THE CEO's REGRET

CHAPTER 9: FIVE MINUTES TOO LATE

Sebastian stood outside my building like something pulled straight out of a life I had already buried. The moment I saw him, my stomach dropped, a sharp, instinctive reaction I couldn’t control no matter how much time had passed.

I gave myself exactly three seconds, just enough to take in the details I didn’t want to notice, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, the faint grey threading through his hair, the way his shoulders seemed weighed down by something I couldn’t see but could somehow feel.

Then I shut it all down, forcing everything back into place before it could surface, and walked straight toward him.

I stopped about four feet away, close enough to catch the familiar trace of his cologne, a scent I hadn’t realized I still remembered, and far enough to hold onto what little control I had left. His jaw was tight, a muscle flickering under the skin, and when his eyes met mine, there was nothing guarded there.

No distance, no practiced composure, just exhaustion and regret laid bare in a way that felt almost unbearable to look at. It struck me harder than I expected, seeing him like that, as if he had already accepted whatever I was about to say.

“The flowers,” I said, but my voice didn’t come out the way I wanted it to. It cracked, giving away more than I meant to show.

“I know,” he said immediately, dragging a hand through his hair, the movement unsteady. “God… I know it was wrong.”

“It’s not about the flowers, Sebastian.” I stepped closer without realizing it, my fists tightening at my sides, nails pressing into my palms as if that small pain could keep me grounded. “It’s where you sent them. My office, that place is mine. It’s the one thing I built without you.” My voice sharpened despite my effort to keep it steady. “You don’t get to walk into that part of my life.”

He swallowed, his throat moving visibly as he nodded once. “You’re right. I crossed a line,” he admitted, his voice quieter now, rough around the edges. “It won’t happen again. I swear.”

“No,” I said, the word coming out firmer this time, even as my chest tightened. “It won’t. Ever.”

For a moment, everything around us seemed to fall away. The distant noise of traffic, the faint rush of wind through the street, it all faded until the only thing I could hear was the uneven pounding of my own heartbeat.

He shifted slightly in front of me, like he didn’t quite know where to put himself, and I noticed the way his hand twitched as if he almost reached for me out of instinct before stopping himself just as quickly. I recognized that hesitation, that silence he used to fall into before speaking, but this time I didn’t give him the space for it.

“Why the contract?” I asked, my voice sharper now, rising before I could pull it back.

His shoulders dropped, the movement subtle but heavy, like something inside him had finally given out. He rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding the gesture of someone trying to buy a second to steady themselves.

“Because I needed to know you were okay,” he said after a moment, his words slower, more deliberate. “I’ve been watching your company grow for over a year, and I couldn’t stand not knowing anymore. I ran out of ways to check without scaring you.”

My heart slammed hard against my ribs, the force of it catching me off guard as I stared at him. “So you lied,” I said, pointing at him but stopping just short of touching him. “You created an entire fake contract just to sit across from me and what? Check if I was still okay? Make yourself feel better?”

“Yeah,” he said, and this time there was no hesitation, even though his voice broke slightly. He pressed his lips together, his eyes shining in a way that made something twist painfully in my chest. “I did.”

“After sixteen years?” My voice shook now, the anger bleeding into something deeper that I didn’t want to name. “Sixteen years of nothing, like I never existed?” My hands trembled despite how tightly I clenched them. “And this was your solution? To trick me into a room so you could look at me and walk away feeling better?”

He flinched, the reaction immediate and real, as if my words had physically hit him. His hands curled into fists at his sides, his knuckles turning pale.

“I know how bad that sounds,” he said, his voice low and strained. “I know I don’t have any right to you anymore.” He swallowed again, his gaze never leaving mine. “But not knowing… it was eating me alive. Every day I told myself to stay away, and every day I didn’t. I didn’t have another way that wouldn’t push you further away. It wasn’t some plan, It was desperation.”

That word settled somewhere deep inside me, heavier than I wanted it to be. I had been ready for excuses, for something polished and distant that I could easily push back against, but this wasn’t that. This was raw and uneven, like it had been dragged out of him without any attempt to make it sound better. For a moment, it threw me off balance in a way I hated.

My throat burned as I took another step closer, my breath uneven. “You don’t get to decide what I need anymore,” I said, my voice quieter now but shaking in a way I couldn’t hide. “You don’t get to come back just because your guilt got too loud. Not after everything.”

“I’m not asking for anything,” he said, just as quietly, his words barely holding together. His hand lifted slightly again, hesitating in the space between us before falling back to his side. “I just needed you to know that I remember. Every day, I remember what I threw away.”

The air between us felt thick, almost suffocating, and I had to fight just to keep my breathing steady. My eyes stung, and I blinked hard, forcing the feeling back down before it could spill over.

“Don’t come here again,” I said, the words catching slightly as they left me.

He nodded slowly, like even that small movement carried weight. “Okay.”

“And stay out of my office and my life.”

“Okay,” he repeated, his voice barely there now, his shoulders sinking further as if the last bit of strength had drained out of him.

I turned before I could let myself hesitate, before anything inside me could c***k. I walked to the door, forcing each step to stay steady and controlled, even though it took everything in me to hold it together.

The second I got inside, I didn’t stop moving. I took the stairs two at a time, my lungs burning almost immediately, my legs starting to ache by the second flight and screaming by the fourth. I pushed through it anyway, because the physical strain gave me something solid to focus on, something that kept everything else from breaking loose.

When I finally reached my door, the lights inside were already on, and music drifted down the hallway, too loud and too normal for how everything inside me felt. I closed the door behind me and leaned back against it, pressing my forehead to the wood as my fingers curled into the frame.

My nails dug in as I tried to steady my breathing, but the words came back anyway, sharp and unavoidable, “I needed to know you were okay.”

I clenched my jaw and hit the door once with my fist, the dull impact barely making a dent in the pressure building inside me.

“Mom?” Isla’s voice came from down the hall, carefully casual in a way that immediately told me she had already noticed something was off. “Who was that?”

I wiped at my face quickly, forcing my expression into something steadier before pushing myself upright and stepping into the light. “Nobody, baby,” I said, the lie sitting heavy on my tongue. “Just someone from work.”

The silence that followed felt heavier than anything she could have said. A moment later, Isla stepped into the hallway in her pajamas, her phone hanging loosely in her hand. Her eyes…grey, just like his…moved slowly over my face, taking in everything I hadn’t managed to hide… the redness, the tension, the cracks in my composure.

“Oh,” she said softly, and even though it was just one word, it carried far more than it should have.

She didn’t move closer, didn’t ask another question. She just stood there, watching me with that same quiet, knowing look she had always had, the kind that saw more than I ever wanted her to.

Because she had seen. From the window, she had seen him, seen the two of us standing there, seen enough to start putting the pieces together.

And now the secret I had kept buried for sixteen years wasn’t buried anymore. It was here, inside my home, sitting between us in the silence, and I could feel it starting to come apart.