Chapter 10 Sebastian
Sebastian
The fancy dinner is Wednesday night. Valentine's Eve. The penultimate date before the gala on Thursday.
I've been planning it for days, and I'm still convinced I'm going to mess it up.
"You're overthinking this," Marcus says Tuesday night when I show him the reservation I made. "It's just dinner."
"It's not just dinner. It's the second-to-last chance I have to prove I'm not going to revert to being an asshole the second the contract ends." I fight my case, not sure if its with him or myself.
"Then don't be an asshole. Problem solved." He jokes.
"You're not helpful."
"I'm incredibly helpful. You're just anxious." He looks at the restaurant name. "Marcello's? That's a good choice. Fancy but not aggressively pretentious."
"That's what I was going for."
"And you're picking her up? Taking her shopping first for something to wear?" He goes through the checklist, I’ve been repeating to myself for a few days now.
I nod. That was the hardest conversation. Asking Isla if she'd let me buy her a dress for dinner. She'd resisted, of course she had, until I pointed out that fancy restaurants have dress codes and I wanted her to feel comfortable.
She'd finally agreed on the condition that I stay under two hundred dollars and she gets to pick what she likes, not what I think she should wear.
Fair terms.
"I'm terrified I'm going to fuck this up," I admit.
"You probably will." I snap my head towards him, Marcus shrugs. "You're human. Humans fuck things up. The question is whether you'll recover from it."
"Inspiring. Thanks."
"You want inspiring? Fine. Isla is giving you a chance most people don't get. A chance to undo years of damage with someone who matters. Don't waste it being perfect. Waste it being real."
He leaves me with that advice, and I spend the rest of the night trying to figure out what being real looks like.
Wednesday afternoon, I pick up Isla at two. We're going shopping first, she insisted on a thrift store, I compromised on a department store that's having a sale and then to dinner at seven.
She's waiting outside her dorm in jeans and that same blue sweater I'm starting to recognize as her favorite. Hair down. Minimal makeup. Beautiful without trying.
"Ready to be subjected to my fashion choices?" she asks when she slides into the car.
"Can't wait."
The drive to the mall takes twenty minutes. We spend it talking about her Victorian Lit paper and my Economics midterm and carefully avoiding the topic of us.
At the mall, I follow her lead. She heads straight for the sale racks, rifling through dresses with practiced efficiency.
"What are you looking for?" I ask.
"Something that doesn't scream 'I'm poor but trying.' Something that looks like it could belong in a fancy restaurant without making me feel like a fraud."
"You're not a fraud."
"I'm a scholarship student at a school where most people's pocket change is more than my monthly budget. I'm absolutely a fraud."
Why do I hate it when she talks like this? She needs to stay feeling proud and let me buy things for her.
"No. You're someone who earned her place. There's a difference."
She pulls out a dark green dress. Considers it. Puts it back.
"Easy for you to say. You've never had to prove you belong."
"I've spent my entire life proving I belong. Just in different ways." I lean against the rack. "Every expectation, every Legacy Council meeting, every time my father checks in to make sure I'm upholding the family name, that's proving I belong. It's just a different kind of fraud."
She looks at me then, really looks at me. "We're both performing, just for different audiences."
"Exactly."
She pulls out another dress, deep red, simple but elegant. Holds it up.
"This one?"
"Try it on."
She disappears into the dressing room. I wait outside, suddenly nervous for reasons I can't explain. This is just shopping. Just a dress. But it feels bigger than that. Like this is a test I didn't know I was taking.
When she emerges, my breath catches.
The red dress fits her perfectly. Not too tight, not too loose. Elegant without being over the top. She looks stunning and uncomfortable in equal measure.
"Too much?" she asks.
"Perfect. You look perfect."
"It's on sale for eighty dollars. That's reasonable, right?"
"Isla, I said two hundred. If you love it, get it."
"I don't love it. I just... don't hate it?" She turns to look at herself in the three-way mirror. "I've never worn anything like this before."
I stand behind her, catching her eye in the reflection. "You don't have to wear it if it doesn't feel right. We can keep looking. Or we can skip the fancy restaurant and go somewhere you'd feel more comfortable."
"No. I want to do this." She smooths the fabric. "I want to be the kind of person who can wear a red dress to a fancy restaurant with you. I just don't know if I am that person."
"You're whatever person you want to be. That's the whole point."
She stares at her reflection for a long moment. "Okay. I'm getting it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. But I'm also getting these shoes—" she holds up a pair of simple black heels that are fifty percent off, "—and you're not allowed to comment on the total." She thinks I’m going to complain about the price, not sure what’s happening here.
"Deal."
We check out, and I insist on carrying the bag even though she protests. Back in the car, she's quiet.
"Thank you," she says as we drive back to campus so she can change. "For not making this weird. For letting me pick what I wanted."
"Why would I make it weird?"
"Because you're Sebastian Thornhill and you probably have opinions about what women should wear to fancy dinners."
"The only opinion I have is that you should wear whatever makes you feel confident. Which apparently is a red dress from a department store sale rack." I glance at her. "For the record? You could show up in sweatpants and I'd still think you were the most beautiful person in any room."
She's quiet for a beat. "You can't just say things like that."
"Why not?"
"Because it makes it harder to remember why I hated you."
"Good. I want you to forget. I want you to only remember this version of me." I’m finally showing her me, and I think I’m winning.
"That's not how it works. You don't get to erase the past just because the present is better."
"I know. But I can try to make the present good enough that the past matters less."
We reach her dorm. She gets out with her shopping bag, then leans back in through the window.
"Pick me up at six-thirty. And Sebastian?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't be late. I'm putting effort into this. You better match it."
"I will. I promise."
She disappears into her building, and I drive back to Legacy House to get ready.
I spend the next three hours in a state of controlled panic. Shower. Shave. The good suit, the one my father had custom-made for important events. I hate that I'm pulling out the Thornhill armor for this, but I want to show Isla I'm taking this seriously.
That she's worth the effort.
At 6:25, I'm outside her dorm. Five minutes early because I'm apparently incapable of being fashionably late when it comes to her.
At 6:32, she emerges.
And I forget how to breathe.
The red dress. Heels that make her legs look endless. Hair curled and down around her shoulders. Makeup that's subtle but makes her eyes look darker, more intense.
She's beautiful. Not in a trying-too-hard way or a look-at-me way. Just... beautiful. Confident. Real.
"You're staring," she says when she reaches the car.
"You're stunning."
"It's the dress."
"It's you. The dress is just lucky to be involved." She rolls her eyes at my reply, but she's smiling. I open her door, then circle to my side.
"Where are we going?" she asks as I pull out.
"Marcello's. Italian place downtown. Not too stuffy, but nice enough for Valentine's Eve."
"You planned ahead." She asks in surprise.
"I've been planning this for a week."
"A week? Sebastian, it's just dinner."
"It's not just dinner. It's our second-to-last date. Our second-to-last chance before the contract ends and you decide if I'm worth keeping around." I glance at her. "I want it to be perfect."
"Nothing's perfect." Now her voice goes low, and I hate it.
"Then I want it to be real. And good. And memorable for the right reasons."
She's quiet for the rest of the drive. I wonder if I've said too much, been too honest. But then her hand finds mine on the center console, and I know I said exactly the right thing.
Marcello's is busy, Valentine's Eve tends to be, but we have a reservation. The hostess seats us at a corner table with soft lighting and enough privacy that we can actually hear each other talk.
"This is nice," Isla admits, looking around. "Not as intimidating as I thought."
"You were intimidated?"
"I've never been to a place like this. The nicest restaurant I've ever been to was an Olive Garden for my sister's birthday three years ago."
The admission hits me hard. Reminds me yet again of the massive gap between our worlds.
"Well, now you have and you belong here just as much as anyone else." I open my menu. "Order whatever you want. Don't even look at the prices."
"Sebastian—"
"I'm serious. This is my treat. Let me do this."
She relents, and we order. The food is excellent, some pasta dish for her, steak for me and the conversation flows easily. We talk about everything, her plans after graduation, my uncertain future with Thornhill Industries, books we love, movies we like.
It's easy. Natural. Like we've been doing this for years.
Halfway through dinner, she sets down her fork and looks at me seriously.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Always."
"What happens if your father doesn't approve? Of me, of us, of whatever this becomes after the contract?"
The question I've been dreading.
"Then he doesn't approve." It’s the only answer I have right now. Because I already know he won’t approve.
"It's not that simple. He's your father. Your family's legacy is everything to you."
"No. It was everything to me. Past tense." I reach across the table and take her hand. "You're what matters now. If my father can't accept that, if the Legacy Council can't accept that, if the entire Thornhill dynasty can't accept that... then they can go to hell."
"You don't mean that."
"I absolutely mean that. I've spent twenty-one years being who they wanted me to be.
Saying the right things, attending the right events, making the right connections.
And I was miserable. Then you came along and called me a heartless asshole, and for the first time in my life, someone saw me clearly.
The real me, underneath all the Thornhill bullshit.
" I squeeze her hand. "I'm not giving that up. Not for my father. Not for anyone."
Her eyes are shining. Not quite tears, but close. "That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."
"It's also the truth."
"Both things can be true."
We finish dinner. Dessert, some ridiculous chocolate thing we share because Isla insists she can't eat a whole portion alone. Coffee. The check, which I handle before she can protest.
As we're leaving, I pull out my phone.
"Photo for Instagram?"
"Contract requirement," she agrees.
We pose outside the restaurant, her in her red dress, me in my suit, both of us smiling genuinely. She posts it immediately.
Caption: Date 4/5: He cleans up nice. I clean up nice. We're both trying. #ThornhillGala #Valentine #OneMoreDate
The comments start rolling in before we even get back to the car.
You two are so cute it hurts
The glow up from date 1 to date 4 is INSANE
I'm invested in this love story now
"Love story," I read over her shoulder. "Is that what this is?"
"I don't know. What would you call it?"
"Complicated. Messy. Probably doomed." I open her car door. "But also the best thing that's happened to me in years."
She slides into the seat, looking up at me with those dark eyes that see everything.
"Tomorrow's the gala. Last date. Last chance."
"I know."
"What happens after?" She asks.
"Whatever you want to happen."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I have." I close her door and walk around to my side.
When I get in, I turn to face her fully.
"Tomorrow night, we fulfill the contract.
We attend the gala, we smile for cameras, we play the perfect couple.
And then it's over. The obligation ends.
After that... I'm going to ask you for a real date.
No contract, no cameras, no auction rules.
Just me asking you out because I want to spend time with you. "
"And if I say no?"
"Then I'll have tried. I'll have shown you I'm serious and I'll respect your answer." I start the car. "But I really hope you say yes."
She's quiet for the drive back to campus. I don't push. Just let her think.
When I park outside her dorm, she doesn't immediately get out.
"Sebastian?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm saying yes. After the gala, when you ask me out for real... I'm saying yes."
Relief floods through me so intensely I have to grip the steering wheel to steady myself.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She leans across the console and kisses me. Soft and sweet and full of promise. "One more date to get through. Then we figure out what we are without the contract."
"I know what I want us to be."
"What's that?"
"Real. Honest. Together." I kiss her again. "Everything we should have been two years ago if I hadn't been such an idiot."
"You're still an idiot. But you're my idiot now."
"Yours," I agree. "If you'll have me."
"We'll see. One more date, remember?"
She gets out of the car, and I watch her walk into her building. Watch until she's safely inside. Watch until I'm sure she's okay.
Then I sit in my car in the parking lot and let myself feel something I haven't felt in years, hope.
Real, terrifying, all-consuming hope that this might actually work.
That I might actually deserve her. That tomorrow night at the gala, everything will fall into place exactly the way it's supposed to.
I'm wrong, of course.
But I don't know that yet.
For tonight, I let myself believe in happy endings.