Four

Sebastian

A week after my father had caught me making out with Ali in the library that summer, he called me into his office.

I knew it wasn’t good. It was never good when I was summoned that way.

And I somehow knew the topic of conversation would be Ali.

So my stomach was in knots when I walked into his office and stood in front of his big mahogany desk.

I was still young—just nineteen—and nothing intimidated me more than my father behind his desk.

“Did you need something, Dad?” I asked, trying to sound confident and casual, a front I’d put on to hide my real feelings for most of my life.

He didn’t waste any time with niceties. “You can’t date that girl.”

“What? What are you talking about” I sounded surprised, but I wasn’t. I had known this was coming.

“You can’t date that scholarship girl.”

“You’re talking about Ali?”

“You know very well which girl I’m talking about. The one that prompts that foolishly romantic look in your eyes. You can’t date her.”

“It’s none of your business who I date,” I said defiantly, but when he continued to simply glare at me, I asked, “Why can’t I date her?”

“She’s a scholarship girl. Surely you see the conflict in my son dating a girl who has received the Maxwell Scholarship.”

Objectively, I could see he might have had a small point about that, but it certainly wasn’t a huge deal. We could have dealt with it, if my father had wanted to deal with it.

He didn’t.

His problem wasn’t that Ali was receiving the scholarship.

His problem was that Ali needed the scholarship. She wasn’t the kind of girl he wanted me to hook up with. Everything to my father had a strategic purpose, including relationships. And dating someone who could bring you nothing—no money, no connections, no influence—was an unforgiveable waste.

“I’m sorry you have a problem with it,” I said, trying very hard to sound as cool and controlled as he did. “But I’m not going to stop dating her. You can’t control me.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Is that what you think?”

“Of course it’s what I think. I’m not a child anymore. I can date whoever I want.”

“True.” He glanced down at his calendar, as if I were keeping him from truly important things. “But there are consequences to our actions. I can’t have you dating a scholarship girl. So, if you date her, she can no longer receive the scholarship.”

I stared at him, dazed and nauseated as I processed the words, the meaning.

If I kept dating Ali, he would take away her scholarship.

“What?” I breathed.

“You heard me.”

I had heard him. And I’d understood.

My father had succeeded at business because he was ruthless, because he was willing to do whatever he needed to do to get what he wanted. And that kind of character didn’t stop with business. He did the same thing with his family.

With his son.

I’d been a fool—the biggest fool in the world—to think I could stand up to my father, to think I could somehow manage to keep Ali.

I couldn’t.

Ali and I had been doomed from the moment my father saw us together, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

***

Twelve years later, I was still fuming at the thought of what my father had done to me and Ali back then.

And what he was still doing to me today.

To make it worse, I had to tell my friends about what my father had threatened.

We were on a conference call again as I tried to explain. “Wait. What?” Levi asked. “What are you talking about?”

“I confronted my dad the other night about how ridiculous this job was, and he reminded me of my place in the Maxwell empire. Where my honor is supposed to lie. When I stood my ground and told him that it was his place and not mine, he threatened to make sure that no one ever hired us again—unless I came back to his company.”

“So... wait,” Declan said, sounding confused. “Unless you crawl back under his thumb, he’s going to sabotage our business?”

“In a nutshell.”

“He can’t do that!” Cole said, and I totally felt his frustration. “He has nothing to do with this. He has no freaking right!”

“Oh, but he does. Because we wanted to call on all his connections, now he does have the right. He did us a favor, and now he’s using it against us. Had I just branched out on my own and not involved him in any way, shape, or form, he wouldn’t be playing this game with me right now. With us.”

“That’s not true,” Levi said, sounding more than a little irritated himself. “I think that no matter what you did—especially if it meant leaving Maxwell’s—he was going to find a way to try to trip you up to fail. Shit. Now what?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I bought us a little bit of time—until the end of this Gentry case. Unfortunately, that means that I’m stuck here, playing the dog-and-pony show, And I’m doing it so we can have some time to start making a name for ourselves so that maybe his threats and whatnot won’t hurt us.”

“That’s awful,” Declan said. “We had no idea that the old man was playing head games with you like this. I mean, I guess we should have expected it. From everything you’ve ever told us, it’s his MO. Anyway, I’m sorry. And as soon as I wrap things up here on this case, I’m going to come to you and help out in any way I can. All right?”

I knew it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference if Declan showed up or if they all showed up, but I agreed simply to keep the peace. With my share of the drama done with and after a quick update about what was going on at the Gentry estate, we moved on to the rest of our cases. Thirty minutes later, I was free to hang up and get on with my day.

Gentry was out of the picture again today because he was at some big business meeting—probably with my father—and asked for me to keep an eye on the grounds and to make sure that none of the “protestors” were making trouble.

I didn’t care that he wasn’t here. It made my life easier. But we’d already worked on the extra security for the event and even for the house in general, so now I was just walking around for the sake of walking around.

I saw tables being set up in the ballroom, and I wondered if Ali was around. When I saw her earlier today, not only had she not spoken to me—or even smiled—but she looked at me like something she had to scrape off her shoe.

I didn’t get it. We had been reconnecting really well—joking and laughing because I was trying very hard to keep it light so we could get to know each other in a natural way. But now she was acting all cool with me again, as if she’d remembered again how I’d treated her back then. I had no idea what happened or what changed since yesterday, but I intended to find out.

There had always been something real between us, and it hadn’t gone away with the years. It was still there. And it was real. And it was getting stronger every time we were together.

She was still like a beacon in the dark for me. It seemed like no matter how dark my day was—no matter how stressful—she managed to make me feel like everything would be all right. One smile from her and I felt lighter, happier. It was a new feeling for me because I was used to being surrounded by negative forces and situations that ranged from bad to dangerous. But being around Ali reminded me of how there was still good in the world. That there were still places that you could go and not feel hopeless.

Or alone.

I think that was what seeing Ali did for me the most—I didn’t feel so alone when I was with her. Just the sight of her made all the tension of the day disappear.

Off in the distance, I actually heard Liza, Gentry’s wife, announce that she was leaving for a spa appointment. No doubt a collective sigh of relief was being released all around the house. One less Gentry to have to deal with today.

I headed up the stairs to the master bedroom suite since Ken mentioned something about installing some sort of sensor up there to make sure that no one wandered in during the event. I had planned on just posting someone at the door, but if the guy wanted to pay for electronic gadgetry, who am I to say no?

There were double doors leading to the room, and one of them was ajar. Nothing overly curious about that, but if Ken was squirrelly about people coming up here, I would imagine that would be a concern all the time—especially when there were so many people wandering around the house right now in preparation for the party.

Cautiously I stepped inside, and at a cursory glance, nothing looked out of place. The king-size bed was made with military precision, and everything on the furniture surfaces looked to be in its place. I wandered farther into the room and saw something that was definitely out of place.

It was that perfect little butt—today it was encased in slate gray—and it was sticking out from what I can only guess to be one of the master closets. What in the world could she possibly be measuring for up here? I knew for a fact that this area was going to be off-limits for the party. No matter how detailed her boss wanted her damn measurements, they shouldn’t need anything from here.

I didn’t want to alert her to my presence just yet. I was kind of getting used to this game. Carefully I crouched down to the floor. Using my best stealth tactics, I crawled up until I was right beside her. I was amazed that she hadn’t noticed me yet. Leaning in until my lips were almost against her ear, I whispered, “I can’t help but admire your thoroughness on this job.”

Ali shrieked, and as she jumped back, she cracked me right across the face with the back of her hand.

“Oh my God,” she cried, as soon as she realized what she’d done. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

I sat back on my haunches and tested my jaw. It stung like a son of a bitch. When my eyes were able to focus, I saw that she was devastated by what just happened—but I wasn’t sure if it was because she smacked me or because I caught her crawling around again. “You’ve got a mighty strong hand there.”

She blushed, and I thought she looked absolutely adorable.

“I’ve never hit anyone in my life.” She covered her face with her hands for just a moment, obviously trying to pull herself together.

“Well, you did a pretty good job for your first time,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. I had hoped that she’d look at me and smile—or laugh—but she did neither. I watched as she removed her hands from her face and stood up. She straightened her pants and her simple white blouse before reaching down for her notepad and measuring tape.

“I really am sorry,” she said coolly. Now she fidgeted with her ponytail. “I’m done in here so you can do... whatever it is that you came in here to do.”

When she turned to walk away, I snapped out of my stupor and lunged to my feet. I reached out and clasped my hand around her upper arm. “Hey, wait,” I said and was relieved that she didn’t pull away. “What were you measuring for in here? This whole area is going to be off-limits for the party. We’re even installing extra security up here to make sure that no one gets in.”

Ali averted her eyes. “Oh, well... I wasn’t sure of that. I know that Mrs. Gentry likes to show off her possessions and... well... I came up here to see if there were... um... any areas of the room that we could use to either set up special... lighting... or to pipe in music from the ballroom. The DJ wants to see if we can rig something up to pipe music throughout the house.”

I knew a lot about women. I knew when they were flirting. I knew when they were interested. I knew when they were turned on.

And I knew when they were nervous.

And Ali was most definitely nervous. But why?

I didn’t buy the whole music thing, but right now I didn’t really care. “Oh, okay.” Reluctantly I pulled my hand from her arm and then placed them in my pockets to keep from touching her again. She felt very delicate under my hands, and it made me twitch with the need to touch her in other places too.

“So,” I said, hoping to indulge her in more casual conversation, “how is your day going, other than clobbering innocent onlookers?”

I thought for sure she’d smile at that.

She didn’t. Instead, she looked at her watch and huffed with agitation. “Busy.”

I quirked a brow at her. That was it? One word? “How are the plans all coming along? Have you run into any problems?”

“No. We’re fine.”

Okay. Something was definitely up. I stood there for a moment just staring at her until she started to squirm. When she took a step away, I leaned in. “Nice weather we’re having.”

Rolling her eyes, I could tell she wanted to tell me to go to hell. She didn’t though. Those dark eyes narrowed. “Look, I have things to do, so I’d better get to them.” She turned to walk away, but I couldn’t let her.

“Ali... wait.” Only I was the one who was waiting. Waiting for her to turn around, and it felt like a lifetime before she did. When she finally faced me, I decided to just be straight with her. “What’s going on here? If I did something wrong, something that offended you, then I’m sorry. I thought that we had been getting along great and getting over our... our past, and now you seem like you’re pissed at me, and I’d like to know why.” I kept my tone soft. I didn’t want to scare her off.

Okay, maybe I did.

A little.

That tactic—the one where I got really loud and cursed—that worked with the guys. I didn’t think it would go over so well here. “Seriously, what gives?”

Her arms, which had been crossed, suddenly dropped her to sides. “I really don’t have time for this, Mr. Maxwell.” She said it with a curl of her lip that piqued my curiosity.

“Mr. Maxwell?” I was thoroughly confused. “Since when did I become Mr. Maxwell?”

“You’ve always been Mr. Maxwell. I was just too foolish to see it. Now if you’ll excuse me...”

This time I did grab her, and I pulled her in close. Her notepad and measuring tape dropped to the floor, and her big brown eyes grew impossibly huge as she looked up at me. Good. At least she was finally looking at me. “Is that what this is about? You’re still mad about what happened back then?”

She wiggled to get out of my arms, but all it did was serve to inflame me. She felt good. Really good. “Ali,” I warned through clenched teeth.

“Let me go. I have a job to do. Some of us really have to work for a living.”

What the hell? “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I need to get back to work,” she said and pulled against my grip.

“Not a chance.” My voice was so low that I almost didn’t recognize it. “Not until you tell me why you’ve suddenly decided that we aren’t friends.”

She stopped moving so suddenly that I almost let her go. Where there had been rage a second ago, there was now confusion. “Friends?” she said incredulously. “We aren’t friends. We were never friends. We are two people who happen to be working at the same place. That’s it.” With a surprise move, she jerked free of my arms and stumbled back until she hit the wall behind her. It was the first time I realized that we were still standing in the small hallway that divided the two master closets.

Her hand came up and rubbed the spot on the back of her head that hit the wall. The accusing look she gave me was enough to make me feel like crap. “Ali, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were going to pull away like that. Are you all right?” I stepped forward to see for myself if she was okay.

“Just... don’t, okay?” she said with disgust. “You’ve done enough. I don’t need you checking on me.” She bent down carefully and picked up her belongings. “Just... just leave me alone, okay?” Disgust was replaced with something sad and lost, and it was killing me.

It was now or never. “I don’t think I can do that,” I told her, speaking only the truth.

“Why? Because you Maxwells don’t like being told what to do?” There was the fire again. I knew she was trying to provoke me, but she didn’t realize that she had hit the number one hot button with me.

“Yeah, something like that.” And then I stepped in close, close enough that her back was plastered against the wall and her front was plastered against me. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth formed a perfect O. She gasped, and I felt her tremble. And then I did what I’d been dying to do for days.

Years.

I kissed her.