Nine

Ali

I was on my way to give last-minute instructions to the landscaper when Sebastian appeared in the hall out of nowhere and pulled me into a small sitting room off the ballroom.

I was so surprised I couldn’t do anything but gape up at his handsome, laughing face. He was standing next to the closed door, but he turned us around so I was pressed up against it.

Then he pressed up against me.

Now, just so it’s clear, I have absolutely no objections to Sebastian kissing me. In fact, I’d been having trouble not thinking about it with a giddy thrill for the past two weeks, even when I should have been focusing on my job or on finding out information on Gentry and Maxwell Industries. But I’d been focused on the landscaping and was not at all expecting a big man to materialize in front of me and pull me into a private room for a kiss, so my response was delayed.

When he leaned down into my lips, I still didn’t do anything except clutch at his shirt and stare up at him with my mouth parted.

He paused just before he reached my lips, frowning slightly. “You don’t seem particularly enthusiastic.”

His familiar, slightly aggrieved tone broke through my stupor. I giggled.

He straightened up, his frown deepening. His hands still rested at my waist. “And now you’re laughing at me?”

I shook with amusement, wrapping my arms around his neck. “You surprised me. It’s hard to make a sudden shift from trimming hedges to kissing in a closet.”

“We’re not in a closet.” He glanced around the little room, which featured nothing more than two ornate benches, a princess chair, a gilded mirror, and heavy drapes. “I’m not even sure what this room is for.”

“It’s an anteroom or something—for people to rest or freshen up during a ball.”

He shook his head in amused skepticism. “Plus I have no trouble shifting gears to kissing you, no matter what I’ve been doing.”

I smiled up at him fondly, wondering how it was possible that he’d dropped into my life again like this—so amazing, so kind, so sweet and funny. Even better than he’d been before And, by all evidence, still crazy about me. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

He slid his hands down until both of them were cupping my bottom. “Have you appropriately shifted gears to kissing me yet?”

I sighed rather sappily and pressed up against his chest. “Yes. I think I’ve fully shifted gears now.”

He leaned down again, and this time he claimed my lips. Warm emotion and sensation clouded my head as his mouth and lips teased mine until the kiss deepened.

Then I reluctantly pulled away.

Sebastian frowned again. “We’d only just gotten started.”

“I know. But I really don’t want to get turned on in the middle of the day like that since we can’t do anything about it.”

“Who says?” He glanced around. “We could probably make good use of that bench.” He rubbed his groin against my middle, evidently to give me a preview of coming attractions.

“I’m not going to make love to you where anyone could catch us.” My voice was light because his tone was teasing. He obviously wasn’t putting any real pressure on me, something I really appreciated.

“We can lock the doors.” He twitched his eyebrows at me. “I can be very fast.”

I broke into soft giggles again. “That does sweeten the pot, but I think I’ll forgo the pleasure. I really do need to talk to the landscapers before they go too crazy with the shears.”

He pulled back slightly, responding to my words, but his smile, if anything, got more affectionate. “I love to watch you at work.”

Despite the way we’d just been kissing, the words made me blush. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re amazing to watch. You never draw attention to yourself, but you get so much done. You’ve made this whole gala happen, and I bet no one will even know all you’ve done.”

Something deeper than amusement warmed in my chest. I glanced down. “I didn’t do it all. I just handle the details. Cheryl planned it all.”

“No, she didn’t. Maybe she gave you some direction, but you’ve made the whole thing happen behind the scenes. And I think it’s amazing that you’re so sweet and so selfless that you don’t even care whether you get all the applause for it.”

I felt pleased and embarrassed and like I might melt into the floor. I’d never had anyone seem to see me the way he did. Know me. Appreciate me. Want me. Not the way Sebastian did. “I’m not really selfless.”

“You’re more selfless than me.” He tilted his head down and kissed me again but very gently this time. “I want what I want. And I’ve got to say—I really want you.”

I tightened my arms around him and murmured against his mouth, “I want you too.”

I meant it so much more than physically, and I was sure he did too. As miraculous as it seemed, it felt like I just knew. Sebastian Maxwell was the man for me.

I’d thought so when I was seventeen, and I still believed it today.

After a minute, he pulled away with a sigh. “Can I see you tonight?”

I nodded. “I’ll head over to your hotel, but it will be kind of late. I need to have dinner with my family tonight and spend some time with Rosie. I feel like I haven’t spent much time with her lately.”

“How is she doing?”

Since he sounded like he really wanted to know, I said, “I don’t know. She’s really quiet. That’s not a problem. I was quiet too. But it feels like she’s withdrawing even from me, and it worries me sometimes. High school can be really hard, and she’s pretty much just been going to school and coming home. Not doing anything else.”

“It seems like it’s been like that for you too. Just work and home.”

“Yeah. But sometimes that’s what it needs to be. My family is really important to me.”

“I know it is. I love that about you.” He lifted a hand to cup my cheek. “But you seem to think about it as a duty rather than a relationship. You’re part of the family, right? You’re not just the servant and worker bee.”

The first thing I felt was defensiveness, mostly because the words struck me as so true. But I didn’t react to the feeling, other than stiffening my spine, and the first response quickly passed. “Yeah.”

He leaned down to kiss me one more time very briefly. “Just a thought. As you know, I’m no expert on families, so I have very little to offer on that topic.”

“I think you have a lot to offer,” I said, smiling at him through a blaze of deep feeling.

He gazed down at me for a moment. Then shook his head briefly and straightened up. “Sweetheart, you have to stop looking at me that way, or I won’t be blamed if I just grab you and carry you away to a bedroom right now.”

I laughed again and slipped out of his arms. “That will have to wait until tonight. I’ll be over by ten at the latest.”

“I can’t wait.”

I couldn’t wait either.

***

So for the past two weeks, I’d kept up my search for evidence of what happened to my dad.

Searching for incriminating evidence hadn’t gotten any easier. Since the one time I’d gotten onto Gentry’s computer, I’d never found it left logged on again. I kept checking the home office, though, whenever I could discreetly sneak in and look around.

One day, I hoped, he’d leave something on the desk that would be helpful for me.

That afternoon, after dealing with the landscapers, I was on my way out when I decided it was worth checking the office again. Gentry wasn’t home right now, and the event staff had mostly cleared out. Sebastian had left about an hour ago.

So I hurried down the hall and opened the door. It was perfectly neat, as always. The computer was turned off. Nothing was out of place on the desk—incriminating or not.

I was about to turn to go when I noticed one of the file drawers wasn’t quite closed.

They’d always been closed and locked before.

Not about to let such a boon go to waste, I went over to pull open the drawer.

It was the same problem as always— I didn’t have any idea what title to search for on the file folders, just as I’d had no idea what to search for on the computer.

There wasn’t a handy file entitled “Incriminating Evidence on why we unfairly fired Greg Cooper.”

It was evidently the file drawer on budgets though, and they were labeled by year, so I pulled out the year my father had been let go and started to scan through the pages.

Most of them just blended together into gibberish, and I was about to close the file in defeated disappointment when I landed on one page that I did understand.

I stared at it for a long time, trying to make sure it said what I thought it said.

It did. It must. I couldn’t believe I was seeing it in front of me in black-and-white.

It was exactly what I needed.

Feeling a thrill of victory, I pulled the sheet out of the file and was about to return the file to the drawer when I changed my mind. I might need more in this file to back up the one sheet.

So I stuffed the entire file into my bag and adjusted the other files so there wasn’t a gap where the missing file had been. Then I shut the drawer to exactly where it had been opened to before.

I raced out of the room and then down the hall and then to my car, irrationally afraid at any moment someone would catch me and demand I empty my purse of its contents.

No one stopped me. No one even saw me leave. I drove home, so excited that my heart raced, and I had trouble focusing on the road.

Finally. All my effort had paid off. On my way home, a plan came to me fully formed, and I knew exactly what needed to happen.

I could actually do it. I could finally see justice done for my father, for everyone who had been hurt by Maxwell and Gentry’s unethical and callous behavior. It was actually going to happen, and I had Sebastian to help me.

I stopped and got takeout for dinner, despite the cost. Then after dinner, I hung out with Rosie, talking to her until she finally admitted that she wanted to go to an upcoming dance but didn’t have anything to wear.

I promised her we would work something out—although I had no idea how this would happen—and it was after nine thirty when she went to her room to read. My dad was watching TV with a beer (or three), and Tyler wasn’t home, as usual, so I left and headed out to Sebastian’s hotel.

My excitement returned in full measure on the drive over there. It might be hard for Sebastian to see evidence of what his father had done, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise. He was trying to pull away from all that, and I was sure he’d want to help me.

I was trembling with emotion as I knocked on his hotel room.

Sebastian opened the door, still wearing the black trousers and dress shirt he’d been wearing for work earlier. He’d taken off his shoes though.

He smiled at me—a special kind of smile, one that felt like it belonged to me alone. I smiled back, feeling a rush of tender emotion combining with the excitement.

He looked and felt like mine.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, slightly husky. He let me into the room, and I blinked when I saw room service had brought something up. Wine with two glasses and a silver-covered tray.

I glanced over at Sebastian, who looked slightly sheepish. “My attempt to be romantic.”

I practically hugged myself in excitement as I went over to lift the tray. Long-stemmed strawberries. With chocolate.

“Oh,” I gasped. “I love them!”

“Good.” He came over and slid an arm around my waist, clasping his other hand around the strap of my bag. “So put down your stuff and stay awhile.”

I laughed and fought with him for possession of my bag. “Wait. I need to show you something first. Then we’ll have the wine and strawberries.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh of resignation. “This is one of those days where I’m doomed to be unsatisfied.”

“You’ll be satisfied plenty. I promise. But I have to show you this first.”

I pulled the big file folder out of my bag, causing Sebastian to lift his eyebrows in inquiry.

“I found this today. In Gentry’s office.”

“What?”

“In Gentry’s office. His file cabinet was open.”

“So you went rooting through it? Ali, you know it’s dangerous. You could be caught and get in big trouble.”

“I didn’t get in trouble. You know this is important to me. And today it paid off. Look. Look at this.”

I handed him the one page that had caught my attention earlier.

He scanned it quickly, and because I was looking for it, I saw him stiffen.

“It’s proof,” I said. “It’s proof that they knew my dad and all the others deserved a lot more than they got. It’s proof that they did it on purpose, knowing fully how wrong it was.”

I saw him swallow before he looked up to meet my eyes. “It does look that way.”

“It’s exactly what I’ve needed,” I burst out, my excitement catching up to me. “We can take this and the budget stuff in this folder and make a case against them. I think we should go to the papers so they’re publicly outed for cheats and selfish bastards. If I just went myself, they might not believe me, but with you with me, they’ll take it seriously. I really think this is what we need. It will be front-page news. They’ll be taken down.”

“They’ll be... taken down.” He repeated the words slowly, softly. Not as affirmation but almost in shock. It wasn’t the reaction I’d expected.

“Yes. That’s what I’ve been trying to do all this time, right? And I’ve finally done it. You’ll help me, won’t you? No one will be able to ignore me when I have you for corroboration.”

I gazed up at him, waiting for him, trusting him, experiencing a wave of affection for him.

It never even occurred to me his answer would be anything but yes.

“No,” he said at last, something closing down on his face. I didn’t recognize him. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I can’t.”

I froze. “What?”

“I can’t. I can’t do that.”

“But... but why not?”

“Because it’s my family.”

“But they’re cheats. They hurt people. They hurt my father. They hurt me. They were the ones who came between us before, and I thought you weren’t going to let it happen again.” My voice cracked, so I paused to clear my throat. “You know this is wrong, Sebastian, and you’re doing it anyway.”

His head jerked away, and he must have remembered the words.

The same words I’d used when we broke up twelve years ago.

They hadn’t made a difference then, and they didn’t make a difference now.

I whispered, “You’re really not going to help me?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t. They’re my family.”

He was a Maxwell. I knew it, but I’d stupidly not thought it mattered anymore. I’d stupidly believed he would side with me because I was right and his family was wrong.

But he was a Maxwell, and evidently that made all the difference.

Nothing had really changed between us since high school after all.

It hurt so much—felt so much like a betrayal, like the crushing of all I’d believed about him, about us—that I couldn’t even speak. I felt my face break but managed to control myself.

I snatched the piece of paper out of his arms and stuffed it back in the file. Then I stuffed the file back in my bag, keeping my head down so he wouldn’t see my expression. “Okay,” I said, putting the strap of the bag over my shoulder. “Okay.”

I turned to leave because, if I didn’t, then I might just burst into tears.

It wasn’t just that he wouldn’t help me. It was that he wasn’t who I’d believed him to be. And that hurt as much as anything ever had.

“Ali, wait. Don’t just leave.”

“I have to go,” I mumbled, keeping my face turned away from him. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Damn it, Ali. At least—”

I didn’t hear whatever else he said because I was already out the door.