After finishing his whiskey, Sebastian placed the empty crystal glass on the counter and walked towards the balcony. He spent a few hours sitting on the balcony, watching the lights of the houses below and the moving waves far ahead. It was around midnight when he finally got back inside. He prompted himself as he passed the bathroom door. He wondered if she had fallen asleep and furthermore, he wondered if she was okay. Walking through the joint bathroom, he slowly opened her door and went inside her room. It seemed that for the first time, she'd forgotten to lock the bathroom door.

Everything looked exactly like how he had left it a few hours earlier. Carefully, without making any sound, he walked in further into the room. He found her on the bed, curling on its side with one hand beneath her cheek. She looked angelic but he knew she was tired. Today had been a long day with the flights and then a busy schedule until dinner. And it did not help that he had complicated things by urging her to admit her attraction towards him, he chastised himself and cursed inside. It must have been the worst marriage proposal ever in the history of the world.

She was stubborn as hell but so was he. He did not want to say those three words because they were not true. He did not want to lie. Love was just a word people used to name other things, to make them look prettier than it actually was. His brother Thornton had suffered from it and so had Sebastian before. Back in college, he had been convinced that he was in love with this girl, Aimee, but it was just a mirage. The second Aimee met Piers, she jumped right into his bed, leaving Sebastian devastated and brokenhearted. He did not wish to experience that anymore.

He knelt by her bed and touched her cheek ever so lightly, scared that he might awake her. "I'm sorry," he mouthed as he leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on her forehead.

Sebastian watched her sleep for another hour before his knees started to feel numb. He stood up and walked back towards the bathroom. Right before he closed the door, he threw another look at her and then sighed.

With only no more than two hours of sleep, he woke up before the alarm even rang and turned it off. Putting on the bathrobe, he walked to the bathroom and took a bath, thinking that it would make less noise than if he went in the shower. In his mind, he could only think of Andin and how weary and vulnerable she had looked last night. Twenty minutes later, he went downstairs to the dining room. There were not many people there considering it was just five minutes past seven and most people went there for holiday and relax thus they usually started crowding the dining room at around eight or nine. As soon as he was done with his breakfast meal, he called a waiter and asked for a pen and a piece of paper. While enjoying a cup of black coffee, he wrote on the note application on his phone what he wished to say to her. He spent the next fifteen minutes deleting and rewriting the note, trying to find the correct words to say to her.

Once he was satisfied and had reread it at least three times, he picked up the pen and began to write.

He called out the hotel staff and ordered some breakfast sets from the menu. Before the waiter left, he handed him the note. "Do send the breakfast yourself. At around nine-thirty, as I suspect she would be up by then. And please make sure she gets this note." With that, he handed a one hundred dollar bill to the hotel staff and left.

Since he had everything he needed with him, he went straight to the parking lot and soon was on his way to his brother's place. Sebastian stared at the white sun-dazzled road, his hands tightly on the wheel. The car surged forward, taking a corner at incredible speed. He was passing upwards through rough mountain countryside, the road steep and busy with traffic.

The countryside flattened. Cypress trees made a dark shade at the side of the road. Fields ran on either side. He had been driving for half an hour when the sky began to cloud over and rain began to fall, gently at first, and then in a heavy downpour that forced him to slow his car to a crawl, his wipers clicking to and fro rapidly to clear the rush of the rain from his view. He could see far ahead that the sky was black. Inky clouds hovered low over the horizon, although behind him he could still see the halcyon blue skies of the coast in the distance.

"Oh, great. A storm is coming," he cursed under his breath.

He turned off the highway a short time later, running along narrow lanes through isolated hamlets until they began to descend a steep road. The storm increased in violence, and on these narrow country roads, he had to drive with great care. The roads curved crazily, and the state of their surfaces left a good deal to be desired. The car jerked and bounced over ruts and rough surfaces, the sound of the storm outside growing louder and louder. Lightning tore down the black sky and a flash struck followed by the sonorous toll of the thunder.

Driving carefully, he managed to get to Piers's place about an hour later.

Unclipping his seatbelt, he opened the car door and got out. Rain ran down his face and soaked through his shirt, making it cling to his body so closely that every muscle was outlined. Ignoring the cold and the downpour, he ran towards the gate and hit the doorbell. There was no answer and he hit it twice and then waited. Again, there was no answer. He kept repeating the action again and again and yet the result remained the same. Finally, he walked back into his car.

The second he had gotten inside, he turned the heater on and shrugged off his wet shirt. The last thing he wanted was to catch a cold —or worse, pneumonia. Sebastian fished out his cell phone and for the first time in five years, he dialed Piers's number.

Just like the doorbell, it did not give him the result he wished for. Instead, it informed him that the phone number he dialed was incorrect. His brother clearly had changed his phone number without informing him, which he honestly could not blame given their relationship or how strained it was. Not sure what was left to do, he decided to wait it out. Perhaps soon after the rain ceased, his brother would go outside. If he remembered correctly, Piers loved nature so much that he wanted to capture its beauty, and a long time ago, his brother used to go outside after the rain to see the dark clouds getting swept away and the sun coming out.

While waiting, he decided to ring Declan, his younger brother who had to marry their grandfather's best friend's granddaughter to fulfill a promise made fifty years ago. It was ridiculous yet his brother had gone through with it regardless and somehow he found happiness and love in his marriage.

Declan answered in the first ring. "Jav?"

"Hi, Dex. How are you?"

"I'm good, man. I'm good. How are you? How're things over there?"

Sebastian never really realized how much he missed hearing his little brother's voice until now. "I am good too. We all are okay. You missed Clara's birthday, by the way. You're lucky if she lets you live."

"Oh, damn. Please tell her I'm so sorry. I should probably call her after this but I figure she would yell at me and right now I'm accompanying my wife to meet her grumpy family so less of Clara yelling at my ear would be good."

"Don't worry. I'll tell her though you should at least text her. She loves you so eventually, you'll be forgiven."

"Highlight underlined and bold that 'eventually', man. This is Clarabelle we're talking about here."

Sebastian could not help but laugh. His younger sister Clarabelle was a little spoilt but everyone loved her. Although he worried if there would be a man who could tame her. (*)

"So, why do you call?" asked Declan curiously, clearly knowing better from his brother's tone that there was something bothering him.

"Why, I can't call you just because I want to? Just because I miss you?" teased Sebastian, a brotherly smile forming on his lips.

"Of course, you can!" Declan chuckled. "But I have a feeling that there is something more. Come on now, tell me what's bothering you. What brothers are for!"

Sebastian looked up at the sky through the glass and watched the sky start to clear out as the rain was more of a drizzle now than a downpour. "I am in front of Piers's house now."

"What?!" There was a pause before Declan's voice came again through the speakerphone. "Are you being the bigger man by coming there and trying to have a talk with him?"

"Hey, he was the older brother. Moreover, he was the one who screwed my girlfriend, took her away from me, made my life miserable, and then dumped her a month later. If anything, he should be the one coming to me and apologizing."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. It was old news. Look, even if you screwed my girlfriend, took her away from me, made my life a living hell, and then discarded her after you got bored with her, I will still come and try to talk to you. You are my brother, man, and as much as it sucks to lose my girlfriend like that, I would never want to lose you."

There was a moment of silence as both men let Declan's words sink in. Then Sebastian said in a light tone, "So if I came to China and screwed your lovely wife, you would forgive me?"

"Hey! Who said anything about Qingshan? You can never touch my wife or I will skin you alive, man, I swear to god!"

Sebastian cracked a laugh. "You just said that it was fine."

"Not when Qingshan is the one in this scenario!" said Declan defensively.

"Alright, alright. I was just making a point anyway. You see," he swallowed and rest his head against the headrest. "If the girl matters, you will not be able to forgive so easily. Hell, you would not even let it happen if you could prevent it. It was the same for me, Dex. Aimee was important to me. As pathetic as it was, I thought I loved her. I believed she was everything to me. And when Piers did what he did, I could not forgive him. I vowed not to forgive him."

"Yeah, I get your point. I am sorry. You are right, man. But like I said earlier, it's in the past. Are you going to let that one event rule you for the rest of your life? I know it is not easy to forgive but it will be worth it to mend your relationship with him. I know how close you two were before this thing happened." Declan sighed and it seemed that he switched his phone to his other ear before he continued, "Look, you are there right now so just go on and ring the doorbell."

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "I did. At least a dozen times."

"Oh, so it's either he is pissed that you rang the doorbells so many times or he isn't home."

"That is the thing though. I don't know his new phone number. I tried calling his old number and it did not work."

"I have his latest number. He and I talked last week. I will send it to you."

"Thanks, Dex."

"Anytime, man."

"Okay then, I better go." Sebastian was about to end the call when Declan called out his name. "What?"

"It was not just it, was it?"

"What?" asked Sebastian, sounding confused.

"Your problem. The things that bother you. It was not just about our beloved older brother, was it? Tell me."

Sebastian was not sure what psychic power Declan had but he was on point. "No," he answered truthfully.

"Then what was the other thing?"

"It is about a girl."

"Ooh, this sounds interesting!" said Declan in delight.

"Which I am not going to discuss with you today, Declan. See you!"

"W-wait! Fucking come on! Fine, I will let you off this time since you have somehow made your way to Sicily. Give my hello to Piers."

"Don't forget to send his number to me."

"I won't."

A few seconds after the call ended, Sebastian received Piers's phone number from Declan however it seemed that the goddess of luck was not on his side as his call went straight to voicemail. After waiting for another two hours, he finally gave up. With a sigh, he re-started the car and pulled out onto the road.

As he approached the next long bend, he heard the sound of another vehicle's horn, blowing in warning, and, with that, a lorry came round the corner in the act of being overtaken by a dark yellow sedan.

Sebastian was already braking, his mind filled with a confused impression of the lorry driver's white face and a fist being shaken, as he swerved, swiftly and urgently, hearing the crunch of metal as his wing made glancing contact with a concrete block lying in the grass at the side of the road. He stopped a few yards further on and sat for a moment aware that he was shaking, his heart going like a trip hammer. He had had near misses before, but that was the closest he had ever come to total disaster. His hands trembled. If he had been doing any real speed, he would not have made it.

He saw that the lorry had also come to a halt, and the driver and another man were running back to him. The yellow car, however, had vanished. As if on autopilot, he assured his anxious questioners that he was not injured and that the damage to his car was slight. An annoyance only that could have been so much worse.

The lorry driver cursed the driver in the yellow car which nearly caused both him and Sebastian to collide. He shook his head in disbelief as he prepared to depart.

Only then he truly realized how fragile life was, how in a matter of seconds, someone could die. At that very moment, there were only two people in his mind. He needed to fix things. Sebastian promised himself that he had to make it right with both of them.