36
For a moment, Dorothy did not understand the question.
Not because the words were unclear. Sebastian had made them almost brutally plain.
The simplicity of it was the part that unsettled her.
In the last several days, everything between them had carried layers.
Strategy beneath courtesy. Protection beneath public performance.
Desire tucked behind restraint. A hand offered in front of Trevor.
An umbrella opened beneath cameras. A kiss pressed to her knuckles in an empty corridor, quiet enough to be private and honest enough to be dangerous.
But this was different.
No society event. No cameras. No rumor to manage. No Trevor positioned in the background like a wound the world refused to let close.
A date.
The word seemed almost too ordinary for a life that had lately become public property.
Dorothy looked at Sebastian, waiting for the rest of the sentence.
A condition, perhaps. A clever line to soften the risk.
A practical explanation that would return the question to the safer ground of alliance and optics.
Sebastian gave her none of those things.
He simply stood in the private waiting room at Westbridge Medical Center, patient and direct, as if ordinary courage was still courage.
"You are serious," she said.
His mouth curved faintly. "Usually."
"That was not an answer."
"Yes. I am serious."
Her fingers tightened around the edge of her clutch.
Beyond the open door, staff moved through the corridor, voices low and efficient as they repaired the damage caused by the cheating rumor.
Somewhere in the building, Victor was likely preparing legal war.
Andrew Hale would already be drafting statements that sounded polite enough to frighten every publication that had repeated the accusation.
Trevor had gone, or at least stepped away, after defending her in public for the first time.
The day had been too full.
Too sharp.
Too much.
And Sebastian was asking her to step into something that did not hurt merely because it had not yet been given the chance to.
"I do not know how to do this," Dorothy admitted.
Sebastian's expression softened, not with pity, but with attention. "Have dinner?"
She gave him a dry look. "Do not make me sound ridiculous."
"I would never."
"You would. You are doing it now."
"A little," he conceded. "Only because you look as if I asked you to sign a merger agreement with my soul."
Despite everything, a small laugh escaped her.
It surprised them both.
Sebastian's eyes warmed, and Dorothy hated the way that warmth moved through her like light finding a room she had forgotten to open. She looked away before it could show too clearly.
"This is not simple for me," she said.
"I know."
"I am still legally married."
"I know."
"The media already thinks we are together."
"I know."
"Trevor just defended me in front of half the city."
Sebastian's gaze did not falter. "I know that too."
Dorothy looked back at him. "Does that not bother you?"
"It bothers me less than the way you are afraid it bothers me."
She paused.
That was Sebastian at his most irritating. He found the hidden hinge in a sentence and touched it before she could cover it with another lock.
"I do not want to hurt you," she said.
"You said that already."
"It remains true."
"Good. I prefer consistency."
"Sebastian."
"I am not fragile, Dorothy."
"No," she said quietly. "But you are not invincible."
His expression changed then, just a fraction.
The sharpness softened into something more human, and for the first time since she had met him, Dorothy saw him not as the man society called dangerous, not as Trevor's rival, not as the careful strategist who always stood at the correct distance,
but as someone who had chosen to place a feeling where she could see it and was waiting to learn whether she would step around it.
That required courage.
Perhaps not the same kind she had needed to leave Trevor.
But courage all the same.
"I am not asking you to promise not to hurt me," he said. "I am asking you not to decide for me that the risk is too much."
Dorothy's throat tightened.
She had done that, hadn't she? Wrapped caution around herself so tightly that she had begun using it as a reason to keep other people outside decisions that concerned them too.
Trevor had used her silence once. She had learned to survive by taking control of what entered her life.
But control, in excess, could become its own locked room.
"And if I say yes?" she asked.
Sebastian's mouth curved slightly. "Then I choose a restaurant."
"Of course you do."
"You may reject it."
"That is generous."
"I am known for my generosity."
"You are known for acquisitions."
"The two are often confused by people with poor negotiation skills."
This time, her smile came more easily.
Not fully.
Not without fear.
But it came.
Sebastian saw it, and this time he did not look too pleased with himself. Perhaps he knew better. Perhaps he understood that the smile was not permission to claim progress, only a small sign that she had not closed the door.
Dorothy drew a slow breath.
"Dinner," she said.
His eyes held hers.
"One dinner," she clarified.
"One dinner."
"No photographers."
"No photographers."
"No press strategy."
"No press strategy."
"No turning it into a public performance."
"Agreed."
"And if I change my mind before then?"
"You tell me."
"And?"
"And I respect it."
She searched his face for frustration, for wounded pride, for the faint impatience men often hid behind politeness when consent did not arrive fast enough. She found none. Desire, yes. Intention, certainly. But no impatience sharp enough to punish her for needing time.
Something inside her loosened another small degree.
"Fine," she said.
Sebastian's expression did not change immediately, as if he did not want to startle her by looking too pleased. That restraint pleased her more than triumph would have.
"Fine," he repeated.
Dorothy lifted a brow. "Do not make it sound as if I agreed to a dental procedure."
"I am making sure I understood correctly."
"You did."
"Good."
The word was quiet.
Too quiet.
Her pulse answered it before she could stop it.
Sebastian did not step closer. He did not reach for her hand again.
He did not turn the agreement into a moment he could own.
Instead, he inclined his head, as he might have done after closing a delicate negotiation, and said, "I will send you the details. You may veto the restaurant, the time, the table, or my tie."
"Your tie?"
"I understand some women care about these things."
"I care about many things. Your tie is not one of them."
"Noted."
Dorothy should have walked away then.
Instead, she found herself asking, "Do you always make difficult things sound less frightening?"
His gaze softened. "No. Only when they are frightening because they matter."
She had no answer for that.
So she left with as much dignity as she could gather.
The restaurant Sebastian chose was not one Dorothy knew.
That surprised her.
She had expected discretion wrapped in prestige: a private dining room behind an unmarked door, staff trained to forget faces, a menu designed to prove intimacy through expense.
Instead, the address he sent the next evening led her to a small restaurant at the edge of the old arts district, tucked between a closed bookshop and a florist whose window was crowded with white tulips and pale pink roses.
There was no red carpet. No valet line full of photographers. No polished crowd scanning the room for wealth to recognize.
Dorothy sat in the car for several seconds after it stopped.
Her driver glanced at her in the mirror. "Miss Perry?"
"Just a moment."
She looked through the window.
Warm light spilled from the restaurant onto the pavement. Inside, the tables were small and not perfectly spaced. Candles burned in glass cups. A woman behind the counter was laughing with a waiter. The place had the private comfort of somewhere people came to eat rather than be seen eating.
Sebastian stood near the entrance.
No entourage. No visible security, though Dorothy suspected someone discreet existed nearby because Sebastian was too practical not to be safe.
He wore a dark coat, no tie, and looked so unlike the man who filled gala rooms with controlled danger that Dorothy had to sit with the difference for a moment.
He saw the car and stepped forward.
Not to open the door before she was ready.
Just close enough that she knew he was there.
Dorothy drew a breath and got out.
"Miss Perry," he said.
She looked at him. "Is this the sort of date where you insist on formal titles all evening?"
"No. I was giving you one last chance to retreat into them."
"Considerate."
"I have been accused of worse."
Dorothy glanced at the restaurant. "No photographers?"
"None invited."
"That is not the same as none present."
"True. But I have two people watching the street, and neither has reported anyone with a long lens, a fake phone call, or a suspicious interest in decorative shrubbery."
She looked at him. "You checked for photographers hiding in shrubbery?"
"I am thorough."
"Or dramatic."
"Only in defense of privacy."
Dorothy should not have found that charming.
She did.
The realization made her almost turn back toward the car out of instinctive self-preservation. Sebastian seemed to sense the moment, because his voice softened.
"We can leave."
She looked up.
He did not say it like a test. He did not sound disappointed. He simply gave her the option as if her comfort mattered more than the evening he had arranged.
That, more than anything, kept her there.
"No," she said. "We can go in."
The restaurant smelled of butter, herbs, and bread warm enough to make hunger arrive before thought.
The owner greeted Sebastian by name, but not with the stiff awe wealthy men often received.
She scolded him, in fact, for arriving early and making the staff nervous.
Sebastian accepted the scolding with an ease that startled Dorothy.