23. Margo #2
“We already had dinner. Sort of.”
“Cold takeout while reviewing legal documents doesn’t count.” He takes my hand. “I mean real dinner. The three of us. No phones, no strategy, no thinking about tomorrow. Just… us.”
“Sebastian, it’s late…”
“Sandy’s still awake. I can hear her laughing.” He smiles. “Please. I need this. I need to remember what I’m fighting for.”
How can I say no to that?
We end up in the kitchen.
Not the formal dining room with its fifteen-foot ceilings and uncomfortable chairs, but the actual kitchen, where the staff usually eats and where Sandy has apparently convinced someone to teach her to make cookies.
“DADDY! MOMMY! Look what I made!”
The cookies are… creative. Lopsided, uneven at the edges, shaped like blobs that Sandy insists are butterflies.
“They’re beautiful, princess.”
“I know. I’m very talented.”
We sit around the small kitchen table, the one meant for staff, the one I’ve never actually used, and we eat lopsided cookies with too many sprinkles and talk about nothing important.
Sandy describes her day in elaborate detail. The books she read. The games she played. Her ongoing theory that the cat next door is actually a spy for a rival cat agency.
“They’re always watching, Daddy. It’s suspicious.”
“Very suspicious. What do you think they’re spying on?”
“Our secrets. That’s what spies do.”
“What secrets do we have?”
“I don’t know. That’s why they’re SECRET.”
Sebastian laughs, really laughs, the kind that shakes his shoulders and crinkles his eyes, and a warmth expands through my chest.
This is what we could have been.
What we should have been, all along.
A family. Not a showpiece or an obligation or a collection of individuals who happen to share an address. An actual family, messy and imperfect and eating lopsided cookies at a kitchen table.
I look at Sebastian, and I find him looking back at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. I just…” He shakes his head. “I’m happy.”
“Is that surprising?”
“A little. Given everything that’s happening tomorrow.” He reaches across the table, taking my hand. “But sitting here with you, with Sandy, eating terrible cookies…”
“They’re not terrible!” Sandy protests.
“Eating incredibly delicious cookies,” he corrects, “I realized a thing.”
“What?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Of the board meeting?”
“Of any of it. The meeting, my mother, whatever comes next.” He squeezes my hand.
“I’ve spent my whole life afraid. Afraid of failing my father’s legacy.
Afraid of not being good enough. Afraid that if I stopped running, stopped working, stopped proving myself, everyone would realize I was nothing but a name. ”
“Sebastian…”
“But right now, right here, I’m not afraid. Because even if I lose everything tomorrow, the company, the title, all of it, I’ll still have this.” He gestures at the kitchen, at Sandy, at me. “I’ll still have you.”
“You’re not going to lose the company.”
“Maybe not. But if I did, I’d survive. Because I finally have a foundation worth fighting from, not just for.”
Sandy looks between us, her face sticky with syrup.
“Are you guys being mushy again?”
“A little bit,” I admit.
“That’s okay. I like it when you’re mushy.” She returns to her cookies. “It means you’re not fighting anymore.”
“No, baby.” I reach over to wipe syrup from her chin. “We’re not fighting anymore.”
Later, after Sandy is asleep and the kitchen is cleaned and the house is quiet, I find Sebastian standing at the window of our bedroom, looking out at the city lights.
“Hey.”
He turns. “Hey yourself.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Tomorrow. Everything that could go wrong.” He sighs. “Everything that could go right.”
“You’ve done everything you can to prepare.”
“I know. But it’s not just about preparation, is it? It’s about conviction. It’s about walking into that room and believing, really believing, that I deserve to be there.”
“Do you believe it?”
He’s quiet for a moment.
“I used to think the company was mine by right. My father built it, my grandfather built the ships before that, and I was next in line. That was the whole of it.”
“And now?”
“Now I think I’ve earned the right to walk in there, and it has nothing to do with the name.” He turns to face me. “Tomorrow I’m not going in as the heir to an empire. I’m going in as a husband and a father who happens to run a company. That’s the only version of me worth defending.”
“That’s quite a shift.”
“It’s the only one that matters.” He crosses to me and takes my face in his hands. “And I couldn’t have gotten here without you. You know that.”
“I didn’t fight for the marriage.”
“What did you fight for?”
“For you.” I wrap my arms around his neck. “The real you. The one buried under all the obligations and expectations. I could always see him, even when you couldn’t.”
“And now?”
“Now he’s standing right in front of me.”
We stay for a long moment, wrapped in each other, the city glittering beyond the window.
Tomorrow, everything changes and he walks into battle.
But tonight, we’re just two people who found their way back to each other.
And that’s more than enough.