Chapter 12
Emma
I wake in my old room at the mansion. Light streams in through the sheer curtains. My eyes pop open as pieces of the night come back to me.
“Shit,” I cry, wincing at the pain in my head.
And then I panic because I realize I’m almost naked against the crisp white sheets, wearing just a pair of panties.
“What did I do?” I whimper to myself, trying to remember something—anything—past throwing up on my dance partner.
Past Sebastian arriving at the club. But I can’t.
It’s blank. I have no idea how I got to his mansion.
I’m unfamiliar with this feeling. I don’t party. But here I am, making up for lost time.
Being nearly naked is… concerning. Did Sebastian undress me? Did I fling my clothes off at him? Or did I strip after he left?
So many questions. So few clothes.
A knock sounds from the other side of the door.
“Um, yes?” My voice is hesitant, my throat dry.
“Good morning.” A cheerful Marie bustles into the room, as if nothing untoward has occurred. As if my waking up almost naked in my boss’s guest bedroom is an everyday occurrence.
I sit up, pressing the sheets tightly to myself.
Marie sets a neatly folded pile on the bed. “Your things have been sent out to be dry-cleaned. But these should suffice for today. Sebastian had clothes sent over from Darling,” she explains.
The few brain cells I have left—the ones that didn’t experience death by alcohol poisoning—struggle to keep up.
Darling is one of the chicest boutiques on Rodeo Drive.
Being there is like stepping into one of those old movies Sebastian always makes me watch.
But I could never afford a single item. Not even their underwear.
My brow furrows. “I don’t understand. Why would he buy me clothes? And it’s…” I look around wildly for my phone. I find it sitting safely on the bedside table. I pick it up and check the time. “It’s not yet seven a.m. Darling isn’t even open.”
“Sebastian made a call last night after bringing you home. He was worried. You poor dear. It’s a shame about getting food poisoning.
He explained everything. Your clothes were ruined.
It’s good that he was at the same party and could help you.
And he could get you back here safe and sound, where you belong. ”
I let the where-I-belong part pass without comment. “He… um… took care of me himself?”
Marie’s eyes twinkle. “Of course, dear. He couldn’t leave you so sick.”
“I mean. Yes. Of course. Food poisoning.”
“Can your stomach handle anything? Coffee, maybe?”
And possibly for the first time ever, I blanch at the idea. “No,” I say swiftly.
She shakes her head. “Oh, you must really be sick. I’ve never heard you turn down caffeine. Even when you had the flu. Just a little flat ginger ale then. It was my mother’s cure-all. I’ll be right back with it.”
She bustles out. I flop back onto the bed, willing the pounding in my brain to stop. Hangovers suck.
I hear the door reopen. I think it’s Marie again, but then my senses alert me to a change. The atoms in the room shift. A prickle of awareness whispers over my skin.
I open my eyes, already knowing what I’ll find.
“Sebastian,” I say weakly.
“Emma.”
He’s watching me with a knowing look.
I can’t interpret it. Just how knowing is it? Just how much has he seen? Is it, Hey, Em. I saw you throw up all over a dude’s shoes. Or is it, Hey, Em. I stripped you, saw almost every bit of your skin, and put you to bed.
Because I’m practical, I lead with the most obvious question.
“Did you see me in just my underwear last night?”
“Define see.”
I throw a pillow at him.
He laughs.
Goddamn, I missed that sound. It’s deep and brash and annoying and knowing.
“Don’t laugh, you monster. I woke up with almost no clothes and unable to remember a thing. That’s a girl’s worst nightmare,” I say softer, more vulnerable this time.
“Shit, Em.” He’s at my side so quick, I didn’t even notice him moving.
One second, he was at the door, and the next, he’s watching me with a concerned frowny expression, all evidence of mirth wiped away.
“I didn’t think. I didn’t—I don’t want you to worry.
” He takes a deep breath, as if steadying himself.
“You got sick again in the car and puked a second time.”
“I didn’t,” I say in horror.
One side of his mouth tilts up. “You did. You got into the shower to get clean. You were supposed to leave your clothes on, but you didn’t want to be in a wet dress, so you stripped.
I promise I didn’t look any more than necessary.
I wrapped you in a towel and got you into bed.
And then I left you to sleep. I would have dressed you in my shirt, but you passed out and wouldn’t wake up.
I checked on you throughout the night, though. ”
I digest his words. There’s so much to be horrified about. Doing a striptease in front of my boss vies for horror number one. So I’m going to pretend it never happened. If my brain is a filing cabinet, that particular file is getting shoved to the very bottom and will never be found again.
I turn my focus on something else. One little detail keeps niggling at me as pieces of the night right themselves in my memory.
“But… but we were in your Jag. Please don’t tell me I puked in your Jag.
” His grandfather’s rare vintage Jaguar.
If you doubled my salary for the last seven years, that number wouldn’t come close to what it’s worth.
Triple my salary. Possibly quadruple. Sebastian loves that car.
He babies it. Whispers it sweet nothings.
Like this house, it represents his legacy.
His family has left him. Through death or divorce or just neglect.
His dad chases parts on the London stage and girls in the South of France, and his mom flits across the globe looking for lovers and increasingly complicated and expensive cures for the insult that is aging.
So Sebastian is left here, a steward of the things his loved ones left behind.
Including the very fancy and rare car I apparently defiled.
“It’s just a car, Em. Leather seats can be replaced. You can’t.” His voice cracks on his last sentence, and his frown deepens. He clears his throat. “I was worried.”
It must be my hangover causing my brain to malfunction, or maybe I’m just trying to distract us both from the fact that he saw me almost naked, because I whisper, “Why did you ghost me this week?”
Before he can answer, I shake my head. “Nope. Sorry. Forget I asked that.”
“I didn’t message because I thought you might need space.
And I thought maybe you’d forget about quitting and things would go back to normal if I gave it to you.
It was a long shot since I offered you triple your salary and you turned it down.
But I didn’t want to accidentally make things worse.
” His lips quirk. “I’m not known for my tact.
So I thought the best thing I could do was to go silent. ”
“I’m not going to forget it. I quit for a reason. This life isn’t good for me. I need to build something of my own.”
He smooths a strand of hair away from my face. The tender gesture is familiar.
“But don’t you see, Em? You won’t have to do any more of the assistant stuff you don’t like.
No more getting my dry cleaning or my coffee.
You were absolutely right. You’ve been way above that shit.
I’ve gradually piled more and more high-level work on you without taking the menial stuff off the list. I should have realized.
You do more than my manager and publicist combined.
I’ll restructure your job however you want. I need you.”
My cold, cold heart, which is never actually as cold as it pretends to be when it comes to Sebastian, melts further. But I fortify the organ. I build a fortress around it, one buttress at a time.
I need to.
Sebastian may be many things. He’s arrogant and obnoxiously entitled.
But his charisma is an effective weapon when he cares to wield it. He saves it mainly for the cameras. And only doles it out in his personal life in small, strategic doses.
In contrast, he uses his don’t-give-a-fuck attitude like a shield.
I have a theory that Sebastian’s obnoxious act is to keep people at a distance. He’s had the public fawning over him since before he could walk. He may be a natural performer, someone who doesn’t shy away from the spotlight, but that’s from afar. He doesn’t let people get close.
I know all about shields. I’ve had them since I was a kid. But the highest barrier I’ve had to erect was while working for Sebastian and ignoring all that potent attraction.
And he’s just rocked every one.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to respond. My eyes fall to his sexily curved lips. My stomach loops for an entirely different reason than it did last night.
“I quit. I’m not changing my mind,” I say, softer now because of all these weird feelings rising in me.
His face darkens. But he swallows and looks away.
“We’ll talk about that more on Monday. When you’re feeling up to it.” His voice is gruff, deep with something I can’t quite name. “I have to go. I have a meeting at my agency. Stay and rest as long as you need. And also… maybe stay away from the tabloids for a few days.”
“Wait, why?”
He grimaces. “Do you recall the photographer that was outside the club?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, he got a photo of the two of us.”
I wince. “Can you tell I’m smashed in the picture?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look so concerned?”
“I was trying to hide your face so he didn’t get a clear shot. So we seem a little… intimate.”
I must appear alarmed at his word choice because he waves a hand. “It’s not a big deal. You know the way the tabloids are. It will be buried soon. I’ll handle it. But you might want to avoid the media until the story dies down.”
“Trust me. I’m happy to avoid any photographic evidence of last night,” I say, my face growing hot.