Twelve months with him

Harper couldn't sleep.

It was two in the morning, and she'd been lying in her new bedroom staring at the ceiling for the past three hours, her mind refusing to quiet. The engagement party had ended hours ago. She and Sebastian had stayed until nearly midnight, playing their roles perfectly but her body was still humming with anxiety and adrenaline.

The penthouse was silent except for the ambient sounds of the city forty-two floors below. Harper had left her bedroom door slightly ajar, some childish part of her uncomfortable with being completely closed off in this enormous, unfamiliar space.

She'd changed out of the navy dress the moment they'd gotten home, scrubbing off the makeup and pulling her hair into a messy bun. Now she wore her usual sleep uniform, an oversized t-shirt from her college architecture program and pajama shorts and felt more like herself than she had all evening.

But feeling like herself didn't help her sleep.

Harper gave up around two-fifteen and padded out to the kitchen. The penthouse looked different at night, all glass and shadows and city lights stretching endlessly below. She found the kitchen by the glow of the appliances, opened the refrigerator, and stood there staring at its contents without really seeing them.

Her mind kept replaying the party. The weight of two hundred pairs of eyes assessing her. Marcus Hyland's calculating questions. Claire's warm but curious welcome. The way Sebastian's hand had stayed on her back all evening, warm and steady and somehow both comforting and unnerving.

She grabbed a bottle of water and was about to head back to her room when she noticed papers spread across the kitchen island. Blueprints, she realized, moving closer. The Adriatic's blueprints, along with what looked like renovation plans and cost estimates.

Harper set down her water and studied the documents. Someone, Sebastian, presumably had been reviewing the restoration plans. There were notes in the margins in handwriting she didn't recognize, questions about load-bearing walls and electrical capacity and whether the original plaster moldings could be salvaged.

"Can't sleep either?"

Harper jumped, spinning around to find Sebastian standing in the doorway. He was wearing sweatpants and nothing else, his hair disheveled, and Harper forced herself to look at his face rather than the unexpected expanse of skin and muscle.

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to snoop. I just saw the blueprints and…"

"You're not snooping. They're your building's blueprints." He moved into the kitchen, grabbed two glasses from a cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey from somewhere Harper hadn't noticed. "Want one?"

"Sure."

He poured two fingers in each glass and slid one across the island to her. They stood on opposite sides, the blueprints between them, the city glowing beyond the windows.

"You did well tonight," Sebastian said after a moment.

"I felt like a fraud."

"You looked like you belonged there." He took a sip of whiskey. "Marcus was watching you all evening. Looking for weaknesses, inconsistencies. You didn't give him any."

"Is that what our life is going to be? Constantly performing for Marcus Hyland?"

"For the next few months, probably. Until the will is fully executed and the board confirms my position." Sebastian's expression was tired in the dim light. "After that, he'll still be a problem, but less of an immediate threat."

Harper looked down at the blueprints. "You've been studying these."

"I wanted to understand what we're working with. The contractor's estimates seem conservative;

I think the structural issues might be more extensive than the initial inspection suggested."

"They are. The east wing has significant water damage that wasn't included in the original assessment. And the roof needs complete replacement, not just patching." Harper traced a finger along the blueprint's outline of the ballroom. "My aunt kept putting off the big repairs because she couldn't afford them. She'd fix the immediate problems and hope the rest would hold."

"But it didn't."

"No. It didn't."

They were quiet for a moment. Sebastian refilled his glass, then topped off Harper's even though she'd barely touched it.

"Tell me about the hotel," he said. "Not the structural problems. Tell me why it matters."

Harper looked up, surprised. "That's a personal question. I thought we had rules about that." "We're standing in a kitchen at two in the morning drinking whiskey. I think we can bend the rules." Something shifted in his expression. "Besides, if I'm funding its restoration, I should probably understand what I'm saving."

Harper took a sip of whiskey, letting it burn down her throat while she decided how much to share. "My aunt bought it in 1977. It was already fifty years old then, already showing its age. Everyone told her she was crazy, that the building was too far gone, that she'd lose everything trying to save it."

"But she didn't listen."

"She never listened to people who told her something was impossible." Harper smiled despite herself. "She restored it room by room, floor by floor. Sometimes she'd work in one room for months, getting every detail right. The ballroom took her almost two years."

"That's where she died."

It wasn't a question. Sebastian must have read it in the reports, the documentation that came with the property transfer.

"Yes. She was hanging curtains. Gold velvet ones she'd found at an estate sale." Harper's throat tightened. "She always said buildings had souls. That if you listened close enough, they'd tell you what they needed. What would make them whole again."

"Do you believe that?"

Harper looked at the blueprints, at the lines and measurements that represented something her aunt had loved more than almost anything. "I don't know. But I know that building was everything to her. It was her legacy. Her proof that she'd existed, that she'd made something beautiful in the world."

"And now it's your burden."

"It's not a burden." Harper's voice came out sharper than she intended. "It's a responsibility. There's a difference."

Sebastian studied her for a long moment. "Yes. There is."

He turned slightly, and for the first time Harper noticed something on his shoulder blade. A tattoo, partially visible in the dim light. She couldn't make out the details, but it looked like geometric lines forming some kind of structure.

"Is that…" she started to ask, then stopped. "Sorry. Personal question."

"Look at it if you want."

Sebastian turned fully, presenting his back. The tattoo was intricate interlocking lines that formed the outline of a building. Clean, architectural, beautiful in its precision.

"What building is it?" Harper asked.

"My father's first project. A community center in Rainier Valley. He built it when he was twenty-six, fresh out of graduate school, convinced he could change the world through architecture." Sebastian reached back as if he could touch the tattoo, then dropped his hand.

"It's still there. Still serving the community. Still exactly what he intended it to be."

"When did you get it?"

"The day I became CEO. Five years ago." He turned back to face her. "I got it to remind myself what this was supposed to be about. What the company was supposed to stand for."

"And what is it supposed to stand for?"

Sebastian's expression was complicated: part regret, part frustration, part something Harper couldn't quite identify. "Building things that matter. Creating spaces that serve communities, not just profit margins. My father believed architecture could make people's lives better. That it had a social responsibility."

"But that's not what Colton Industries does anymore."

"No. It's not." He drank the rest of his whiskey in one swallow. "After he died, the board pivoted to luxury developments. Higher margins, lower risk, better returns for investors. I was twenty-six and grieving and I let them do it because I didn't know how to fight them yet."

"And now?"

"Now I'm trying to course-correct a battleship with a paddle." Sebastian set down his glass. "Marcus and the old guard want to continue the profitable path. I want to get back to what my father built. But changing direction means lower quarterly returns, which means angry shareholders, which gives Marcus’s ammunition to challenge my leadership."

Harper absorbed this, seeing Sebastian Colton in a different light than the ruthless developer from the business magazines. "Is that why you need the marriage clause? To secure your position so you can actually make changes?"

"Partially. My grandfather's will be designed to force me to demonstrate stability and commitment before giving me full control. He thought I was too young, too reckless, too much like my father in the wrong ways." Sebastian's mouth twisted. "He wasn't entirely wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"My father died in a car accident. Single vehicle. Late at night. He'd been at the community center, working late like he always did, trying to solve some budget crisis." Sebastian's voice was carefully controlled, but Harper could hear the pain underneath. "The medical examiner said he fell asleep at the wheel. But my father had been running on caffeine and determination for months, pushing himself past every reasonable limit because he couldn't stand the idea of letting people down."

"That's not your fault."

"Isn't it? I was supposed to meet him that night. Help him work through the numbers. But I was at some party with my college friends, and I blew him off." Sebastian looked out at the city. "He died because he was alone, exhausted, trying to carry everything himself. And I've spent the past eight years becoming exactly like him."

The confession hung in the air between them. Harper understood suddenly why Sebastian looked so tired all the time, why he worked until two in the morning, why he carried himself like someone bearing an impossible weight.

"That's why you have the tattoo," she said quietly. "Not just to remember what the company should be. To remember what it cost."

"Yes."

They stood in silence, the blueprints between them, the city lights painting shadows across the kitchen. Harper felt something shift not attraction exactly, but understanding. Recognition of a kindred spirit who also knew what it meant to carry someone else's legacy.

"For what it's worth," Harper said, "I don't think you're like your father in the wrong ways."

Sebastian looked at her, something raw and unguarded in his expression. "You don't know me well enough to judge that."

"No. But I know you're funding the restoration of a ninety-year-old hotel instead of tearing it down for profit. That's not what a ruthless developer does."

"I'm not funding it out of altruism. I'm funding it because I need a wife and you need money."

"Maybe. But you could have found an easier wife. Someone who already knew your world, who wouldn't need so much... transformation." Harper gestured vaguely at herself. "You chose me because you understood why I said no to 8.5 million dollars. That suggests you're not as ruthless as you want people to think."

Sebastian was quiet for a long moment. Then he smiled small, but genuine. "Maybe I'm just a good actor."

"Maybe. Or maybe you're a complicated person in a complicated situation trying to do the right thing, even when the right thing isn't clear."

"Is that what you think?"

"I think we're both compromising ourselves to save things that matter to us. I think that's either very brave or very stupid." Harper echoed Jessie's words from days ago. "And I think if we're going to survive the next twelve months, we should probably be honest with each other, even if we're lying to everyone else."

Sebastian considered this. "Okay. Here's honest: I'm terrified this won't work. That Marcus will find a way to prove the marriage is fraudulent, that I'll lose the company, that everything my father built will be dismantled for parts."

"Here's honest back: I'm terrified I'm going to lose myself in all of this. When the twelve months are over, I won't remember who Harper Vale was before she became Mrs. Sebastian Colton." "Then we make a deal." Sebastian extended his hand across the blueprints. "We help each other survive this without losing who we are. Partners, not just performers."

Harper looked at his offered hand, then took it. His grip was warm, steady, and somehow different from all the calculated touches during the party.

"Partners," she agreed.

They shook on it, and for the first time since she'd signed the contract, Harper felt like maybe just maybe this impossible situation might actually be survivable.

Sebastian released her hand and picked up the blueprints. "Since we're both awake, want to go through these properly? You can show me what the contractor missed."

Harper checked the time. "It's almost three in the morning."

"So? Do you have somewhere else to be?"

She didn't. And honestly, talking about the Adriatic felt more comfortable than trying to sleep in that enormous, unfamiliar bedroom.

"Okay. But you're making coffee."

"Deal."

They spent the next two hours bent over the blueprints, Harper pointing out structural issues and historical details while Sebastian took notes and asked surprisingly informed questions. The whiskey disappeared, replaced by too-strong coffee that Sebastian somehow made worse with each pot.

By the time the sky started lightening outside the windows, they had a comprehensive list of renovation priorities and a rough timeline that would take at least eighteen months to complete.

"We should probably sleep," Sebastian said finally, rubbing his eyes. "I have a board meeting at nine."

"Good luck functioning on two hours of sleep."

"I've had worse." He gathered up the blueprints carefully, rolling them in a way that suggested he actually cared about preserving them. "Harper?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For telling me about your aunt. About why the building matters." He paused. "It helps to understand what I'm actually fighting for."

"You're not fighting for the building. You're fighting for your company."

"Maybe. But now I'm fighting for the building too."

He left before she could respond, disappearing down the hallway to his own room. Harper stood in the kitchen as dawn broke over Seattle, feeling more awake than she had in days despite the hour.

She'd married a stranger to save a building.

But maybe just maybe that stranger was becoming something else.

Not a friend. Not yet.

But not entirely a stranger anymore either.