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Chapter 17
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56
Lotus SeraphimEnter two new baddies. Sebastian, WTH?
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Celine kept herself busy with training horses and joining the stable hands in the back-breaking work of maintaining the ranch. Every day, she woke before dawn and at night she crashed into her bed too exhausted to dream. Did it stop her from thinking about Sebastian, Phillip, and Chanel? No, but it did stop her from dwelling on it.Today Sebastian was due to show up and she wanted to make sure she was ready. So, she came to the office to look at the staffing schedule when she heard Rachel on the phone. “I’m sorry I can’t reach him. Let me try his daughter. Okay. Okay. Hold on, let me write that down. Okay. We’ll be in touch.”It was early so Celine went to the kitchen and poured two cups of coffee, then her phone rang. It was Rachel. She didn’t know she was there. Celine laughed and walked into the reception area with the coffee expecting to surprise Rachel and make her giggle. But Rachel was not smiling. Something was wrong.“Rachel, are you okay? What happened.”, Celine asked and han
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Collette went back to school and wouldn’t be back until Christmas break which left Celine alone with Dad, who was avoiding her. How the man could do that given they lived and worked together, was truly an accomplishment, and it was starting to make her mad. All she wanted was for him to show her how the finances for the business worked. He was hiding something, and Celine was determined to find out what it was.She started with the bank. When Mom died, they put Celine on all the business accounts which meant she had access to everything. So, she called the bank and with one easy conversation, had access to all the accounts. But what she saw did not make a whole lot of sense. There were a lot of cash deposits and withdrawals and there was no way to know what her dad was using the money for.Another mystery was the monthly withdrawals of large amounts of money from places she did not recognize. When she called the bank, they told her they were for loans that her dad had taken out using t
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The sexual tension left the tack room like oxygen being air vac’d on a breached spaceship and Sebastian’s face changed so abruptly that Celine went from embarrassed surprise to guilty concern for the tragedy she saw on the handsome man’s face.“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know…I don’t know why I said that.”, Celine said lamely. Upon seeing his pain, she forgot her resentments or their gap in status and stroked away the frown and the pinched eyebrows, cooing consoling nonsense. She would do anything to take back what she had said. Even though she was more curious than ever to know what happened.Sebastian took her hands in his and created a little distance between them. “The answer to that question is for another time.”, he said and sighed.Then his face underwent another transition, and his eyes squinted, and his lips smirked. Now what, Celine wondered and felt like she was on an emotional rollercoaster ride with all his mood changes. Sebastian still had her hands, and he
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For weeks, Celine had been aware of her dad’s schedule and could have ambushed him anytime she wanted, but she kept hoping he would do the right thing and come to her by himself. But the business was in such a state that Celine could not indulge him anymore. So, she set her alarm for four in the morning and waited in the kitchen with a cup of coffee to keep her company. She heard him before she saw him and had a horrible thought. What if she startled him so much that he had a heart attack? He was in his fifties after all. So, she called out to him. “Dad?”, Celine said.The funny thing about sitting quietly with nothing to do was, your hearing improved so she heard him when he sighed and knew how long it took him to start walking again. It hurt her feelings that he wanted to avoid her this much, but she knew it was not her he was avoiding, but the problem.“Yes, kitten.”, Dad said. “Why are you sitting in here so early in the morning?”, he asked then hummed when he saw the fresh pot of
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Celine was surprised to see that Sebastian lived in one of the suites at his New York City flagship hotel and not some fancy penthouse in Midtown Manhattan on Billionaire Row. She was even more astonished to see the décor was warm and colorful and that his home was a modest fifteen hundred square feet with two bedrooms and an office. The only perk she saw befitting his wealth was the view. All the outward-facing walls were floor-to-ceiling windows and had a spectacular view of Central Park which was particularly colorful this time of year.Soon after arriving, and settling Celine into the guest bedroom, Sebastian excused himself to work in his office. She had never seen this side of Sebastian and hearing his commanding voice from behind the door of his office was a big turn-on. She liked hearing his voice in the background as she went about her day, a lot.Nervous about moving around Sebastian’s home, Celine mainly stuck to the room she had been given and was in constant communication
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“Do you remember the day I left to go back to New York? I left the day before school started because I wanted to stay with you until the last minute. Do you remember?”, Sebastian asked. She could see slivers of grey as he peeked between his lashes at her.“I remember.”, Celine said. “You were going to call me after you got settled in. I chased your fancy car to the highway.” She looked down at his fingers picking apart the individual threads in the carpet between their feet.Sebastian smiled. “I remember that too.”, he said taking her hand and playing with her fingers. His fingers were icy.“That day I was distracted. I remember thinking that the driver wasn’t my normal driver, but I had been gone all summer, and staff changes were a normal part of my life. So, I didn’t think anything of it.”, Sebastian said, and Celine’s stomach sank, and her throat started to ache.Sebastian kept his eyes focused on their fingers and continued. “It was a three-hour drive from your house to mine and
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It’s not like she had never kissed Sebastian before, but that was ten years ago, and she was pretty sure that they had both been each other’s first kiss. Now, Sebastian was all man, and he had not spent the last ten years abstaining from sex because—good God!First of all, he liked to talk. Nothing like Phillip who only spoke to give commands. Sebastian liked to talk about how he felt, and how good she felt, and he moaned when he liked something. And the man’s temperature ran hot so kissing him was like swallowing lava cake fresh from the oven.They of course started on the floor with soft tender kisses. But she was bent over at an odd angle so before there was even any tongue, he had pulled her onto his lap bridal style. He was a large man, thick and muscular, and he lifted her with ease.As he dipped down giving her hot kisses, he began licking and sucking her bottom lip and moaning and talking and it was not long before she was squirming to straddle him so she could get better acces
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The sun shone onto the large windows in the guestroom Celine was sleeping in, but the blackout curtains and controlled temperatures ensured Celine’s circadian rhythm did not register it was morning. So, she slept well past her usual wake-up time. Which was why when her phone rang at eight in the morning, she was still asleep.Tangled in the bedding, Celine struggled to find and silence the horrendous ear-piercing noise and when she did, she looked at the screen and saw it was her father. So instead of throwing the phone like she wanted to, she answered it.She put her ear to the phone, “Hello?”, Celine said. But before her father could answer there was, what sounded like, a shotgun loading and then discharging. For a second, she thought things had gone very badly with the reporters. “Dad. What’s going on? Dad.”, she yelled into the receiver.There was shuffling, and then, “Celine. Guess what we are doing?”, Dad, asked.Celine sat up and her head spun. She put a trembling hand to her fo
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When Celine lost everything, it altered her focus by clearing away the distracting clutter that her avarice wrought until what remained were her priorities, well-defined and finite—her father, sister, and herself. Clinging to all she had left in the world, Celine had no illusions that she could safeguard her most precious people. Therefore, she needed immediate access to power to protect herself and her family. Her mom used to say the best way to take down a colossal power was to undermine it from within, meaning infiltrate and ingratiate, gather trust and power, and then turn on those who bestowed it. The fastest way to do this was to marry a billionaire.Celine was a phoenix rising from the ashes of her scorched barn, reborn and remade into a vessel of justice. Her first step in her quest for vengeance, catch herself a billionaire, which was why she sat on Sebastian’s desk, swinging her lovely bare leg. Trying to remember everything Kim had taught her about flirting.Down with the
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Paper covered Celine’s Desk like a coat of failures—bankruptcy documents, court documents, insurance documents, police reports, bills, bank statements, repossession notices, and loan documents. Most of them had giant red letters that said overdue, in arrears, and collections.At least her medical bills had not been added to the sizeable debt pile. While Celine lay convalescing, Collette had allowed Sebastian to take care of Celine’s medical bills, and after Celine mulled it over, she agreed.He also offered to rebuild the stables and arena, and she might have taken that money too, but it would not have solved their problems in time. The Beaumont family was so deep into debt that Carly from Smith, Carson & Associates Legal Firm recommended liquidating their assets and paying everything back. By assets, she meant everything they owned: land and home. They would have nowhere to live and no way to earn an income.Her father blamed himself; if he had been transparent and hadn’t taken those
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Smiling reassuringly at Celine, Ethan took the empty glass of water, set it down, and then turned in his seat to face Sebastian. “My name is Ethan Sommer. You must be Sebastian.” Dismissing Sebastian, Ethan turned toward Celine, a gentle smile lighting up his eyes. “Better?” Ethan asked.Celine nodded, grateful someone in this insane asylum was staying levelheaded. She, too, was trying to stay calm, and she took slow, shallow breaths. She didn’t want to start coughing again, but the tension in the room made her anxious, making it difficult to control her breathing.“Celine, we are going to take this outside so you can calm down, okay?” Ethan said and handed her the call button in case she needed help.He gave some kind of look at Collette, who sighed heavily. “He’s right, let’s take it outside.” Ethan and Collette walked outside leaving Sebastian standing there looking down at her.Sebastian reclaimed his seat next to Celine. Having him this close to her made her fingers twitch to tou
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Celine was awake thinking when Collette came in with her cheery Mary Poppins voice. “Good morning.”, she sang, and Celine gritted her teeth. Instead of answering she closed her eyes. People went away if they thought she was sleeping.“Time to wake up, sleepy head.” Celine heard her bustling around the room, tidying up. “It’s so gloomy in here, no wonder you sleep all the time.”, Collette twittered like a happy little bird. Celine fantasized about finding a rock and throwing it at her. All that would be left was a puff of feathers littering the air.Suddenly, there was light glaring behind her eyelids, ruining her self-indulgent ambiance of depressive despair. Collette had drawn the curtains, that traitorous little harpy.“You’re going to have a visitor today.”, Collette chirped. “Look I got you some flowers. Aren’t they pretty? Here smell.”, She practically stuck the bouquet in Celine’s face who was lying on her stomach so the burns on her back could heal properly, and she had an oxyge
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Beaumont Equestrian Center spent a lot of money on a fire system that was tested and maintained several times a year, but the one, and only time they needed to use the system, the fire raged undeterred. Where were the wet sprinklers and the alarm? Why hadn't the fire triggered anything? Was the system defective? Celine realized she was going to have to turn the sprinklers on manually. There was a lever on the side of the building, where she could turn the sprinklers on and hopefully put out the fire.Coughing and gasping from the smoke, Celine ran the length of the stables. The beam of her flashlight bounced across the ground until she found what she was looking for, the manual release. All she needed to do was pull the lever. Where was the lever? Did she have it wrong? No, she was positive this was the place, but there was no lever. Looking closer, she saw the lever had been torn off. What the hell was going on? Had someone accidentally done this and not reported it, or was this int
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Turning onto the dirt road to her house, Celine’s head was full of her date with Ethan, and her feelings about Sebastian. She resented having to “move on”. That’s how it felt, she guessed, to be the one who didn’t end the relationship. Sebastian had moved on, but she was stuck still loving him. Wasn’t that the entire reason she was, “Getting out there?”, to snap her out of her lovesick state?“Stupid lying asshat.”, Celine yelled and hit her steering wheel. She didn’t want to move one. She just wanted Sebastian. Hot mournful tears rolled down her cheeks, and the dirt road blurred. Why did he do this to her? He lied to her, and now she had to live life without him. “I hate him.”, she sobbed.Turning the bend, she saw her house and she accelerated planning to hit the brakes hard at the last minute in a satisfying act of pointless violence. At the last second, she saw a car parked in the road, blocking the way and she screamed and slammed her foot down hard on the brakes. Her body rocked
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This time when he asked her out, she said yes, and even though she wasn’t excited about her date, she hoped when the time came, she would be. His name was Ethan. He was a few years older than she was and already had a healthy equine veterinarian practice. Ethan had brown hair with adorable curls that begged to be pulled, and big blue eyes that made her think of tropical waters or summer skies. He was tall, very tall, standing at six feet four inches and he had the kind of body earned through hands-on labor and not at a gym.Everyone thought they were the perfect match. Collette said if she wasn’t in the middle of a push-and-pull love affair with Dr. Gururaj she would snap him right up. And they were right, Ethan was divine, and she should be swooning at his feet and thinking about kissing his, pouty bottom-heavy full lips. Not psyching herself up to go on a date with him.In her heart of hearts, she still belonged to Sebastian, but that was not going to happen. Kim in her infinite wisd
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With a fake smile that stretched like rigor mortis across her face, Celine shifted from one foot to the other trying to alleviate the ache from her high heels, and longed for the days when she did everything in boots. Her new role as an entrepreneur for Beaumont Equestrian made her feel like an imposter and she lived in constant fear, that at any moment, someone would see past her business attire and discover she was just a hick that was good at riding horses.“Everything looks good.”, the banker said. “The seventy thousand dollars should transfer this afternoon. Is there anything else I can help you with today, Ms. Beaumont?”, asked the bank teller.“That’s all for today, thank you.”, Celine said sustaining her counterfeit smile, and left for her next appointment of the day.It had been four months since she last saw Sebastian and, in that time, her father came home, the contract with Gale Hospitality was a success, and local schools were sending their kids by the busload to take clas
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It was daylight and Celine was coming home to shower and change. From there, she was off to a prep school to pitch equestrian classes. She knew with this group; it was important to dress well. Luckily, she still had some very nice outfits hanging in the back of her closet, from when she was married. She texted Jacob and John that she was on her way home.JacobDon’t come yet. Your boySebastian’s here looking for you.Can I hit him? I always wantedto kick some billionaire ass.CelinePlease get rid of him. I need to getdressed I have a meeting at a school.If a billionaire wants to find you, there is nothing on this earth that can stop him so Celine should not have been surprised when he showed up at the hospital that evening. Luckily only family members are allowed in the ICU unit so when the nurse told her this incredible-looking man was there to visit her father, she told them to turn him away. What she did not count on was that Sebastian would wait for her, so when she left the I
