My mother harrumphed. “If your father can make it to dinner despite work, you can too.”
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated, genuinely apologetic. “By the time I get there, dinner will be over.” I glanced at Sebastian, whose brows had dipped into a sharp V. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise, but I have to go.”
She grumbled and muttered something about “the disrespectful generation,” but she let me off the hook after I promised to help her organize our next dinner.
“Was that your mom?” Sebastian asked, correctly guessing who’d been on the other end. “I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me.”
“I’ll be okay. I chose to be here. If I get in trouble, I can handle it.”
I’d much rather eat pizza with Sebastian on the floor than trudge through another strained family dinner. Neha was upset with me for not breaking up with Sebastian, my mother was upset with my father about the Laurents, my father was upset about, well, everything. It wasn’t exactly a recipe for fun.
“Maya…”
“Don’t. I want to be with you right now. No one else. This is the only place where I…” I swallowed, my voice hitching. “I can breathe.”
Sebastian’s frown softened. He set the bonbon down. “Come here.”
I obliged and climbed into his lap. He kissed me again, long and sweet enough to make my tension melt.
A storm continued to rage outside, but inside these four walls, I was safe.
My phone pinged, interrupting the moment.
I reluctantly broke away from Sebastian and checked my new text. I expected a work issue or a pointed message from Neha about my absence at dinner, but my stomach flipped when I read the sender’s name.
“What is it?” Sebastian asked.
“It’s the investigator I hired.” My heart thumped to a frantic beat. “They confirmed the foil is from Aldolace Laxatives’ packaging.”
His arms tensed around me. “Okay.” His calm, even voice was back, but I heard the first flicker of fury simmering beneath the surface. “So what now?”
“Now we have to link this”—I tapped my phone—“with evidence that someone tampered with the food.”
“Can your guy do it?”
I shook my head, my brain churning. The discovery raised more questions than it answered, but it confirmed the most important fact—we had a concrete enemy. And if we had a concrete enemy, we could beat them.
“We need someone more specialized and who can work fast,” I said. “We don’t want to draw this out.”
Any investigator worth their salt could uncover the saboteur given enough time, but time was a luxury we didn’t have. The urgency of our response was measured in hours and days, not months. If we waited too long to clear our names, our reputation and finances might’ve already crashed and burned beyond repair, regardless of the investigation’s outcome.
“You have a person in mind,” Sebastian surmised.
“Yes…” I dragged the word out, already knowing how he’d react to my suggestion. I’d brainstormed next steps for this very scenario, and I kept circling back to one name. “You know him. We both do. Working with him is our best bet, but you’re not going to like it.”
Sebastian’s forehead crinkled. When I tapped my phone again, realization dawned, and his mouth flattened into a straight line. “No.”
“He’ll get the job done. You know he’s the only one who can feasibly work with our timeline.”
“I also know you can’t trust him as far as you can throw him.”Sebastian’s jaw clenched. “There has to be another way.”
“If you have other options, I’m all ears.”
He remained silent, his scowl deepening.
I understood his reluctance. The person I had in mind didn’t always follow the letter of the law, to put it mildly. His morals were suspect, his motives even more so, but he was the best in the business. Several of our friends had used him in the past, and they’d all agreed he was a consummate professional—ifhe agreed to the job.
After a long pause, Sebastian sighed and nodded.
