“I keep thinking about the first time we met,” I admitted. “At that charity gala. You were so?—”
“Insufferable?”
“I was going to say intimidating. But yes, also insufferable.” I traced the edge of his collar. “You looked at me like you weresolving a puzzle. Like if you stared hard enough, you’d figure out all my secrets.”
“I was.” His voice dropped. “I’m still trying.”
“I know.” I met his eyes. “That’s what I keep thinking about. How you saw me that night. Not as a journalist or a threat or a complication. Just me. Before you even knew my name.”
His hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing across my cheekbone. “You were the first person in years who didn’t look at me and see dollar signs or board positions or the particular uses of a man with my resources. You looked at me like I might be worth knowing beyond what I could offer.”
“To be fair, I also wanted to destroy your entire empire.”
“There’s that too.” His smile was soft, private — the smile I’d cataloged over months and still hadn’t gotten used to. “You’re still the most dangerous woman I’ve ever met.”
I turned my head to press a kiss to his palm. “Flatterer.”
“Honest.”
We sat in comfortable silence for a long moment, watching dust motes drift through the afternoon light. Outside, Chicago hummed with its usual energy — traffic and voices and the distant wail of sirens. But here, in this space we’d made together out of two very different lives and more conflict than most relationships survived, everything felt still.
“I’m going to mess up,” I said finally. “You know that, right? I’m going to push too hard or forget to communicate or bury myself in a story for three days straight without coming up for air.”
“I know.”
“And you’re going to try to fix things without asking. Or make decisions you think are protecting me. Or forget that I don’t need a handler, I need a partner.”
“Probably.” His arm tightened around me. “I’m still learning how to be the second one.”
“You’re getting better.”
“High praise.”
I shifted to look at him properly, holding his gaze. “You’ll stay?”
The question hung between us — not really a question at all, but something that still needed to be said out loud. Something that had been building since a rooftop in the cold November air, since a press conference that had cost him billions, since every choice he’d made in the past three months to put truth above control and partnership above protection.
Sebastian’s expression softened in the way that still, after everything, made my chest ache. “I’ll stay,” he said quietly. “Because you learned how to let me. And because I learned that staying doesn’t mean controlling.”
I kissed him then — slow and deep, tasting the promise underneath his words, feeling his hand slide into my hair with the unhurried certainty of someone who wasn’t going anywhere.
When I pulled back, his eyes were dark.
“We have two hours,” I murmured against his mouth.
“Less than that. Need to be there early.”
“Then we should probably stop kissing.”
His answer was to pull me into his lap, my dress riding up my thighs as I settled over him. “Should we?”
I traced the line of his jaw, feeling the tension beginning to coil in the muscles beneath my fingers. “Sebastian.”
“Emilia.” His voice had dropped to the low register that bypassed every rational thought I’d ever had. “We’ve been responsible for months. Communicating. Compromising. Being mature adults who talk through their problems.”
“That’s generally considered healthy.”
“It’s also exhausting.” He pressed his lips to my throat, and I felt his smile against my skin. “I want to be irresponsiblefor exactly—” he checked his watch over my shoulder “—thirty-seven minutes.”
