Page 27

CHAPTER 26

C hapter 26

Tessa finished wiping down the last table, weariness slowing her movements as her mind replayed the day’s revelations on an endless loop. Sebastian’s face when he’d realized Rebecca Williams was his great-grandmother had stayed with her throughout the evening—the shock, the vulnerability, the way his entire worldview had shifted in real time.

And the way he looked at you when you took his hand. Like you were his anchor in the storm.

She’d served customers and maintained polite conversation with Oliver and Alice before they departed, but her thoughts kept drifting to Sebastian’s expression in that moment of discovery. The corporate mask had completely fallen away, revealing someone far more complex than the smooth businessman who’d first walked through her door.

Harry had left with the twins an hour ago, the boys still animated about their ghostly communications. The pub now stood empty, its silence broken only by the gentle ticking of the ancient clock and soft rainfall against the windows—the kind of steady November rain that made London feel wrapped in gray silk.

As she moved to lock the front door, a silhouette across the street caught her attention. Sebastian’s Aston Martin remained parked beneath a streetlamp, its elegant lines unmistakable even in the darkness.

He’s still here?

He’d left hours earlier—or at least, she’d thought he had. But there was his car, and there was a figure sitting perfectly still behind the wheel, outlined against the amber glow of the streetlight.

He’s been sitting out there all this time. Alone.

Tessa paused, her hand on the door lock. Their connection had been strained since his call about the board’s acquisition demands—that awful conversation where professional obligations had steamrolled over personal feelings. The formal offer lay unopened in her desk drawer like unexploded ordnance.

The sensible thing would be to go upstairs and pretend she hadn’t seen him.

But the man sitting alone in his expensive car wasn’t Westfield Development’s representative right now. He was Sebastian, confronting a discovery that had shaken his foundations and left him processing the kind of family revelation that rewrote entire life stories.

And he looks utterly lost.

She thought of his voice when he’d said he didn’t know who he was supposed to be anymore. Of how he’d trusted her enough to let his guard down completely in front of everyone today.

Some people shouldn’t be alone with revelations this big.

Before doubt could take hold, Tessa grabbed her coat and stepped into the rain.

Water immediately soaked through her thin shoes as she crossed the street, November chill sinking into her bones. Through the rain-streaked window, she could see Sebastian’s outline, perfectly still behind the wheel. His head was tilted back against the headrest, eyes closed, looking more exhausted than she’d ever seen him.

She tapped lightly on the passenger glass.

Sebastian’s eyes flew open, and he turned toward the sound with the startled expression of someone pulled from deep thought. Surprise registered first—genuine shock that she was there—before his expression softened into something achingly vulnerable.

Oh. There he is. The real Sebastian.

After a moment’s hesitation, he reached over to unlock the door with a soft click.

Rain drummed against the windshield as Tessa slid into the passenger seat, immediately enveloped by warmth and the scent of expensive leather and something indefinably Sebastian. The interior light briefly illuminated his face—drawn, exhausted, completely unguarded—then faded into the blue glow of the dashboard.

The photograph of Will and Rebecca lay between them on the console. Sebastian’s hands rested limply on the steering wheel, his usual composed posture replaced by slouched exhaustion.

Neither spoke for several long moments. Outside, London carried on—occasional cars passing with splashes of tires on wet pavement, the steady patter of rain creating a bubble of privacy around them.

“I’ve been sitting here thinking,” Sebastian finally said, voice barely audible above the rainfall. He stared at the photograph. “My whole life, I’ve tried to become someone my father would approve of. Build the right company, make the right deals.” His laugh was bitter. “And now I find out my great-grandmother loved a man who died in a cellar. If Will had lived...” He stopped, the words catching.

The raw honesty in his voice made Tessa’s throat tighten. This wasn’t corporate Sebastian. This was someone stripped down to his emotional core.

“If Rebecca had gotten his letter and married him instead...” Sebastian didn’t complete the thought, but the implication hung between them: he wouldn’t exist.

“The irony is...” He shook his head. “I’m trying to destroy the place where she lost him. The place that made my existence possible.”

The blue glow from the dashboard caught the moisture in his eyes, and Tessa felt her heart crack at the sight.

“Or,” she said quietly, “you’re connected to this place in ways you never imagined. Maybe that’s why you were drawn to it, even as you planned to demolish it.”

Sebastian turned to her, and the vulnerability on his face took her breath away. Every trace of corporate armor was gone.

“Who am I supposed to be now?” The question came out raw, desperate. “The developer my father wanted? Or someone whose family legacy is tied to this pub deeper than business?” His voice broke, and Tessa felt the fracture in her bones.

In that moment, she saw beyond his persona completely—beyond the suits and boardroom confidence. She saw the man who remembered her favorite pastries, who’d spent hours in archives for a ghost, who’d sat with children and patiently fixed their toy equipment.

“Maybe you’re just Sebastian,” she said softly. “And maybe that’s enough.”

Without deciding to, Tessa reached across the space between them and covered his hand with hers.

The contact was electric—not dramatic, but the quiet recognition of connection. Sebastian’s fingers turned under hers, palm to palm, and suddenly the car felt very small and intimate.

They both looked through the rain-blurred windshield at the golden light still burning in The Red Lion’s windows. The distant glow reached toward them through the glass like a beacon.

“I keep thinking about her,” Sebastian said after a while, his thumb beginning to trace an absent pattern over her knuckles. “Rebecca. What she felt when Will disappeared. Whether she ever knew what happened to him.”

The gentle touch made her breath hitch, but she kept her voice steady. “She wrote about looking for his face in crowds. Even years later, after she’d built a new life.”

“My mother has albums going back generations. Letters, documents, family stories.” His thumb never stopped its gentle movement. “I never paid attention—too focused on the future to care about the past.”

“Maybe it’s time to look,” Tessa suggested.

“Maybe,” he agreed, then seemed to realize what he was doing with his thumb. His eyes met hers in the dim light, and the air between them suddenly felt charged.

The simple contact was sending warmth through her entire body. She became acutely aware of their proximity—how close they were, how his defenses had disappeared, how the intimate darkness made everything feel more intense.

This is the man trying to buy your pub. This is complicated beyond measure.

But Sebastian was looking at her like she’d thrown him a lifeline, and Tessa found she didn’t care about complicated.

“You should come inside,” she heard herself say. “The pub’s closed, but I think we could both use a drink. And you look like you could use some warmth.”

Sebastian seemed about to refuse—she could see self-protection warring with something deeper—then nodded slowly.

“All right,” he said, his voice rough with what might have been relief.

As they prepared to brave the rain, Tessa spoke the words that had been forming since they’d discovered his connection to Rebecca and Will.

“You belong here too, you know.”

Sebastian looked at her sharply, understanding flooding his face. It wasn’t just an invitation back into the pub—it was acknowledgment of his place in its story, his right to be part of whatever came next.

His eyes searched hers in the blue dashboard light, and what he found there seemed to settle something in him. “Thank you,” he said quietly, the words carrying gratitude for much more than shelter from rain.

The rain had intensified while they’d been talking, drumming against the roof with increasing urgency. The intimate cocoon of the car suddenly felt too small, too charged with everything they weren’t saying. Sebastian reluctantly released her hand, the loss of contact immediate and sharp.

“We should go,” he said, though his voice suggested he was as reluctant as she felt to break this moment. “Before we’re completely soaked.”

Together they stepped out into the storm, rain immediately soaking through their clothes as they ran across the slick street. The cold was shocking after the warmth of the car, but Sebastian’s hand found the small of her back as they reached the pub’s doorway, steadying her as she fumbled with the keys. Rain turned Sebastian’s perfect hair into dark, wet waves that made him look younger, more approachable. His expensive suit was rumpled and damp, his corporate armor completely gone.

Tessa unlocked the door, acutely aware of his closeness as he waited behind her. When she stepped aside to let him enter first, he paused in the narrow doorway, their eyes meeting for a heartbeat before he brushed past her into the warm pub.

The golden light inside felt like coming home after a storm. As Tessa locked the door behind them, she realized that everything had changed in the space of that car ride. Whatever tomorrow brought—acquisitions and heritage applications, corporate pressures and family revelations—they had crossed some invisible line tonight.

They were no longer just on opposite sides of a business transaction. They were two people who had seen each other’s hearts in the darkness, and there was no going back from that kind of truth.