Two

Sebastian

Three weeks after I first had sex with Ali, I invited her over to my house. My parents were out of town for the weekend, so I had the place to myself. Otherwise, I never would have brought Ali over.

Instinctively, I knew to keep her from my family. She was different, sweet, untouched by the jaded bitterness that defined the Maxwell attitude toward life.

Plus, they wouldn’t appreciate her. They’d think she was just poor and uncouth.

The truth was she was way too good for them.

Way too good for me.

I was showing her around the house and enjoying her responses to the big rooms and expensive furnishings when I brought her into the library in the west wing.

Her eyes grew rounder than I’d ever seen them, and her mouth dropped open as she stared around the bookshelves lining all the walls filled with thousands of volumes.

“This is the best room,” she breathed, finally turning back to look at me, her eyes still filled with wonder.

I chuckled. “You think so?’

“Look at all these books! I just love them.”

“Maybe you should work in a library then, instead of a museum.”

She smiled as she walked over to one shelf, on which first edition Faulkner novels were displayed between ornate bookends. She gently brushed her fingertips over one of the marble bookends.

Then she looked back over her shoulder at me, as if she just realized what I’d said. “I’ve thought about it, but I’d rather work in a museum. But books are pretty cool too. Not just the stories they contain but the physical copies.” She stroked along the spines of a shelf below the Faulkners. “So much history and... I don’t know... meaning in them. Just think about all the hands that have touched these books over the years, all the eyes that have read the pages.”

I loved that she thought that way, that she valued things none of my friends valued. That she was real and passionate and deep in a way that was entirely new to me.

I walked over to stand at her back, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. “You’re amazing,” I murmured, leaning down to nuzzle the crook of her neck. “Do you know that?”

She giggled and turned around in my arms. “I’m not that amazing. I just get a little wonky about books and old things.”

“Amazing,” I repeated, my heart full as I leaned down into a kiss.

She kissed me back immediately, her body softening against mine and her hands coming up to fist in my shirt. No matter how many times I kissed her, her utterly sincere responses always blew me away.

The kiss deepened until my body had reacted, and I might have taken her right there in the library if the door hadn’t opened.

We both jumped at the noise, turning to see who was coming in.

In one of those cruel twists of fate I’ve never understood, it was my father standing in the doorway.

He shouldn’t be home.

And even if he’d come home unexpectedly, he should have gone straight to his office or his bedroom.

He shouldn’t be in the library right now, catching me making out with Ali.

“Dad!” I managed to choke. “What are you doing here?”

He arched his eyebrows in that arrogant way he had. “This is my home.”

“I know. I just thought you and Mom were...” I trailed off. My hands still rested on Ali’s waist, and I could hear her breathing quickly.

This must be mortifying to her, being caught kissing by my father, but it was more than mortifying to me.

It was terrifying.

I might not have ever thought it through step-by-step, but I knew the worst thing that could happen to my relationship with Ali was for my father to find out about it.

“Who is this?” my dad asked, stepping into the room with a cool hauteur that was very familiar to me.

“This is... is Ali.”

She pulled herself together with impressive speed and turned to face my father. She reached out a hand politely. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Maxwell. I went to school with Sebastian.”

It might have been okay, if we could have just left it at that. My dad never really cared about my social life in the past. Why would he care now?

But he didn’t just leave it at that. He was peering at Ali with a scrutiny that made my heart drop. “Why do you look familiar to me?”

“I—”

Before Ali could explain that she was a recipient of the Maxwell Scholarship, I interrupted her. “You’ve probably seen her around. She’s been at Benington for three years.”

My father shook his head, and I could see enlightenment dawning on his face. “You’re a scholarship girl, aren’t you?”

A scholarship girl.

Ali—so beautiful and smart and sweet and sincere and passionate—reduced to those three words. To my father, she was nothing in and of herself. She was just a scholarship girl.

“Yes,” Ali said softly, as if she were accepting the demeaning attitude. “I am.”

My father’s eyebrows arched again, and he turned his eyes to my face with a look that was questioning, slightly amused, but also disapproving—if a look could have been all those things at once. “I see.”

He left then without another word, but I knew the conversation wasn’t over.

I was going to hear from him again about Ali, and it wasn’t going to be good.

***

Seeing Ali again was a kick in the heart, one that made it difficult for me to concentrate on the job I was being paid for.

I couldn’t believe I’d talked to her again after twelve years, and she was still just as beautiful, sweet, and genuine as she’d always been.

There was no way I was capable of processing this reality so quickly, so I was just going through the motions. I tried to act casual and natural when I talked to her, even though all I wanted to do was sweep her into my arms and never let her go.

That would be ridiculous, though.

I’d dumped her twelve years ago, and we hadn’t talked since.

She wasn’t going to trust me.

As far as she was concerned, I was still the enemy. She wouldn’t know or care that it was the last thing I wanted to be.

I was still going through the motions as I tried to wrap things up with Ken Gentry.

It was time for me to get out of here. I needed to be alone so I could think and wrap my mind around Ali’s presence. Ken wasn’t requiring twenty-four-hour protection—yet. God help me if he did. “Listen, Ken, I need to get going. I’ve got a conference call in twenty.”

Ken reached out and shook my hand. “I’m looking forward to working with you, Sebastian. When your old man told me about your little project, I figured you could use a bit of help. Either way, I’m happy you’re here.”

“Um... sure. Thanks.” Those were probably the words my father had used for the security business the guys and I were starting. Little project.

“See you in the morning.”

When we parted, I looked around the room in search of Ali.

I wanted to see her again.

I needed to see her.

I needed to talk to her.

I needed her to forgive me.

And I wasn’t sure any of that was ever going to happen.

I might have still been thinking about her after all this time, but she probably wasn’t still thinking about me.

She’d probably filed me away as just a little mistake from her past.

But maybe...

By the time I’d reached the front door, I realized that either Ali was gone for the day or she was busy somewhere else on the grounds. Maybe she was trying to climb through another window or something. Now that image made me smile, and it felt good to think about something light for a change.

I reached the car and cringed. The car so wasn’t me. The black BMW 4 Series was a gift from my parents for coming home alive. It wasn’t something that I had asked for or wanted, but whenever I tried to take out my old Mustang, I had to listen to the lecture on how much better the BMW was for the ozone layer and why must I be so selfish.

Typical. I’d been dealing with that kind of thing from my father all my life.

I wasn’t in the car for even a minute when the call came through. You really could set your clock by them. All that military training seemed to still be firmly embedded because here they all were, down to the second. Clicking on the Bluetooth, I was instantly connected to the other three callers. “I’m here.”

“Hey, Seb,” Levi said. “How’s it going? How did the walk-through go with Gentry? Are you good on this one alone, or are you going to need help?” Gotta love Levi. He just got right to the point—completely glossing over the pleasantries.

“This whole thing is ridiculous. I don’t even think I’m needed here.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

I drove down the driveway and saw a group of five or six people with their little picket signs that basically didn’t say anything beyond the Gentry name with a circle and a slash through it. Yeah, it was pretty dangerous out here.

Not.

I turned out onto the street and put some distance between myself and the property. “It’s a big-ticket event—high profile, lots of big names will be attending. But basically Gentry wants me to oversee things and watch out for him.”

“Why?” Declan asked. “What’s his deal? I don’t remember hearing that there were any threats to him.”

“He’s a prick.”

Cole laughed. “So am I, but I don’t need someone watching me because of it.”

“Yeah, well... over the years it seems he’s made some enemies, and as of right now, he’s got a couple of protestors picketing at the front of the property. They’re not being disorderly, just hanging out with their ‘I hate you’ signs. It’s all pretty tame.”

Levi said, “Well, tame or not, it’s a job, and we need all the connections we can get.”

I sighed. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Please tell me that you’re not sitting around eating pâté and sipping martinis while riding around in a golf cart,” Cole said.

“I’m not.” But that was today. God only knew what tomorrow had in store for me.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Levi said as if reading my mind.

By now I was speeding through downtown and realized that I was heading to my father’s office. I looked around, not even sure how I had gotten here. What the hell? Like my day wasn’t crappy enough? I didn’t need a conversation with my dad on top of everything else.

Then I realized what my unconscious mind had been leading me here.

Because of Ali.

Because I still felt sick when I thought about the end of that summer twelve years ago and what my father had done to me.

And to my relationship with Ali.

So here I was in the last place I wanted to be.

***

I found my father exactly where I thought I would—sitting behind his ridiculously large mahogany desk in his corner office with its award-winning view of the city. If a photographer walked in right now, they’d get a million-dollar shot of the world of John Maxwell. Or of John Maxwell looking down on the world.

I’d go with the second description.

I cleared my throat after standing there for a solid three minutes without an acknowledgment. When he barely glanced up, I felt the resentment that I had already been feeling kick up a notch.

“Sebastian,” he said as he went back to reading his financial reports. “This is an unexpected surprise. What brings you here?” There was very little emotion in his voice—no warmth, no pleasure in seeing me. Why was I even surprised?

I couldn’t talk to him about Ali, even though it was her on my mind.

I definitely couldn’t tell him that I’d seen her again, that she was actually working in Ken Gentry’s house.

So I landed on another, minor source of resentment and went with that.

“This job that you referred me to for Ken Gentry is a joke.” He simply shrugged, so I stepped closer and placed my palms down on his desk and leaned in. “We talked about this, and you said it would be a real, legit job. Something that was going to help put my company name on the map. This is glorified babysitting.”

He turned the page.

I didn’t think. I just reacted. Reaching out, I yanked the report from his hands. “I’m talking to you, damn it!”

He let out an agitated sigh and leaned back in his chair. “Yes, you’re talking, Sebastian. You’re always talking. And it’s usually about how disappointed you are in something that I’ve done. Well, I’m sorry we’re all not as perfect as you are, but some of us actually have to work for a living.”

I saw red.

“I work for a living too, and you damn well know it. I worked here with you until I enlisted, and then I worked for years serving my country. And since I’ve come back, I’ve started a company of my own. I would have thought you’d be proud of that. I would have thought that you’d be impressed that I’m not willing to ride your coattails and that I’m trying to make a name for myself. But does that impress you? No. You act like you want to help me when in fact you’re doing nothing but setting me up with bullshit assignments in hopes that I’ll just give up and fall in line with what you want. Well, news flash, Dad, it’s not gonna happen!”

“You wanted connections. I gave you one,” he said blandly.

“No, you told me there was a threat to Ken. You said he was afraid for his life. Since I’ve been there, there’s been no indication of that ever being an issue. Ken himself told me he didn’t see the need for me to be worried about his well-being, but he liked the idea of showing the world that he had a bodyguard.”

“Well? Isn’t that what you’re pretending to be? A... bodyguard?” He said the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“I’m not pretending to be anything. This is who I am, and this is what I want to do. You lied to me. There was never any threat to Gentry’s life, and now I’m stuck there.”

“And out of harm’s way. Let the other boys handle the messy stuff. It wouldn’t look good if the head of the company had to get dirty.”

I could literally feel my blood boiling. “We’ve been over this before. I’m not the boss. I’m not the head of the company. There are four of us—four partners. We’re equals, and they’re all on assignments where people actually need them. You set me up to look like a goddamned show dog—being led around by fucking Ken Gentry.”

He yawned. He actually sat there with his eyes on me and simply yawned.

I said, “I work to protect people. It’s not glamorous, and it’s not pretty, but it’s what I do and you need to deal with it. I don’t want to wear a suit every damn day.” I held up my hands in front of his face. There were scars, and they were roughened from manual work—unlike his perfectly manicured ones. “My job can be dirty, and sometimes there’s pain involved—the people who hire me pay me to get dirty and sometimes to even risk my life, but it’s what I do.”

My dad stood, took off his wire-rimmed glasses, and carefully placed them down on his desk before walking around it to face me. “Maxwells don’t do grunt work,” he said carefully, almost through clenched teeth. “Maxwells don’t work for other people. Other people work for us. You’re dishonoring the Maxwell name by doing what you’re doing.”

“That’s absurd,” I said, my own teeth clenched so tight that my jaw hurt.

“It’s the way that it is, Sebastian. Deal with it.”

I shook my head. “Maybe that’s the way it is in your world but not in mine. I don’t get off on sitting at a desk while I dictate to others. I enjoy working with people, helping people, and getting my hands dirty when need be. There’s real honor in that. Not sitting back in my big comfortable chair while other people do the work.” My father just gave me a bland look. “This is what I’m going to do with my life, so you’d better get used to it.”

Now he sat down on the corner of his desk with his arms crossed. “Look, your mother has informed me that I need to humor you right now. You were hurt while you were deployed, and some soldiers have a hard time adjusting to life back in the real world. I get it.”

I knew that he didn’t, but I wanted to hear the rest of his little observation.

“I’m going to let this go on for only so long, Sebastian. You’re a Maxwell. And this”—he gestured to the office at large—“is where we work. It’s where we’ve worked for three generations, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to go off and play at being some sort of servant while I have to wait for you to come to your senses.”

“I’m not playing at anything. Security is what I do now. Not this.” My words were curt and to the point, but I could see that the old man wasn’t the least bit intimidated or impressed.

“I tolerated your enlisting and becoming a Marine. I was angry at first, but then it seemed to impress people when I told them, so it was a good PR move. I lost count of how many times people told me that what you were doing was honorable. But now that you’re home, you can play hero while doing the job that you were born to do. You don’t need to prove anything else. You survived serving in the war, and it’s enough now. You belong here.”

He just didn’t get it. He never had. And I realized right then and there that I could talk until I was blue in the face, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. I was going to have to actually show him.

“No. You belong here.” I turned to walk out of the office but turned back when he called out my name.

“You have this commitment to Gentry, and I’ll let you have it. But if you walk out that door now without apologizing and committing to a schedule here at the company, you’ll never get another referral from me for your business. If anything, I’ll make sure that no one in this city ever uses your services.”

He stood there, looking smug, and I wanted to run over and choke him until he saw things my way for once. He thought he won. He thought he had me over a barrel. I took a step toward him. And then another.

“If all your referrals are going to be for babysitting services, then I don’t want your help.” His eyes widened for the merest of seconds—I almost thought I’d imagined it—and then they were merely slits.

Oh shit.

“I can see that you’re not ready to be reasonable on this just yet. So I guess it’s up to me—yet again.” He walked back around his desk and sat down, then reached for his glasses and his report before looking up at me. “Finish this business with Gentry. And then we’ll talk.”

I wanted to argue. I really did. But I knew that I needed to talk to the guys first. I didn’t want to be the reason for us getting blacklisted even before we had the chance to get our business off the ground.

What the old man was doing was what he did best.

Blackmail. Plain and simple.

It wasn’t the first time he’d done it with me.

He’d done the same thing after he found out I was dating Ali all those years ago.

John Maxwell would always get his way, no matter who he had to hurt and manipulate in the process.

Even if that person was his own son.