Before the Darkest Storm

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I stood there still feeling the shock of seeing Seb after all these years. The last time I talked to him was about three years ago. Just a few months after my last phone call to him we somehow lost touch with email too.

I got daily updates about Seb's life from Carrie. I made sure to talk to her at least three times a week. She was the only one who seemed to enjoy spending time chatting with me. I remembered my phone calls with Seb. At first they were fun, we would joke around and he would tease me but one after another each one got more forced and awkward. Initially I had still ask for him, once in a while but I was always told that he was busy. So eventually I just stopped asking.

Our emails were pretty much the same. They started out with novel sized messages that soon got turned to forced replies. In the end, our conversations were not even a whole sentence long.

I still remember the last email I sent him. I had asked him about how he liked his new classes at college. I was expecting a short reply but what he sent was a three word answer. They are fine. He wrote back. At that point I knew whatever relationship I had with Seb before was no longer there.

He had, over short period of time, turned back into the un-answering, uncaring guy that turned up at my house all those years ago.

Carrie informed me that he had graduated at the top of his class with honors from the Ivy League school he went to. Now he was working alongside my dad, just as a son would have when they were ready to join the family business.

I had no problem with that. In fact I was grateful that my dad was finally able to get a son that he never had. I had no interest in the family business and without Seb I would have felt forced to follow in my father's footsteps.

A few months ago I was at the mall shopping on one the days we were allowed out and came across a magazine. It was one of those tabloid magazines. I am not the type of person to be interested in something like that but this particular magazine caught my eye. On the front cover was a picture of a willowy blonde in a barely there dress being escorted out of a car by none other than Seb.

It was then that I realized how attractive Seb had become. When I had last seen him he was tall for his age, but now he was just tall. His body had strained itself out in the gym so much that it resulted in well-defined muscles and a chiseled features.

The picture of him intrigued me. So I gave in and purchased the magazine in secret. Once I was safely in the privacy of my bedroom. I flipped the pages open and found more pictures of him. In one of them he was kissing the same willowy blond that was pictured on the cover with him. In another he had his arms wrapped around a striking red head, and in another he was eating dinner with yet another willowy blond that was definitely different from the one that was featured on the cover.

The captions mentioned names that had no meaning to me. What stuck out to me was the article about him.

Playboy billionaire: Just a few years ago he was a nobody, but now thanks to the gracious help of a well-known billionaire by the name of Trevino he had managed to turn his rags into million dollar suits. This is not to say Sebastian is a charity case, -no- this young man has to be one of the most, if not the most brilliant minds in the world today. He had turned Trevino's already prosperous business from a pot of gold to a tub of diamonds. He made major changes to the hotels to bring in younger clientele along with keeping the older clients happy. Sebastian is also known to be a wizard with the wines. Trevino himself commented "When Sebastian creates a blend; I don't even taste it before putting it on the market because I know it will bring in profits."

All this success at just the age of twenty one is not something that is easily accomplished. Sebastian works hard but he clearly plays harder, if these pictures are any indication of his love life. His latest arm candy buzzed about his spectacular manners outside the bedroom, and skilled treatment inside...