LOGINSEBASTIAN'S POV"She is actually here."I stared at the ceiling in the dark with Eli beside me and tried to process the fact that Maya was two doors down with Bianca right now and the world had shifted in a way nobody had planned for."Yes." Eli replied flatly."She flew here in three hours." I said."Sebastian." Eli said."I am just saying." I said. "Three hours. No warning. Third door on the left.""Go to sleep." Eli said."I cannot sleep." I said."Try." Eli said.I stared at the ceiling."Eli." I said."Hmm." He replied."Do you think they are okay in there?" I said."Yes." He replied."Like actually okay." I said."Sebastian." He said."I am just—""They are fine." He said. "Bianca is fine. Maya is fine. The second door on the left is fine. Everything is fine." He paused. "Go to sleep."I stared at the ceiling for another moment."I am happy for her." I disclosed quietly. "Bianca. I am genuinely happy for her."Eli was quiet for a moment."Me too." He replied. Quieter this time.
BIANCA'S POV"Can I kiss you?"Maya was three inches away and looking at me with those eyes of hers and I had been waiting four months to hear those four words and now that they were sitting in the air between us in this kitchen I genuinely could not move."Bianca." She said quietly."Yes." I said."Yes you can hear me or yes I can—""Yes you can kiss me Maya." I said.She kissed me.Soft and certain and nothing like the careful managed version of myself I had been performing for four months in this house. Just her mouth on mine and her hand still against my jaw and the kitchen light and the specific smell of her perfume and everything I had been keeping carefully warm for four months breaking completely open.I kissed her back.She pulled back slightly and looked at me from very close."Hi." She said again. Quietly."Hi." I said back. My voice completely different from thirty seconds ago."Four months." She said."Four months." I confirmed."Bianca." She said."I know." I said."Do n
BIANCA'S POV"You walked in on WHAT?"Maya's voice came out so loud in the kitchen that I grabbed her arm immediately."Maya." I warned."Bianca." She stared at me. "A collar. A leash. The man was on the FLOOR.""Keep your voice down." I urged."I am keeping my voice down." She insisted. Her voice still absolutely not down. "I walked into a room and there was a man on the floor with a leather collar around his neck and your—" She stopped. "Who even was that? With the leash?""That is Eli." I disclosed."Eli." She repeated."Sebastian's fiancé." I disclosed.She stared at me."His fiancé." She repeated slowly."Yes." I confirmed."The man on the floor." She said. "Is engaged.""To Eli." I confirmed. "Yes."She pulled out a chair and sat down very deliberately at the kitchen table.I sat across from her.We looked at each other across the table in the kitchen light and I felt the specific extraordinary surreal feeling of having two completely separate chapters of my life sitting in the
ELI'S POV"Kneel down."Sebastian stared at me like I had suggested something completely unreasonable.I stared back."We talked about this for two evenings." I said flatly."I know that." He replied."You said yes to everything." I said."I know I said yes." He replied."So." I said.He looked at the floor for a second.Then he knelt.No drama after that. Just him on his knees in his own room and me standing in front of him and the lamplight warm and low and the house quiet around us.I crouched in front of him."Word." I said."Red." He replied."Good." I said. "Breathe."He breathed.I picked up the collar from the nightstand. Soft leather. Dark brown. Small silver ring. Nothing heavy. Just present.He stared at it."Still good?" I asked."Yeah." He replied. "Yeah I'm good."I fastened it around his neck carefully. Two fingers between the leather and his skin. The silver ring caught the lamplight.I stepped back and looked at him.And I was damn sure I was not prepared for what hap
SEBASTIAN'S POV"She is withdrawing the filing."Lucas put his coffee cup down and said it like he was reporting the weather.I stared at him. "When?""Her new lawyer filed the withdrawal this morning." He picked his cup back up. "It is done."Eli looked up from his plate.Bianca reached for the juice without looking at either of us.The kitchen was completely ordinary. Toast. Eggs. Lucas's newspaper. Morning light through the window. Tuesday deciding to be Tuesday regardless of everything happening inside it."You knew last night." I said slowly."You needed to sleep." He replied simply. He picked up his newspaper. "You have not slept properly in three weeks."I looked at Eli.He looked back at me with the corner of his mouth doing the thing it did when he was trying not to smile."The board investigation continues regardless." Lucas confirmed from behind his newspaper. "Separate proceedings. She understands that." Another page turn. "She is cooperating fully."The kitchen was quiet.
BIANCA'S POV"He actually said yes."I dropped onto the floor of my room with my back against the bed and looked at Eli sitting cross legged across from me surrounded by half packed boxes and the specific warm chaos of a room being dismantled."He got down on those stairs and said marry me and you said yes." I noted."We were already sitting." Eli replied flatly."You got engaged on a staircase.""Technically.""While Lucas was dropping things in the kitchen.""Yes.""And I was shouting from upstairs.""Also yes."I looked at him for a long moment."That is the most you two thing that has ever happened in the entire history of you two." I told him.He folded something carefully and put it in the open box beside him without looking up."How are you actually?" He inquired.I looked at the room around me. Three boxes packed. Two still open. My coat on the back of the chair. The lamplight warm and low. One week left in this house and everything that meant sitting in my chest in a way I ha
SEBASTIAN'S POV I stared at him utterly confused. I just could not bring myself to understand what he was saying no matter how hard I thought about it. “I am confusing you? What exactly do you mean?” I muttered and he scoffed. “You are the one to answer that question. But then again…” He paused
Eli'S POV “Going somewhere?” That voice was enough to send the shivers down my spine, it was an awfully familiar voice and I knew just who it was the moment I heard them.I thought Sebastian was behind this but guess he was innocent this time around, although I really wished he wasn't. It would ha
SEBASTIAN'S POVI watched him drag those guys to the side and they both whispered words I wasn't sure of but I knew that he had pleaded with them and then they turned to leave but the Jayden bastard stopped as soon as he got closer to where I was.“You should really thank Eli for saving your life.
Eli's POV I had dragged him down to my house and had even forced him to come in, thankfully dad wasn't home yet. Though he had called me that he was coming home back real soon but I had to take care of Sebatian first.I would make sure dad doesn't meet me here with him and definitely not because h







