Page 79 of Seas the Dating Coach

The tight line of his lips makes my heart smack the underside of my chin, but I swallow to force it down and continue. “I, um…I’ve really enjoyed our time together. This has been the best month of my—”

Finn’s smooth steps falter, nearly stomping on my dress. “Are you ending us?”

“What?” An unhinged cackle flies from my mouth. “No. That would make me an absolute dunderhead.”

“A dunderhead, huh?” When Finn smiles at me with that twinkle in his eyes, my words get stuck in my throat.

“Well, yes...because I, uh…”

Though I’ve run through this scenario in my head each night before I fall asleep, I can’t seem to organize my thoughts now. Not when all my bookish dreams are coming true and the man I love is effortlessly guiding me around the dance floor surrounded by my favorite locals. The only thing that would make this night more perfect is if Brynn decided to attend.

Since my sister would rather wear sweats than formal anything, I’d known she wouldn’t be interested in the ball. The only reason we’d gone to our senior prom was because we’d both had dates, and Aunt Tammy insisted it was a life milestone we’d regret if we skipped it.

Also…I kinda dropped a pretty big bomb on her earlier, and Brynn needs time—and miles under her feet—to process everything. When I’d told her about the Oceanside Artisan Fair, she’d been floored. My sister had given me a hug so tight I almost had to tap out. And when Brynn told me how proud she was, I happily spilled about everything else: the consignment deal with the dress shop on the mainland, my plans to give her a weekend off with a spa day, and my goal to take us both to Vegas.

I should have been paying attention as I gushed about my plans, then I would have noticed how Brynn had gone silent, how her foot began fidgeting. That much change at once probably made my sister feel like her skin was peeling off. I’m honestly surprised she waited until after Finn picked me up tostart pounding the pavement. Once Brynn can wrap her head around everything, I know she’ll be one hundred percent on board.

“May I go first?” Finn’s gentle question brings me back to the room.

Since Finn has always waited for me when I’ve struggled to speak and is gazing at me like I’m the only person in this room, I nod.

“I want you to know that I’ve never been honest with anyone the way I am with you. Not even with my sister.”

Finn had shared a few more stories from when they’d been kids, including a hilarious recounting of a stubborn seven-year-old Cordelia refusing to go to school unless her big brother put her hair in a ponytail. Every day for three months, she demanded he style her hair. During the memory, Finn had mentioned that he hadn’t gone to boarding school like his older brother but stayed at the local academy to be close to Cordelia, knowing he’d leave her soon enough for college.

Finn takes a deep breath. “By the time she was born, I’d already internalized my father’s insistence that something was wrong with me. I’d known that survival meant keeping my innermost thoughts hidden. But with you”—his gloved thumb traces my cheek—“everything is different. It doesn’t make sense, but you seem to like the unpolished parts of me best.”

My fingers tighten around Finn’s arm. I will explode—just become a puffball of shredded lace and beading—if I don’t tell this incredible man how valued he is, how wonderful he is, and how much my heart belongs to him.

“Finn—”

“I never want to interrupt you, gorgeous, but let me finish this.”

I press my lips together, nodding.

“I’m not who you think I am.” A shudder racks his body as if he expected the air to liquify at the release of those words.

“Let me guess. You’re Batman?”

The joke lands just as I had hoped, pulling a genuine smile across Finn’s delectable beard scruff and an unexpected chuckle from his lips.

Then all the joy dies as he releases a slow exhale. “Kind of.”

Kind of?

“I’m the son of Patrick Otto, of Otto Hotels.” Finn pauses, surveying my confused brow for a beat before he continues.

“My father is a shrewd businessman, exceedingly wealthy, and ruthlessly callous—in both work and his personal life. In college, I had a girlfriend who I thought loved me for who I was and not for the billions tied to my name, so I asked her to marry me. But the whole thing was a farce. My father had put her in my path…after she signed a contract.” A humorless puff of air leaves his mouth as his lips twist into a sneer. “That’s my father’s favorite thing—contracts. He loves those more than his children, his wives, probably more than his money…”

Finn takes a steadying breath, and my mind threatens to overheat, processing this information.

“The terms were simple. Marry me, bear one child, leave before said child turns five, and she walks away with one hundred million.” Finn shakes his head in disgust. “The saddest thing is, he could have easily parted with a billion and not even blinked. After discovering my father’s deceit, we had a falling out. I was done with all of it. Call it a quarter-life crisis, but I’d figured out that money didn’t solve anything. In my family’s case, it ruined everything good. Before I could leave, my dad made me sign a contract, forcing me to change my name, threatening to sue me if I disclosed anything about my true identity, and unknowingly bound me to my sister’s future.”

My eyebrows hurt from being pinched together. None of this makes any sense. It sounds like the plot to a Wellington novel, not real life.

“In order for my sister to keep her trust, I either need to become the library director or return to work for my father.”

My mouth opens and closes, doing that ridiculous goldfish thing I thought I’d outgrown.

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