10. Sebastian
I was going to show her.
I was going to show her exactly how insane she made me, how completely she'd gotten under my skin, how every sharp word and cold glance had burrowed into my chest and refused to leave.
My hand moved from her wrist to her waist, fingers digging into the soft fabric of her dress, and I pulled her closer. I expected resistance. I expected her to shove me away, to slap me, to tell me exactly where I could shove my hundred-thousand-dollar dinner.
Instead, she kissed me back.
Not tentatively. Not with hesitation. She kissed me with the same ferocity I was giving her, her fingers curling into the lapels of my jacket, her body pressing against mine like she was trying to climb inside my skin.
I walked her backward until she hit the car. The impact made her gasp against my mouth, and I swallowed the sound, one hand bracing against the roof while the other stayed locked on her waist. She was trapped between cold metal and my body, and she didn't seem to mind.
The kiss was angry. Passionate. Years of animosity and tension channeled into something raw and consuming. She bit my lip, hard enough to sting, and I squeezed her hip in retaliation, my fingers pressing into soft flesh through the thin fabric.
She moaned. I growled.
She tugged at my hair, nails scraping against my scalp, and I returned the favor, fisting a handful of those dark curls and pulling her head back to expose the column of her throat.
It was a competition. Everything with Aria was a competition.
My hands started roaming. Past her waist, down to her thigh, hitching one leg up over my hip.
The movement hiked her dress higher, and my fingers found bare skin above her knee—soft, smooth, burning hot.
She made a sound that went straight to my manhood, her back arching off the car, her hips pressing forward.
I paused. Waited. Gave her a chance to push me away, to tell me to stop, to come to her senses.
She arched against me harder.
I slid my hand higher, fingertips tracing the curve of her thigh, and she gasped something that sounded like my name—not Sebastian, not Dubois, just a broken syllable that might have been either—and I was lost, completely lost, drowning in the taste of her and the feel of her and the sounds she was making against my mouth.
Then she shoved me.
Hard.
I stumbled back, nearly losing my footing on the sidewalk. Before I could recover, her hand connected with my face.
The slap rang out in the quiet street. My cheek burned. I pressed my palm to the spot, staring at her.
Aria stood against the car, chest heaving, hair wild around her face. Her lips were swollen, her dress rumpled, her eyes wide with something that looked like shock. Her hand—the one that had just struck me—lifted to touch her own mouth, fingers trembling against kiss-bruised skin.
We stared at each other.
I opened my mouth to speak. To say what, I didn't know. Apologize? Demand an explanation? Ask her why she'd kissed me back like she was starving for it, only to slap me the moment her brain caught up?
"Don't." Her voice came out raw, shattered. "Don't ever do that again."
She turned and walked away. Not toward the restaurant, or to get into the car—just away, her heels clicking against the pavement, her shoulders rigid, her dark hair swaying with each step.
I watched her go. The taste of wine and Aria lingered on my tongue. My cheek still throbbed where she'd hit me.
I had no idea what had just happened.
But standing there on that empty sidewalk, my heart still pounding, my body still aching with want, I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
That would not be the last time I kissed Aria Kealoha.
The days that followed were an exercise in avoidance.
I sent Stuart to drop Evie at the foundation. Every morning, every pickup, I stayed in my office or my study or anywhere that wasn't within a ten-mile radius of Brooklyn.
If Evie noticed the change, she didn't say anything. Maybe she sensed something had shifted. Maybe she was just relieved not to witness another tense exchange between her father and the woman she admired. Either way, the silence suited me fine.
Work filled the hours. The Sterling acquisition demanded final revisions. The Chicago development hit another zoning complication. Board meetings blurred together, presentations delivered on autopilot while my mind wandered to places it had no business going.
Hawaii was tomorrow. The Kahale Grande. The meeting I'd been working toward for months. At least there, I could focus. Put an ocean between myself and the chaos I'd created.
I was reviewing the final Kahale documents when my phone rang. Mother's name flashed across the screen.
"Sebastian." Her voice was tight, clipped in that particular way that meant trouble. "There's been an emergency. Your grandmother needs to see you immediately."
Bloody hell. My heart dropped to my feet. I was already standing, reaching for my jacket. "What happened? Is she hurt?"
"Just come. Now. The family house."
The line went dead.
I took the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, my mind cycling through possibilities with each flight. My grandmother was eighty-seven.
There had been that heart scare two years ago, the one that had kept her in the hospital for a week while the doctors ran tests and the family gathered in waiting rooms pretending not to be terrified.
She'd recovered fully, or so she claimed, but eighty-seven was eighty-seven.
The body could only hold out for so long.
Stuart had the car waiting at the curb. I slid into the back seat and gave him the address, then spent the next twenty minutes staring out the window without seeing anything.
What if she'd fallen? The brownstone had those narrow stairs she refused to stop climbing. What if her heart had given out? What if I'd been so consumed by my own problems, so distracted by a woman who wanted nothing to do with me, that I'd missed the signs?
I should have visited more. Should have called. Should have brought Evie to the birthday dinner instead of making excuses.
If something had happened to her, if the last real conversation we'd had was about Xavier's gambling debts…
The car stopped. I was out before Stuart could come around, taking the front steps two at a time, shoving through the heavy oak door without bothering to knock.
The foyer was quiet. No ambulance outside.
No frantic staff rushing about. Just the familiar tick of the grandfather clock and the smell of furniture polish.
I found her in the parlor.
My grandmother sat in her favorite armchair by the window, afternoon light falling across her silver hair.
A cup of tea rested in her hands, steam curling up toward the ceiling.
Her posture was perfect, her expression sharp, her eyes tracking my entrance with the same cool assessment she'd been wielding since before I was born.
She looked perfectly fine.
"Sit down, Sebastian." She gestured to the chair across from her with one elegant hand. "We need to talk."
I stood in the doorway, my pulse still hammering, sweat cooling on the back of my neck. "Mother said there was an emergency."
"There is an emergency." She took a measured sip of her tea. "My grandson has been avoiding me for weeks, and I want to know why."
I stared at her. The adrenaline that had carried me across town was curdling into something else. Relief, yes, but also irritation. She'd scared me half to death for this?
"Grandmother…"
"Sit."
I sat.
She studied me the way she'd been studying people for eight decades, missing nothing, cataloging everything. The shadows under my eyes. The tension in my shoulders. The way my hands wouldn't quite stay still.
"You missed my birthday dinner," she said.
"I know. I apologize. There was a situation with Evie…"
“A situation." She set down her teacup with a precise click. "And what situation was so pressing that both you and my great-granddaughter couldn't attend? I'm eighty-seven years old, Sebastian. How many more birthday dinners do you think I have?"
"You're being dramatic."
"Am I?" Her eyes flashed. "Because from where I'm sitting, it seems like my own family is avoiding me. You don't visit. You don't call. You won't let me see Evie. Is that what you want? For me to die without laying eyes on my great-granddaughter again?"
The guilt landed like a punch. I dragged my hand down my face, suddenly exhausted. "It's not that simple," I said.
"Explain it to me."
I looked at my grandmother. At the woman who had shaped so much of who I was, who had held this family together through scandals and losses and my father's endless disappointments. She deserved the truth.
"Evie isn't comfortable around you," I said quietly.
My grandmother's expression changed, surprise first, then something that might have been hurt, quickly suppressed.
"What do you mean, not comfortable?"
"She feels... judged. Criticized. She told me that you spend all your time with Xavier or Mother, and she feels invisible." I met her eyes. "She didn't want to come to dinner. She asked me to make an excuse."
My grandmother was silent for a long moment. Her teacup sat forgotten on the side table. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. "I see."
"I should have told you sooner. I'm sorry."
"No." She straightened in her chair, that familiar steel returning to her spine.
"No, this is unacceptable. If Evie feels that way, it's because I haven't made enough effort.
That changes now." She reached for the small bell on the table beside her.
"I'm going to pick her up from that foundation today.
We'll spend the afternoon together. Get to know each other properly. "
I opened my mouth to object. To explain that Evie was in the middle of health fair preparations, that she had commitments, that springing a grandmother-visit on her without warning would only make things worse.
Then I stopped.