Page 21 of Trust Fund Baby

“Are you going to be okay spending the weekend with Sebastian?” Hallie reached out to keep me from walking out the front door. “I know the two of you only spoke briefly at the bar the one time …”

Spoke briefly?

My stomach did an Olympic-level somersault.

That hadn’t been a conversation at McGuire’s. That was a barely contained implosion of my life. That was years of buried history surfacing like a horror movie jump scare.

Does she know?

No. There was no way Hallie knew anything. If she did, she wouldn’t have looked so casually curious. She’d be dragging me into the kitchen by my elbow for a glass of wine and an interrogation.

Besides, I’d never told her. Not about my past. Not about my would-have-been trust fund. Not about how Sebastian Whittaker was once my best friend, my biggest mistake, and the reason I dramatically swore off all men who had a future waiting for them on Wall Street. If she knew any of that, she wouldn’t have invited me into the lion’s den armed with nothing but SPF and a fragile sense of emotional stability. That was the truth of it all that I had locked away in the vault long ago.

“Of course, this weekend should be fun!”

Hallie tilted her head, not 100 percent buying it but mercifully let it go.

The two of us went to find James, who was loading our luggage into the back of his car. I tried my best to focus on the sun as it kissed my skin or the way the city already sounded quieter as everyone fled for somewhere warmer. I just needed to keep my mind on literally anything other than the fact that I was about to spend three full days in close quarters with the one person I’d spent the last decade pretending didn’t exist.

Sebastian was just a man. A very attractive, infuriating man. Nothing more.

And I was fine. I was totally, completely, absolutely—

Not fine.

Not even close.

“We’re nearly there. The house is just around the corner,” James announced as he pulled onto a road of houses that made me feel like I’d been sucked into a time machine and dropped straight into the most pretentious chapter of my adolescence.

The mansions lining the street weren’t houses. They were declarations. Statements of wealth, old money, and lawn perfectionism. Rolling green yards with hedges trimmed as if they had full-time stylists. Flower beds that probably cost more than my annual salary nowadays, and fountains (plural). Some even had elaborate wrought-iron gates that looked like they belonged at Versailles rather than in front of a vacation home.

I knew these houses. Not these exact ones, but this … world. The unspoken competition of who had the better tennis court, whose wine cellar was better stocked, who could hire the more discreet nanny. And yet here I was, strolling back into it like I hadn’t clawed my way out.

I rolled down the window to let the warm, salty breeze hit my face, but it didn’t calm the nerves fluttering in my stomach. The air smelled like honeysuckle and ocean, and for a second, I almost forgot I was headed straight for a landmine named Sebastian Whittaker.

“It’s beautiful,” Hallie said from the passenger seat, her voice soft with wonder.

“Beautiful, indeed,” James echoed, but he wasn’t looking at the coastline. He looked at her, as though she was the most captivating thing in this place.

I, meanwhile, was clutching my water bottle like it might ward off my anxiety spiral. The last time Sebastian and I had spoken was through email—his most recent replies still sitting at the top of my inbox, waiting. After that particularly painful family dinner, I’d come to my senses about my little stroll down memory lane with him. Nothing good was waiting for me at the end of it. Just disappointment. So I figured I’d save myself the heartbreak.

James turned the car down a private drive, and I caught the first glimpse of the house. Or estate, as I should call it.

Cedar shakes, white trim, black shutters framing windows so big you could spot a midlife crisis from a mile away. The front hedges were manicured with not a leaf out of place. It was disgustingly perfect.

“Oh my goodness,” Hallie breathed. “Is this it?”

She glanced over her shoulder at me in the backseat, and I knew she was looking for me to have the same reaction. I leaned forward onto the center console, eyes wide as I pretended to take the place in like I’d never seen anything like it in my life. And I’d grown up rich. “Holy shit.”

“Holy shit,” Hallie agreed.

James laughed. “It’s been in the family for generations. My great-great-grandfather bought this place nearly eighty years ago.”

I snorted before I could stop myself, earning a concerned look from Hallie. “Of course he did,” I muttered under my breath.

“And no one’s using it this weekend?” Hallie asked, craning her neck to take it all in.

“It’s been undergoing renovations for nearly a year,” James told her, putting the car in park in front of a garage that looked like it could fit ten cars and a yacht. “I think we’ll be the first people to use it. I’m not even sure if everything’s done yet.”