He grinned, sliding on his other shoe. "There's the brother I know." He clapped me on the shoulder as he passed. "Good luck with your date. Try not to make her hate you more than she already does."
"Noted."
I walked him to the door, watched him disappear into the night. The taillights of his car faded around the corner, and then it was just me and the silence and the weight of the evening pressing down on my shoulders.
I climbed the stairs slowly. Paused outside Evie's room. The door was cracked open, just enough that I could see her small form curled under the blankets, her breathing slow and steady.
I stood there for longer than I should have.
When is it going to change?
9ARIA
I satcross-legged on my couch, laptop balanced on my knees, spreadsheets open across three different tabs.
Final donation tally: $847,000.
I stared at the number. Blinked. I checked it again.
Eight hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars. Our best year ever, by nearly two hundred thousand. Enough to fund the mobile clinic expansion, the new education programs, the scholarship initiative Evie had been so excited about.
I should have been thrilled. I should have been dancing around my living room, calling Nalani, popping champagne.
Instead, I was thinking about Sebastian Dubois.
No. I wasn't thinking about him. I was explicitlynotthinking about him. I was not thinking about the way he'd smiled at me from across the room, while I stood on that stage wanting to murder him with my bare hands.
I was definitely not thinking about the end of the night, when he'd cornered me by the side door, close enough that I could smell his cologne while he told me he was looking forward to our date.
Our date.
I jabbed at my keyboard harder than necessary.
Who did he think he was? Not only had he cornered me at the gala and accused me of making atrocious statements about him, as if I'd been the one starting things, but then he'd had the absolute audacity to make the entire event about himself. Bidding on me like I was some prize to be won. Making a spectacle in front of three hundred of New York's most influential donors.
And for what? To prove he could? To watch me squirm?
Now I owed him an entire evening. A date with a man I couldn't stand for five minutes.
How fortunate for me.
"You're glaring at your laptop again."
I looked up. Priya stood in the doorway to my living room, a stack of folders tucked under one arm, two cups of coffee balanced in her hands. She'd let herself in with the spare key I'd given her years ago, back when we'd first started the foundation and my apartment had doubled as our headquarters.
"The laptop is innocent," I said. "I'm glaring at the memory of a certain someone."
"Ah." She crossed the room and handed me one of the coffees. "The certain someone who donated a hundred thousand dollars to go on a date with you?"
"Don't remind me."
"It's kind of hard not to. It's all anyone's talking about." She settled onto the other end of the couch, tucking her feet under her. "Social media is losing its mind.'Billionaire Hotel Heir Bids Fortune for Hotel Heiress.' 'Sebastian Dubois's Shocking Gala Move.'My favorite headline called you'the nonprofit queen who brought the ice king to his knees.'"
"I didn't bring him to anything. He did this to himself."
"Mmhmm." Priya sipped her coffee, watching me over the rim. "So. The disbursement plan."
Right. Work. I could focus on work.
