Sebastian had spent the better part of his morning in back-to-back meetings, burying himself in work, in numbers, in anything that kept his mind from wandering where it wanted to go. His schedule had been packed deliberately, a preemptive strike against his own thoughts.
And for a while, it worked.
Until it didn’t.
The distractions held for as long as the conversations did, as long as there were reports to approve, contracts to finalize, and figures to analyze. But the moment the noise faded—the second he was left alone in the silence of his office—his mind betrayed him. It drifted to places he didn’t want to go, to memories he had tried and failed to suppress.
The sound of his office door opening snapped him out of it. James, his assistant, entered with his usual efficiency, carrying
