22. Sebastian
— ? —
Sebastian
The city feels different now.
I’ve been gone for weeks, first in Havenport, then on the ship, and returning to the gleaming towers and crowded streets feels like visiting a foreign country. Everything is familiar but strange, like a language I used to speak fluently but have somehow forgotten.
Margo’s hand finds mine as the car pulls up to the house.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I squeeze her fingers. “Just… recalibrating.”
“Recalibrating to what?”
“To being Sebastian Austen, CEO, instead of Sebastian Austen, sandcastle architect and dolphin watcher.”
She smiles. “You can be both.”
“Can I?”
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Finding a way to be the man you want to be without losing the man you have to be?”
She’s right, of course.
She’s been right about most things lately.
Sandy is asleep in her car seat, worn out from the journey. I unbuckle her carefully, lifting her against my shoulder as we approach the front door.
“I should warn you,” Margo says quietly. “This place is going to feel weird. We weren’t happy here.”
“We’ll make new memories.”
“That’s very optimistic of you.”
“I’m practicing.”
The house rises ahead of us, pale stone and tall windows above the harbor, the one I carried her over the threshold of as newlyweds, promising I’d always come find her wherever she got lost in its too-many rooms.
For a while I kept that promise. Then the house went quiet in a different way, and I stopped, and she learned to be lost in it alone.
I’m only starting to understand what that cost her.
I unlock the door and step inside.
And stop.
Because sitting in the parlor, posed on the antique settee like she owns the place, is Dorothy Austen.
“Sebastian, darling. I was wondering when you’d finally come home.”
My mother has always had impeccable timing.
By which I mean she has a supernatural ability to appear at the exact moment her presence will cause maximum damage. Birthdays, anniversaries, any occasion that might involve happiness, Dorothy can sense them from miles away and arrives to drain the joy.
“Mother.” I keep my voice neutral. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Clearly not.” Her gaze sweeps over us, me in my casual travel clothes, Margo beside me with her windswept hair, Sandy still asleep against my shoulder. “You look… disheveled.”
“We’ve been on a boat.”
“Ship,” Margo murmurs beside me, and I almost laugh.
“Yes, I heard about your little maritime adventure.” Dorothy rises, smoothing her skirt. “The whole city’s been talking about it. The tabloids have been quite enthusiastic.”
“The reconciliation ones? Yes, I’ve seen them.”
“Reconciliation.” She says the word like it’s a disease. “Is that what we’re calling it? I thought ‘temporary insanity’ might be more accurate.”
Margo stiffens beside me.
“Mother…”
“I let myself in because we need to discuss the board meeting. It’s in two days, and you’ve been completely unreachable. Your assistant has been fielding calls from every major investor, and the rumors about your stability have reached a fever pitch.”
“I’m aware of the situation.”
“Are you? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve been playing house on a yacht while your company burns down around you.”
“The company is fine.”
“The company is in chaos.” She steps closer. “The stock price has fluctuated eleven percent in the past month. Three of your key executives have been approached by competitors. And the board is one vote away from installing interim leadership while you ‘recover from your breakdown.’”
“I haven’t had a breakdown.”
“Haven’t you?” Her eyes flick to Margo. “You abandoned the flagship launch to chase your wife across Europe. You’ve been unreachable for weeks. You gave a speech in a restaurant that’s now being shared across every social media platform. Does that sound like stable leadership to you?”
“It sounds like a man prioritizing his family.”
“It sounds like a man who’s lost perspective.”
I take a breath, trying to hold onto my patience.
“Sandy needs to go to bed. Can we continue this conversation after…”
“The child can wait.” Dorothy waves a dismissive hand. “This is more important.”
“My daughter is not less important than a board meeting.”
“Your daughter is Austen blood. Her welfare is exactly what I’m trying to protect.” She fixes me with a stare. “Which is why I’m here. To help you see reason before it’s too late.”
“What reason, exactly?”
Dorothy folds her hands, and her expression settles into the calm she always wears right before she says the worst thing in the room.
“The reason, darling, is that you are one bad decision away from losing everything your father built. The board is finished waiting for you to come to your senses. So let me be very clear, since no one else in your life seems willing to be.”
She lets it sit.
“If you insist on playing house with her, I will take the company from you myself. Not out of spite. Out of duty. You’ve spent these weeks proving you’re unfit to carry the Austen name, and I will not stand by and let you run a hundred-year legacy into the sea for a girl from a fishing village.”
“You’d take the company.”
“I’d have no choice. You’ve handed me the votes yourself, one absence at a time.”
Her gaze flicks to Margo and holds there, cold.
“You still have a way out. Choose the name. Choose the legacy. Choose the life you were raised for, and this all goes away. But if you choose her, Sebastian, then you’d best be ready to lose the rest of it, because you cannot keep both, and one day you will look at what you threw it all away for and understand you chose wrong.
You wasted everything. And by then it will be far too late to take it back. ”
The room goes silent.
There it is, laid bare on my own settee. An ultimatum dressed as concern. Her, or the empire. As if the two could be weighed on the same scale. As if my wife were a line item I could trade against a balance sheet.
I’ve known my mother was cruel. I’ve watched her cut down staff and competitors and anyone who got in her way.
But hearing her set my family against my father’s legacy and expect me to pick the legacy, out loud, in our home, in front of Margo, crystallizes a truth I should have understood years ago.
She doesn’t just disapprove of Margo.
She doesn’t see her as human. Only as the wrong entry in a ledger.
“Get out.”
My voice is ice.
Dorothy blinks. “Excuse me?”
“I said get out. Now.”
“Sebastian, don’t be dramatic. I’m trying to help you…”
“You’re trying to help yourself. You’ve always been trying to help yourself.
” I shift Sandy’s weight on my shoulder, and Margo moves to take her from me.
“You’ve spent five years making my wife feel worthless, and I let you.
I made excuses. I told myself you’d come around, that you’d eventually see what I see. ”
“What you see is a waitress from a fishing village who’s somehow convinced you she belongs in this family.”
“What I see is the mother of my child. The woman I love. The best thing that’s ever happened to me.” I step toward her. “And what I see now, what I finally, finally understand, is that you’ve never cared about my happiness. Only about control.”
“That’s not…”
“Her or the company. That’s the choice you just put in front of me, in my own home, as if it’s a reasonable thing to ask.
Like five years of marriage and a child weigh nothing against a balance sheet.
Like I could set my wife on one side of a scale and my father’s ledger on the other and call that a decision. ”
“Sebastian…”
“No. I’m done listening.” I hold out my hand. “Give me your key.”
Dorothy goes pale. “What?”
“The key to this house. You let yourself in without permission. That ends now.”
“I’m your mother…”
“You’re a guest. And guests don’t have keys.” I keep my hand extended. “Give it to me.”
It’s the first time my mother looks uncertain. She reaches into her bag with shaking hands and pulls out the key, dropping it into my palm.
“The advisory titles,” I continue. “The standing invitations to company events. The access to Austen facilities. All of it. Revoked.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I’m CEO. I can do whatever I want.” I pocket the key. “You don’t get to use the company as your personal fiefdom anymore. You don’t get to show up uninvited and poison my marriage. And you don’t get anywhere near my wife or my daughter until you’re someone worthy of that privilege.”
“I’m Cassandra’s grandmother…”
“You’re a woman who just suggested I discard her mother like she’s nothing. You’re a woman who’s spent five years making Margo feel like an outsider in her own home. You’re a woman who orchestrated scandals and planted photographers and did everything in your power to destroy what I love.”
I lean in close.
“You don’t get to be Sandy’s grandmother until you apologize to her mother. Really apologize. And even then, it’s not my forgiveness you need.” I glance at Margo. “It’s hers.”
Dorothy’s face contorts.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No. The mistake was letting this go on for five years. The mistake was choosing peace with you over justice for my wife. The mistake was thinking you could change.”
“I won’t let you…”
“You don’t have a choice.” I step back. “Get out of my house, Mother. And don’t come back until you’re invited.”
Dorothy doesn’t leave quietly.
She never does anything quietly.
She gathers her bag, straightens her jacket, and turns to face Margo with an expression of pure venom.
“This is your doing,” she hisses. “You’ve turned my son against his own mother. You’ve poisoned him against his family, his legacy, everything he was raised to be.”
Margo, holding our sleeping daughter, doesn’t flinch.
“Actually, Dorothy, I haven’t done anything. Sebastian made this decision on his own. All I did was exist.”
“Exist?” Dorothy laughs, and it’s an ugly sound. “You’ve done more than exist. You’ve wormed your way into a family that was never meant for you, convinced my son that you have worth when everyone can see…”
“Everyone can see what?”
“That you’re not good enough.” Dorothy’s voice drops, cold and precise.
“You’ve never been good enough. You never will be.
I’ve been saying it for five years, and one day Sebastian will finally see what I’ve always seen, a social climber, a gold digger, a woman who seduced her way into a fortune she didn’t earn. ”
I step forward, ready to intervene, but Margo shakes her head slightly.
“You’re right,” she says.
Dorothy looks startled. “What?”
“You’re right. I’ll never be good enough for you.
” Margo’s voice is steady, level. “I wasn’t raised in the right circles.
I didn’t go to the right schools. I don’t know which fork to use for which course, and I’ve never been comfortable at your charity galas, and I’m sure I’ve embarrassed you a hundred times without even knowing it. ”
“Exactly…”
“But here’s the thing, Dorothy.” Margo shifts Sandy’s weight, holding our daughter closer. “I was never trying to be good enough for you. I was trying to be good enough for him.”
She nods toward me.
“And apparently, I succeeded. Because he chose me. Again and again and again, he chose me, over the women you pushed at him, over the expectations you tried to force on him, over every scheme you ever concocted. He chose me, and it drove you absolutely crazy, because you couldn’t understand why.”
“Because he was foolish…”
“Because he loved me.” Margo’s eyes are bright. “Real love. The kind that doesn’t care about pedigree or net worth or social standing. The kind you’ve never experienced, because you’ve spent your whole life treating people like assets to be managed instead of humans to be cherished.”
Dorothy’s face is red with fury.
“How dare you…”
“I’m not finished.” Margo’s voice turns steely.
“You’ve spent five years trying to destroy me, and all you’ve accomplished is destroying your relationship with your son.
You’ve lost your advisory roles. You’ve lost your access.
You’ve lost the ability to show up whenever you want and make my life miserable. ”
“This isn’t over…”
“Yes, it is.” Margo steps closer, and the force in her expression makes Dorothy actually retreat. “You’re right that I’ll never be good enough for you. But I’m exactly right for him. And that’s all that matters.”
Dorothy opens her mouth.
Closes it.
Opens it again.
For perhaps the first time in her life, she seems to have nothing to say.
“Get out,” I say quietly. “Now.”
She looks between us, her son who has just stripped away everything she valued, and the daughter-in-law who has just dismantled her completely, and her face crumbles.
Not remorse.
Dorothy doesn’t do remorse.
But recognition, maybe. The dawning understanding that she’s lost a bond she can’t buy or manipulate her way back into.
She walks to the door without another word.
The click of it closing behind her is the most satisfying sound I’ve ever heard.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Margo and I stand in the entryway, Sandy still sleeping against her shoulder, neither of us quite sure what to say.
Then Margo laughs.
It starts small, a huff of breath, a twitch of her lips, and builds into a full, real release, her whole body shaking with it.
“That was…” She trails off, still laughing.
“Terrifying?”
“Amazing.” She looks at me with a kind of wonder. “You just kicked your mother out. You took her key and revoked her titles and told her she couldn’t see Sandy.”
“I should have done it years ago.”
“Yes. You should have.” But she’s smiling. “Better late than never.”
I cross to her, wrapping my arms around both her and our sleeping daughter.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur against her hair. “I’m sorry I let her treat you that way for so long. I’m sorry I made excuses and looked the other way and pretended it wasn’t as bad as it was.”
“You’re making up for it now.”
“I have a lot to make up for.”
“You do.” She pulls back to look at me. “But Sebastian? What you just did, standing up for me like that, choosing me over her, that was everything I ever needed.”
“I love you.”
“I know.” She kisses me softly. “I love you too.”
Sandy stirs against Margo’s shoulder.
“Mmm… Mommy?”
“I’m here, baby.”
“Did Grandma leave?” She blinks sleepily, trying to focus. “She looked really mad.”
Margo and I exchange a glance.
“Grandma had to go,” I say carefully. “She’s not going to be visiting for a while.”
“Oh.” Sandy considers this. “Because she was mean?”
“Because she needs to learn how to be nicer,” Margo says. “To everyone.”
“Is she in timeout?”
“More or less.”
Sandy nods sagely. “Good. I didn’t like her anyway. She never wanted to play.”
I choke on a laugh.
“Let’s get you to bed, princess.”
“Can I sleep in the big bed? I don’t like my room here. It’s too quiet.”
I look at Margo, who nods.
“Sure, baby. You can sleep in the big bed.”
I take Sandy from Margo’s arms and carry her up the stairs, my wife beside me, my mother’s key weighing in my pocket.
It’s not over.
There’s still the board meeting. Still the company politics. Still a hundred complications waiting to be dealt with.
But for now, my family is together.
And that’s enough.