Page 29 of Best Kept Vows (Savannah’s Best #6)

Ophelia

“ S ebastian, what are you doing here?” I asked when I saw him at my doorstep, his suit jacket over his shoulder and his eyes…sad and happy. Very confusing!

“Can we talk?”

I licked my lips and stepped aside so he could walk into the apartment.

He threw his jacket on an armchair and sat on the three-person couch.

He looked serious, and I was worried. “Is it Abraham?” I asked.

He smiled. “No, Lia. Come, sit next to me.”

I wanted to say no, but that was petty. The truth was, he was upset, and I wanted to be with him and take care of him. I’d loved him for more than half my life, and I knew I’d always love him, no matter where I was living right now.

“First things first. I just fired Jane. ”

I raised both eyebrows. “How come?”

He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of me with Lev. “Jane took this, and then she followed you.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.

“This was the second time she behaved unprofessionally, so we let her go.”

“I…this is so weird. Why would she take this photograph?”

“To show me that you’re canoodling with other men so she and I could now be together.”

“ Canoodling ?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know what word to use.”

“He’s my neighbor, and he’s Luna’s brother. Lev.”

Sebastian nodded, and pursed his lips. “I was…I am jealous.”

“You are?”

“Yeah,” he admitted sheepishly. “I know, it’s stupid, but I can’t help how I feel.”

“You used to never be like this.”

“I was never afraid of losing you before.”

Right then, for a moment, he looked like the boy I used to know, the one who would sulk and pout, the one who would do anything to make me smile.

“Remember when I was pregnant with Tristan, and I was dying for a slice of pizza?”

He took my hand in his. “Yeah, baby, I remember.”

“You made the worst pizza in the world.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that was pretty inedible.”

“But I was happy.” I felt a pang for the past when we were just us . “What happened to my husband who tried to make New York-style pizza because his pregnant wife was craving it?”

He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “That man lost his way.”

“I feel like I’ve found who I am in these few short weeks since I started working. Even when I was doing my MBA, I felt…alone. You weren’t there. It’s like you checked out of our marriage.”

He kept my hand in his on his thigh. “I spoke to my father. We’ve decided to sell Boone Metals.”

A quiet gasp escaped me, and my lungs forgot how to work for a moment.

Sebastian’s gaze softened. “I asked him why he didn’t sell it before. He told me it was because of pride. That was why I was killing myself with work, too. Pride . I wanted to show him but also myself that I was the bigger dog.”

“And now?”

“I feel like a fuckin’ idiot because I don’t even like running the damn company. I liked being a consultant. I liked that cadence of work. This is…fuckin’ torture.”

I slid back on the sofa, and my hand slipped away from his. “Your mother isn’t going to like you selling the company. She takes great pride in the family business.”

“Mama isn’t going to like a lot of things that are going to happen,” he stated flatly and then told me about his parents’ finances.

“Are we going to be okay?” My internship didn’t pay a lot, and it would be a while before I made decent money. “I can always get a job instead of this internship, and?—"

“You know we have investments.” Sebastian cupped my cheek. “I’ll take care of us, baby. Never doubt that.”

“But no Christian Dior bracelet for me?” I teased.

He let out a bark of laughter, his hand dropping from my face. “ Jesus ! No wonder they’re bleeding money if she’s spending like that.”

“You know the Beaumonts, don’t you?”

He frowned. “Yeah.”

“Well, Pearl Beaumont works at Savannah Lace. We were sitting together for lunch, and she was talking about how some of the old-money families were losing their fortunes, including hers.”

Sebastian murmured, considering, “I’ve heard that Cash Beaumont is struggling.

But then, I’m sure he’s heard that I am struggling.

Honestly, Dad should’ve sold the factory years ago, taken the money, and invested it.

He stubbornly stayed with it, and I should’ve suggested selling it when I saw how fucked up it was, but then… pride .”

I’d lived with Sebastian for twenty-two years, and I’d never seen him defeated. Angry, stressed, tired—yes, but never defeated. But now I did, and it ached to see him this way.

I stroked his shoulder. “You didn’t fail, Sebastian. It was impossible to make something as broken as Boone Metals work.”

He looked at me with amusement. “I don’t give a flying fuck about Boone Metals. I failed you . I failed us —that’s what is tearing me apart.”

A broken inhale slipped past my lips at his words.

“Yeah.” Sebastian swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “When you walked away”—his voice broke, and he paused, continuing hoarsely—“you took my fuckin’ heart with you, baby. I’m having trouble getting through the day.”

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. “But you were gone for so many years; how come you were getting through your day without seeing me then?”

I opened my eyes when I felt his fingers caress my lips. “A foolish man has to lose the most precious thing he has before he can measure the loss.”

“Those are just pretty words, Sebastian.” I lowered my gaze and shook my head. “Your mother and sister insult me. Your father treated me like dirt until his stroke when he realized that no one in his life gave a damn about him. You let them .”

Sebastian put a finger under my chin and lifted my face. His eyes locked with mine. They were filled with gut-wrenching regret. “I chose to keep the peace with them over making you smile.”

Tears filled my eyes at his admission.

Finally, he was validating my feelings.

Finally, he was admitting he had been choosing them over me—not saying I was imagining things, and I had to learn to make compromises.

“Then I chose to cater to my pride rather than make you smile. I chose to attend a quarterly financial meeting for a company that was falling apart rather than attend your graduation ceremony.” He cleared his throat.

“I saw your speech. Ada sent it to me. I watch it every night before I go to sleep.”

I sniffled. “That’s kinky.” I tried to lighten the mood.

“How can I not love you, baby? This is who you are. Instead of going at me for missing your important day, you’re cracking a joke so I won’t start crying.”

“Only one of us gets to cry at a time…and it’s my turn.”

Sebastian pulled me closer, and I cuddled into him.

We may be having problems, but he was my man, and I didn’t want to live without him. I also knew that the way we had been living was not sustainable. I felt as if we were at an impasse, but now, he was saying all the right things and doing them as well.

He kissed my hair. “I also kicked Mama out of my office.”

This made me raise my head. “First, you ditched her Sunday dinners, and now this?”

His eyes filled with quiet affection. “I know I can’t fix years of bullshit I put you through by doing what I am now, but, baby, I’m not doing this for you , I’m also doing it for myself.”

“We can’t live in the past. You know that.”

“I do.” He sounded impossibly tired as he settled my head on his shoulder and stroked my back. “But in the present, we’re living apart, and that makes the future pretty hazy… and scary.”

“I can’t go back to… that .”

He didn’t say anything for a while. “I think I need help in understanding what you mean by that so I can do better for you.”

And here was the rub—I couldn’t blame him for all of it.

The truth was, I had a habit of bottling things up, of not saying how I really felt.

I didn’t tell him what I wanted, and then I felt disappointed when he didn’t somehow know.

Living alone these past few weeks had shown me that.

I was just as much a part of the silence as he was.

“I like living alone,” I confessed.

“I fuckin’ hate it,” he countered.

“How will we navigate this?”

“That’s why we’re going to therapy to learn, baby.”

“Hmm.”

“Lia?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not allowed to be with other men. This ain’t Friends, and we’re not on a break.”

I giggled. “Define be .”

He growled. “Woman, you know what I mean.”

I raised my head, still smiling. “You think I’d ever cheat on you?”

“No,” he said without hesitation.

“Good.” I went back to curling into his side.

That night, when Sebastian left, I almost asked him to stay, but it was too soon for us to go back to being us , pretending things were okay when they were not, papering over our problems by having sex.

But damn it! I missed sex.