18. Sebastian
She's gone.
I stood in her empty room, staring at the closet where her clothes used to hang. The hangers were still there, swaying slightly from when I'd opened the door. Empty. All of them empty.
The bathroom counter was bare. No toothbrush. No little bottles of whatever she put in her hair to make it smell like coconut. No makeup bag spilling its contents across the marble.
The book on the nightstand was gone. The one with the pressed flower.
My shirt was still on the bed. Folded neatly, like she'd taken the time to smooth out the wrinkles before leaving it behind.
She didn't want anything of mine.
I picked it up. Held it. The fabric still smelled like her perfume, faint but there, and something cracked open in my chest.
She's gone. And it's my fault.
I sank onto the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under my weight. I could still see the indent in the pillow where her head had been this morning. Could still feel the ghost of her body pressed against mine, her breath warm on my neck, her hand resting over my heart.
She’d slept in my arms just last night.
Now she was somewhere over the Pacific, flying away from me, and I had no one to blame but myself.
How had I managed to screw this up so badly?
I raked a hand through my hair. Gripped. Pulled until it hurt.
When I'd made that threat to Mr. Kahale, Aria and I were enemies. We could barely stand to be in the same room. The idea that we would ever be anything else, that she would ever look at me the way she'd looked at me last night, that I would ever feel about her the way I felt right now—
It hadn't even occurred to me. Not as a possibility. Not as a fantasy. Nothing.
I'd been so sure I was going to lose. She had everything. The history, the heritage, the genuine connection to this place. All I had was money and ambition and a name that meant nothing to an old man who'd already turned down seven offers.
So I'd done what I always did. Found an angle. Applied pressure. Made sure I had leverage, because leverage was the only thing I'd ever been able to count on.
And then everything changed.
And I forgot. I actually forgot. The threat had faded into background noise, irrelevant, because suddenly all I could think about was her. Her laugh. Her eyes. The way she challenged me, pushed back, refused to let me get away with anything.
I'd fallen in love with her, and I'd forgotten that I'd already planted the bomb that would destroy us.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Margaret. Probably calling about meetings, about the life waiting for me in New York, about all the things that used to matter before Aria Kealoha walked into a principal's office and turned my world upside down.
I ignored it.
I couldn't operate. I couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but sit in this room that still smelled like her and wonder how I was supposed to keep breathing.
I was supposed to fly out tonight. I called the pilot and rescheduled. I couldn't leave. Not yet. Not while I could still feel her essence around me, not while some stupid part of me kept expecting her to walk through the door and tell me it had all been a misunderstanding.
It wasn't a misunderstanding. It was a betrayal. My betrayal.
I spent the day wandering the hotel like a ghost.
The garden where we'd kissed behind the hibiscus. The ballroom where I'd pressed her against the wall, dust motes floating around us. The kitchen where the chef had caught us stealing leftover malasadas at midnight and just smiled and looked the other way.
Every corner held a memory. Every memory was a knife.
I ended up on the beach.
The sun was sinking toward the horizon, painting everything gold and orange and pink. The same colors as the first night we'd stood here together. The night I'd told her I wanted her. The night she'd taken my hand and whispered that she wanted me, too.
I sat in the sand and watched the waves roll in. Roll out. Roll in.
Footsteps behind me. Slow. Uneven. The tap of a cane against packed sand.
I didn't turn around.
Mr. Kahale lowered himself onto the sand beside me. It was a production, lots of grunting and careful maneuvering of elderly limbs. I should have helped him. I didn't move.
"I hear she left," he said.
"Yes."
"Actions have consequences, Mr. Dubois." His voice was mild. Almost gentle. "I thought you would have learned that by now."
I didn't answer. There was nothing to say.
We sat in silence for a while. The waves kept their rhythm. The sun kept sinking. A bird dove into the water and came up with a fish.
"You love her."
It wasn't a question.
I closed my eyes. The word sat there, waiting for me to claim it.
"Yes."
It came out hollow. Scraped raw. But it came out, and it was true.
The truest thing I'd ever said. My heart had known it for a while now.
Maybe since the beach. Maybe since the locked room.
Maybe since that first kiss in New York, when she'd slapped me and walked away and I'd known, even then, that I would never be able to forget her.
"Not that it matters now," I said.
"Love always matters."
Mr. Kahale was gazing out at the ocean, his weathered face soft in the fading light.
"I loved my wife for forty-seven years," he said. "Lost her five years ago. I still love her. I will love her until I die." He paused. "That's the thing about love, Mr. Dubois. It doesn't stop just because it becomes inconvenient. Just because it hurts."
I stared at the waves. The sun was half-gone now, sinking into the water like it was being swallowed by the sea.
"You made a mistake," Mr. Kahale continued. "A big one. The kind that can break a relationship if you're not careful."
"I know."
"But it doesn't have to."
I turned to look at him. His dark eyes were steady on mine.
"She won't talk to me," I said.
"She's hurt. She'll push you away first, ask questions later." He shrugged, a small movement of bony shoulders. "Give her time."
"How much time?"
"As long as it takes."
He started the laborious process of getting to his feet. I moved to help him, but he waved me off with an impatient gesture.
"And Mr. Dubois?" He was standing now, leaning on his cane, looking down at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "I'm not accepting your offer."
I stared at him. "What?"
"The hotel. I'm not selling it to you."
"Then why—" The words caught in my throat. "Why did you do that? At the meeting. Why did you say you'd chosen me?"
Mr. Kahale was quiet for a moment. The last sliver of sun disappeared below the horizon, and the sky began its slow fade to purple.
"I told you at the beginning," he said finally. "I wanted to know who you are. You weren't showing me much. All those walks around the property, all those conversations, and I still couldn't see past the businessman. The mask."
He shifted his weight on the cane.
"But I had a feeling Miss Kealoha could bring out the truth in you. I saw the way you looked at her. The way you changed when she was around." A small smile crossed his face. "I wanted to see the real you. And I knew that would only come out if you were at risk of losing her."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't move.
"I'm not finished." His voice was firm. "I also saw what I needed to see. A man who loves something more than success. More than winning. More than this hotel." He paused. "I see it now. In your face. In your grief. You love her more than any of it."
The words landed somewhere deep. Somewhere that ached.
"So here's what's going to happen." Mr. Kahale straightened his shoulders, suddenly looking less like a frail old man and more like the patriarch who'd protected this legacy for six decades.
"You're going to go back to New York. You're going to fix what you broke.
And then we'll talk again about this hotel. "
"And if I can't fix it?"
"Then you'll learn to live with the consequences."
He started walking away. His cane left small round marks in the sand. Then he stopped. Turned back.
"My wife was furious with me for three months once.
I'd made a decision without consulting her.
Something about the hotel, back when we were young and I still thought I knew everything.
" His eyes grew distant, remembering. "She said I didn't respect her enough to include her in my own thinking.
That I'd treated our partnership like my personal kingdom. "
He looked at me.
"Sound familiar?"
I closed my eyes. "Yes."
"It took me three months, a grand gesture, and a level of humility I didn't know I possessed. But I got her back." When I opened my eyes, he was smiling. Small and sad and knowing. "The best things in life are worth fighting for, Mr. Dubois. Even when—especially when—you're the one who broke them."
He turned and walked away. His silhouette grew smaller against the darkening sky until it disappeared over the dune.
I sat there, unmoving, lost in my thoughts.
The stars came out, one by one, scattered across the sky like they had been every night for billions of years and would be for billions more. Indifferent. Eternal. The waves kept crashing, that endless rhythm that had nothing to do with human grief or human love or human stupidity.
I sat there all night.
I thought about Aria. The way she looked in the morning, sleep-soft and unguarded. The way she laughed, her whole face transforming, her whole body joining in. The way she'd kissed me on the beach, tasting like salt and wine and something I'd never be able to forget.
I thought about love. How I'd spent my whole life avoiding it. Building walls, keeping distance, convincing myself that wanting things only made you weak. And now here I was, wanting something more than I'd ever wanted anything, and I was too late.
I thought about all the ways I'd failed. Not just with Aria. With Evie. With Caroline. With everyone who'd ever tried to get close to me and found nothing but ice.
How could I win her back?
What could I possibly do to make her forgive me?
The questions circled in my head, chasing each other like dogs after their own tails. I didn't have answers. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have anything but the hollow ache in my chest and the memory of her walking away without looking back.
The sky began to lighten. Pink at the edges, then orange, then gold. The sun rose out of the ocean, the same way it had risen every morning since the world began.
I watched it climb. I felt the warmth hit my face.
And somewhere in that slow dawn, something changed.
I couldn't undo what I'd done. Couldn't take back the threat or the betrayal or the look on her face when she'd realized who I really was.
But I could fight. I could try. I could become someone worthy of her forgiveness, even if she never gave it.
By the time the sun was fully up, I had a plan.