84 #2
Trevor's guilt had entered everything because Trevor had shaped the wound.
Vanessa had used it because Vanessa was cruel.
Sebastian had stepped into the storm knowing it was not clean weather.
Dorothy could not simply remove history from her skin because a man who deserved better asked for unshadowed light.
But the instinct faded before it became words.
Because Sebastian knew it was not fair.
He was not asking for purity.
He was asking for a room where he was not constantly competing with a ghost who had learned, too late, how to become human.
Dorothy walked slowly toward the window, stopping a few feet away from him. Outside, reporters still shifted beyond the far gate. From here they were only shapes, small and restless, waiting to convert every human complication into a headline.
"What are you asking for?" she said.
Sebastian's jaw tightened, as if the answer had been waiting and still cost him to say.
"One week."
Dorothy turned her head toward him.
"One week?" she repeated.
"With me," he said. "Not publicly. Not as a staged romance. Not as an escape from legal responsibilities. We can coordinate with counsel. Redvale does not stop. Vanessa's case does not stop. Your foundation does not stop. But emotionally, personally,
I am asking for one week where Trevor is not in the room."
Dorothy's breath caught.
Sebastian continued before she could answer.
"No private calls with him unless there is a legal or immediate safety issue. No late-night crisis conversations that become comfort. No interpreting his growth while I sit beside you pretending it does not hurt. No using his pain as a mirror for yours. For one week, if you are with me, be with me."
The room seemed to narrow around them.
Dorothy understood now why this felt like an ultimatum even though he had not made it cruel.
Because it asked for action, not sentiment.
It placed a boundary around his heart and required her to decide whether she was willing to respect it.
Not forever. Not as a final choice between men.
But as proof that she could give Sebastian space in her life that Trevor's regret did not occupy.
"What happens after the week?" she asked.
"I do not know."
"That is not comforting."
"I am trying not to lie."
Her mouth trembled despite the seriousness of the moment.
He almost smiled, but it faded quickly.
"At the end of the week," he said, "you may decide you cannot give me what I want. You may decide the old wound is too alive, or that my own damage is too much, or that you need to be alone. You may decide anything. I will not force the ending before you reach it."
"And if I say no now?"
Sebastian went very still.
The question was necessary.
Dorothy hated that it hurt him.
"If you say no," he said carefully, "then I will hear it."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one that will not become pressure."
"Sebastian."
He looked away, jaw working once. When he turned back, the polish was gone again, and the man beneath it stood in plain sight.
"If you say no, I will step back," he said. "Not because I want to punish you. Not to make you chase me. Because I cannot keep living half inside a relationship that becomes real only in crisis and half outside it whenever Trevor's grief enters the room."
Dorothy's eyes burned.
He held her gaze. "I love you too much to keep offering myself as shelter if you do not know whether you want the man inside it."
The words entered her slowly.
There it was, spoken at last.
Not hidden in fear. Not dressed as strategy. Not implied through a hand held in public or a look across a room. Sebastian loved her. He said it not as a demand, but as the reason he could no longer keep being endlessly patient while she stood between histories.
Dorothy's throat tightened until speaking hurt.
"You love me."
"Yes."
"No conditions?"
His mouth moved faintly, sad. "Many boundaries. No conditions."
The distinction made the tears come closer.
Dorothy looked down because his eyes were too much.
She thought of Trevor in the car, choosing to leave instead of taking comfort from her public defense.
She thought of the night he stayed, untouched and restrained, a lamp left on in a house where she had once learned darkness.
She thought of the hospital video, of the calls, of the child, of the grief that still lived in her because grief did not obey divorce decrees.
Then she thought of Sebastian in the restaurant where he had turned off his phone because she asked.
Sebastian noticing the walnuts. Sebastian standing at the threshold and offering to leave before holding her.
Sebastian refusing to comfort her before forgiving her because he would not lie with tenderness.
Sebastian, angry and wounded, still coming back with truth.
Sebastian saying he would not disappear again.
Sebastian asking for one week where he could be more than the man waiting beside another man's regret.
Her feelings for Trevor were alive.
But so were her feelings for Sebastian.
Not as replacement. Not as strategy. Not as public proof.
As something with its own pulse.
That realization steadied her.
"I am afraid," she said.
Sebastian's expression softened. "Of me?"
"Of hurting you."
"You already have."
The answer was not cruel.
It was honest.
Dorothy flinched anyway.
Sebastian took one small step closer. "And I have hurt you. We cannot build anything by pretending the risk begins now."
She let out a shaky breath. "I am afraid I will spend the week thinking of him."
"Then tell me if you do."
Her eyes lifted sharply.
He gave a faint, tired smile. "I did ask for truth."
"That might hurt."
"It will hurt more if you hide it."
Dorothy stared at him.
This was the difference, perhaps. Sebastian was not asking for a fantasy week where Trevor ceased to exist.
He was asking that Trevor not be given the space by default.
He was asking Dorothy to notice what belonged to the past and what belonged to the present.
He was asking to stand in the present with her long enough to see whether they had a future.
Not easy.
Real.
"What does away from Trevor mean?" she asked.
Sebastian's gaze sharpened with cautious hope.
"My family has a house on the coast," he said.
"Not grand enough to offend Victor's pride, though he will find a way. It is secure. Quiet. Marianne can work from there. Hale can send documents. We can set legal hours. Redvale calls in the morning. Vanessa updates in the afternoon. The rest of the time is ours."
"Ours," she repeated softly.
He did not look away. "If you want it."
Dorothy walked to the nearest chair and sat, not because she was weak, but because the decision deserved stillness. Sebastian remained standing. He did not crowd her. He had laid his heart on the table and stepped back enough to let her choose whether to pick it up.
That made the choice heavier.
A knock came at the library door.
Neither of them answered.
After a moment, Hale opened it halfway. "Dorothy?"
She looked up.
Hale's eyes moved from her to Sebastian and back again. "The follow-up monitoring can wait. Vanessa's counsel is still posturing. Raymond's statement is stable for now. Trevor has left the estate."
Trevor has left the estate.
The words crossed the room quietly.
Sebastian heard them.
Dorothy felt them.
Trevor, for once, had not hovered at the edge of her choice.
He had left.
The knowledge hurt, and because it hurt, she understood Sebastian's question even more clearly. Trevor's absence could not be allowed to fill the room as powerfully as his presence. If she wanted Sebastian, she had to choose him in more than reaction.
"Thank you, Andrew," Dorothy said.
Hale paused, understanding that he had entered the middle of something larger than scheduling. "Do you need anything?"
Dorothy looked at Sebastian.
Then back at Hale. "Not yet."
Hale nodded and closed the door.
The library returned to silence.
Dorothy stood.
Sebastian's face became very still.
She walked toward him slowly, stopping close enough that the distance between them no longer felt like punishment, but not so close that emotion could replace the answer.
"I cannot promise that this week will give you what you want," she said.
"I know."
"I cannot promise Trevor will vanish from my heart in seven days."
"I am not asking for a performance."
"I cannot promise I will not be confused."
"I would rather have your confusion honestly than your certainty as a gift you are forcing yourself to give me."
Her eyes burned again.
"But I can promise this," she said. "For one week, I will not use you as shelter. I will not make you compete with Trevor's regret in every private moment. I will not hide behind public arrangements.
I will spend the week with you because I want to know what we are when no one is watching and no one is bleeding in front of us."
Sebastian's breath changed.
Dorothy saw hope enter him, and this time she did not fear it as something she had to satisfy immediately. She let it exist.
"One week," he said.
She nodded.
"With me."
"Yes."
"Away from Trevor."
Dorothy held his gaze.
The old wound in her moved. The new one did too. Somewhere beyond the estate, Trevor was carrying his own grief away from her, at least for now. Vanessa was still waiting with knives. Redvale still had truth to demand. The public still wanted a romance, a villain, a simple ending.
Dorothy chose anyway.
"One week," she said. "With you. Away from Trevor."