The Christmas Proposal - Miley Maine Page 0,18

get back to the office as soon as possible, so we’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll go pack,” Serenity said, jumping up and heading back upstairs.

Sebastian was looking at me with a curious expression that I couldn’t quite pin down, but I brushed it off. I turned back to Mr. and Mrs. Allen. “Sorry I can’t stay longer,” I said.

“That’s alright,” Mrs. Allen said, standing and coming over to pull me into an embrace. “I’m sorry that this has happened and I hope that you can fix it without too much trouble. We obviously don’t control the things that happen to us, but we can control our reactions, and I would say you’re doing fairly well.” She pulled away and looked at me with a smile. “Just promise me you’ll take some leftovers with you.”

I laughed. “Of course I will, don’t worry. Your cooking will hit the spot when I’m stuck at work instead of back here where I want to be.”

“Unfortunately, some of that just comes with running a company,” Mr. Allen said, giving me a pat on the back. “Busy days, busy schedules, short vacations. People who think CEOs have it easy are fools.”

“Agreed.”

Sebastian’s hand landed on my shoulder, and I turned to look at him. “We should figure out what we want to do for the day,” he said.

“I agree,” I replied, following him out of the living room. Once we were out of hearing distance of his parents, Sebastian stopped and gave me a very stern look.

“Listen, you know that I trust you and that I love you, but still, you better not be doing anything weird with my little sister.”

“I have no intentions of doing anything of the sort,” I said, even though it was a lie. I felt a little bad, but too excited by the thought of having Serenity by my side in LA to dwell on the betrayal too long.

“Good,” Sebastian said with a sigh, sinking down to sit on a nearby chair and resting his head in his hands. “You know that she has a crush on you, a big one, too, I think. I just, I don’t know, I guess I figured that you getting into some kind of relationship with her would be taking advantage of that.”

I had considered that, too, but I didn’t quite see it the same way Sebastian did. I had given her time, asked her many times if what we were doing was something she was okay with, and she continued to say yes every time. I wasn’t using her crush on me to coerce her into anything. We were two consenting adults, after all.

“Sebastian, you can trust me,” I said, laying a hand on his shoulder.

I knew as soon as the words left my mouth that they would come back to haunt me in the end.

“I do,” he said. “Now come on, we only have today. Let’s spend it wisely.”

Chapter Seven

Serenity

Needless to say, I was excited for my flight with Grayson. For one, I had never been on a private jet before. For another, I was happy for the extra opportunity to be with him a little longer and to hopefully show him that I was worth keeping around. I knew that wasn’t the best way to think about things—after all, Grayson had been pretty clear about us just ‘messing around’—and thinking like that was likely to leave me heartbroken in the end, but I liked Grayson a whole lot and I wanted to at least try. After all, I’d never thought we’d get this far.

We had to get up early to leave the next morning, but that wasn’t too much of a problem for me. I just went to bed way earlier the night before to make sure that I had plenty of energy to enjoy the flight and my first day in Los Angeles.

Grayson came around to the house to pick me up at six am sharp, and I loaded my suitcases into his car and then slid into the seat next to him. I had already said my goodbyes to my family the night before as all of them wanted to be able to sleep in on a Sunday morning. I understood the sentiment. I was already feeling tired, and I had gotten plenty of sleep the night before. But at this point my body was used to being able to sleep in and I was pretty sure it hadn’t seen dawn since my community college days. I guessed that I would have