19. Aria
The universe has a really funny way of kicking you when you're down, of proving that the moment you abandon your principles and do something stupid, you'll pay for it tenfold.
I'd decided to count the fling with Sebastian as my something stupid for the year. Maybe for my entire existence. Never again would I let myself be that foolish. Never again would I let a man past the walls I'd spent years building. Never again would I mistake manipulation for connection.
A week back in New York, and the wound was still fresh.
He hadn't called. Hadn't texted. Hadn't tried to reach me at all.
I told myself I didn't want his apology. Wouldn't accept it even if he offered. He'd hurt me. Used me. Tricked me into believing there was something real between us while he was scheming behind my back.
But it would have been nice if he'd at least tried.
Every time I caught myself thinking about it, I wanted to give myself a good kick in the head. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have looked at Sebastian Dubois, of all people, and thought he was different?
I'd handed him my trust on a silver platter. He'd used it to beat me.
At least I had the foundation.
I threw myself into work with a ferocity that bordered on obsession.
We had a major initiative launching, a women's health education program expanding into three new communities.
There were meetings to attend, donors to court, logistics to manage.
I filled every minute of every day, and when the days ended, I filled the nights with paperwork and planning and anything that kept my mind occupied.
My mother called. Texted. Called again. Even my father, who usually communicated through assistants and brief emails, had reached out directly. They wanted to know about the hotel. They wanted to hear the good news.
I couldn't face them. Couldn't explain that I'd been deceived. Cheated. That I'd let a man distract me from everything that mattered and lost the hotel that had meant so much to our family.
So I dodged their calls. Sent vague texts about being busy. Promised myself I'd tell them eventually, when the humiliation had faded enough that I could say the words without crying.
The distraction almost worked.
Then Evie showed up.
I was in my office, buried in spreadsheets, when I heard the commotion in the main room. Voices. Footsteps. And then Priya's head poked around my doorframe.
"You have a visitor."
I looked up. Evie stood in the doorway behind Priya, looking small and uncertain. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, like she'd done it herself. Her backpack hung off one shoulder. Her eyes were red-rimmed.
I froze.
I hadn't expected her. Had assumed Sebastian would keep her away, now that whatever we'd had was over. The fact that she was here, that she'd come on her own, that she looked so young and scared standing in my doorway...
"Hi." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I wasn't sure if I should come."
I was on my feet before I knew I was moving. "Of course you should come. This is your place too."
Her face crumpled. Not crying, exactly, but close. The kind of expression that comes right before the dam breaks. She crossed the room in three quick steps and threw her arms around me, hugging me tight.
"I'm so glad," she said into my shoulder. "I thought you wouldn't want me here anymore."
I held her. Stroked her hair. Breathed through the ache in my chest.
"Why would you think that?"
She pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Because Dad came home and he wouldn't talk about you. Not once. He'd told me about dating you before, and then he came back and it was like you didn't exist. So I figured something went wrong."
Something went wrong. Such a simple way to describe it.
"It's complicated," I said.
"That's what he keeps saying." Evie's voice was frustrated now, the fear giving way to something sharper. "He won't tell me anything. But he's been really sad. Like, really sad." She looked at me. "He barely talks. He doesn't eat. He just sits in his study and stares at nothing."
The image hit me harder than I wanted it to. Sebastian in his study, alone, not eating, staring at walls. I'd seen him vulnerable exactly once, in that dusty room in Maui, and even then he'd been fighting it. The idea of him giving in to grief, letting it consume him...
No. I wasn't going to feel sorry for him. He'd done this to himself.
"I'm sorry you're caught in the middle of this," I said.
"I'm not caught." Evie's chin lifted, a flash of the stubbornness I'd come to know so well. "I'm choosing. I'm choosing you. Because you've always been nice to me. And because I don't want to lose you just because my dad is an idiot."
I laughed despite myself. It came out watery, more sob than sound.
"You're not going to lose me." I cupped her face in my hands, made sure she was looking at me. "Whatever happens with your father, you and I are separate. I promise."
She nodded. Solemn. Trusting in a way that made my heart hurt.
"Okay."
We spent the afternoon together.
It felt like slipping back into a favorite sweater, worn and comfortable. Evie helped with the initiative prep, stuffing envelopes with the same methodical precision she brought to everything. She organized supplies, color-coded filing systems, and grilled me about the communities we'd be serving.
Priya and Nalani came back from a site visit around three, laden with bags and talking over each other about some disaster with a venue booking. They stopped short when they saw Evie at the worktable.
"Look who's back," Priya said, her face breaking into a grin. "Our favorite volunteer under eighteen."
"I'm your only volunteer under eighteen," Evie pointed out.
"Which makes you our favorite by default. Very exclusive category." Priya dropped into the chair next to her. "What are we working on?"
"Envelope stuffing. Very important. Very glamorous."
"Ah yes, the backbone of nonprofit work." Nalani joined them, pulling up a chair. "Did Aria tell you about the time she got a paper cut so bad she bled on a donor letter?"
"That was one time," I protested.
"The donor still gave us fifty thousand dollars," Priya added. "We think the blood scared them into it."
Evie laughed. A real laugh, bright and young.
She chatted while she worked. School was starting soon, which she was dreading. Her grandmother had finally gone back to her own house, which was a relief. There was a boy in her class who she definitely didn't like but whose name kept coming up every third sentence.
"He sounds annoying," Nalani said.
"He is. So annoying. He always tries to sit next to me at lunch."
"The worst," Priya agreed, hiding a smile.
"And he keeps asking me about my summer, like he actually cares."
"Unforgivable."
Evie's cheeks went pink. "Stop it. I don't like him."
"Nobody said you did."
"Your face said it."
I listened. Laughed. Let the warmth of it wash over me.
Maybe I will recover. Maybe this hollow feeling in my chest would fade eventually. I'd lost Sebastian, but I hadn't lost everything.
The feeling lasted until Evie left, promising to come back next week, hugging me tight before she disappeared out the door.
Then the silence rushed back in, and I was alone with my thoughts again.
The next day was worse. And the day after that. I went through the motions, attended meetings, smiled at donors, but my mind kept drifting. To Maui. To him. To all the things I was trying so hard not to feel.
By the end of the second week, I'd perfected the art of looking busy while accomplishing nothing.
That's when they staged the intervention.
Priya and Nalani showed up at my apartment on a Tuesday night, armed with wine and Thai food and the determined expressions of people who refused to be turned away.
"You've been dodging us for two weeks." Priya pushed past me into the apartment before I could object. "That ends now."
"I've been busy."
"We work at the same place, Aria." Nalani followed her in, heading straight for my kitchen. "You haven't looked very busy to me. You've looked like you're sleepwalking through your life."
"I'm fine."
"You're clearly not fine." She started unpacking food containers, the smell of pad thai filling my small kitchen.
"You came back from Maui looking like someone died, you won't talk about it, and you've been avoiding us like we're carrying the plague.
So we're going to sit here, and we're going to eat, and you're going to tell us what the hell happened. "
I wanted to argue. Insist I was handling it. I didn't need support, didn't need to process, didn't need anything except time and space and the ability to forget Sebastian Dubois had ever existed.
But I was tired. So tired of carrying this alone.
I sank into a chair.
"It's a long story."
"We brought two bottles of wine." Priya settled onto my couch, tucking her feet under her. "We have time."
So I told them.
All of it. From the beginning. The locked room. The beach. The nights tangled together in sheets that smelled like salt and sunshine. The way he'd looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered. The way I'd let myself believe it.
And then the meeting. Mr. Kahale's words. The threat I hadn't known about. The look on Sebastian's face when he realized what he'd done.
When I finished, the food was cold and the first bottle of wine was empty.
Priya's eyes were wide. "That's... a lot."
"I know."
"I can't believe he did that to you." Her voice had gone hard. "What an absolute ass. After everything you shared with him, after you let him in, and he was scheming the whole time?"
"Apparently."
"Men are trash." She reached for the second bottle of wine and poured herself a generous glass. "I always thought he seemed cold, but this is a whole other level. He played you."
"He did."
Nalani was quieter. She'd been listening with her head tilted, with that thoughtful expression she got when she was processing.
"And you're sure," she said slowly, "that he was trying to screw you over?"
I stared at her.
"I mean, it couldn't have been a misunderstanding? Some piece you're missing?"
"What's to misunderstand?" The words came out sharper than I intended. "He went behind my back. He threatened an old man. He tried to close the deal before I could even make my pitch."
"Did you ask him why?"
"I didn't need to ask. The facts speak for themselves."
"Do they?"
"Nalani." Priya shook her head in warning.
"I'm not defending him." Nalani held up her hands. "What he did was wrong. But think about the timeline. You said he made that threat after the first dinner, right? Before the locked room. Before anything happened between you."
"So?"
"So at that point, you were enemies. You'd spent years hating each other. He's a businessman, Aria. He saw he was losing and he played the only card he had." She paused. "Can you really blame him for acting like a businessman before he had any reason to act like anything else?"
I didn't like how logical she sounded. I didn't like the doubt creeping into my certainty.
"It doesn't matter when he did it," I said. "What matters is that he didn't tell me. He let me fall for him while that threat was hanging over everything. He let me believe we had something real."
"Okay." Nalani nodded. "That's fair. But at some point, you're going to have to decide whether you can live with never knowing."
"Never knowing what?"
"His side. Why he really did it. Whether any of it was real." She met my eyes. "You can hate him forever. That's your right. But you'll always wonder."
"She doesn't have to wonder about anything," Priya cut in. "He showed her who he was. She doesn't owe him the chance to explain."
"I'm not saying she owes him anything. I'm saying she owes it to herself to have all the information before she closes this door forever."
They looked at me. Both of them. Waiting.
I didn't have an answer.
The words sat with me long after they left. Long after I'd cleaned up the takeout containers and washed the wine glasses and climbed into bed to stare at the ceiling.
Can you live with never knowing?
I wasn't sure I could. I also wasn't sure I could sit across from Sebastian and listen to his excuses without either crying or hitting him. Maybe both.
But Nalani was right about one thing.
I would always wonder.
I turned onto my side, pulled the blanket up to my chin, and stared at the wall until sleep finally came.