LITMIR.BIZ

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Vangie was gone.

      Of course she was sure where Vangie was, but somehow turning up in Sebastian’s office to say hi seemed not the smartest idea, given his current state of mind.

      It didn’t matter anyway, because ten minutes later her phone rang. “You said you wanted to help,” Sebastian said without preamble.

      “Yes,” Neely began cautiously.

      “Fine. Come and get her.”

      He hung up before she could say a word, and for a moment Neely considered simply ignoring the summons. But she had offered to help, and she hadn’t put a limit on the offer. If Vangie was what he needed help with, so be it.

      She hadn’t expected tears. At least they were Vangie’s tears, not Sebastian’s, she thought wryly when she stepped into his office. Though truth be told he looked harried and harassed enough to shed a few himself.

      “What’s wrong?” Neely hurried to Vangie’s side, shooting Sebastian a questioning look as she did so, silently querying what he’d said to her now.

      “The boxes aren’t silver,” he said flatly, as if that explained everything. “They’re grey.”

      “What?”

      Vangie looked up, stricken, and said, “The mint boxes for the tables…a-at the reception,” she gulped, “they’re supposed to be rose a-and s-silver. And the rose are r-rose. But the silver are grey!” And she started sobbing again.

      “End of the world,” Sebastian said to Neely, “as you can see.”

      Neely patted Vangie’s shoulder and glared at Sebastian. Professionally he’d rejected her every offer to help, but when it came to silver boxes…

      But much as she felt like leaving him to deal with his sister, she couldn’t. Help was help, and she’d offered.

      “Come on.” She urged Vangie to her feet. “Let’s go see what we can do about it.”

      “We can’t do anything about it!” Vangie wailed. “The reception will be ruined!”

      “We’ll see,” Neely murmured. “We’ll see.” And she chivvied Vangie out of the office with barely a backward glance at Sebastian. He had already refocused on the atrium design.

      It took a trip to the hobby shop for some silver paint and half a dozen small paint brushes to get Vangie’s tears dried up. She still looked doubtful. “Are you sure it will work?”

      “Of course I’m sure,” Neely said because faintheartedness never won the day. “We can take care of this right now if your sisters will help.”

      Vangie sniffled and nodded. “They will,” she said. “And my mom and my stepmothers, too.”

      So she got to meet the triplets and Jenna and ten-year-old Sarah, three of Sebastian’s stepmothers and get a look at his penthouse digs, as well. It was enlightening.

      The penthouse had probably been austere and minimalist before being overrun by the Savas women. One look around its cluttered surfaces and clothes-strewn rooms gave Neely greater understanding about exactly why Sebastian had been so desperate to move into the houseboat. Further reflection simply reinforced the notion that he was incredibly kind to all of them.

      Not many men, she didn’t imagine, would have allowed their siblings and stepmothers to simply move in and take over their home. But Sebastian had. And as she showed them how to add silver highlights to the boxes—which were in fact not quite as grey as Vangie had claimed—she heard plenty of stories about how many other things he’d done for them.

      He was paying Jenna’s college tuition. He’d footed the bill for a year’s study in Paris for one of the triplets. He was helping Cassidy, a stepmother who couldn’t have been much older than he was, go back to nursing school and get her degree.

      “Does your father help, too?” she asked one of the triplets.

      The girl looked blank. “Who? Oh, Dad? We hardly ever see him.”

      “We will at the wedding,” Vangie said confidently. “Sebastian’s organizing it.”

      Neely glanced at her, surprised and wondering if Sebastian had changed his mind or if Vangie was just making assumptions. It didn’t seem wise to ask.

      “There, now,” she said. “I think that takes care of all of them.” She stood up and surveyed the sea of tiny silver-highlighted boxes on Sebastian’s dining room table.

      Vangie beamed, then came to throw her arms around Neely. “Thanks to you,” she said. She turned to her mother and stepmothers and sisters. “Didn’t I tell you she was terrific? Seb is so lucky to have you.”

      “He doesn’t have me,” Neely said.

      But Vangie and all the rest of them drowned her out, telling her how happy they were that she and Sebastian were together.

      Arguing didn’t do any good. Sebastian would sort it out, Neely decided. He would doubtless make it clear to them that they were merely roommates.

      But as she drove home after sharing a dinner of pizza and salad with so many of Sebastian’s relations, she envied him the joy of them and understood why, even though they exasperated him, he would move heaven and earth for them.

      He loved them.

      And Neely was stunned to find herself wishing that he loved her, too, the way that she, heaven help her, had fallen in love with him.

      “No,” Seb said into the phone. “I can’t.”

      Which was an understatement and then some. He paced around the confines of his office and wanted to bang his head against the wall instead of sounding calm and rational on the phone. There was no way he could just pick up and fly off to Reno for a zoning commission meeting on Friday. “Sorry. But you’ll have to reschedule.”

      “We have rescheduled,” Lymond, the chairman of the medical group whose project he’d developed, reminded him. “This is the reschedule, Seb. And they aren’t going to do it again.”

      “Then…” you’ll have to do it without me, Seb wanted to say. But he couldn’t. He’d asked them to put it off the day after Max’s accident. They said they would, and now they had, and he’d promised to accommodate…

      “I’ll get back to you,” he promised the chairman.

      “The meeting’s at twelve-thirty.”

      Seb cursed under his breath after hanging up the phone because he knew he couldn’t ask them to change it again. It would be unprofessional. But he didn’t see how he could be in two places at once. That wasn’t unprofessional. It was flat-out impossible.

      And he couldn’t ask Roger Carmody and Stephen Blake to reschedule, either. Blake might be willing, but Carmody was already apprehensive about Max’s having to leave the project. He’d raised a dozen questions about the public space and atrium when Sebastian had spoken with him on the phone.

      It was insane. The plans were good ones. They were his, yes, not Max’s. But Max had approved them. Max would argue for them if Max were able to be there.

      Maybe Max would have to go after all. That would settle Carmody’s nerves, they’d all be on the same page, and everything would go on according to the plans Seb had drawn up in the first place.

      That’s what would have to happen, he decided. There was no other way to handle it.

      “Of course there is,” Max said when he stopped by the hospital that night.

      “Oh?” Seb raised an eyebrow. “Have you figured out how to clone me, then?”

      “Don’t need to. Send Neely.”

      Seb blanched. “You’re joking.”

      Both of Max’s brows went up. “Why should I joke? She knows the project

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