Chapter 22 How to Wake Up and Immediately Regret Everything #2
Harper narrowed her eyes. “And nothing about this little sleepover party is getting out?”
Sebastian pressed a hand to his heart. “On my honor as a gentleman.”
“So no honor at all,” she muttered, then grabbed Emilia’s arm. “Come on. Before he gets any ideas.”
Sebastian raised his cup in a casual toast. “Text me when you miss me, Harper.”
“If you’re lucky, my next text will be to identify your body,” she called back over her shoulder.
Sebastian turned to Alexander, grinning. “She’s obsessed with me.”
Alexander didn’t even glance up from his phone. “She’s literally plotting your murder.”
Sebastian shrugged, taking another sip of coffee. “Hey—I live rent-free in her mind either way.”
* * *
The car sped along the road, the city blurring past the windows as Harper drove. Emilia, slouched in the passenger seat, kept sneaking glances at her, turning over a question in her mind.
She never let things go unexamined, and Harper’s ongoing vendetta against Sebastian Hawthorne was starting to feel like a puzzle she hadn’t solved yet. Finally, she broke the silence. “Alright, I have to ask.”
Harper didn’t look away from the road. “Yes, I am judging you right now.”
Emilia huffed. “Not that.” She turned to face her properly. “Why do you actually hate Sebastian so much?”
Harper’s grip on the steering wheel didn’t tighten—she was too controlled for that—but there was the slightest flicker of resentment in her expression before she masked it with a casual shrug. “I don’t hate him.”
Emilia shot her a look. “Harper, I’ve seen you rip corrupt politicians apart with less enthusiasm than you use to insult that man on a daily basis.”
Harper flicked on the turn signal with more force than necessary. “It’s different with Sebastian.”
“Why?”
Harper was quiet for a moment, her jaw working slightly. “Because,” she said finally, “Sebastian Hawthorne is the kind of man who can smile in your face while he’s stabbing you in the back.”
Emilia frowned. “Wait. I thought you just knew him from work events?”
Harper let out a dry, humorless laugh. “We go way back. Sort of.”
Emilia sat up straighter, suddenly alert. “Okay, that’s not suspicious at all. Explain.”
Harper sighed, rubbing her temple as if just thinking about it gave her a headache.
“Alright. You want the story? Here it is. A long time ago, before I was Harper Sinclair: Ruthless Political Journalist Extraordinaire, I was just some junior reporter trying to get a foot in the door. I had sources, ambition, and just enough reckless confidence to think I could shake up the establishment.”
She paused at a red light, drumming her fingers against the wheel. “One day, I got a tip—a good one. A certain noble family—guess which one—had been covering up financial misdeeds. Tax evasion, shady offshore accounts, hush money, the works. The kind of story that could actually mean something.”
Emilia was already connecting the dots. “The Hawthornes,” she said.
Harper nodded. “Bingo. I had proof. It wasn’t just whispers or speculation—I had documentation, testimony, everything I needed to run the story and make a name for myself. And then he got involved.”
Emilia leaned in. “Sebastian?”
“Yep,” Harper said, the word sharp with old bitterness. “Only, back then, I didn’t realize how good he was at what he does. That he wasn’t just the disaster aristocrat he pretends to be. He was his father’s fixer—whether he wanted to be or not.”
She took a breath, her knuckles whitening slightly on the wheel. “And the worst part? He didn’t even have to threaten me. He just… talked.”
Emilia frowned. “Talked?”
Harper let out a sharp breath, shaking her head. “You don’t get it. Most people, when they try to shut down a story, they throw lawyers at you. They intimidate you, blacklist you, find ways to make your life miserable. Sebastian? He played a different game.”
Her voice took on a brittle edge. “He made me doubt myself. He sat across from me, all charm and lazy smiles, and said, ‘Harper, do you really think this is worth it?’ He told me how easily my sources could dry up, how quickly my credibility could be questioned, how I’d be seen as the girl who cried corruption when I should be saving my ammunition for something bigger.
And the worst part? He made it make sense. ”
Emilia stared at her. “You actually listened?”
Harper’s shoulders sagged slightly. “I was young. I was still trying to make it. And he was right—if I ran the story and it got buried, it wouldn’t just hurt me, it would ruin my ability to ever go after something real again.
So I hesitated—just long enough for his father to scrub everything clean.
That tiny window of doubt was all he needed. ”
Emilia’s eyes widened. “Damn.”
“Yeah,” Harper muttered. “By the time I tried to pick the story back up, it was just like Sebastian said it would be. My sources ghosted me, the records had conveniently disappeared, and suddenly, no one in the industry wanted to touch it.”
She kept her eyes fixed on the road. “And the worst part? I didn’t even see it coming.
I dismissed him as a bored trust fund kid.
I had no idea he was watching my every move, cataloging my weaknesses.
” Her fingers tightened around the wheel.
“I thought I was running circles around him, but the whole time, he was leading me exactly where he wanted.”
Harper’s jaw tightened. “I hate that he was right. And I especially hate that when I look at him now, I can’t tell if he actually enjoyed making me lose, if it was all just another game to him, or if he was just doing his job.”
She took a deep breath. “So, yeah. That’s why I hate him. Because he killed my first real story before it even had a chance.”
There was a long silence between them.
Finally, Emilia asked, “Have you ever confronted him about it?”
Harper, despite herself, laughed. “What, and give him the satisfaction of knowing he got to me? Absolutely not.”
Emilia could tell—this wasn’t just about an old story, this was about pride. About knowing someone had beaten you at your own game, and worse—about knowing they hadn’t even needed to try that hard to do it.
Emilia’s lips curved into a knowing smirk. “Well, you should be careful, hate is a very passionate emotion—”
Harper shot her a deadly side-eye. “Oh, please. You should know.”
Emilia blinked. “Excuse me?”
Harper scoffed. “You spent weeks ranting about how much you couldn’t stand the prince, and now look at you.” She gestured dramatically with one hand. “Oh no, he’s so misunderstood. Oh no, he’s actually charming. Oh no, we danced at a party and now my heart palpitates.”
Emilia’s jaw dropped. “That’s not—”
Harper grinned, smug triumph in her eyes. “Please, you went from ‘I hate that pretentious royal’ to ‘actually, I’d quite like to climb him like a tree,’ so you don’t get to judge me for hating Sebastian.”
Silence. Emilia glared. Harper smirked.
Emilia groaned, slumping in her seat. “You are so annoying.”
“No, I’m just honest,” Harper said breezily, switching lanes. “But I am delighted that I’m no longer the only one suffering from an acute case of insufferable aristocrat infestation.”
Emilia huffed. “That’s not a thing.”
Harper grinned. “It is now.”