The air left Sebastian's lungs in a rush. A baby. A daughter. His daughter.
"Where?" He couldn't form complete sentences. "Where is she?"
"In the hotel's childcare service. I wasn't going to bring a toddler to a formal gala."
"I have a daughter." Sebastian said it out loud, testing the weight of the words. They felt impossible and inevitable all at once. "I have a daughter, and you didn't—"
"Didn't what?" Nora's voice sharpened. "Didn't chase you down? Didn't hire lawyers to force a paternity test? Didn't show up at your engagement party with a baby in my arms and make a scene?"
"I would have if you'd told me."
"I tried to tell you!" The words exploded out of her, loud enough that a few guests near the terrace doors glanced over curiously. Nora lowered her voice, but the intensity remained. "I tried everything, Sebastian, but you built walls I couldn't climb. So I made a choice. I decided my daughter deserved better than being the scandal that trapped a billionaire, better than growing up knowing she wasn't wanted."
"I would have wanted—" Sebastian stopped, hearing how hollow it sounded. Would he have wanted her? Two years ago, when he was still letting his mother dictate his choices, still running from anything that complicated his carefully ordered life? He wanted to say yes, but the truth was he didn't know.
"Her name is Lily," Nora said softly. "She has your eyes, your hair, your stubborn determination to get what she wants." A small, sad smile crossed her face. "She's beautiful, Sebastian. Perfect. And she's been the greatest gift of my life, even though raising her alone has been the hardest thing I've ever done."
Sebastian's throat closed. "Can I... can I see her?"
"That's why I'm here." Nora met his gaze directly. "Not to disrupt your life or make demands, but Lily deserves to know her father exists, and you deserve the choice—the choice I tried to give you two years ago—about whether you want to be part of her life."
"Of course I want—"
"Sebastian!"
Vanessa's voice carried across the terrace. "There you are. We've been looking everywhere. It's almost midnight."
Sebastian turned to see his fiancé approaching, her expression annoyed. She barely glanced at Nora before focusing on him. "The photographer wants to get shots of us during the countdown, and your mother is asking about the champagne toast schedule. You can't just disappear like—"
She finally looked at Nora properly, taking in her simple dress, her lack of jewelry beyond the pearl earrings. "Oh, I'm sorry, are we interrupting?"
"No," Nora said quietly, already stepping back. "I was just leaving."
"Wait." Sebastian reached for her arm, then dropped his hand, aware of Vanessa's sharp gaze. "We're... I'm talking."
"Yes, we are. For tonight." Nora's composure was back in place, but he could see the cost of it in the tightness around her eyes. "I'm in room 412 tomorrow morning, 10:00, if you want to meet her."
She walked away before he could respond, disappearing into the crowd with the kind of dignity that made Sebastian's chest ache.
"Who was that?" Vanessa asked, suspicion edging her tone.
"Someone I used to know."
"She seemed upset. What did she want?"
Everything, Sebastian thought. Nothing. A chance I didn't give her two years ago. "It's not important."
He lied.
"Good, because we have two minutes until midnight and I'd really like my fiancé present for the New Year." Vanessa linked her arm through his, steering him back toward the main ballroom.
The crowd was gathered at the windows now, champagne glasses raised, everyone watching the countdown clock projected on the wall. Sebastian moved through it all mechanically, accepting a glass he didn't want, standing beside a woman he suddenly realized he couldn't marry.
"60 seconds," someone called out.
The crowd began counting. "59, 58, 57..."
Sebastian's mind was miles away. A daughter. He had a daughter named Lily, with his eyes and Nora's smile. A child who'd spent 17 months alive without him, who'd taken her first steps, said her first words, had a whole existence he knew nothing about.
"30, 29, 28..."
He found his mother in the crowd, standing beside the Kensingtons, watching him with satisfaction. This was what she'd wanted: Sebastian with the right woman at the right event, making the right connections, living the right life.
Except none of it felt right. None of it had felt right for two years.
"10, 9, 8..."
Vanessa turned to him, expectant, ready for the midnight kiss that would be photographed and posted and approved.
"3, 2, 1. Happy New Year!"
The room erupted in cheers. Fireworks exploded over the ocean, painting the sky in gold and silver. Couples kissed, champagne flowed, the band struck up Auld Lang Syne.
Sebastian kissed Vanessa because he was supposed to: a brief, perfunctory press of lips that meant nothing. And all he could think about was Nora walking away from him again, this time with a secret that had become a child, and the devastating knowledge that he'd been a father for 17 months without knowing it, that somewhere in this hotel there was a little girl with his eyes who didn't know he existed, that tomorrow morning at 10:00 everything would change if he had the courage to show up.
As the celebration swirled around him, Sebastian made a decision. Not the one his mother would want, not the one that made sense on paper or protected his carefully constructed life, but the one that, for the first time in years, felt completely and terrifyingly his own.
Sebastian didn't sleep. He'd returned to the penthouse suite at 2:00 in the morning after the last guests had filtered out and the cleanup crew had begun dismantling the evidence of celebration. Vanessa had gone to bed immediately, exhausted from playing hostess, mumbling something about a spa appointment in the morning.