Chapter 7
VALENTINA
Work is the only thing that reliably shuts my brain up. My therapist would probably invite me to examine that. She’d tell me I’m using it to avoid the darker parts of my past. A classic avoidance technique. She’d say I need healthier coping mechanisms.
Except I don’t want coping mechanisms. I don’t want to face those dark things. So instead, I work.
Work rewards competence. It calms me down and gives me something concrete to do with all the restless, ugly energy that builds when I feel cornered. So I let the gala eat up my entire life.
I stay up nights fiddling with the seating chart because I’m still learning the personalities of the confirmed attendees.
I change my mind a million times about which centerpieces will allow for seamless conversation.
I build mood boards of flower arrangements until I’m sure I’ve found the perfect combination.
Weeks pass like that. In front of my team, and especially in front of Sebastian, I make it look simple. I pretend I haven’t spent hours agonizing over the smallest details. It pays off. They all think I’m effortless.
By the Monday before the event, my office looks like a war room.
Fabric samples cover the conference table.
Seating drafts are clipped to foam boards along the wall.
Auction notes spread across one desk, floral revisions across another.
My assistant is buried in donor meal restrictions and rental confirmations.
Lila, my receptionist, has started screening my calls with the ferocity of a woman who thinks I’m one more email away from committing homicide.
Every hour brings a new minor crisis. A sponsor wants their logo placement adjusted.
One of the board members decides she hates the first version of the donor gifting and wants something “more luxurious.” The hotel insists on updated loading dock timing because another event is turning over in the ballroom below ours.
The auction house sends me a revised sequence and somehow manages to make it worse.
I handle all of it with as much grace as I can manage.
Since I’m busy enough to think in fifteen-minute increments, there’s no room in my head for the things I don’t want there.
I don’t think about Adrian or wonder if he’s somehow found me.
I don’t think about how Sebastian’s attractiveness hasn’t remotely waned over all these weeks.
Unfortunately, the gala keeps dragging me into his orbit. I’ve spent more time with Sebastian in the last few weeks than with most of my old boyfriends. He’s annoyingly hands-on about this event. Unlike most of my clients, he insists on being involved in every single detail.
The longer we work together, the more I realize why all of his other event planners quit. He really is a nightmare, and I think he’s probably being extra nice to me. He isn’t rude or hard to work with. He’s just relentless in his need to know every detail, all the time.
By Thursday morning, I’m more coffee than human.
At two-thirty, the candle vendor drops out. No explanation. No solution. I stare at the email for a full five seconds because my brain refuses to process that level of stupidity this close to the finish line.
I call them. It goes straight to voicemail.
My blood pressure spikes so fast I actually laugh once, sharp and humorless, because there’s something almost impressive about the timing.
Two days before event day. Hundreds of candles already designed into the room.
All ruined because some idiot with a wholesale account and a delivery van has apparently decided now is a good time to disappear.
I text. I call a second number. I email. Nothing.
My assistant looks up from her desk when I walk out of my office too fast.
“What happened?”
“Our candle vendor dropped out,” I snap.
Her face falls. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Can they still fulfill the order if we pick them up?”
“I don’t know because apparently they’ve all died.”
She gets up and follows me. “You always tell the staff to take a minute to breathe. It’s just a setback. It’s not a disaster.”
I grab my bag and car keys. “I’m going to the hotel.”
“What can they do?”
“Nothing. But I can.”
I need to see the room. I need to walk it. There’s still time to fix this. It may require me to completely overhaul the décor at the last minute, but I’ll do what I need to do to make this work. Otherwise, I’ll buy out every candle store in Beverly Hills.
The gala is being held at one of the DeLuca hotels.
It’s a level of luxury most people can only dream about.
The lobby gleams with expensive marble and muted décor.
Every staff member is trained to move quickly and silently, anticipating needs before they arise.
I know the space well by now. I’ve been in and out of it for weeks.
The ballroom is half set when I arrive. It helps that the event organizer owns the hotel. Rental crates are stacked near the service hall, and staging is marked out with tape. A few florists are already on ladders, hanging garlands. The hotel staff move through their checklists with purpose.
I walk straight in with my phone in one hand and a folder tucked under the other arm. Everyone draws a breath when I enter. They’re used to my insanity by now, bracing for whatever fresh hell I’ve brought with me today.
“Valentina,” a deep voice booms.
I stop in my tracks. He’s the last person I want to see at this particular moment.
Sebastian is standing near the stage riser in dark slacks and a pale gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up, talking to someone from hotel operations.
He ends the conversation with a glance my way, and the other man disappears immediately.
“You’re angry,” he says as he approaches.
“I am,” I confirm.
“Whose head is going to roll tonight?”
I stare at him blankly.
“Val, what happened?” he tries again.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
The answer is automatic, a little sharper than I intended.
One of his brows lifts slightly.
“I know you can handle it,” he says. “But I can also help you.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Just a small vendor issue. It’s already taken care of, really.”
“Which vendor?”
I shouldn’t tell him. I should solve it myself because I’m a goddamn expert at my job. I don’t need a man to step in and save the day when I’m more than capable of handling it.
So naturally, what comes out of my mouth is, “The candle vendor dropped out.”
The second I say it, I wish I could bite through my own tongue.
He just says, “All right.”
He pulls out his phone, steps a few feet away, and makes one call. When he hangs up, he looks back at me.
“You’ll have replacements by ten tomorrow morning.”
I stare at him. “What?”
“I said you’ll have replacements by ten tomorrow morning.”
I fold my arms and look him up and down. “You just happened to have a backup candle vendor in your back pocket?”
“No.” He smirks but gives me nothing else.
“Fine,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Keep your secrets.”
“Make it through the gala without quitting, and maybe I’ll share the magic with you.”
In different circumstances, his help would annoy me. I came here ready to fix this on my own. Instead, Sebastian steps in, makes one call, and resolves it in under two minutes.
I’m not annoyed at all, though. Relief washes through me so hard it nearly makes me dizzy. I’ve been holding the whole event in a white-knuckled grip for so long that having a disaster resolved that quickly feels like a miracle.
Something shifts in his expression. Almost a smile. “You’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” I say through gritted teeth.
Since I’m already here and my blood pressure is still elevated, I pull out the latest venue packet and start walking him through final placement adjustments.
The ballroom is almost beautiful already, even in this half-built state.
The base linens are on. Charger plates are set for the sample table near the stage.
One side of the floral structure is in place, climbing upward in pale greens and cream tones.
It takes vision to see the finished room when it still looks like labor and ladders and taped floor marks.
I have that vision. Sebastian, irritatingly enough, seems to have some version of it too. We spend the next hour walking the room together.
Somehow, it stops feeling like work. We’re just two people admiring a beautiful room, basking in our vision board finally coming to life.
At one point, we stop near the ballroom doors while I explain the soft-open sequence for donors, and he leans in to study the sketched guest flow arrows on my packet. His shoulder brushes mine. Barely. I feel it everywhere.
By the time we circle back to the terrace access doors, my heels are killing me and the knot at the base of my neck has become one solid line of tension.
The ballroom looks better than it did when I arrived.
So do my notes. The candle situation is handled.
The sponsor signage is approved. The hotel finally gave me the corrected loading dock clearance times. Objectively, I should feel calmer.
Instead, I feel hyperaware, and it’s all his fault.
We stop near the edge of the terrace where the late afternoon light spills gold across the marble floor and the city stretches out below in hazy, expensive layers.
Sebastian studies the ballroom through the open doors behind us. “Do you enjoy the stress?”
I laugh once. “That’s a strange question.”
He fixes me with a look that says he understands me better than I give him credit for.
I shrug. “Nobody enjoys this part,” I say, looking out over the city. “Not really.”
“Well, you’re extraordinary at managing it.”
I hum, considering. It’s not exactly something I’d choose to be extraordinary at if I’d had any other option.
Slowly, I look up at him. He’s already watching me with that directness. Something in his face has gone still in a way that makes the whole moment feel suddenly private, even though we’re standing in a half-built gala space with hotel staff twenty feet away.
“Truthfully, you’re just extraordinary altogether,” he says, a little quieter.
The air between us turns too charged. I feel him so acutely he might as well be magnetized. It’s too much, and he’s too close. I step back, needing the distance to think rationally.
He is my brother’s best friend. More than that, he’s connected to things Nico has never fully explained to me.
Things I honestly don’t want answered. He’s incredibly powerful in a way that has nothing to do with wealth and everything to do with organized crime, I’m sure.
He’s the last person in the world I should be standing this close to.
And still, I like him. The realization makes me want to scream.
“I need to go,” I say quickly, turning to the ballroom door.
His expression shifts slightly, like he knows exactly what I’m doing. I gather my folder too quickly and almost drop the venue packet.
“I’ll send updated notes tonight.”
“Valentina…”
I look up again before I can stop myself.
His voice is even. “Get some rest.”