Chapter Two

Liz

“Sebastian Foster has a girlfriend!”

I jump up in fright when a hand smacks the reception desk I am standing behind, the sound carrying through the empty lobby. I sigh and look up to find my boss staring at me, her eyes wide with excitement.

I clutch my hammering heart and glare at her. “Abby!”

Abby Miller is the owner of the hotel where I work. A few months ago, she inherited the place from her late aunt, which is around the same time she became engaged to my cousin, making her family as well as my boss. Although close in age to me, she knows very little about running a business, let alone a hotel, but she’s been trying hard to learn. Still, she gets easily distracted, and in turn, likes to distract me.

Abby and I rarely get any work done when we’re together, especially when she’s got some new celebrity gossip to share. Maybe it’s partly my fault, but it’s hard to resist slacking at work every once in a while. Today, however, is not that day. We have a shit ton to do. I’ve been receiving calls all afternoon from people looking to book the hotel. I can’t help but wonder if this has all be some kind of elaborate prank. In all the years I’ve worked here, we’ve never been this busy. Valor Springs is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Why do so many people want to visit here all of a sudden?

“You know who Sebastian Foster is, right? The hot, mysterious guy in the band, Dirty Chapter?”

I splutter. “D-dirty Chapter?”

She blinks at me in confusion. “Isn’t that what the DC stands for?”

“It’s Dynamic Circuit.”

“I like Dirty Chapter better.” She waves me off. “Anyway, do you know their lead guitarist and vocalist, Sebastian Foster?” she asks, thrusting the screen of her phone in front of my face before I can respond. I blink several times before my eyes focus on the familiar shirtless man with dark hair curtaining his face as he plays an electric guitar. Sweat gleams on his beautiful, tattooed skin, and my eyes shift to the perfectly defined V that disappears into his jeans before quickly looking away.

I push the phone away from my face and shake my head at her. “Abby, might I remind you that you are engaged to my cousin and should not be drooling over other men.”

“I love your cousin to the moon and back and cannot wait to walk down the aisle to him, but loving him does not make me blind. I can admire art when I see it, and Sebastian Foster is just that.”

I snicker at her words, turning back to the computer and doing my best to ignore her, but my mind keeps going back to the picture of Sebastian. It’s been years since I last saw him, but judging from his photo, it doesn’t seem like he’s changed one bit. Except for the fact that he wears his hair a little longer now or that his body is much more filled out than it was the last time I saw him.

“So, don’t you think he is hot?” Abby asks, leaning on the desk, and I can feel her eyes burning into the side of my head.

Do I think Sebastian Foster is hot? Of course I do, and that annoys me to no end.

The man exudes that raw sexual energy that makes me feel things I would rather not. He is crazy talented at playing all instruments, as I learned firsthand growing up, and he perfectly embodies a rockstar with that ripped body and those beautiful dark eyes.

All that fades away when one learns what an asshole he is.

See, Sebastian Foster was and his parents still are my neighbors. I grew up in Valor Springs, in a beautiful neighborhood with friendly residents and plenty of kids my age to play with, but the most vibrant memories I have from my childhood all feature one person Sebastian.

He was the beautiful boy next door, whose one goal in life was to make it big in the music world. His window faced mine, and every night, I would fall asleep to the sound of him singing, and every morning I would wake up to him strumming his guitar.

When he got his record deal with his band and moved out, I was devastated. I struggled to fall asleep at night and felt like something important was missing. I was only ten years old, too young to be in love, but I adored Sebastian. He was my first crush, and nothing could ever live up to the image of him I carried in my memories.

But as his months away turned into years, I became annoyed with myself for never moving beyond my childhood infatuation with the man, especially since he couldn’t be bothered to visit. It was like he forgot where he came from the moment he left Valor Springs. Instead of coming home for holidays, he’d fly his parents out to meet him. He used to be close friends with my older cousins, James and Jax, but it didn’t take long for them to lose touch. It began to annoy me just how much I missed the sound of his music, how much I missed him, when he forgot me so easily.

I shake my head as if to rid myself of the memory of Sebastian before looking at my boss, who is watching me like a hawk. “Shouldn’t we be working?” I clear my throat, turning back to the computer. “You mentioned something about meeting James to discuss your upcoming wedding.” It’s a ploy to get her to drop the subject of my former secret crush, but she doesn’t take the bait.

“You are avoiding the question. Maybe it’s because you are hiding something from me.”

I start typing on the computer, manually logging in the hotel guest information. “And what could I possibly be hiding from you?”

“Rumor has it that Sebastian is originally from Valor Springs, is that true?”

“I’m certain James already confirmed that for you.”

“I didn’t ask James. I wanted to find out from you first.”

I shake my head at her. “Sebastian Foster might have grown up here, Abby, but he has wanted nothing to do with Valor Springs for years,” I say, flipping through the logbook to cross-check the dates and rooms for this week’s reservations. “But that has never stopped the town from claiming their favorite homegrown star. If Sebastian Foster is seeing someone, the entire town would be talking about it.”

“From what I read, the relationship has been kept a secret until recently.”

I smirk. “Haven’t you learned by now that you shouldn’t believe everything you read online?”

I don’t need to look up to see the embarrassment on her cheeks. Just last week she’d been convinced that Harry Styles was marrying a member of the British royal family and was going to become royalty.”

“This is different,” she insists. “Sebastian Foster confirmed it himself.”

The smirk drops from my lips and my eyes shoot to Abby, who is tapping the screen of her phone “W-what?”

“I’m trying to find the article I read this morning. Apparently, Sebastian posted a picture of the girl on his public profile, confirming the rumors.” She smiles and gives a little cheer when she finds what she’s looking for.

Jealousy. Blind, seething jealousy seers through me, leaving my heart racing. My hands grow shaky, and I find it hard to breathe as the news slowly settles in.

Sebastian is…dating. But he never dates!

I’m not one to keep up with celebrity gossip, but when it comes to Sebastian, I always want to know what he’s doing and if he’s released new music. For all his faults, the man is crazy talented, and sure, I’ve heard rumors about him with women before, but he and his manager always denied any relationship rumors. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, but I haven’t looked at the post yet. I was going to after I read the article, but James…distracted me.”

“Gross,” I say half-heartedly to distracted by wondering who this mystery girl is. An actress, maybe, or one of those pretty runaway models with legs for days. Will I recognize her, or is she a non-celebrity? I could see it, Sebastian falling for a sweet girl in the city who shies away from the spotlight. For some reason, that thought hurts worse than the idea of him dating a model.

I don’t even know his type, if he has one. In the years we were neighbors, I never saw him bring a girl home. He was always in his bedroom writing songs and playing his instruments, and I was the little girl next door always trying to tag along and hoping for any scrap of his attention.

“Oh my God!”

Abby’s surprised voice forces my thoughts to the present, and I find her staring at her phone.

“What is it?”

She laughs, shaking her head as she brings her eyes up to meet mine. “I just checked his post about his girlfriend.”

I swallow hard, resisting the urge to grab Abby’s phone and take a look at the girl that Sebastian liked enough to claim in front of the entire world, but I don’t want to seem desperate. Even though I am.

No, I don’t care. Sure, I liked the man back when I was a child and even as a teenager going through a barrage of hormones I couldn’t make sense of, but I am twenty-one now. That childhood crush is well and truly over.

I don’t like him anymore. He’s a celebrity asshole, just like any other rockstar.

“I need to get back to work,” I tell my boss.

Abby leans on the desk, her lips twisting into what I’d describe as an evil smile. “You don’t want to talk about who he’s dating? Maybe that’s because you already know who it is.”

My heart starts racing once more at her words. Does this mean that Sebastian’s girl is a celebrity? Is she pretty? “I don’t care who he dates.”

“Are you sure?” She’s teasing me, and I can only assume my tattletale of a cousin told her about my crush on Sebastian.

“It’s about time he started dating,” I choke out through the lump in my throat. “He isn’t getting any younger and needs to settle down.”

“He’s only thirty.”

“Old for a rockstar,” I argue petulantly, shifting back to the computer once more. I start typing gibberish just to give my trembling hands something to do. There is a wave of emotions going through me, but jealousy burns strongest. “His girlfriend will have to deal with all the girls that want a piece of him. I would never date a celebrity. I can’t imagine sharing him with the whole world.”

Liar. I would do anything to be Sebastian Foster’s girlfriend.

“Well, now I know you’re lying. You don’t have to pretend, Lizzie. The secrets out to the world. Better brace yourself to deal with all those girls who wish they were you.”

Abby thrusts her phone back under my nose. I don’t want to see the lucky girl that is going to have parts of Sebastian I will never experience, but the curious part of me wants to see her. I blink in confusion when my eyes focus on a photo of myself. One that Abby took only a few days ago. We were cake tasting and took a few pictures at the bakery. This is one of them.

“It’s the wrong picture, Abby,” I say, pushing the phone away, but she brings it right back. “Why are you showing me a photo of myself? I thought you were going to show me a picture of Sebastian’s girlfriend.”

“I am.”

I look again, but it’s still the same photo. Now I am convinced that she’s playing some cruel joke on me. “Abby, it’s a picture of me. You posted it and tagged James to tease him about missing the cake tasting.”

“Yeah, now it’s on Sebastian Foster’s profile!”

“Abby.”

“Look!”

I let out an exasperated sigh, looking back to the screen, but this time, my eyes drop to the caption under the photo, and my heart stops.

“W-what is this!” I cry out, snatching the phone from her grasp and staring at the photo of myself, but…I didn’t post it. Certainly not on Sebastian Foster’s page.

What is happening?

“How long were you going to keep this from me, huh?” Abby huffs, folding her arms over her chest, but I don’t glance her way. My eyes are fixed on the words under the picture.

My heart belongs to you. Always.

“I…I don’t understand. What is this?” I whisper, looking up to Abby with confusion.

“You tell me.”

This has got to be some kind of joke. I scroll the page and refresh it a couple of times, but my photo stays right there at the top. Am I dreaming? That has to be the only explanation. It’s only in my dreams that Sebastian Foster would claim me in front of the entire world. This can’t be real. I haven’t even seen him in a decade.

“I don’t understand. Why would he do this?” I whisper, staring at the words, expecting them to fade away and for me to suddenly wake up from this dream, but they stay.

“Um, I guess you could ask him yourself.”

My eyes shoot up at Abby’s mystified tone, and I follow her gaze to the entrance of the hotel, equally curious and afraid to see what has grabbed her attention. I gasp when my eyes lock on the boy I’ve admired my whole life. Man, really, and he looks nothing like he did the last time I saw him in person. His hair has grown a little longer, and his lean body looks more muscular under the dark denim jeans and stark white t-shirt. The black ink covering his arms is definitely new.

“Sebastian…”

The word comes out in a whisper as I try to assure myself that this is actually happening. God, he looks so hot with those dark locks framing his chiseled face, and there is something about the way his eyes are trained on me that has my body heating up.

“I think I am dreaming, Lizzy. Did a rockstar just show up at our hotel?” Abby whispers, awe in her voice, but even she doesn’t make any move toward the man. “He looks so much better in person, and… Oh my God! He’s coming over, Lizzy. I can’t believe you didn’t warn me!”

We both watch as the man approaches the front desk, and breathing gets harder the closer he moves.

Questions race through my mind.

Why would Sebastian Foster post me on his social media and claim to the whole world that he loves me when we haven’t seen each other in so long? Hell, we barely spoke when we lived next door to each other.

Is this some kind of a joke? Did James somehow convince him to play a prank on me? I’m going to kill him. Jax is officially my favorite cousin. In fact, after this, Jax might be my only cousin.

And for Sebastian to play along? It’s downright cruel of him to mock my feelings, childish as they may have been. Did he even consider my feelings? My anger builds rapidly, replacing any nerves I felt at seeing him again. I glare at the man approaching us, ready to tear him apart for being an inconsiderate jerk, but when he stops in front of the reception desk, I nearly forget that I am mad at him.

Christ, he smells and looks so freaking good that I find it hard to find my tongue or gather my thoughts enough to voice them.

“Hi, Lizzy,” he says in that deep voice of his that used to lull me to sleep, those dark eyes firmly on me when he speaks. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You look good.”

Well, shit.