Chapter 23 #2
“Actions, not words, Sebastian.” I met his gaze, refusing to let him see how much this was costing me. “You can apologize all you want, but apologies don’t mean anything without change. So what are you actually going to do differently?”
He was quiet for a moment — considering the question with the gravity it deserved, not reaching for an easy answer. When he spoke, his voice was steady.
“I’m going to ask instead of assume. When I want to help, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking and let you decide if you want that help.
I’m going to respect your decisions, even when they scare me.
And I’m going to trust that you know what’s best for your own life, because you’ve proven time and again that you do. ”
“And if you slip up?”
“Then you call me on it. Every single time. And I listen.” He took another step forward, close enough now that I caught the familiar cedar and leather of him. “I’m not asking you to trust me blindly, Em. I’m asking for the chance to earn your trust back, one day at a time. However long it takes.”
I held his gaze for a long moment, searching for the calculation underneath. For the strategic angle, the narrative management, the Sebastian Laurent who had been running sophisticated plays since before I’d walked into his gala with a recorder in my clutch.
What I found instead was exhaustion. Sincerity. A man who had finally hit a wall he couldn’t buy or strategize his way around and had decided to stop trying.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“I drafted this last night. It’s a public statement — my signature, my letterhead — taking full responsibility for the press release situation and explicitly crediting you for every piece of investigative work that contributed to exposing the corruption at Laurent Enterprises.
It names Charles Preston and confirms his role in manipulating events at the gala.
I haven’t released it yet because I wanted you to see it first. If you want me to change anything, add anything, remove anything — tell me.
This is your narrative to control, not mine. ”
I took the paper with hands that weren’t entirely steady, scanning the contents. It was everything he’d described and more — thorough, specific, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
It was also professional suicide. A statement like this would alienate board members, spook investors, provide ammunition to every enemy he’d accumulated over a thirty-year career.
“This will destroy you,” I said.
“Maybe.” He shrugged, and the gesture was both resigned and defiant in a way that was so specifically him it made my chest ache.
“But I’d rather be destroyed honestly than preserved through lies.
And if protecting your integrity costs me my empire—” His eyes met mine, storm-gray and unflinching. “Then the empire wasn’t worth having.”
I stood with the paper in my hands and let the weight of what he was offering settle into me fully.
Not the gesture itself — though the gesture was significant.
The fact that he’d brought it to me first. That he’d said this is your narrative to control, not mine and meant it in a way I could actually believe.
He wasn’t fixing it. He was handing it back to me.
“I’m not going to make this easy for you,” I said finally. “I’m not going to forgive you just because you’re saying the right things.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“And I’m not giving up my syndication deal. I’m not changing my career plans to accommodate your schedule or your needs.”
“I would never ask you to.”
“And if you ever — ever — make a decision about my life without consulting me again, I walk. No second chances. No negotiations.”
Something settled in his expression — not relief yet, something more careful. More provisional. “Understood.”
I refolded the paper and handed it back to him. “Release the statement. Not because I’m asking you to, but because it’s the right thing to do.” I held his gaze. “And then call me tomorrow. We’ll talk more.”
“Tomorrow.” He took the paper, his fingers brushing mine for just a moment. The contact sent electricity up my arm, and I saw his breath catch.
He turned toward the door.
“Sebastian.”
He stopped.
“There’s something else I need to say before you go.” I kept my voice steady, because this mattered and I wanted him to understand that I’d thought about it. “Victor Corsetti told me something at the warehouse. About your father. About the fire.”
Sebastian went very still.
“I didn’t bring it up before because I didn’t know how to ask,” I continued. “And then things fell apart and it didn’t seem—” I stopped. “I’m asking now. Tell me what actually happened.”
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful — not defensive, but the voice of a man who had been carrying something for a long time and was deciding, for the first time, to set it down.
“My father died in a house fire three weeks after I left for college. The fire marshal ruled it electrical — faulty wiring in the kitchen, where the outlets had been a problem for years.” He paused.
“I got the call from my aunt at two in the morning. I drove back and stood outside the building and looked at what was left of it.”
“And?”
“And I felt relieved.” The words came out rough, dragged up from somewhere he’d kept sealed for twenty years.
“Not that he was dead — I want to be clear about that. But that my mother was safe. That there was nothing left for him to come back to. That the thing I’d been afraid of every day since I was old enough to understand what he was capable of had simply — stopped.
” He met my eyes. “I’ve carried the guilt of that feeling for my entire adult life.
It’s why Victor’s accusation cuts so deep.
Not because it’s true. Because I’ve never been entirely sure what I would have done if I’d had a choice. ”
The conference room was very quiet.
“Sebastian.” I chose my words carefully. “Feeling relieved that someone who spent years hurting your mother was no longer a threat to her — that’s not a confession. That’s a human response to the end of something that should never have existed in the first place.”
“I know that. Intellectually.”
“But you’ve been punishing yourself for it anyway.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“Victor knew exactly what he was doing when he told me that,” I said. “He wasn’t giving me information. He was trying to plant a doubt he knew you’d already planted in yourself.” I held his gaze. “It didn’t work. I want you to know that.”
Something cracked in his expression — not dramatic, just the small specific release of something that had been held too tightly for too long.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“Don’t thank me. Just call me tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he agreed.
He walked to the door. Paused with his hand on the frame.
“Em.”
“Yeah?”
“I missed you.” The words were simple, unadorned, and somehow more devastating for it. “Every single day.”
Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
I stood in the conference room for a moment with my heart pounding and my hands shaking slightly and something that felt dangerously like hope settling into the place where the hollow ache had been.
My phone buzzed.
Jenna: What the actual hell just happened? Sebastian Laurent is in our newsroom looking like a kicked puppy and you’re in the conference room looking like you’ve seen a ghost.
I typed back: Nothing’s happened yet. But something might.
Another buzz: That is the most cryptic thing you’ve ever said and I NEED DETAILS.
I slipped my phone back in my pocket and walked to the window, watching Sebastian’s familiar figure cross the street below. He moved differently than he had three weeks ago — less like a man who owned the world and more like someone who had finally stopped trying to.
It wasn’t forgiveness. Not yet. Maybe not for a while, depending on whether his actions matched his words in the weeks to come.
But it was a start.
And for the first time since that disastrous night at the gala, something other than the hollow ache filled the space in my chest.
Determination. And underneath it, quieter and more dangerous, the thing I’d been trying not to name for three weeks.
Hope.
The choice, for once, was mine to make.
I intended to take my time making it.