14 - Lunch

Clara held her breath. There was blatant interest in his eyes, and it scared her that he would kiss her right there and then. 

His eyes were so intensely green right now, and she couldn’t look away. It was like there was nobody else but them in the elevator, and all she could hear was her heart beating loudly in her chest. 

The more she spent time with him, the more she felt compelled to do whatever it was he wanted. ‘Kiss me,’ her brain said. Looking into his eyes was a mistake. It drew her in like you would imagine a vampire mesmerizing his prey. He had a very tiny scar on his upper lip that she wanted to run her lips over.

The ding of the elevator saved her from embarrassing herself. She almost collapsed on the floor, if not for the wall behind her holding her up. Nobody had affected her this much before. Come to think of it, all they’ve been doing so far was to stare at each other, but she was in way over her head. She was doomed and needed to get out of there as soon as possible. 

Escape had been on her mind the minute they reached the lobby, but Sebastian’s driver was already in front of the building by the time they got there, so they had no choice but to get into the same car. She wanted to decline and make excuses before she made a fool of herself, but it was too late. Now she had to suffer through lunch. 

Clara had to pretend nothing happened in the elevators as she got in the back seat of Sebastian’s Bentley. Her plan was to have Jeremy sit in the middle while she sat at the window behind the driver. That way, she could ignore Sebastian while Jeremy entertained him. 

But Sebastian had plans of his own. He got in behind the driver, which left Clara in the middle seat, sandwiched between him and her brother. 

He occupied more than his share of the seat, and no matter how hard she tried to avoid getting close to him, some parts of their bodies were always touching. She was suffocating or getting electrified, whichever came first, and she was not happy about it.

She could feel the heat emanating from his body. His legs spread out a little too wide, and they were rubbing against her left thigh. She tried not to let it affect her, doing her breathing exercises to relax. But his arm seemed to graze hers every time the car moved, and that unnerved her a little. They were sitting a little too close together if you asked her. 

She tried to move away from him, as far as it would allow, but Jeremy didn’t want to cooperate. He kept on scolding her to stop squirming. She was just trying to find a comfortable position that could keep her from leaning on the other side. What was wrong with that? 

Sebastian was tormenting her, and she’s had enough, so she elbowed her brother and told him to switch places with her.

‘Are you scared to sit close to me?’ Sebastian whispered. She could feel his lips hover a little too close to her ear, and she could not stop the goosebumps on her arm from appearing.

‘No,’ she said hastily, ignoring the fast beating of her heart, ‘I just wanted to sit near the window. I get a little claustrophobic in enclosed spaces,’ she explained as she tried to move over and hop over Jeremy. But Sebastian was not having it. He knew that she was trying to get away, so he pulled her waist back towards him. 

‘Oh no!’ she thought, ‘He will not make me sit on his lap, this pervert.’ So she tried to execute one of her self-defense moves on him, ‘An elbow to the face would be satisfying,’ she thought. But before she could do anything, Sebastian deposited her butt near the window. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘You can take my window seat,’ smirking because he knew he had outsmarted her. 

Jeremy wanted to laugh out loud. His sister was done for. Sebastian was smarter than she thought, and it seemed like he wasn’t taking no for an answer when it came to getting her to pay attention to him. 

She pretended to straighten her clothes as she looked out the window. It pissed her off that he definitely won this round, so she tried to ignore him. But he won’t be Sebastian if he can’t have his way. 

He whispered in her ear, ‘You look very pretty when you’re flustered. Do you like how I affect you?’

She wanted to slap his smug face right there and then but remembered about their project, so instead, she took a deep breath and tried to think of a smart comeback when the car stopped in front of their restaurant. ‘Saved again,’ she thought as she ran to the restroom. 

For the rest of lunch, Jeremy did everything to divert the attention away from Clara. Talking about business the whole time or touching on his hobbies and other minor projects he has been working on. Sebastian knew that the siblings were tag-teaming him right now, and they wouldn’t let him make his moves on Clara. Which was fine for him. There was another time and place for all that.

But Clara did not know Sebastian would give up so easily, so she promised Jeremy an irrevocable favor if he kept Sebastian off her back for the rest of the trip. It was one of those rare favors she gave out where he could call on her whenever, wherever, with no questions asked, and it was something she could never refuse. Of course, all within the bounds of moral and ethical guidelines. 

Jeremy looked at his sister and winked. He was going to have fun with this. Clara rarely gives out these so-called favors anymore, learning her lessons over the years. These favors were not life-threatening or life-altering, but the boys liked that they pissed her off when they called on her to do them. She has so many conditions that you would think you were doing her a favor and not the other way around.

Jeremy was reminiscing, recalling the one time when they woke her up in the middle of the night to make her bake them a chocolate cake because they were drunk. It was a disaster because one, she’s never made a cake her entire life, and two because the kitchen was a mess, and she had to clean it up afterward. 

Because of her competitive nature, she did not let that setback defeat her. She learned how to bake a proper cake later, which turned out to be a good thing after all. 

Jeremy did not know what they were talking about when Clara started kicking him under the table. With her murderous glare, it seems like Sebastian had touched a raw nerve. ‘Deal’s off,’ Clara mouths to him and uses her finger to slash her throat.

‘Jeremy, maybe you can answer me this question,’ Sebastian said. ‘What exactly happened last night? Your sister said it was food poisoning, but was it that painful that it made her cry?’

Jeremy laughed out loud, which surprised both Sebastian and Clara. The image Sebastian painted was so funny that he couldn’t stop. ‘Ha ha ha… your butt... hurt too much… ha ha ha… you started crying… ha ha ha…’

Sebastian smiled. His question sounded a little weird. Glad that Jeremy was able to diffuse the situation because he could see Clara getting pissed when he kept trying to pry about what happened last night.

‘Your butt’s going to hurt a lot later. It’ll make you cry,’ she warned, ‘if you don’t stop with this nonsense,’ she said, embarrassed. Her brothers were a handful most of the time, and she did not expect Jeremy to go through fits of laughter right in front of their client. 

‘I’m sorry for my brother. I think we should end lunch here before he thinks of something else embarrassing to say,’ she said as she excused herself to the bathroom once again.