"Ah, yes, the adorable child from breakfast. She must be what, about a year old?"
"17 months."
Katherine's smile didn't waver, but something sharp flickered in her eyes. "Children are such blessings, though I imagine raising one alone must be quite challenging."
The judgment was subtle but unmistakable. Nora met the older woman's gaze evenly. "I manage."
"I'm sure you do." Katherine paused delicately. "Forgive me for asking, but is the father involved?"
The question hung in the air between them, loaded with implications. Before Nora could answer, the lights dimmed. The band leader returned to the microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we're now approaching the final 15 minutes of 2025. Please make your way to the windows or the outdoor terrace for the best view of the fireworks display. And don't forget to grab your champagne for the midnight toast."
The crowd surged toward the windows and glass doors leading outside. Nora stood, grateful for the interruption, her heart racing.
"Excuse me," she murmured to Catherine, moving away before the woman could ask more questions.
Nora made her way through the crowd, slipping through the doors onto the outdoor terrace. The ocean breeze hit her immediately, cool and salt-tinged, grounding her. She moved to the railing, away from the clusters of guests, and looked out at the dark water. Fireworks would launch from a barge offshore; the hotel had spared no expense.
"10 minutes to midnight," someone called from inside.
Nora closed her eyes, gathering her courage. When she opened them, she'd go back in. She'd find Sebastian. She'd tell him. Whatever happened after that—
"Nora!"
Her eyes flew open.
Sebastian stood three feet away, his expression frozen in shock, like he'd seen a ghost. For a long moment, neither of them moved. The party noise faded to background static. The ocean whispered against the shore. Somewhere, people were laughing, counting down, celebrating, but in this moment, there was only silence and the weight of two years' worth of words unsaid.
"Sebastian," Nora whispered, and her voice cracked on his name.
Sebastian couldn't breathe. Of all the scenarios he'd imagined, of all the possibilities he'd turned over in his mind during sleepless nights, this wasn't one of them. Nora, here, at his hotel, wearing a dress the color of deep forest shade that made her skin glow in the terrace lights, her hair swept up, revealing the curve of her neck he'd once kissed. Those eyes. God, those whiskey-colored eyes, watching him with an expression he couldn't read. She looked different—older maybe, more worn around the edges, but still beautiful in that way that had nothing to do with designer clothes or professional makeup, still completely, devastatingly her.
"What are you doing here?" The words came out rougher than he intended.
Nora flinched slightly, her fingers tightening on the railing. "I bought a ticket, same as everyone else."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know what you meant."
The silence stretched between them, filled with the distant sounds of the party, the crash of waves, the thunder of Sebastian's own heartbeat.
"You look good," he said finally, because what else could he say? "I've thought about you every day for two years. I deleted and restored your photo a hundred times. I made the biggest mistake of my life when I let you go."
"So did you." Nora's voice was steady, but he caught the slight tremor in it. "Engaged, successful, everything you wanted."
The bitterness in those last words cut him. "Nora, don't."
She held up a hand. "Please don't explain. You made your choice. You have every right to move on with your life."
"Then why are you here?" Sebastian took a step closer, frustration bleeding through his carefully maintained control. "Why come back to this place tonight of all nights if you just want me to what? Pretend we never happened?"
"Because I needed to tell you something." Nora's composure cracked slightly. "Because I tried to tell you two years ago and you wouldn't listen. You blocked me, Sebastian, everywhere. You refused to see me, to hear me, to—"
"I know." The admission tasted like ash. "I know I did, and I—" He stopped, the apology catching in his throat. Sorry seemed inadequate for the magnitude of what he'd done. "I was a coward."
Nora's eyes widened slightly, like she'd expected anything but honesty.
"I was hurt and confused and letting my mother make decisions I should have made myself," Sebastian continued, the words tumbling out now. "I convinced myself cutting contact was cleaner, kinder somehow, that we'd both move on faster if there was no—"
"I was pregnant."
The world stopped.
Sebastian heard the words, understood them individually, but couldn't make them form coherent meaning. Pregnant, past tense, was.
"What?" His voice came out strangled.
"I found out three days after you ended things." Nora's hands were shaking now, her carefully maintained composure dissolving. "I tried to tell you. I called from my phone, blocked. I borrowed Sarah's phone, you didn't answer. I came to your office, security escorted me out. I sent a letter to your corporate address."
"I never got a letter. Your assistant probably threw it away, or your mother intercepted it. Does it matter?" Tears sparkled in Nora's eyes, but she blinked them back furiously. "You made it very clear you wanted nothing to do with me."
Sebastian felt like he was falling, the terrace tilting beneath his feet. "You were pregnant. You... what happened?"
Something in Nora's expression shifted, softened and hardened simultaneously.
"What happened?" she said quietly, "is that I had a baby girl 17 months ago, alone, because her father wouldn't take my calls."