The drive back to London was a blur.
My hands gripped the steering wheel on autopilot while my mind remained stubbornly fixed on the weekend. Firelight dancing across bare skin. Charles's hands tracing paths along my body.
The way he'd whispered my name like it meant something sacred.
I could still feel him. Still smell his cologne clinging to my skin, even after showering twice before leaving the estate.
The phantom sensation of his touch lingered on my waist, my thighs, the curve of my neck where his mouth had spent considerable time.
I slept with my boss. My mentor. A man twenty-one years older than me.
And the worst part? I didn't regret it. Not even a little.
The city swallowed me back into its concrete embrace, and reality began reasserting itself with every familiar landmark.
By the time I reached Pemberton Corp, the warm glow of the weekend had started competing with creeping anxiety about what came next.
Work felt surreal. I moved through tasks mechanically—answering emails, reviewing documents, attending a morning briefing that washed over me without leaving any impression.
My body occupied my desk while my mind wandered back to that rug before the fireplace.
Just before noon, my phone buzzed.
Charles: Thank you for this weekend. I'm thinking of you.
My stomach flipped. I read the message three times, a smile tugging at my lips despite my best efforts to remain composed. I typed back a response, deleted it, typed another, deleted that too.
Finally settled on something simple: I'm thinking of you too.
I set the phone face-down and tried to focus on the quarterly report in front of me. The numbers blurred together, meaningless.
"You're distracted."
Sebastian's voice came from directly beside my desk. I hadn't heard him approach—a testament to just how far gone I was.
He stood with arms crossed, studying me with that unnerving intensity that always made me feel like he could see straight through whatever facade I constructed. Today, his scrutiny felt particularly invasive.
"I'm fine," I said, keeping my eyes on my computer screen. "Just catching up after the weekend."
"Liar." He didn't move. "You've read the same paragraph four times. You put your coffee mug in the filing cabinet. And you called Davidson 'Charles' during the morning meeting."
Heat flooded my cheeks. Had I really? I didn't remember that at all.
"Something happened," Sebastian continued, his voice dropping lower. "You're not yourself today. You're not even close to yourself."
"Nothing happened that concerns you." I finally met his gaze, forcing steel into my voice. "Don't you have actual work to do? Or does hovering over my desk count as productivity in the marketing department?"
Something flickered in his grey eyes—curiosity, frustration, something else I couldn't name. For a moment, I thought he'd push harder. Demand answers. Make one of his cutting remarks about my obvious lies.
Instead, he simply nodded and walked away.
But he watched me throughout the afternoon. I caught his glances from across the floor—quick looks that darted away when I noticed, attention that lingered just a beat too long.
Every time I moved to a different part of the office, his gaze seemed to follow.
I pretended not to notice. Pretended it didn't affect me. Pretended I didn't feel the weight of his attention like a physical pressure against my skin.
Late afternoon, I escaped to the conference room to retrieve files for tomorrow's meeting. The space was empty, chairs still arranged from the morning briefing, late sunlight slanting through the windows.
I moved to the far cabinet, grateful for a moment alone with my scattered thoughts.
The door clicked shut behind me.
I turned. Sebastian stood with his back against the closed door, expression unreadable. The usual sharp mockery was absent from his features, replaced by something that made my pulse quicken.
"What do you want?" I asked, exhaustion bleeding into my voice. "If this is about earlier, I already told you—nothing happened that concerns you."
"I want to know if you're okay."
His voice was different. Softer. Almost gentle in a way I'd never heard from him before.
"And before you give me another brush-off, I'm not asking as a colleague. I'm asking as... someone who gives a damn, whether you believe that or not."
I stared at him, thrown completely off balance. This wasn't the Sebastian I knew—the arrogant, sarcastic, insufferable man who seemed to exist solely to make my life more difficult. This Sebastian looked almost concerned.
Almost human.
"I..." The word came out uncertain, faltering. I didn't know how to respond to sincerity from him. Didn't have defenses prepared for this particular attack.
He stepped closer. The conference room suddenly felt much smaller.
"You've been different since you came back this morning," he said quietly. "Not just distracted—somewhere else entirely. And I've watched you check your phone six times in the last hour with an expression that's either happiness or terror. I can't tell which."
"You've been watching me that closely?" I meant it to sound accusatory. It came out breathless instead.
"I'm always watching you, Ashworth." He moved closer still, and the air between us thickened into something heavy and charged. "I thought you'd figured that out by now."
We stood barely a foot apart. I could see the individual flecks of silver in his grey eyes, the slight tension in his jaw, the way his chest rose and fell with carefully controlled breathing.
His gaze dropped to my lips. Lingered there.
"Sebastian..." I didn't know if it was a warning or an invitation. Didn't know what I wanted it to be.
He leaned in…
The door swung open with a bang.
A junior analyst stood in the doorway, face flushed with panic.
"Mr. Cole! I'm so sorry to interrupt, but there's an urgent call from the Morrison account. They're threatening to escalate to the board if they don't speak with you immediately. I've been looking everywhere…"
Sebastian pulled back, jaw tight with barely contained frustration. His eyes stayed on mine for one loaded moment.
"We'll finish this later," he said, voice low enough that only I could hear.
Then he was gone, brushing past the stammering analyst without a backward glance. The junior employee shot me an apologetic look before hurrying after him.
I stood alone in the empty conference room, heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
My hands were shaking. My breath came too fast. And the terrible truth settled over me like a weight I couldn't escape.
I hadn't been ready to push him away.
If that door hadn't opened, if the analyst hadn't interrupted, I would have let Sebastian Cole kiss me. Hours after leaving Charles's bed. Hours after promising myself that the weekend meant something real.
I would have let him kiss me, and I probably would have kissed him back.
The realization terrified me more than anything else that had happened in the chaos of recent weeks.
What was wrong with me?