Filed to story: Watch Out, I’m The Lady Boss (Eleanor & Sebastian) Book PDF Free
Her designer heels had snapped.
Her dress clung damp and crumpled.
She didn’t react to the shouting. Or the shoving.
Edouard slammed his cane again, loud enough to make the crystal chandelier rattle.
“All of you-out!”Quentin and his parents froze for half a second.
Then bolted.
Quentin grabbed Isobel by the elbow, dragging her limp form out the double doors like luggage with a broken handle.
***
Inside the back of the Rolls, Eleanor was wrapped so tightly in a duvet she looked half-mummified, but her body still shuddered like she’d been left outside in a blizzard.
“Faster,” Sebastian barked at the driver.
Eleanor’s hand was a limp, burning thing in his.
Sebastian hated how light it felt. Hated the tremble in her jaw, the way her teeth tapped faintly behind her lips.
His chest felt like someone had cinched a steel cable around it and started cranking.
He brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek.
Her skin pulsed with heat.
“You afraid of water?” he asked, quiet now, the way he only ever spoke when it was her.
She wasn’t fully out.
Her eyes were closed, lashes clumped from the pool water, but her lips moved.
“Scared… yeah…”Sebastian pulled her closer until her forehead nudged the hollow beneath his collarbone.
“Why?”She mumbled, slow like her brain was lagging a few seconds behind, the fever turning her words sticky.
“Drowned.. once. In high school.”Sebastian stilled.
She shifted against him, instinctively curling into his body, cooler than hers.
Her cheek pressed against his chest.
Through the duvet, he felt her soft curves, the fine tremble of her ribs with every breath.
She smelled like chlorine and hot chocolate,
He touched her face again.
Still boiling.
His palm hovered for a second before settling on her cheekbone, gentle.
“Was Isobel Brooke there? Back in high school?”Eleanor’s brow furrowed like someone had tugged at a dream she didn’t want to look at.
“Yeah… yeah, she was…”Sebastian’s expression iced over.
“She pushed you in?”
“No…” Eleanor blinked slowly.
Her pupils barely tracked.
She was trying to remember, her face scrunched up with the effort.
Sebastian stroked her arm.
“It’s okay. Never mind that now. Don’t talk. Don’t think.”
“Where… we going?”
“To the hospital.”She frowned.
“Don’t like… hospitals.”He wanted to ask why not, but Eleanor had already drifted somewhere else.
In broken fragments-half-formed, jumbled, slurred-she started mumbling into his chest.
He had to tilt his head down, almost press his ear to her lips just to catch it.
Bits and pieces slipped out: Isobel. The drink. The creep waiting for her at some derelict building.
And then the worst part-almost drowning in that river, her lungs full of water, no one to help.
Sebastian listened, face carved from stone.
He regretted it now, regretted not breaking his own rule about not laying a hand on a woman, not even one like Isobel.
He should’ve done it.
Should’ve put her on the ground back at that party when he had the chance.
His thoughts spiralled, darker by the second, veering into places he usually kept chained up and buried deep.
Until the sharp wail of an ambulance siren cut through, snapping him back.
“Sir, we’re here,” the driver said.
Fifteen minutes later….
The private hospital room was silent except for the slow drip-drip drip of the IV.
Sebastian stayed beside the bed, adjusting the blanket over Eleanor’s shoulder,
Her face was flushed. Her hair stuck to her forehead in damp clums He pulled out his phone and made a call.
Yvaine Carlisle sprinted in almost an hour later, panting, sweat clinging to her temples.
She nearly slammed into the doorframe.
“What the hell happened? Why’s she burning up?”Eleanor was asleep, breathing unevenly.
Sebastian pointed his chin towards the sitting area. His voice dropped “She fell in the pool. Fever spiked after we got her out.”
“She fell?” Yvaine had dropped onto the sofa. She now shot back up like the cushion bit her.
“She’s terrified of water. That must’ve scared the shit out of her.”Sebastian narrowed his eyes.
“You knew that?”He’d heard the story from Eleanor in the car, but her words were disjointed, and there were missing pieces.
He hadn’t pushed her, but he wanted the full story now.
Yvaine folded her arms.
“Yeah. She’s fine with baths and stuff, but she can’t swim. I mean, she can, but she doesn’t like it. She freezes up near deep water.” She glanced back towards the bed.
“How the fuck did she end up in the pool?”
“Isobel Brooke yanked her in.”Yvaine’s face darkened fast. She jumped to her feet again.
“That bitch’s back in Skyline?”She shoved her sleeves up to her elbows.
“Where is she?”
“Sit down.” Sebastian’s voice sharpened.
“You’re going to tell me exactly what happened back then. I’ll take care of Isobel.”Yvaine stared at him.
He stared back.
“Fine,” she said a minute later, having lost the staring contest.
“Eleanor and I grew up together. But I got shipped off to Europe for high school. I wasn’t around when Isobel started that bullying crap. Eleanor told me later.”She laid it all out. Names. Incidents. The kind of details that made Sebastian’s jaw twitch.
It matched what Eleanor had said earlier-same story, just clearer and ten times nastier.
Halfway through, Yvaine got so wound up she grabbed the water glass from the table and downed two big gulps like she’d been yelling.
“It was straight-up bullying. No question about it. And it wasn’t just Eleanor. Isobel went after anyone who wouldn’t kiss her arse. Everyone knew. But no one did shit. Eleanor’s parents took thirty grand and settled out of court. No charges. Just swept it under the rug.”She slammed the glass down. Water sloshed over the rim.
MP4
And don’t tell me it was about the money they didn’t need it. They had business ties with the Brookes. Just didn’t wanna rock the boat. They treated her like she didn’t matter. She never saw a cent of that payout. Not one damn dollar. Her parents are scum. But what could she do? She was just a kid back then.”Her voice cracked. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand ke she didn’t want him to see.
Sebastian reached across the table and nudged the tissue box closer. Her family treated her like shit. Do you know why?”Yvaine’s tears vanished on cue. Her voice jumped an octave.
“Treated her like shit? Try worse than a stray. Those two clowns ground in public playing happy family, acting like they dote on all their kids equally. Bullshit. Behind closed doors, they treated Eleanor like the family’s live-in help. Actually, scratch that -they were nicer to their cleaning staff.”She spat the names out like they tasted foul.
“Franklin Vance kept his distance. Always “busy with work”, like that excused him. Caroline Vance pampered Catherine like she shat gold, and whatever little affection she had left went straight to her precious niece, Serenna Oakley. Meanwhile, Eleanor got scraps-if that.”Yvaine shook her head, furious.
Then she answered Sebastian’s unspoken question: “I’ve said it before-they must’ve swapped babies at the hospital. It’s the only thing that makes sense. No decent parent treats their own kid like that. I even told Eleanor to grab some of Frank and Caroline’s hair for a secret DNA test, but she wouldn’t do it. I let it go.” She shrugged.
“Maybe it’s easier not knowing.”Sebastian didn’t respond. His eyes stayed on the water glass Yvaine had slammed down earlier and imagined it was Frank and Caroline’s faces.
Yvaine sighed.
“You’ve no idea how much she put up with. She took up boxing just so she could defend herself. And that skank Isobel Brooke? Still has the balls to show her face back in Skyline. I hope karma parks itself on her doorstep.”Sebastian’s ears buzzed. Yvaine kept talking, but he couldn’t hear her anymore.
She left at some point, and the room fell into a dead silence.
Eventually, he moved.
Eleanor lay still, buried under the white duvet.