19. Stevie
CHAPTER NINETEEN
STEVIE
After Sebastian and I both change, we grab the picnic basket and head out into the vineyard on the property.
It’s a beautiful afternoon with the sun shining and a warm breeze that floats across my bare shoulders.
I follow close behind him as we walk for some time, through the carefully manicured rows of vines, until we find a small clearing with a patch of green grass.
It’s some distance through the vineyards and away from the chateau, but still on the property.
Once we reach the edge, we stop at a small clearing with grass that overlooks another winery.
“How’s this?” Sebastian gestures with the wicker picnic basket in one hand.
“Works for me,” I say.
He pulls a cream linen from the basket and spreads it across the grass on top of the hill. Then remove the chilled bottle of rosé, a tiny jar of olives, artisan crackers, and a little wheel of cheese wrapped in paper as if it had graduated from finishing school.
“Shall we?” Sebastian lowers himself onto the blanket with the ease of a man who had never once worried about grass stains. He’s rolled his shirt sleeves to his forearms, and the breeze slightly tousles his hair.
“This feels like a curated hostage situation.” I lower to sit across from him.
“It’s a romantic picnic at a winery.”
“The grapes are watching us.”
He glances toward the vines stretching in perfect rows along the hillside. “Or Silas. So, you better start acting like you’re enjoying this.”
I smooth out the hem of my black dress over my thighs. “So, what are we supposed to talk about?”
Sebastian picks up a cracker. “Nothing we wouldn’t want the Society to overhear.”
“Well, this is going to be a fun afternoon, isn’t it?”
He chuckles. “You know what would make it better?”
“What?” I grab one of the plastic champagne flutes.
“If it were cloudy and a little rainy.”
A laugh bubbles up. “We’re on the ground in the middle of a vineyard with nothing above us, and you want it to rain?”
He takes the glass from me and grabs the unopened bottle of rosé. I give him an unsure glance, remembering that he had made it very clear we weren’t supposed to eat or drink anything they give us.
“It’s okay. It’s an unopened bottle, and these snacks are sealed as well. They’re safe.”
I sigh in relief, craving to have a glass of those cool bubbles. “Okay, because I would love a tall gl—”
Sebastian lifts a brow. “One glass and you need to sip it.”
“Fine.”
“We have the barrel room tasting in a couple of short hours, and we both need to be levelheaded,” he says sternly.
Through a small clearing, several couples lounged beneath white umbrellas.
A few watch us with polite curiosity. Which, I guess, is the entire point.
We have to show our fake relationship to the possibility of the Society’s watchful eyes.
And appear natural in a casual setting with just the two of us.
So far, I’ve felt as natural as I can be.
Sebastian pours a half-glass for me, then leans in close to put the bottle back into the basket and his hand brushes over my knee.
To anyone watching, it probably looks normal.
Like a couple already comfortable with one another.
But to me, it feels intimate. The warmth of his hand leaves tingles on my skin in the spot he touched.
His cologne moves through the warm afternoon air, something dark and clean beneath the sweetness of grapes and sun-warmed earth. He hands me the glass he just poured. My fingers glide against his, and his eyes shoot upward, meeting mine. A smirk on his face.
Oh my god. Did he catch my blush?
“What?” I mumble.
“Nothing.” His gaze dipped to my hand, then back to my face.
I take the glass quickly. “You have a weird look on your face.”
“This is just my face.”
He’s back on his side of the blanket. But he noticed. Of course he noticed. The man notices everything.
“So…” I’m desperate to redirect. “You want it to rain, do you? Do we not get enough rain in Seattle?”
“We need to look comfortable together,” he reminds me with a smile. “And yes. I love the rain.”
I take a sip. The bubbles burn my throat, but in the best way. “I want to tease you about it, but I can’t. I prefer a gloomy rainy day, too.”
“Look at us bonding,” he quips.
I laugh and glance again at the clearing behind us. “Do you really think they’re watching us?”
Sebastian clears his throat. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I do know that if I was Silas, I’d be spying on all my members.” Then he picks up a cracker and spreads something pale across it. “Open.”
My mouth falls open. “Absolutely not.”
“We’re probably being watched.”
I set my glass down and cross my arms over my chest. “Then let them watch me reject you.”
“Very romantic.”
“You should be used to rejection.”
“I’m not.”
“Shocking.” He holds the cracker closer to my face.
My eyes narrow. “If you try to feed me like a trained animal, I’ll bite you.”
His smile sharpens. “That wouldn’t discourage me.”
My breath catches before I can hold it in. Sebastian’s expression shifts. The teasing stays, but something else moves beneath it. Is it warmer? More focused?
For a second, our game slips. Then, from a distance behind me, there’s laughter, and I suddenly remember where we are.
I give in and lean forward and open my mouth to bite directly from his fingers.
Sebastian’s wide smile is victorious.
“I hate you,” I mumble, mouth full of cracker.
“No, you don’t.”
“I dislike you with impressive consistency.”
“That’s practically affection.”
“Don’t get greedy.”
His eyes pin me for a moment, causing embarrassment that I had just eaten right out of his hand. “River and Lux aren’t the only ones having a romantic vacation in wine country.”
The comparison between River and Lux to Sebastian and me is humorous.
I laugh. “I’m sure they’re having a different type of fun than we are.”
He chuckles and glances away. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
“And I’m sure she’ll give me all the unwanted details.”
We’re both silent for a beat.
The low chatter of the couples behind us fills the space before Sebastian speaks. “Have you and Lux always been close?”
“We are,” I begin, knowing full well this is a loaded question. “But she’s…Lux.”
“That sounds like a full diagnosis.”
“It is.”
Sebastian leans back on one hand. “Meaning?”
I swirl the wine in my glass, watching the pale pink liquid catch the sun. “Meaning she walks into a room and people notice. She says things and people listen. She understands the kind of darkness my dad understands.”
“Crime?”
“Homicide,” I correct. “As you know, my dad was a homicide detective and then lieutenant. He’s retired now, technically. Though, I’m pretty sure retired detectives are just detectives who complain more.”
Sebastian smiles faintly.
“Lux and him have always had that in common,” I continue. “Cases. Motives. Murder. All the ugly parts of people.”
“And you?”
“I deal with what’s left after.”
“The bodies.”
“The dead,” I say softly. “My clients.”
Most people flinch when I say things like that. Honestly, it can be a conversation starter and ender. They either make a joke that I play off or simply change the subject.
But Sebastian doesn’t. He holds my gaze and waits for me to continue.
I look down at the picnic blanket, picking at a loose thread near my knee. “I used to think that made me less interesting to them. Lux is the brave one. The sharp one. And the one who can talk about blood spatter over dinner and not lose her appetite.”
“And you?”
“I could dress the body afterward. Fix the hair. Make sure their family has one last memory that doesn’t look like violence.”
Sebastian’s expression changes, but it’s not pity. I’d hate pity. But it’s something quieter—a respect maybe?
“You think that’s less brave?”
My fingers still. “I think it’s different.”
“Different doesn’t mean less.” The words are simple, and yet they slide beneath my ribs, as if he knew exactly where to place them.
I look away. “Careful, Sebastian. That almost sounded sincere.”
“I’m capable of sincerity.”
“Are you?”
“Occasionally. But always by accident.”
I smile.
He reaches for an olive and pops it into his mouth. “From what I’ve heard, your dad sounds like an impressive man.”
“He is.” I take a sip of wine. “And infuriating. And overprotective…”
Sebastian gives a short laugh. “Sounds familiar.”
“With your family?”
“River.”
“What were you two like as kids?” I ask.
Sebastian glances out over the vineyard, and for a moment, the sunlight turns his profile almost gentle. Then his jaw tightens.
“We were angry.”
I know a little bit about their background from what Lux has told me and the small pieces I’ve picked up from Sebastian and their aunt Mae.
He takes longer to answer than I expect.
“My parents died when I was young,” he says finally. “Undercover operation gone wrong.”
The air between us slightly shifts. The vineyard noise faded a little—the laughter, the clinking of glasses, the distant hum of conversation.
I lower my glass. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugs, but the movement was too controlled to be casual. “People always say that.”
“Because it’s what you say when something awful happens and there’s no way to fix it.”
His eyes return to mine, and for once, he doesn’t push back.
“My mother wasn’t supposed to be involved, but they were undercover with their FBI contact—Christian’s dad—when things went wrong. They always do in that world. Wrong place, wrong people, wrong night.”
My chest tightens. “How old were you?”
“Old enough to remember, but too young to truly understand.”
“That’s a terrible age.”
His gaze flickers. “Yeah.”
I don’t know what to do with the sudden urge to touch him.
And it startles me more than his confession.
Sebastian Thompson is arrogant, dangerous, irritating, and entirely too good at making me forget I don’t like him.
But sitting here in the middle of a winery, with sunlight on his face and grief tucked carefully behind his expensive smile, he looks less untouchable.
“So you and River became vigilantes?” I assume softly.
His mouth tilts. “That’s one way to summarize years of trauma and poor coping mechanisms.”
“Efficient, though.”
“I prefer justice-oriented entrepreneurs.”
I stare at him. “No.”
“Community-minded problem solvers?”
“No.”
“Morally questionable public servants?”
“Nah.”
His smile returns, but it doesn’t erase the sadness in his eyes. “River understood,” Sebastian says after a moment. “Not all of it. But enough. We both knew what it was like to lose people and watch the system keep breathing like nothing had happened.”
I nod slowly. Because of that, I understand. Not in the same way, but grief has lived in my house, too. It sat at our dinner table every night, on the anniversary of my mother’s death and her birthday. It slept in my hallway and folded itself into my dad’s silence and Lux’s sharp edges.
“My mom died when Lux and I were little,” I say.
Sebastian looks at me. “I know.”
Something about the quiet way he says it tells me he pays attention, maybe more than I realize.
“She was the soft place in our family,” I say. “After she died, Dad became quieter. Lux became harder. I became…”
“Stevie.”
I huff a laugh. “That sounds like an insult.”
“It isn’t.”
“No?” I study his expression.
“No.”
The breeze moves through the vines behind him.
Somewhere in the distance, someone toasts too loudly.
The world continues behaving as if this is a normal afternoon, but it isn’t.
Not for me. And not for Sebastian. Especially with the way he is looking at me like he can see more than I intended to show.
“I started doing grave rubbings because of her,” I admit. “My mom.”
Sebastian doesn’t interrupt.
“I hate that names disappear. Weather, time, neglect. Eventually everything softens until you can barely tell someone was there.” I rub my thumb over the condensation on my glass.
“So, I started taking paper and charcoal to old cemeteries. It felt like saving proof. My mom used to do it, and I like to think it was for the same reason why I do.”
“Those people existed.”
“Yeah.”
His voice lowers. “That makes sense.”
I glance up. “Most people think it’s morbid.”
“Most people are cowards.”
A laugh escapes my lips. “There he is. I was worried the sincerity was making you uncomfortable.”
“It was. Thank you for ruining it.”
“Anything for you.” The words should sound sarcastic. They don’t.
I quickly look away. Across the lawn behind us, an older couple glances in our direction, whispering behind their wineglasses. Sebastian notices and shifts closer, stretching one arm along the back of the blanket behind me. Not touching. Just close enough to imply he could.
“That winery next door has no idea that this place was rented out by a group of murderers for the weekend.” His face hardens.
My stomach twists. “But the killers wouldn’t hurt anyone in such close proximity, would they?”
He shakes his head. “No. It would be too sloppy.”
“Yeah,” I agree, my focus is on the groups of people on the other side of the clearing.
Sebastian leans in slightly, close enough that the space between us becomes its own living thing.
“You’re better at this than you think,” he blurts out.
“Fake dating?”
“Letting people see you.”
I clear my throat and reach for the cheese. “You’re over the top.”
Sebastian leans back, but his expression stays warm. “And you’re still strange.”
“Really? Fuck you.”
“I didn’t say I dislike it.”
My fingers pause on the knife by the cheese, my eyes darting up to his. A slow heat moves through my chest, unwelcome and impossible to ignore.
“I’m getting hot,” I say, craving to escape the feeling of being watched. “Let’s head back now.”
As Sebastian and I clean up the picnic, I replay how uncomfortable the picnic started, but turned into something sort of pleasant. And with a night of more acting ahead of us, I’m reminded that we have a project to complete—an extremely dangerous one—and one wrong move could end us both.