AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER12
Sebastian
We’re at the Rochester Annual Charity Ball and the only way I could face attending was if Nathalie came too. She didn’t want to come as my date. Not that I asked her specifically. I was too scared of rejection after what happened between us.
First, she declined, but later she agreed to come when I mentioned the event raises money for disadvantaged children. I swear her cornflower blue eyes lit up, and suddenly she was all in. I paired her up with my assistant, and they worked together to increase the number of guests and sponsors.
Of course, it thrilled my mother to have an enthusiastic volunteer on the team because these days she spends most of her time working with our charity foundation, which is very much her baby.
It’s a shame mother can’t attend the ball this year. I would have liked her to meet Nathalie in person, and this would have been a natural way to arrange it. A glow permeates my chest when I think of her meeting my mum. I think they’d take to each other.
Things have been weird at home since we kissed—well, we dida lotmore than kiss—I grow hot under the collar of my dress shirt, just at the memory. We’ve still not talked about it.
Nathalie looks so beautiful tonight.Who am I kidding?She looks beautifuleverynight.
If only things were different.
Damian’s sitting opposite me, being his naturally dashing self in a tuxedo. He looks like he’s enjoying the evening, which is a rare thing. Jamie is radiant in an emerald-green dress and I notice Damian’s eyes keep straying towards her.
I wonder if something’s going on between them. The press captured them driving into Greystone together and they’ve been all over the media recently. They’ve dubbed Jamie as his mystery redheaded girlfriend, so Damian is back in the press with a bang. I smile wryly. Perhaps that’s an unfortunate choice of words, considering the girl from the club dished the dirt on him, stirring up all the old playboy stuff.
But he is a free agent and so is Jamie. We all thought she was engaged, but it turns out that ended before she came to Greystone, and she’d been embarrassed to tell us her situation.
If something is going on, the poor lovestruck fools will be in for a shock when Grandfather learns of it. I imagine he’s got a marriage candidate lined up for Damian, too. He’ll be giving him a chance to find someone himself, but if it doesn’t happen soon, he’ll push him along like he is doing with me.
I think Grandfather has gone easier on him because he knows he’s been in such a state since our father died, and his ex-girlfriend cut his heart into tiny pieces and stamped on them.
Grandfather doesn’t seem to realise that I went through the same traumatic experiences, losing my father and my wife.
My optimistic, sunny nature often works against me. People think I can handle anything, so they throw it all at me without a second thought, and I bounce back, smiling like a pop-up clown. What they don’t see is my bleeding heart and the tears behind the smile. I suppose I only have myself to blame, but I detest appearing weak.
Grandfather isn’t showing the same leniency to me as he is to Damian, and I can’t deny it irks me. Damian is the eldest, and he will inherit Greystone and be the majority shareholder of our company and so I wonder why he doesn’t force him to marry before he pressures me.
Not much I can do about it, and I don’t hold it against Damian. We’re just cogs in the Rochester wheel, and our fate was decided by the year we were born.
I take a swig of champagne and exchange a few words with Jamie between courses. She really is lovely, and when she tells me she is helping Damian out by being his fake date for the evening, and going along with the mystery girlfriend rumour, I say I wish she would be my fake date for an upcoming event, too.
Damian is so possessive, and his blazing eyes tell me all I need to know. He is so into her. Bit naughty of me to wind him up, but we always have an edge of sibling rivalry going on and I can’t resist.
Damian remarked on me not bringing a date. Grandfather likes us to bring a date to official events, and it’s Damian’s way of reminding me of my duty. He already acts like he’s the head of the clan. I remind him I’m just the spare. It’s him everyone’s watching.
My eyes seek out Nathalie, but she must still be helping behind the scenes. She was weird about not wanting to join me for dinner, as if she wants to draw a strict border around our boss-employee relationship.
Hopefully she will be finished soon, and we can have a dance before I take her home. We both have an early start, but I want her to have a good time and not only work every second she gets.
I haven’t raised the subject of us being just friends, but I hope when I buck up the courage and get the right moment, she will understand it’s for the best. The thought of losing her from my life is unbearable, but she might be offended.
I don’t know if she’ll care all that much. Maybe our making out in the kitchen was just a bit of fun for her. She certainly has not tried to be alone with me since. Even on the journey to the hotel this evening, she insisted on sitting next to the driver, so we haven’t been alone for a second since we kissed, when she lost control and came under my tongue.
My ex said I was a bit dense when it came to picking up on her signals, and there’s no point in denying it. I must have been, or she wouldn’t have left me for someone else…
Anyway, I’m aware I’m not always the most attuned to what a woman wants, and I have a lot to learn. I’m doing my best not to put my foot in it with Nathalie, so I don’t make our situation any more awkward.
But I feel like I’m treading cautiously around a landmine that could explode at any second. If she won’t be alone with me, I can’t talk to her. And if I don’t talk to her about what happened, she might think I just take it for granted and treat all my nannies this way.
A smile crosses my lips as I remember the previous elderly nanny.
No, I most definitely don’t treat all the nannies this way. In fact, I’ve treated no nanny this way, and never even had a thing with any of the Rochester staff before. It’s an unwritten law that we don’t mess with the help. But she doesn’t know that, and I fear she thinks the worst of me.
