Sebastian
The contract needed my signature in three places.
I'd read it twice already. Caught two errors legal team had missed. Sent it back for revisions that morning. Now it sat on my desk again, pristine and corrected, waiting for me to do my job.
I signed the first line. Moved to the second.
My office was quiet. It was always quiet.
I'd designed it that way. Soundproofed walls, no windows facing the bullpen, a door that locked from the inside.
Forty-seven floors up, Manhattan sprawled beyond the glass like a circuit board.
Steel and glass and tiny people moving through their tiny lives.
I used to find the view impressive. Now it was just... there. Background noise for the never-ending parade of documents requiring my attention.
I signed the second line.
The only personal item on my desk was a photograph.
It was a picture of Evie, three years ago, on a beach in the Hamptons.
She'd found a hermit crab that day. Named it Sebastian Junior.
That was the first time I wondered if my daughter disliked me.
I believed I was more formidable than to have a crab named after me.
And then, when I explained we couldn't bring it home because it would die, she cried for an hour. Of course, Caroline had been there to console her. She always could reach her easier than I could. She knew the right things to say.
So, was it a surprise when Caroline said she wanted nothing to do with us two weeks later?
If you asked me that question at nine in the morning when I was sharp and ready for work, I’d give a simple “no.” But if you asked twelve hours later, when I was alone in my study, cradling a glass of whiskey, my answer would be, well… different.
That was the last time Evie cried. I'm not sure why that stopped. Maybe I was just a sad replacement for her amazing mother.
I signed the third line and set the contract aside.
My intercom crackled. "Mr. Dubois? Your mother is here to see you."
I checked my watch. She was twenty minutes early. That meant she wanted something. My mother was never early unless she was angling for extra time to make her case.
"Send her in."
A few seconds later, the door opened, and Helena Dubois swept into the room.
My mother was sixty-two years old and looked fifty. She credited good genes and expensive skincare. I credited the small army of professionals she employed to maintain the illusion of effortless elegance.
I rose to my feet and crossed the room to her.
"Sebastian." She pressed an air kiss to my cheek. "You look tired."
"Hello, Mother."
"Have you been sleeping? You have circles under your eyes. You should see Dr. Morrison. He has wonderful supplements."
I adjusted my tie before turning back to my seat. "I'm fine."
"You always say that." She settled into the chair across from me. She paused for a moment, staring down at the document on my desk. "I won't stay long. I know you're busy conquering the world."
I leaned back in my chair. Waited for her to begin her speech.
My mother smoothed an invisible wrinkle on the dress that the company card definitely paid for.
Her finger toyed with her wedding ring. Five years after my father's death, she still wore it.
Xavier asked her once why she kept it on.
She'd looked at him like he’d suggested she sell the family silver.
"Your grandmother's birthday dinner is on the twenty-third," she began. "I've confirmed the Pierre. It’s a small ballroom. Black tie, obviously."
I nodded and turned my attention back to the contract. "Margaret has my calendar. She'll coordinate."
"I've already spoken with her." My mother's fingers drummed against the armrest. A tell. I'd learned to read her tells years ago. She was working up to something. "Have you spoken with your sister recently?"
"Isabelle? Not this week." I didn’t ask any further questions. She’ll get to what she came here to say eventually.
"She's in Milan for fashion week. She seems happy. Or at least busy. With Isabelle, it's hard to tell the difference."
I finally dropped the pen and looked up at her. This wasn't why she was here.
"It’s Xavier," she said finally.
There it was. "What did he do now?"
"Nothing catastrophic. There was just a disagreement at a card game.” She shrugged. “There's mention of an outstanding debt."
"How much?"
She paused. "Eighty thousand."
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.
Eighty thousand dollars. That was nothing to our family. Pocket change, really. But it wasn't about the money. It was never about the money. It was about the pattern. Monaco six months ago. The yacht situation before that. The investment scheme last spring.
Xavier was always in some sort of scandal. My mother was too much of a saint to look the other way. She was forgiving, a trait I didn’t have.
Well, I guess that was one of the reasons Father had adored her. She’d forgiven all of his indiscretions, including the one that had produced a child.
"I'll handle it."
"I knew you would." She smiled sweetly. "You always do."
Of course. That’s what I was good for. Lurking behind with a broom, waiting for everyone else to mess up so I could clean it up. How inspiring.
"He's promised it won't happen again," my mother added. "I've spoken with him. I made sure I was firm."
"You said the same thing last time. And the time before that."
"He's young, Sebastian."
"He's twenty-eight. Not that young."
She went silent. I knew what she was thinking. We’d had this conversation a thousand times before.
“You’re being too hard on him, Sebastian. You have no idea how he grew up. This is a new life for him. We need to help him get used to it,” she’d say.
But I had helped him, given him multiple opportunities.
But Xavier was Xavier. He had no eye for business.
His only goal was to go through life as if it were a party.
I didn’t have that luxury. I had people counting on me, responsibilities to handle.
My life was pretty much a board meeting that never stopped.
"Not everyone matures at the same pace," she said finally. She leaned forward, her hand reaching toward mine across the desk. But she didn’t touch me.
My mother had never been comfortable with physical affection.
None of us had. "I'm not asking you to fix him.
Just help him. The way you always have."
The way I always have. Yes. That's what I do. I fix things. I hold everything together so the Dubois name remains unsullied and my grandmother doesn't have to clutch her pearls at the dinner table.
"I'll wire the money today."
"Thank you." She withdrew her hand and sat back. Transaction complete. "Now. How is my granddaughter?"
I didn’t react. My mother could read me like a book. One look and she’d know that I was still struggling. It wasn’t exactly a secret. Put me and my daughter in a room together, and even a total stranger could figure it out. "She's fine."
"You always say that, too."
"Because it's always true." Yes, Evie was fine. Our relationship? It was a work in progress. And I would fix that eventually. I never gave up on anything.
My mother studied me. I kept my face neutral. "Bring her to the birthday dinner," she said. "Your grandmother asks about her constantly. And Evie shouldn't spend so much time alone in that big house with only staff for company."
"She's not alone. I'm there."
"You're there between the hours of nine p.m. and eight a.m., assuming no emergencies. A girl her age needs more than that, Sebastian."
I didn't answer. What could I say? She was right. She was always right about the ways I was failing.
"Have you considered…" She stopped herself. Shook her head. "Never mind."
"Considered what?"
"It's not my place."
"Mother." I gave her a look that said drop it.
My mother always came to my office with a script. First, she’ll start with an idle conversation, get to what she really wanted, ask about Evie, then talk about her. She’d been particularly devastated about the divorce. I couldn’t understand why, seeing as I was the one who’d married Caroline.
She’d loved Caroline just as much as she loved Isabelle. Maybe that was why my mother couldn’t understand why Caroline didn’t love us back.
She shook her head. “Never mind. Thank you for saving Xavier again. I’ll have that talk with him, I promise.
” She stood before I could respond. Smoothed her dress.
Checked her reflection in the window. "I'll see you on the twenty-third.
Don't be late this time." She paused at the door and looked back.
"And Sebastian? Get some sleep. You really do look terrible. "
Then she was gone, and I was alone with the silence.
I stood. I walked to the window. Pressed my palm flat against the glass.
I hadn't thought about her in weeks. Months, maybe.
I'd gotten good at not thinking about her, shoving the memories into a box, locking the box, burying it somewhere I didn't have to look.
But now my mother had gone and dug it up, and I could see it all again. The conference room, the lawyers, the stack of papers pushed across the table with something close to relief in her eyes.
"She'll be better off with you," Caroline had said. "I'm not built for this, Sebastian. You know I'm not."
I'd wanted to argue. I had a lot to say. For example, “What kind of mother walks away from her three-year-old daughter?” or “Evie needs her mother, not me.” I’d briefly considered begging, but when Caroline glanced at me with that detached look in her eyes, I knew there was nothing I could say that would convince her to stay.
In the end, I'd just signed on my dotted lines and watched her leave.
She'd sent a birthday card last year. It was store-bought. She hadn’t even bothered to write a note. The signature looked rushed, like even that small effort was too much to ask. Evie had stared at it for a long moment, then she'd left it on the kitchen counter and gone to her room without a word.
I found it in the trash the next morning.