His real father. The king. Shaking hands. Flashing that infuriatingly photogenic smile. Looking every inch the man history had decided to forgive in advance.
A national treasure. A symbol of sacrifice. A walking PR campaign.
Sebastian had wanted to throw something at the screen. Not because it was wrong, but because it wasn’t.
James Philip had been exactly what they said. Charismatic. Magnetic. Unstoppable.
And apparently, he’d also been the kind of man who could father a child and then carry on with life as usual.
Except, apparently James had wanted to tell him. Had written letters. Asked to meet. But Maddy, his mother, had said no.
She was scared, she’d told him. Scared of what Charles might do. Scared it would ruin them both. Scared he couldn’t handle it.
And maybe she was right. Maybe back then, he couldn’t have.
But now? Now he couldn’t stop thinking about everything he’d never get to ask.
But what hit hardest wasn’t the omission. It was the echo. A gesture. A half-laugh. A turn of the head that felt painfully familiar.
Sebastian had seen it before. In the mirror.
He took a long sip of the coffee. It was awful. Burnt, acidic, defiant but he drank it anyway, hoping one bitterness might cancel out the other. Sadly, it didn’t.
His phone buzzed.
Sinclair:If you leak one more quote to the press without running it by me, I will stab you. With a spork. And make sure it’s on camera.
Ah. Warmth and affection from Harper Sinclair. Must be Monday. He smiled despite himself.
Harper was a political journalist, general overachiever, and his part-time nemesis. Ironically, she was also his only co-conspirator in the long con toruin Charles’s life.
She’d mostly accepted his apology for killing one of her stories years ago. Well. Enough to use him for her own purposes. The rest was usually still simmering beneath her glare like a barely-suppressed war crime.
He texted back.
Sebastian:How else am I supposed to speak truth to power if not through anonymous tips and light treason?
Sinclair:Meet me. Usual place. And try arriving without your usual drama.
He downed the dregs of his sad coffee, the mug was still warm against his palms but offered no comfort. He grimaced, tossed on a coat, and headed out. His shoulders hunched against the drizzle as he walked towards the cafe.
She was already there, of course. He spotted her through the café’s rain-slicked window. Typing like the keyboard owed her money.
Harper Sinclair, in her natural habitat: surrounded by chaos, fueled by caffeine, terrifying men twice her size with a single look. Empty coffee cups, paper carnage, and a croissant she’d definitely forgotten existed.
The café buzzed with the sounds of milk being frothed, spoons clinking, ordinary lives unfolding. Sebastian envied them, wondered what it would be like to have normal problems. Harper looked up as he approached.
Oh good. She was already making stabby eyes at him. He slid into the seat across from her and tried to look casual. “You look smug.”
“I am smug.” She didn’t look up, but her mouth curled in that way that made him suspicious of both her joy and his safety. “I just traced another two shell companies tied to the Hawthorne Foundation.” She glanced up. “You, on the other hand, are late. Let me guess, you got distracted by your own reflection in a shop window?”
Sebastian was still genuinely surprised by how much Harper seemed to hate him. Personally, he preferred mutual contempt with a side ofunresolved tension.
“No, actually. I was busy with this,” Sebastian replied. He pulled out his phone and tapped on an analytics dashboard. Notifications lit up like a Christmas tree. “I was tracking which journalists got which version of the Foundation leaks.”
Her fingers froze. He could practically hear the gears in her brain shifting into kill mode. “What do you mean?”
Sebastian leaned forward, suddenly all business. “Look, there are three outlets,” he said. “All received the same documents. Slightly altered versions. He’s watching to see what leaks back. It’s a canary trap. Classic Charles.”