Chapter 35
SEBASTIAN
Iwoke up feeling like I’d been hollowed out from the inside. Hadn’t slept more than an hour, maybe two, my mind replaying Bernadette’s words on an endless loop. Her little line about picking up later stank of bullshit. It was her way of ending things.
I knew it as well as I knew my own name. I had used that line myself. It was the gentle fuck-off.
I think I would have preferred she told me to just fuck off straight up.
But I couldn’t wallow in self-pity all morning.
I had shit to do. Just because my heart had been cut out, it didn’t mean I got to sit back and watch all my hard work go down the drain.
I was going to make damn sure the runway show was amazing.
I wanted the whole damn world talking about it until next season.
We would be livestreaming it, since we couldn’t exactly bring everyone to the island.
Livestreaming was just another element to worry about.
Worry was good. Worry was a distraction. Bernadette wasn’t the only one facing major issues at work. If I couldn’t get the girl, I could at least finish strong with this project.
I dragged myself out of bed and looked out the window. “What the hell?”
The sky was bruised, with dark purple and gray clouds rolling in from the ocean. Storm weather. The kind that shut down productions and canceled shows and cost millions of dollars.
Perfect. Just fucking perfect. I was sure my brothers would blame this on me too.
I checked my phone. Weather alerts. Messages from the crew asking if we were still on schedule. A group text from my brothers about contingency planning.
Nothing from Bernadette. I put my phone away.
I knew the storm was a possibility, but last I checked, it was supposed to move south of us. Once again, Mother Nature had other plans.
I took a quick three-minute shower, brushed my teeth because no one deserved to smell whatever was happening in my mouth.
I pulled on clothes and headed outside, not sure where I was going, just needing to move.
Needing to do something other than sit in my bungalow and think about how spectacularly I’d messed things up with Bernadette.
I had risked everything and all it did was push her away from me.
With a sigh, I refocused. I needed to find out what the officials were expecting in terms of the storm. Would it hit us? Was it going to cause flooding? Power outages? All important elements when trying to plan a runway show.
Not surprisingly, word about the fight had spread. Of course it had. This was a tight-knit crew. Everyone knew everything. And it wasn’t exactly a private situation. I had hit him in front of God and everybody.
And I wasn’t sorry.
Crew members stared as I passed. Some whispered. Some avoided eye contact entirely, suddenly finding their shoes fascinating.
I felt their judgment like a physical weight. The irresponsible playboy who’d proven everyone right. Who’d let his dick—or in this case, his heart—compromise the entire production.
But they didn’t know real feelings were involved.
They just assumed I was being a territorial asshole.
They thought it was just me being a selfish prick and wanting the beautiful woman to myself.
Kind of funny no one thought she was beautiful until I put her in that Venus shoot.
I was the one that saw through the severe looks and her attempts to be invisible.
I ended up behind the bungalows, pacing back and forth, trying to breathe through what felt suspiciously like a panic attack.
“Sebastian?”
I turned to find Elizabeth approaching, a bag of taro chips in her hand. She offered them to me without a word.
I took them gratefully, shoving a handful into my mouth.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Everything’s a mess,” I said through the chips. “The crew is terrified of me, Bernadette won’t talk to me, and to top it all off, there’s a damn storm coming that might destroy the runway show. So yeah, I’m great.”
“I’m not asking about work. I’m asking how you’re holding up.”
I stopped pacing, looked at her. “I think I’m having a mini panic attack. What does that feel like? My chest feels weird. I can’t breathe right. Like I feel like there is a brick on my chest.”
“Okay.” She guided me to sit on a low wall. “Breathe with me. In for four, hold for four, out for four.”
We breathed together. The tightness in my chest slowly eased.
“Better?” she asked.
“A little actually.”
“Good. Now listen. Rico was fired. Security is gathering up his stuff right now and shipping him out on the next available flight.”
“What about the Miratoan authorities?” I asked. “Did I piss off the foreign minister? Are we shut down?”
“Briggs smoothed it all over.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what he did, but he made it happen.”
“Fucking attorneys, man.”
“Hey, that fucking attorney just saved your ass.”
“Hey! You can’t talk like that. Not in front of the little one.”
She smiled and waved a hand dismissively. “It doesn’t have ears yet.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled, too. “Yeah.”
She pulled out her phone. “Not to add more piss in your porridge, but you need to see this.”
“Can I say no?” I asked with a groan. “Who else have I pissed off?”
She showed me a photo. My stomach dropped. It was one of the Venus test shots. Bernadette standing in the water, hair down, the light perfect, looking like a goddess.
Damn. She was breathtaking. Ethereal.
Mine.
It was one of the test shots that wasn’t supposed to be released. Bernadette was looking at me in the image. I had just been telling her to relax her posture. That gaze was meant for me and me alone.
“Rico leaked it,” I said immediately. “That bastard.”
“Probably,” Elizabeth agreed. “But it’s a double-edged sword. People are in love with her. The photo is everywhere. ‘Blackwell’s Venus’ is trending. It’s amazing for the campaign and the dresses. But we aren’t controlling it. She’s Insta-famous all on her own.”
“Bernadette is going to be furious.” I felt sick. “Does she know?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Probably. I mean, she’s not famous, but it’s getting serious traction. Her face is all over fashion blogs.”
I grabbed more chips, stress-eating on autopilot. “She’s never going to speak to me again.”
“Sebastian, she’ll know you didn’t do it. Trust me, she’s going to know it was that piece of shit.”
“Pregnancy makes you mean.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You didn’t leak the photo.”
“Doesn’t matter. Bernadette was only in that water because I asked her to be. This is on me.”
I was shoving another handful of chips in my mouth when Bernadette came whipping around the corner of the bungalow. Now my Venus was looking more like the goddess of retribution. Vengeance.
“Bernadette, you came back to me,” I said.
She glared at me. “I’m here about the photo.”
“Oh, right. I figured.” My shoulders slumped.
“Everyone, including my father, has seen that picture of me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stuff your sorries,” she said, her voice clipped and professional.
I flinched. “It’s a great photo at least.”
“There’s a storm coming,” she snapped. “The only question is whether it’ll hit us head on.
The runway show is at risk. We need to put our heads together to make sure we can still pull this off, and if not, figure out what’s next.
We don’t have the permits to stay longer.
If the show doesn’t go off, that’s a big deal.
I don’t want to be negative, but this could be a very costly storm for a number of reasons. ”
She looked exhausted—dark circles under her eyes, her hair pulled back so tight it had to hurt. She was wearing a pair of black slacks and a white blouse. Gone were the linen pants or pretty sundresses. She was all pure professional determination.
“Hi, Bernadette,” Elizabeth said.
Bernadette offered a small smile. “Where are my manners? Hello, Elizabeth.”
Then her anger was right back on me. Yep, that was one pissed-off woman.
“We’ll deal with the picture later. Right now, we have a potential weather emergency. Get your brothers. We need to strategize.”
She wasn’t yelling. Her tone was tight but neutral. She was doing her job, staying focused like I should have been doing.
I pulled out my phone to send up the Blackwell bat signal.
No spotlights needed. I just sent a message to the Blackwell group chat: Emergency meeting. Dining room. Now.
Twenty minutes later, we were all gathered in the resort dining room.
Bernadette was sitting away from my brothers. I noticed she always separated herself. The woman that had been warming up to me and the rest of the crew was gone. She was making it very clear she was not one of us. It had little to do with professional distance. It was self-preservation.
Mom and Elizabeth were talking. I was pretty sure I heard something about pickles.
I took a seat next to Dash. He elbowed me. “That’s her?”
“Don’t start any shit,” I warned. “I’ve already punched one guy this week. I’ll do it again.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I like to mess around but I know this is neither the time nor the place. But I’ll have plenty to say later.”
Bernadette’s focus was on her tablet. She glanced up and looked around the room.
But she never looked directly at me. “Thank you all for coming. As you’ve probably noticed, there’s a storm approaching.
It’s approximately two hundred miles east. Current models show three possible paths.
One misses us entirely. One grazes us with heavy rain and wind. One hits us directly.”
“What’s the likelihood of each scenario?” Adrian asked.
“Roughly equal. We won’t know for sure until tomorrow morning.”
“And if it hits us directly?” Briggs asked.
“The runway show would have to be postponed at minimum. Possibly canceled if there’s infrastructure damage or if flights can’t land.”
The weight of that hung in the air. Millions of dollars. Elizabeth’s launch. Everything we’d worked for.
“What do we need to do?” I asked.
Bernadette looked at me directly for the first time. I saw respect in her eyes, or maybe she was just glad I asked the right question. Like she expected me to revert back to the airhead persona. She knew that was a bullshit facade.
“Batten down the hatches,” she said. “Secure all equipment. Make sure everyone has food, water, and emergency supplies. Candles in case of power outages. We need to treat this like it’s coming straight for us. If it misses up, we’ll laugh about it later. If it hits us, we’ll be glad we were ready.”
“I’ll coordinate with the resort,” Briggs said. “Make sure they’re implementing their storm protocols.”
“I’ll handle crew communication,” Elizabeth offered. “Keep everyone calm and informed.”
“Dash, you’re on equipment,” Adrian said. “Get everything secured and weatherproofed.”
“What about the show venue?” Mom asked. “Should we delay setup?”
We all looked at Bernadette. She’d become, without anyone formally deciding it, the authority in the room.
“Delay until we know more,” she said. “No point in setting up just to have to tear it down again.”
She pulled up a list on her tablet and rattled off what sounded like an emergency kit. “We should put together care packages for the crew. Make sure everyone is prepared.”
“I’ll source the supplies,” I said. “The resort has to have emergency stock.”
“You do that,” Bernadette said. “Bring everything back here. Then set up an assembly line. Briggs, will you please make sure you get back to me with a recap of what the resort management says?”
I almost gasped. She was bossing Briggs around? We all looked at him to see what his reaction would be.
“I’ll be back in thirty,” Briggs said without hesitation.
“I’ll go talk to Cookie,” Elizabeth said. “She’ll have all the snacks. I’ll find out if she needs to move stuff into the resort refrigerators.”
No one was surprised Elizabeth was very concerned about the food supply.
“I’ll go with you,” Mom offered. She’d been hovering over Elizabeth a lot since she’d found out she was going to be a grandmother.
Twenty minutes later, I pushed a cart full of supplies into the dining room. Bernadette was on her phone, pacing back and forth in the corner.
Briggs and Adrian returned a few minutes later with Elizabeth and Mom following them with another cart piled with various snacks.
For the next two hours, we worked. By early afternoon, we had care packages ready—each one containing water, protein bars, a flashlight, batteries, and a handwritten note from Elizabeth thanking the crew for their hard work.
“We should split up to distribute these,” Bernadette said. “Cover more ground, have face-to-face conversations. People are scared. They need reassurance.”
We divided the crew list. Somehow—whether by design or accident—Bernadette and I ended up as a team.
Okay, maybe it was a little by design.