19. Sebastian #2
I look at her, this woman who has given me chance after chance, who is still here despite everything I’ve done to push her away, and I tell her the truth.
“Being nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Without the company, without the name, without all of it, I don’t know who I am. I’ve been Sebastian Austen, CEO and heir, for so long that I’ve forgotten how to be just Sebastian.” I swallow hard. “And I’m terrified that if you strip all of that away, there’s nothing underneath worth knowing.”
“Sebastian…”
“That’s why I work so hard. That’s why I can’t let go. Because if I’m not the one running the empire, if I’m not indispensable, then what am I? Just a man who inherited money he didn’t earn and a name he didn’t build?”
Margo squeezes my hand.
“You’re Sandy’s father. You’re my husband. You’re someone who makes terrible sandcastles and does funny voices for imaginary crabs and learns to mend fishing nets even though you’re awful at it.” She smiles. “You’re more than your job, Sebastian. You always have been. You just forgot.”
“How do you know? You barely saw me for five years.”
“Because the man I fell in love with is still in there. I’ve seen glimpses of him, in Havenport, on this ship, every time you put down your phone and actually look at your daughter. He’s buried under all the obligations, but he’s not gone.”
“What if I can’t find him again?”
“Then I’ll help you look.”
The captain interrupts us around sunset.
She approaches with the careful hesitation of someone delivering bad news, a tablet clutched in her hands.
“Mr. Austen. I apologize for the interruption.”
“What is it?”
“Communications from your office. The board has been calling repeatedly. They’ve escalated to the emergency channels.”
My stomach drops.
I take the tablet, scanning the messages. Urgent. Confidential. Requesting immediate response. The language is careful, corporate, but the meaning is clear.
A crisis is building. A major one.
“What does it say?” Margo asks.
I hesitate, old habits, old instincts telling me to handle this alone, to shield her from the complications of my world.
Then I remember what she just asked for.
Let me in.
“My mother is telling the board I’ve had a breakdown.” I read through the messages more carefully. “She’s using my absence to push her own agenda. There’s talk of removing me as CEO, installing someone more… stable.”
“Can she do that?”
“Not unilaterally. But if she convinces enough board members that I’m unfit…” I trail off. “She’s been planning this. Since before the flagship launch. This was always her backup plan.”
“What are you going to do?”
The old Sebastian would have handled this alone. Would have disappeared into damage control mode, would have flown back immediately, would have left Margo behind to manage the crisis.
But I’m not the old Sebastian.
Or I’m trying not to be.
I hand her the tablet.
“Help me decide.”
She looks at me, surprised. “What?”
“You said you wanted to be involved. You said you wanted to understand the things that keep me up at night.” I gesture at the screen. “This is it. This is the crisis I would have hidden from you two weeks ago. And I don’t want to hide anymore.”
“Sebastian, I don’t know anything about corporate…”
“I’m not asking you to run the company. I’m asking you to help me figure out what matters. What I should fight for, and what I should let go.”
She takes the tablet slowly, scrolling through the messages with furrowed brows.
“This is… a lot.”
“I know.”
“Your mother really hates you.”
“She hates anything she can’t control. Right now, that includes me.”
Margo reads for another minute, then looks up.
“What do you want to happen?”
“I don’t know. A week ago, I would have said I wanted to win. Crush her plans, secure my position, prove that I’m exactly the leader my father trained me to be.” I pause. “But now I’m not sure that’s what I want at all.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Walk away. Let her have the company. Focus on the things that actually matter.”
“Could you do that? Really?”
I think about it.
The empire my father built. The ships and resorts and thousands of employees who depend on Austen decisions. The legacy I’ve spent my whole life trying to live up to.
Then I think about Sandy, asleep in her cabin.
About Margo, sitting across from me with a tablet she never asked to hold.
About the quiet days we’ve had on this ship, just the three of us, with nothing to prove and no one to impress.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But for the first time, I’m willing to find out.”
Margo sets down the tablet.
“Then we figure it out together.” She reaches for my hand. “Whatever you decide, I’m here. That’s what being partners means.”
Partners.
It’s such a simple word.
But it’s exactly what we never were, and exactly what I want us to become.
“The board meeting is in four days,” I say. “If I’m going to fight this, I need to be there.”
“Then we go back.”
“You’d come with me?”
“Did you think I’d let you face your mother alone?” She smiles, but there’s steel underneath it. “I’ve spent five years being afraid of her. I think it’s time she learned to be afraid of me.”