CHAPTER 3
Sebastian
“YOU GOING TO TELL ME WHAT CRAWLED UP YOUR ASS and fucked you over, or do I have to wine and dine you before you give up the goods?” Xavier leaned against the counter and crossed his arms.
“Charming.” I turned off the heat and moved the scallops to a tray, where I let them rest for a minute. “Does Sloane wash your mouth out with soap every night, or have you corrupted her so much that she doesn’t care?”
He grinned. “Neither. She’s always loved my filthy mouth.”
I snorted and tossed my kitchen towel at him. He caught it easily, his eyes glittering with laughter.
We were in the Vault’s kitchen. I often tested new recipes here since I couldn’t bulldoze my way into any of my family’s restaurants. Professional chefs didn’t take kindly to other people invading their space.
The recipes were for me more than anyone else, but I took them as seriously as if I were serving them to a critic. That was why I was willing to call in a favor with Xavier to use his space.
The Vault was primarily a nightclub, but it also served as a luxury event space. Its private top floor included a wet bar, a twenty-person dining room, and a full-size gourmet kitchen, which was currently empty except for the two of us.
“Seriously, man. You’ve been moody all day, and that’s not like you,” Xavier said. “What’s going on?”
I hesitated, my brain flipping back and forth over whether to tell him the truth or make up some bullshit.
I’d known Xavier Castillo since boarding school. We’d been casual friends, but we hadn’t struck up a true friendship until a few years ago, when he’d cleaned up his act and opened the Vault.
The Colombian beer heir had been infamous in our social circle before his publicist/ girlfriend straightened him out.
Gone was the hedonistic playboy whose debauched parties made the gossip rag headlines every other week; in his place was a savvy businessman who’d turned the Vault into New York’s ultimate place to see and be seen.
He’d kept the place relevant since it opened, which was no small feat in a city where today’s hotspot was tomorrow’s trash.
One thing hadn’t changed, though. He was still nosy as hell.
“I have a lot on my mind,” I finally said. “Work stuff. The usual.”
“Work stuff, huh?” Xavier’s eyebrows shot up. “Does it have to do with the Singh collab you mentioned earlier?”
I kept quiet as I plated the scallops and carefully spooned beurre blanc au citron onto each one.
The mere mention of the collab made my head pound. It was the world’s most ill-thought-out plan, and I was the one who had to make sure it was a success. With Maya.
A brief image of brown eyes and full lips flashed through my mind.
My jaw clenched.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes.” Xavier sounded amused. “I thought you liked the Singhs. What’s the problem?”
“I do. Most of them anyway.” I garnished the scallops with chopped parsley. “The problem is, it’s not on brand, and we have nine months to accomplish something that usually takes twice as long. Plus, I have other priorities besides working with someone who’ll fight me on every little thing.”
I didn’t get it. It wasn’t like my father to be so impulsive. He was all about routine.
He’d played tennis at the Valhalla Club every Sunday for the past twenty years, spent precisely three weeks at our chateau in Provence every August, and always ate his steak medium rare with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Michel Laurent was not a man who liked change, which was why I was convinced an army of brain-eating bacteria was actively eroding his good judgment.
Part of me resented how easily Neal had convinced him to take a huge business risk when I’d failed repeatedly at getting him to support my own risks. If it weren’t for my mother’s quiet but steadfast support, I’d never go home. There were only so many dismissals I could endure before I snapped.
“Ah.” Xavier laughed. “So that’s the problem. Maya. I should’ve guessed.”
I bristled, my focus shifting from my father back to the other thorn in my side. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that girl has had you all twisted up since boarding school.” He snagged a scallop off the plate and popped it in his mouth. “Every time you act weird, it’s because of her.”
“Yeah, because she’s insufferable.”
“Whatever you say.” Xavier reached for another scallop. “These are fucking delicious, by the way.”
I was so nonplussed by his (completely wrong) observation that I barely processed his compliment.
Maya did not have me all twisted up. That was ridiculous.
Did her hyper-competitiveness drive me up the wall? Yes.
Did I take perverse pleasure in getting a rise out of her and making that perfect, type-A mask crack? Also yes.
Did the thought of working closely with her for almost a year bring me dangerously close to the brink of losing it? Yes. I mean, no.
Fuck.
I rubbed a hand over my mouth. An image of her floated through my mind again.
Last week. She was sitting in her family’s conservatory, brow scrunched with concentration as she pointedly ignored me. The sun was setting, and the light made everything about her glow. Her hair. Her skin. Her eyes.
She hadn’t wanted me there, and I shouldn’t have sought her out. We always ended up bickering. But we hadn’t been alone together, just the two of us, in… years. Not since boarding school, in fact. Not since—
I slammed the door on that thought before it fully formed.
A prickle crawled over my skin. Embarrassment, maybe, or resentment. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter.
That night had happened forever ago. It had no bearing on my relationship with Maya now.
Instead of entertaining Xavier’s delusions, I tried the scallops myself. A burst of flavors exploded on my tongue. Rich garlic, tangy lemon, and a refreshing hint of parsley mixed with the naturally sweet, briny taste of the seafood.
Xavier was right. It was delicious.
But it wasn’t perfect, which meant it wasn’t up to my standards. It certainly wasn’t up to my father’s standards.
“Dammit.” I tried another one. Same result. “This isn’t it. It’s still missing something.”
“Yeah, it’s missing another batch,” he said through a mouthful of food. “Seriously, man. You’ve been trying to nail this recipe for months, and this is the best it’s ever been. I think you got it.”
“No.” My teeth ground together. Frustration flared in my gut, hot and sharp. “The best it’s ever been isn’t the best it can be. I’m overlooking something.”
I paced the length of the kitchen. The air was stifling.
I forced myself to take a deep breath and not unravel in front of Xavier. He’d seen glimpses of what it was like when I hit a wall, but he didn’t know the extent of it.
No one did.
“Seb.” Xavier’s smile faded as I walked back and forth, my mind spinning.
“Seriously. Your food is incredible, and I’m not saying that because we’re friends.
Who cares if it’s not perfect in your eyes?
” He jabbed a finger at the half-empty plate.
“I guarantee you that nine out of ten people who eat that would say it’s perfect.
Hell, everything you do is perfect. That’s why so many people secretly resented you when we were in school. ”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
I stopped in front of the stove and stared at the remaining scallops. A jumble of words clogged my throat, but they refused to form a coherent explanation.
How could I explain the gaping, gnawing restlessness inside of me? Every day, I woke up on top of the world, but instead of enjoying the view, all I could think about was how much I hated it. And then I hated myself because I should be grateful.
I had everything, yet everything wasn’t enough. It didn’t fill the emptiness inside me.
It’d been easier to slap a Band-Aid over it when I was younger.
I’d papered over that missing part of myself with sex, parties, and alcohol.
I’d lived it up around the world and pretended that was all I needed in life.
And yeah, some people had resented me for that.
They’d looked at my life and thought it was perfect.
But the older I got, the less my coping mechanisms worked.
I needed purpose, and the scallops had become a symbol of that. Perfecting them was a goal, and goals kept me from losing myself in the darkness.
The problem was, not perfecting them fucked with my head too. I couldn’t figure out what was worse—floating aimlessly or failing spectacularly. Either way, I couldn’t distill my feelings into words for Xavier.
Thankfully, an incoming call saved me from making up another bullshit excuse.
I was so relieved I picked up without checking the caller ID, but I tensed again when a familiar voice flowed over the line. “Sebastian Laurent, picking up on the first ring. Wonders never cease.”
“I’ll always pick up on the first ring for you, Sal.” I pushed my spiraling thoughts aside and slipped effortlessly into my Maya voice. Cool. Detached. Amused. Anything that hid how much she got under my skin. “All you have to do is call.”
“Keep dreaming.”
“You’re the one calling me on a Friday night.” I turned my back to Xavier, whose sly smile had returned when I said “Sal.” Whatever he thought this was, it wasn’t. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’m only calling you because I have no choice,” Maya said. “If I wait for you to take the initiative, this collaboration will be dead in the water before it starts.”
That was fine with me.
“You might be fine with that,” she continued with eerie precision. “But I won’t let your lack of work ethic affect my track record, so I’m calling to set up a time for us to meet and hash out the details. I’ve already emailed you a proposed work schedule and initial ideas for the launch.”
“You were always an overachiever.”
“And you were always an underachiever.”
“Yet we’ve achieved roughly the same things so far. So who’s really getting the short end of the stick here?”
Her sputter of indignation brought a small grin to my face.
“Seriously, we’re already behind schedule,” she said after she calmed down. “It’s been a week, and we have nothing concrete to show for it. I sent you a couple of time slots for Monday. Pick one that works and come prepared with ideas.”
“I’m always prepared. Just don’t get mad when my ideas are better than yours.”
“Please.” Maya scoffed. “You couldn’t find a good idea if it crawled out of your closet and punched you in the face.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon,” I drawled. “See you Monday, Sal. Looking forward to it.”
She hung up.
My grin widened. I pocketed my phone and turned to find Xavier wearing a shit-eating grin of his own.
“What?” I placed the now-empty plate in the dishwasher—apparently, he’d finished off the food while I’d been on the phone—along with other utensils and cookware.
The club opened soon, and I wanted to get everything cleaned up before Xavier went downstairs to play host.
“Nothing.” He pushed off the counter and helped me with the trash. “But I can’t wait for your project updates. Making you two work together is like putting two starving lions in the same room. Only one of you is coming out alive.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. We’ve done school projects together before.”
“That was a long time ago, and you guys argued so much, everyone requested to transfer to another group.”
I shrugged. “Not everyone can handle the pressure.”
At the risk of sounding like an egotistical jerk, there was only one person who had ever kept up with me.
I might feel purposeless, but I still excelled at almost everything society deemed “important”—school, sports, work. I beat my peers in any of those fields without breaking a sweat—unless my opponent was Maya.
She was the only one who challenged me. Even when she lost a battle in our ongoing war, she didn’t make it easy. It intrigued me almost as much as it pissed me off.
“Maybe not.” Xavier slid a sideways glance at me. “Just try to keep it together while this project is going on. I don’t want to be the one picking up the pieces if things go south.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t happy about the circumstances, but I’d survived Maya Singh for this long. I could handle another nine months with her.