15. Sebastian
Chapter 15
Sebastian
I t’s been five weeks.
Five weeks since the event wrapped. Five weeks since I handed Dom the note, boarded the plane, and convinced myself it was the cleanest exit. The right decision. The only one that didn’t end with regret.
But I was wrong. Because I regret it a little more each day.
I’m a coward. And now I’m stuck with a constant, slow ache that spreads through my chest. I feel like I’m bleeding somewhere that I just can’t see.
I’ve seen all her messages. I haven’t responded to a single one, which is a different kind of cruelty. I tell myself silence is better. That an unanswered message hurts less than the truth: I didn’t walk away because she wasn’t enough. I walked away because she was.
She’s still a goddamn distraction and she’s not even here.
I’m sitting in my office, staring at a contract that’s been open on my screen for forty minutes. I haven’t read a word of it. The coffee on my desk is cold. My phone buzzes with a new email, and I don’t look, already knowing who it’s from.
Heather Langley.
That woman never gives up.
She’s pitched herself three times this quarter, each proposal more desperate than the last. This one is probably titled something aggressively creative, sent with a winky face, and a request to “grab drinks and discuss synergy”.
I don’t open it.
Heather’s work has always been passable. Flashy, but shallow. She cuts corners, leans too heavily on style without substance. Her reputation is built on proximity—who she knows, who she’s slept with, who she’s angling for next. I’ve never touched her. Never planned to. But I’m not blind to the fact that she’s tried. Is still trying.
And now, the idea of entertaining her—professionally or otherwise—sits in my gut like something sour.
Because even considering her feels like a betrayal.
Genevieve wasn’t just talented. She cared. About the work. The details. The way a room should feel when the right lighting hits the right table settings and everything clicks into place. She didn’t pitch fluff. She built experiences.
I should have offered her a permanent position on my payroll. A retainer. Something. Instead, I let her sweet innocence burrow itself under my skin until I couldn’t do anything but give in.
And then I left her. With a note.
I reach for my phone. Not to call. Just to…check. The last message from her is still unanswered. I’ve read it, of course. Multiple times. And the other messages before that. I scroll up. There are only four messages. All polite. All brief.
No emotion. No plea. Just professionalism.
And I don’t deserve anything more, do I?
I shouldn’t have opened the thread again.
Across the desk, Dom clears his throat.
“You’re not listening.”
“I’m thinking,” I correct.
“You’re brooding,” he says, not unkindly. “About her.”
I don’t answer.
“I talked to Max,” he adds after a beat. “ he said she looked like hell in the last meeting. Pale. Distracted. Shaky.”
Something tightens behind my ribs.
“She probably has the flu,” I say.
Dom tilts his head. “And if she doesn’t?”
“She’s not my responsibility.”
“You sure about that?”
No.
But I nod anyway.
He lets it go. For now.
Once he leaves, I finally open Heather’s email. The subject line is exactly what I expected.
Fresh Ideas for Spring Launch
I click once. Skim the first paragraph. Close it. Then hover over the delete button longer than I should.
When I finally hit it, it’s with more force than necessary.
Because Heather Langley is safe. Predictable. Convenient.
And I want nothing to do with her.
Because she’s not Genevieve St. Claire. And hiring another event planner feels like a betrayal. I’ve already hurt her enough.
* * *
I wake with my hand wrapped around my hard cock and her name on my tongue.
The sheets are damp. My breath is ragged. The pulse throbbing behind my eyes matches the one in my balls.
I drag my free hand down my face, then into my hair, gripping hard enough to ground myself. My other hand gives my cock a squeeze before I force myself to let go.
It’s leaking. Throbbing. The head is flushed, angry.
I could finish it. Wouldn’t take much—just a few strokes and a groan into the darkness. I could pretend it’s a release. Pretend it’s enough.
But I don’t deserve to come to the memory of her.
Not after what I did.
Every inch of me aches—from the restraint, from the memory, from the lie I’ve been feeding myself since I left that goddamn island.
That this is over.
That it meant nothing.
That I can forget her.
The image won’t leave me. Her mouth, soft and open beneath mine. Her thighs shaking under my hands. Her eyes when she came, wide and pleading, like I was giving her something no one else ever had.
And I was.
And now I’m pretending she doesn’t exist.
I sit up slowly, one hand braced on the edge of the mattress. My body is tight, heavy, strung so fucking tight it feels like my nerves are lined with wire.
She shouldn’t still be in my head. I cut the cord. I did what I always do—what works. I stepped back before the line blurred, before the complication became permanent.
But this time it wasn’t just lust. It wasn’t just control or curiosity or even the goddamn power trip of watching a woman come undone under me.
She got under my skin. Somehow.
And I walked away anyway.
The dream returns in fragments every time I close my eyes. It feels as though it's been branded on my eyelids. Her voice, breathy and broken as she begged for more. The way her hips arched up, greedy for it, greedy for me. The sound she made when I wrapped my hand around her throat and pressed inside of her, deep and deliberate until she shattered in my arms.
I see her on her knees, skin flushed and marked, blinking up at me like I’d hung the fucking stars.
Then she was beneath me again, thighs spread, her wrists pinned to the mattress as she writhed. No fear. Just hunger. Pure, desperate hunger.
I’d whispered her name against her jaw.
She whispered mine back. And then she said she was mine.
I reach for my phone out of habit. Thumb the screen to life. It’s past four a.m., but my inbox is already full. Proposals. Confirmations. One new inquiry from Heather Langley.
Jesus Christ.
You’d think that my early denials and continued silence would be clear enough. But apparently not. The last time I saw her, she made some comment about how she was always available for late-night brainstorming. Translation: hire me or fuck me. Either’s fine.
I didn’t respond then, and I won’t now.
I pull up Genevieve’s messages. Again. There’s a moment—just a breath—where I hover over the message thread, thumb poised to call. I imagine what she’d sound like if she picked up. Sleep-warm, a little cautious, hurt tucked behind her voice. I imagine saying her name. Just once. Soft.
Then what?
I’d apologize?
Explain?
Tell her the truth—that I haven’t stopped thinking about her since I left? That she’s not just a mistake I regret, but something I miss?
No.
I don’t get to want her now. I close the thread. Hold my breath.
Then I delete the contact.
It doesn’t erase the ache in my chest.
It doesn’t stop the dream from replaying the second I close my eyes again.
But it draws the line.
And that’s what I’ve always been good at—lines. Boundaries. Endings.
I just never expected this one to feel like failure.