closer, careful, like approaching something wounded. "That is what scared me about that phone call. Not that you were being a tough boss. But you sounded like you did not care at all."
"I care about results."
"That is not the same thing."
"In my world, it has to be."
They stood there in the kitchen, the space between them filled with things neither of them knew how to say.
Harper wanted to push further, to crack through whatever armor Sebastian had built around himself.
But she could see in his face that he had already closed back up, retreating behind walls she could not reach.
"I have some emails to answer," he said finally, his voice back to that careful neutral tone. "I will stay out of your way."
He walked back to his office and closed the door, leaving Harper alone in the too big, too perfect penthouse.
She sat back down at the dining table but could not focus on the blueprints anymore.
Her mind kept replaying that phone call, the coldness in Sebastian's voice, the casual way he had threatened someone's livelihood.
Her phone buzzed.
A text from Jessie: "How is married life? Are you surviving?"
Harper stared at the message for a long moment before typing back: "Ask me in eleven months and three weeks."
"That good, huh?"
"I think I made a mistake."
The response came quickly: "Want me to come over?"
Harper glanced at Sebastian's closed office door.
"Not tonight. I just need to think."
"Okay. But Harper? If you need an exit, we will find one. You do not have to stay in something that does not feel right."
Harper read the message three times before responding: "Thanks. I will let you know."
But even as she typed it, she knew she would not leave.
Not with five million dollars already in her account and renovation plans already in motion.
Not with only five days into a twelve month contract.
She had signed up for this.
Made her choice.
And now she had to live with the consequences, even if those consequences included realizing that the man she had married might be exactly as cold and calculating as everyone had warned her he was.
Harper looked back at her blueprints, at the careful plans for saving a building that mattered more to her than anything.
And she reminded herself that this was always a transaction.
A business arrangement.
Nothing more.
The fact that it hurt to think of it that way was her problem, not Sebastian's.
In his office, Sebastian stared at his computer screen without seeing it, Harper's words echoing in his head.
You are cold.
He had heard it before.
From Vanessa.
From his father.
From board members who thought he needed to develop better people skills.
He had always brushed it off as other people's weakness, their inability to separate emotion from logic.
But hearing it from Harper felt different somehow.
Like she had seen something in him that he had been trying very hard not to acknowledge.
Sebastian pulled up Richard's file, looked at eight years of exemplary service, and felt something uncomfortable twist in his chest.
He picked up his phone and dialed.
"Richard. It is Sebastian." A pause. "I was too harsh on that call. The variance issue is serious, but you have been with the company long enough that you deserve better than threats." Another pause. "Take the weekend. Come back Monday with solutions, and we will work through this together. Your job is not on the line. Your bonus might be, but not your job."
He could hear the relief in Richard's voice, the gratitude, and it made him feel both better and worse at the same time.
When he hung up, Sebastian sat in the dark office and wondered when exactly he had become the kind of man who needed his fake wife to remind him how to treat people like human beings.
Through the door, he could hear Harper moving around the penthouse, and he wanted to go out there and explain, to make her understand that being hard was not the same as being heartless.
But he stayed in his office, because explaining would mean admitting she was right.
And Sebastian Colton had built his entire life on never admitting when he was wrong.