Chapter 43

DAHLIA

The silence stretched. I stepped closer, slowly, until I stood just a foot away.

“Then be my boss. Isn’t that what you are?”

“Dahlia,” he calls out in a very low tone. Like someone in agony.

The silence after I said those words was heavy, like the stillness right before a storm breaks. I didn’t know what I expected him to say—maybe to double down, maybe to pull rank, or maybe to walk away like all of this meant nothing.

But instead, he whispered my name.

“Dahlia,” he said again, lower this time. Like my name physically hurt to say. Like he was holding it in his chest and it burned.

I finally turned.

He looked wrecked.

Not the calm, composed Sebastian everyone else knew. Not the man who held himself with unshakeable poise when he moved through the restaurant like he owned every inch of it.

Fuck! He owns every inch of it.

This man looked… tired. Not just in the physical sense. Tired in his soul. Like something in