Chapter 9-The Ultimatum

The car was waiting outside.

Black. Sleek. Expensive enough that people on the street turned to look as Elara approached with her worn suitcase and secondhand coat.

Marco held the door open, his expression carefully neutral.

Elara stopped on the sidewalk.

Her hand tightened on the suitcase handle. Every instinct screamed at her to run. To turn around and disappear into the Boston morning and never look back.

But Sebastian's words echoed in her mind: Someone tried to hurt your baby.

She looked at the car. Then at the hostel behind her. Then at Sebastian, who stood waiting with the patience of a man who already knew she would get in.

“I can't do this,” she whispered.

Sebastian's expression didn't change. “Yes, you can.”

“You don't understand.” Her voice cracked. “I can't just... I can't go back to New York and pretend everything is fine. I can't live in your world.”

“I'm not asking you to pretend.” He moved closer, stopping just in front of her. “I'm asking you to be safe.”

“Safe,” she repeated bitterly. “In a penthouse. With guards. With you controlling everything I…”

“No guards following you,” Sebastian interrupted. “You set the terms, remember? I agreed.”

Elara looked up at him. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you care?” Her eyes searched his face, desperate for an answer that made sense. “You got what you paid for. The transaction is complete. You could walk away right now and never think about me again.”

Sebastian was quiet for a long moment.

Then he said, very quietly: “I can't.’

“Why not?”

“Because I've already tried.” Something raw flickered across his face. “Every day since that night, I've told myself to let you go. To delete your number. To forget you existed.” His jaw tightened. “It just didn't work.”

Elara's breath caught.

“I don't want to care about you,” Sebastian continued, his voice low and fierce. “I don't want to wake up at three in the morning wondering if you're safe. I don't want to track your bank account to make sure you're eating. I don't want any of this.”

“Then why…”

“Because I can't stop,” he interrupted. His eyes locked on hers. “And I've spent two weeks trying.”

The honesty of it hit her like a physical blow.

This wasn't manipulation. This wasn't control. She wasn't expecting him to be this… soft.

This was a man as trapped as she was, admitting it out loud.

Elara swallowed hard. “I need... I need something from you first.”

“Name it.”

“I need to know…” She took a shaky breath. ‘I need to know this isn't just about the baby. That you're not just protecting your... your asset or whatever you billionaires do to protect yourself.”

Sebastian's expression shifted. “You think I see our child as an asset?”

“I don't know what you see,” Elara whispered. “I don't know you at all.”

“No,” he agreed quietly. “You don't.”

He pulled something from his pocket.

An envelope.

He held it out to her.

Elara stared at it. “What is this?”

“Open it.”

Her hands shook as she took the envelope. The paper was thick, expensive. She opened it slowly.

Inside was a receipt.

Riverside Funeral Home - Services Rendered for Martha Moore

Total: $8,750

Paid in Full by Sebastian Vale

Elara's breath stopped.

“You…” She couldn't finish the sentence.

There were more papers.

Metropolitan Hospital - Final Medical Bills for Martha Moore

Total Outstanding: $47,329

Paid in Full by Sebastian Vale

The papers slipped from her fingers.

Sebastian caught them before they hit the ground.

“You paid for my mother's funeral,” Elara whispered. *And her bills.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Her voice broke. “She was already dead. The money I took from you was supposed to save her and she died anyway and you still... why would you…”

“Because you shouldn't have had to do it alone,” Sebastian said quietly.

Tears burned behind Elara's eyes. “I don't understand.”

“Neither do I.” He handed the papers back to her. “But I did it anyway.”

There was one more document in the envelope.

A photograph.

Elara pulled it out with trembling hands.

It was a grave.

Her mother's grave.

With a headstone.

Beautiful granite with carved roses along the edges. Her mother's name. Her dates. And below:

Beloved Mother

Her love lives on

Elara's knees buckled.

Sebastian caught her, his hands steady on her arms.

“When…” She couldn't breathe. “When did you…”

“Two weeks ago,” he said quietly. “I went myself.”

The image formed in her mind: Sebastian Vale standing alone in a cemetery, hands in his pockets, looking down at a stranger's grave.

At her mother's grave.

“I couldn't afford a headstone,” Elara choked out. “They said... they said they would put up a temporary marker until I could save enough.”

“I know.”

“You didn't have to do this.”

“Yes,” Sebastian said, his voice rough. “I did.”

Something inside Elara shattered.

All the walls she had built. All the distance she had tried to keep. All the reasons she had given herself to hate him.

Gone.

She pressed her hands to her face and sobbed.

Not the quiet, controlled tears she had allowed herself at the funeral. Not the numb grief she had carried for weeks.

Real, wrenching sobs that tore out of her chest like they had been buried there for months.

Sebastian's arms came around her.

Pulled her against his chest.

He held her while she broke.

“I miss her,” Elara gasped between sobs. “I miss her so much every single day and she's gone and I never got to say goodbye and I'm so scared…”

“I know.” His hand stroked her hair, gentle and sure. “I know.”

“I don't know how to do this alone, it gets worse as the day goes by, it's hard.”

*You're not alone.” His arms tightened. “I've been taking care of you, Elara. I'm not stopping now.”

The words were a promise.

Absolute. Final. Unbreakable.

Elara cried until she had nothing left.

Until her eyes burned and her throat ached and exhaustion pulled at every muscle.

And through it all, Sebastian held her.

He didn't speak, didn't move, didn't let go, but held her so tight leaving her will make her break into pieces.

Finally, when the tears slowed to hiccupping breaths, Elara pulled back.

She looked up at him with swollen eyes and face and absolutely no dignity left.

“One week,” she whispered.

Sebastian went still. “What?”

“I'll come back to New York.” Her voice was hoarse and broken. “Stay at your penthouse. One week. After that…” She took a shaky breath. “After that, I decide if I stay or go. And you have to let me.”

Something moved through Sebastian's expression.

Relief. Fear. Hope. All of it tangled together.

“One week,”  he agreed quietly.

Elara nodded and stepped back, suddenly aware of how long she had been in his arms.

She wiped her face with shaking hands. “I must look terrible.”

“You look amazing.”  Sebastian said.

Their eyes met.

And for the first time since that night in the hotel, Elara saw something in him that terrified her more than his control ever had.

Vulnerability.

Raw and unguarded and utterly genuine.

He cared.

He really, truly cared.

And she had no idea what to do with that.

Marco cleared his throat gently from beside the car. “Sir? We should go before traffic gets worse.”

Sebastian's eyes never left Elara's. “Are you ready?”

No.

But she nodded anyway.

He took her suitcase and handed it to Marco, then opened the car door himself.

Elara climbed in.

Sebastian slid in beside her.

The door closed.

And as the car pulled away from the curb, Elara watched Boston disappear through the back window and wondered if she had just made the best decision of her life.

Or signed her own death warrant.