Page 12

CHAPTER 11

S ebastian straightened his already impeccable tie with the nervous precision of someone preparing for battle as he entered Westfield Development’s glass-walled conference room for the monthly board meeting. Behind him, London’s skyline stretched in gleaming steel and reflective surfaces—a monument to the sort of relentless progress his company had championed for three decades. Modern, efficient, profitable, and utterly devoid of the sort of weathered character that made a place feel like home.

The complete opposite of hand-hewn wood beams and wartime ghosts with unfinished business.

The board members were already assembled around the polished mahogany table like a tribunal, their expressions ranging from mildly impatient to openly disapproving. Sebastian recognized each look with the weary familiarity of someone who’d been parsing silent judgments since inheriting the company five years ago. The unspoken comparison lingered in every glance, every subtle shake of the head, every pointed consultation of expensive watches:

Raymond would have handled this situation completely differently. And much more decisively.

“Good morning,” Sebastian said, taking his place at the head of the table with the sort of calm authority that had taken years to perfect. “Let’s begin with the quarterly review.”

Margaret Caine—his father’s former executive assistant and current board member with the sort of steel-backed efficiency that could make grown men weep—gestured toward her Cartier watch with barely concealed irritation. “The quarterly projections were due last Monday. We’ve been operating in strategic darkness for over a week.”

“They’re completed and finalized,” Sebastian replied evenly, opening the leather portfolio before him with movements that betrayed none of his growing internal turmoil. “I’ve also included updated acquisition timelines for all current development projects.”

“Including Lion Square?” Victor Harrington’s voice cut through the conference room’s climate-controlled air like a scalpel. His father’s oldest friend and former chess opponent had the sort of ruthless business instincts that had made him wealthy and deeply unpleasant in equal measure. This was the man who had once told Sebastian, without a trace of irony, that empathy was a fatal liability in corporate leadership.

“That’s precisely what I wanted to address with the group,” Sebastian said, distributing carefully prepared reports around the table. “There have been some...unexpected complications with that particular acquisition.”

“The skeleton,” Margaret said with the dismissive tone she might use to describe a minor accounting error. “A historical curiosity. Nothing that can’t be managed with proper legal strategy.”

Sebastian felt his expensive pen pause in his hand, a tiny rebellion against the casual dismissal of Will Donovan’s tragic end. “There’s also a heritage preservation application in active development. The current owner is compiling extensive documentation about the building’s historical significance that could potentially?—“

“Buy her out,” Victor interrupted without even glancing at the meticulously prepared report Sebastian had spent hours crafting. “Double the offer if necessary. Triple it. Apply whatever pressure is required to expedite the sale. Raymond would have had the paperwork signed and filed a month ago.”

Sebastian set down his pen with deliberate precision and fixed Victor with a steady stare. “Victor, I appreciate your input, but I’m the one making strategic decisions for this company. Not you, and certainly not my father’s ghost.”

The room went silent. Victor’s face flushed slightly, but Sebastian continued without missing a beat.

“Ms. Lawson appears genuinely committed to preserving the pub,” he said, his voice carrying the quiet authority of someone who wouldn’t be challenged. “This situation requires a more nuanced approach than brute force financial pressure.”

Victor recovered his composure but didn’t back down entirely. “Your father built this company by acting decisively when opportunities presented themselves. No sentiment, no second-guessing, no emotional complications. This development makes perfect sense—forty-eight luxury residential units in a prime location with excellent transport links. Are you seriously going to let one stubborn pub owner block that level of profitability?”

“I’m going to handle this acquisition in the way that makes the most strategic sense,” Sebastian replied coolly. “Which includes considering all potential legal vulnerabilities. If we apply too much pressure too quickly and the heritage application succeeds, it could jeopardize the entire project.”

“Then make absolutely certain it doesn’t succeed,” Victor said, his tone more measured now but still insistent.

Sebastian leaned back in his chair, making it clear who was in control. “I’ll handle the Lion Square acquisition according to my timeline and my methods. Is that understood?”

Victor nodded reluctantly, and Sebastian could see the other board members taking note of the power dynamic.

Find the weak points. Apply pressure. Make problems disappear.

The conversation moved on to quarterly profit margins and zoning regulations, but Sebastian had made his point clear: he was in charge, not the board’s old guard.

By the meeting’s conclusion, Sebastian had agreed to move forward with the Lion Square acquisition, though he kept the timeline deliberately vague. He returned to his office with the familiar weight of inherited expectations pressing across his shoulders, but also with a growing list of reasons why the Red Lion situation was more complicated than Victor understood.

The heritage application was still under review. The historical significance claims needed proper evaluation. There were potential legal vulnerabilities to consider. Sebastian found himself mentally cataloguing every possible delay, every reasonable excuse to slow the process down.

He wasn’t stalling, exactly. He was being thorough. Strategic. His father would have appreciated such careful consideration of all angles.

At least, that’s what Sebastian told himself as he settled behind his desk, already composing emails that would extend timelines and request additional assessments. He returned to his office in heavy silence, the familiar weight of inherited expectations pressing across his shoulders like an expensive but ill-fitting suit.

His assistant had arranged the day’s correspondence in characteristically neat stacks across his desk. Positioned prominently on top sat the latest issue of Business Innovator magazine, its glossy cover featuring a photograph that made Sebastian’s stomach clench with immediate recognition.

Oliver Graham smiled confidently from the magazine cover—relaxed, naturally lit, radiating the sort of effortless success that had always made Sebastian want to throw things at walls. The headline blazed in bold typography: “INNOVATION LEADER TACKLES HERITAGE PRESERVATION.”

Sebastian stared at the image, his competitive instincts flaring like a match struck in darkness. Of course Oliver would be featured in a major business publication during the exact week Sebastian was struggling with his own preservation-versus-progress dilemma.

The accompanying article detailed Oliver’s newest sustainable development project—a brilliant commercial redevelopment that had managed to preserve an entire 19th-century factory facade while creating thoroughly modern office spaces behind the historical shell. It was exactly the sort of innovative solution that made environmental activists and city planners equally happy.

“Preserving our architectural heritage while meeting contemporary commercial needs isn’t just ethically responsible—it’s smart business,” Oliver was quoted as saying with the sort of casual confidence that suggested he’d never doubted the wisdom of his approach. “The past and future don’t have to be enemies. Historic pubs like The Red Lion represent the soul of London’s communities. These aren’t just buildings—they’re living pieces of our heritage that deserve protection.”

Sebastian’s heart nearly stopped. Of course Oliver would single out The Red Lion specifically, making it sound like he was personally championing Tessa’s cause.

Sebastian’s pulse quickened, and his first reaction was purely, intensely competitive. Oliver wasn’t just succeeding at heritage preservation—he was publicly positioning himself as The Red Lion’s champion. Sebastian’s pub. Sebastian’s deal. Sebastian’s...what exactly?

The competitive fire that had been dormant suddenly roared to life. All his careful excuses and strategic delays evaporated in an instant. A clean victory was within reach. Acquiring the pub wouldn’t just be good business—it would be the perfect checkmate move against his rival who thought he could play white knight to Sebastian’s corporate villain.

His father’s ghost would have been proud of such decisive competitive maneuvering.

Sebastian opened his laptop with sharp, efficient movements, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he drafted the necessary strategic steps: significantly increased acquisition offer, targeted legal pressure on the heritage application, carefully orchestrated zoning objections that would make preservation financially impossible. Every move was precise, calculated, devastatingly effective.

His finger hovered over the send button.

But instead of the satisfaction he’d expected to feel, Sebastian found himself seeing Tessa’s face—the way her eyes had lit up with genuine joy when she’d talked about the pub’s history, the reverent care with which she’d handled Will’s fragile letter, that unconscious gesture she made of placing her hand over her heart whenever she spoke about the pub’s significance. Her tether to something meaningful and lasting in a world that seemed determined to tear down everything with history in favor of everything with profit margins.

If he sent this email, he wouldn’t just be outmaneuvering Oliver in their endless competitive dance. He’d be systematically crushing Tessa’s hopes, destroying her legacy and everything she’d worked for over the past three years.

The thought made him feel physically ill.

Sebastian closed the laptop with a sharp click and pushed it away from him as if it contained something contagious.

For a long time, he sat in the artificial quiet of his climate-controlled office, gazing out at London’s ever-changing skyline without actually seeing any of it. Raymond would have called him weak. Victor already had, in everything but direct words.

But for the first time in his adult life, their disapproval didn’t create that familiar constriction in his chest, that desperate need to prove himself worthy of the Westfield name.

Victor’s expectations be damned. Sebastian was the CEO of Westfield Development, not Victor’s puppet, and he’d make his own decisions about acquisitions and timelines. The board could disapprove all they wanted—he answered to shareholders, not to his father’s old cronies trying to run the company from beyond the grave.

Instead, Sebastian picked up his phone, scrolled through his contacts until he found her name, and called before he could second-guess the impulse.

Tessa answered on the second ring, her voice warm with genuine surprise. “Sebastian? This is unexpected.”

“I was wondering if you’d had any new thoughts about Rebecca Ainsley since we talked yesterday.”

“Funny you should ask,” Tessa replied, and the renewed energy in her voice anchored something restless in his chest. “I’ve been expanding my search to the borough historical society records and some wartime databases Alice helped me access through her museum contacts. Rebecca stayed at the pub until sometime in 1944, then she just...vanished from all the employment records.”

“Marriage, perhaps? Or relocation due to family circumstances?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to determine. I was planning to visit the public records office this afternoon to check marriage licenses and address changes, but honestly, I could use someone with better research skills than mine. These official documents are more complex than I expected.”

“Do you need help?” The question escaped his mouth before his rational mind could intercept it.

A pause that stretched just long enough to make him wonder if he’d overstepped some invisible boundary. Then, with a teasing note that made him smile despite himself: “Don’t you have corporate empires to run and quarterly projections to terrorize?”

“I can spare more than an hour,” Sebastian heard himself say with perfect honesty. “The empire will survive without me for an afternoon.”

What followed was twenty minutes of conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with strategic business objectives. They talked about Rebecca’s mysterious disappearance from the records. About the complexities of wartime documentation. About how Tessa genuinely hated thunderstorms but loved the crystalline quiet that followed them. About how Sebastian had once skipped his most important university final exam to spend an entire day sitting inside the British Museum, sketching Roman statues and imagining the lives of people who’d been dead for two millennia.

It wasn’t productive conversation. It wasn’t strategically advantageous. It served no corporate purpose whatsoever.

It was completely, wonderfully human.

When they finally ended the call, Sebastian turned back to his laptop, reopened the aggressive acquisition email that would destroy everything Tessa cared about—and deleted it entirely.

The Lion Square development might still happen. London’s demand for luxury housing wasn’t going to disappear. But it wouldn’t happen according to Victor’s brutal timeline, and it definitely wouldn’t follow Raymond’s scorched-earth playbook.

And maybe, if Sebastian was very careful and very lucky, it wouldn’t happen at all—at least not in a way that would devastate the woman who was rapidly becoming more important to him than any business deal.

He wasn’t entirely sure what came next. For the first time in his carefully planned adult life, he was stepping off the predetermined path his father had laid out for him.

But as Sebastian leaned back in his executive chair and watched London’s eternal construction dance through his office windows, he felt inexplicably lighter. As if he’d been holding his breath for years and could finally exhale.

Outside, the city continued its relentless transformation—new buildings rising, old walls falling, progress marching forward with its usual indifference to sentiment or history.

But inside Sebastian’s chest, something fundamental had shifted during one twenty-minute phone conversation with a woman who handled centuries-old love letters like sacred texts.

He was no longer certain that progress necessarily required erasure.

Maybe, just maybe, there was room in his world for preservation too. Even if it meant disappointing the ghosts of corporate expectations that had haunted him for so long.