Sweet Romance11 min read
Five-Minute Arrivals, Red Wine, and a Birthday Kiss
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I was running a meeting when Mason called me five times in a row.
I slammed the office door open and felt every makeup layer fail me: cheeks flushed with embarrassment, forehead sweaty. I walked in like a walking storm.
"Jane?" the homeroom teacher said, eyes wide. "This is—"
I stopped listening. My gaze snagged on the corner of the classroom where Mason slouched, chin high, the kind of smug that makes your teeth itch, and then slid over to the person standing beside him.
Fabian Lawson looked like a sculpture come to life.
"Get out of my face," I heard myself say, and then I clapped Mason on the head hard enough to make him wince.
"Stand up straight," I ordered.
Mason snapped upright, obedient as ever. I turned to see who had the nerve to be associated with my little brother.
He wore a crisp suit. His jaw was shaded with light stubble that made him look carved. His eyes were deep wells of calm; his skin was pale and flawless. I stared until the teacher coughed twice and my brain reminded me to breathe.
"Jane, I'm Jane Gilbert, Mason's sister," I managed at last.
Mason, in prime brat mode, shot back, "Mom and sisters are the same."
I glared at him. He dulled like a deflated balloon and kept his eyes to the floor.
"Sorry," the teacher muttered, rubbing his brow. "This—this man is... Anna's brother."
Anna Morris. The name slid into my mind like a sweet little seed. Anna entered shy and neat, ponytail bobbing, wearing the school uniform a little loose as if she'd borrowed it from an older sister. I thought: if her brother looked like a smoldering statue, her being pretty was a guarantee.
He turned to Anna and said, "Anna."
That one soft, clean syllable from Fabian made something in me melt.
"Anna's a little shy," Fabian said, not looking at me. "Please be gentle."
Mason opened his mouth to be horrible, and I nearly strangled him in the hallway. I'm supposed to be the model big sister—no public tantrums, no family shame—but seeing Fabian made me forget all rules.
Later, outside the classroom, Fabian reached out a pale hand and said, "Jane, hello. I'm Fabian Lawson—Anna's brother."
I took his hand like a drowning person grabs a rope. It was cool, and for a second I wasn't a manager or a woman on a schedule; I was just a person holding another person's hand. He had that kind of touch you don't forget.
"I—hi," I babbled. "Nice to meet you."
He raised a neat brow as if amused. "It's nice to meet you, Jane."
The teacher explained Anna had brought a watercolor—a little drawing of a boy and a girl holding hands with a heart floating above them. Fabian's stiffness softened the second he saw it. Mason, not to be outshone, muttered, "I drew it. I like Anna."
The teacher's eyes almost combusted with exasperation. "Anna is one of our best students," he said. "We can't let distractions ruin her focus."
"Of course," I said, playing the responsible sister. "I'll take Mason and have words with him."
In the hallway, I gave Mason one kick and prepared another when Fabian appeared, leaning against the wall like a cool shadow.
"Am I disturbing anything?" he asked, voice like a low bell.
"No, no." I stuffed my irritation down. "Mason's just... Mason."
"Anna is quiet. She won't say much," Fabian added. "If anything caused confusion, I will apologize."
He said it like it mattered to him, and my brain gave up on logic.
At home Mason tried to charm and deflect. "I only wanted to help her," he said, earnest and clumsy. "I didn't want to embarrass her."
"You helped create a disaster," I told him. "Don't make me explain limits to you again."
Later that night, Anna added me on the school's messaging app: "Thanks, sister." She listed a few likes: quiet, mint shampoo, no perfume. I typed back, "Sleep early." She replied with one word: "Okay."
I wondered if I'd ever see Fabian again. His image settled into my head like sugar into tea.
A week later a call interrupted a late work night. "Jane?" Fabian's voice came through clear as water. "Anna told me what happened. I want to apologize properly. Dinner?"
A proper, formal apology. That was exactly the line I wanted. I dressed up for the kind of date that is an excuse to be seen—until Fabian surprised me outside my office five minutes earlier than the appointment.
"You're early," I said, flustered but secretly thrilled.
"Five minutes," he said. "I told my driver to wait."
Cheryl Choi, my assistant, appeared and introduced him to our team as the lead for a new project I was overseeing. The man had no patience for prefaces—he asked politely, "Jane, shall we go?"
In the car, the conversation was all polished industry talk at first. Then, "My name is Fabian Lawson," he said, almost casual.
I repeated it slowly, tasting the consonants. "Fabian Lawson."
He smiled, and it felt deliberate. "You said you like simplicity. My sister is simple and careful."
I spent the whole dinner playing a foolish game of trying to make him say "Jane" the way only lovers say names. He never did. He made jokes that landed like slow, perfect stones into the water of our talk.
At one point my ex—Drake Escobar—stumbled into the restaurant like an open chapter I didn't want to read again. He made a scene. "Jane? With this guy?" he blurted.
"Drake," I said flatly, heat rising. "There's nothing to talk about."
He was aggressive, loud, and half-drunk. "How much did he pay you?" he taunted when Fabian eased a hand around my waist protectively.
Fabian answered in an icy, flat tone: "Two hundred."
Drake sneered, "Only two hundred? Is she a bargain?"
"Two hundred, for everything," Fabian said, unruffled. "Or, you know, lifetime. Depends on the offer."
Drake lunged toward me. The hand he'd grabbed my shoulder with vanished as Fabian gave him a single, graceful shove that sent Drake staggering back. The shove was effortless, like a hand flicking a fly; my heartbeat became a drum.
Later Fabian and I walked out into a quiet lane. I teased, "You're expensive."
"I take jobs seriously," he said. "Tell me about your exes."
I told him the short version—how Drake's mother demanded I quit my job, how humiliating that had been. Fabian listened without interruption, the kind of listening that felt like being seen and not judged.
He surprised me one night by kissing me. At first the kiss was hesitant, then it turned confident and private. I left like a thief, face aflame and hair a mess. He texted hours later: "Happy birthday to me." He'd told me it was his birthday, but I hadn't known the plan.
Our lunches became little rituals. We could say one look and know what we'd have. Once, I spilled red wine on his jacket. I tried to clean it, fumbling like a child with a perilous manicure that I had, for vanity. He stopped me and said, "Leave it. It gives me excuse to keep you close."
I didn't have the heart to be annoyed.
Sometimes I felt like I was following light. Sometimes I felt like a moth, clever and stupid. He began to appear in my office more often, for the project, he said. He stayed in my life.
One morning a call came from my boss, Cassius Foster. "Jane, come to the conference room. Senior wants to renegotiate before the sign."
Cheryl sent me. I met Fabian in the room, and he smiled in that secret way. "Your gift?" he asked.
"Gift?" I blinked.
"Yes," he said. "I remember you said you'd bring one."
"I didn't."
He studied me, then said, "Today is my twenty-fifth birthday."
"Oh." My brain scrambled for warmth. "Happy birthday."
"Thank you," he said. Then his voice lowered. "My grandfather used to bring me small gifts. It's been unusual to get one since."
I felt something in me tilt. I rose on impulse and kissed him—on the mouth, quick but fierce—and I expected him to be startled. He wasn't. He steadied me, then slid his hands around my waist and closed the distance between us like the end had always been planned.
Afterward, he said softly, "Happy birthday, Fabian." I called him by name absurdly.
"Jane," he said, "you can call me anything."
We both laughed and fell into the rhythm of us. I left the meeting triumphant and dizzy.
Weeks passed and our gestures spread like small stars across days: a hand in the corridor, a text that felt like a smack of sunlight, a borrowed sweater on my office chair. He became part of the furniture of my life.
One evening the company's gala happened. I arrived in a dress and heels and found Fabian talking comfortably with a woman who introduced herself as his mother. She was elegant and calm—her manner was like a finished painting. She spoke to me in polite French phrases I caught by ear, then in perfect English. Her gaze slid across my nails, hair, and somehow found me pretty enough to examine.
"You like him?" she asked Fabian when she thought no one could hear.
Fabian's smile was small. "Yes, Mother."
Later, an unexpected commotion: Drake and his mother appeared at the gala like thunderclouds. Drake boomed, "There she is! With a foreigner."
His mother swept through in heels and disdain. I saw the look—a condescending measurement of me as if I was in a display window.
"Jane," Drake said, tugging at my sleeve. "Can we talk?"
I walked away. Drake followed. He grabbed my arm, voice panicked. "Do you love him? Do you love him?"
"Yes," I said simply.
Drake's face crumpled. "You never loved me," he said, and his voice was a mix of anger and something like grief. "You never even cried when we broke up."
"I loved what we had," I replied. "Then it wasn't enough."
He turned to Fabian and spat, "You! You stole her. How much did he pay you?"
Fabian's reply was matter-of-fact and heavy: "Drake, what happened between Jane and you was private. If you want dignity, step back."
But Drake pushed, and in doing so exposed himself. He started accusing me of trading affection for status, and his mother joined in with the old script—"She only stayed for money. She wanted to climb." Their performance felt rehearsed.
Fabian took one step forward and held out his phone. "Anna, can you come here?" he asked softly.
Anna, my quiet friend, stepped into the light and then, to my shock, spoke clearly, not crossly, but with the blunt calm of someone younger and braver. She held a small painting she had given Mason—only I'd seen it before—and then she said, voice clear, "My brother told me a story. So did Miss Jane. You said she should quit her job for you. You used words that weren't kind."
A hush rolled through the hall. People stopped mid-conversation. Cameras seemed to angle despite the formal hush.
Anna's courage opened a door. Fabian moved like a conductor to reveal a different kind of evidence. He played a short audio he'd recorded months ago when he encountered Drake's mother at a small charity event and she'd boasted of making sure her son had a "wife who fits." The voice on the clip was crystal; the words had been cutting.
"She said it is easier to control someone who is less educated," Fabian said, letting the sentence land.
Drake's mother turned from astonishment into immediate denial. "No—no—" she started, voice fragrant with panic. "That wasn't—"
Attendance around us rippled. A cluster of colleagues and clients formed a ring. Whispers became a low hum. Phones came out.
I felt my pulse in my throat. This was public. This was beyond petty revenge. But being publicly humiliated by people in a room of strangers and possible business partners had been the actual fear I'd nursed for years.
Fabian looked at me. "Do you want me to continue?"
"Yes," I said. "Let them see."
He didn't just play the clip; he showed other small things: a message where Drake asked me to quit, a note from his mother suggesting plans for how I should behave if I wanted to be part of their family, a whispered video of how Drake flattered her for her approval. Each piece stacked like a slow avalanche.
Drake went through three phases: anger, then disbelief—"I didn't know she said that"—then humiliation, then a drop into pleading. He tried to claim misinterpretation. "We were having dinner, I misquoted her—"
People around us scoffed. Someone snapped photos. I felt the room tilt into a predator circle of attention focused on the two of them. A woman near the bar said loudly, "How awful." Another guest tapped her phone and said, "Sponsorship? I don't think so."
Drake's mother moved from composed scorn to visible fragility. Her mascara streaked. She tried to frame it as a misunderstanding. "We were joking. It was not—"
A senior client I knew stepped forward, his voice measured. "We don't do business with people who humiliate others publicly." He shook his head. "There's no place for that."
Drake's face went marble. He scrambled for some dignity and found only a trembling.
"Please," he begged, voice tiny in the gala's bright lights. "Please, Jane—"
"Don't," I said, and the one-word fell like a gavel. "You don't get to plead now."
People around us started murmuring in pity, not for Drake and his mother, but for me. Some patted my arm; others whispered apologies for the ugliness they'd witnessed.
Drake attempted to make one final move—accuse me of using Fabian. "You set this up," he insisted. "You used him to get back at me."
Fabian stepped forward slowly. "I didn't set anything up," he said. "But when someone bullies my partner, I won't stand aside."
The crowd cheered—not loud, but steady. A few colleagues stepped between Drake and me, solid, like a human wall. The woman who runs PR for our firm took Drake's mother aside and spoke to her in low tones. I heard the word "withdraw" and the rustle of a contract being reconsidered.
The worst part for them was that it wasn't anonymous. People there were clients, partners, clients of his mother's charities. Phone calls were being made across the room. Eyes turned into judgment, and judgment in this room translated into business consequences.
Drake's expression dissolved. He went from red to pale to hollow. "I—" he started, then nothing.
For a while his mother remained denser: denial, then explanation, then a brittle fury that collapsed into tears. She tried to compose herself, but the cameras found every human crack. Someone posted a short clip online within moments. The feed collected comments like bees. "Shameful," "disgrace," "how small."
Once the noise settled into a rotten, unspooling hum, Drake's mother tried to escape. The exit was narrow; people parted to let her through. She tried to hold onto a veneer of dignity, but the way her fingers trembled gave her away. One by one, people walked past her without business cards, without handshakes.
The final blow: a well-known sponsor overheard part of the dispute and, with quiet finality, said he would withdraw his sponsorship from Drake's mother's charity gala next season. In that room, money was verdict.
Drake's face changed from angry victim to stripped man. He looked at the people he knew—other guests, other acquaintances—and saw doors closing. That was the precise horror: seeing that every social bridge he'd expected to cross for free was suddenly gated.
In the stunned silence that followed, Fabian took my hand. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, calmer than I felt. "I am. Thank you."
People lingered, whispered, looked at me with a new kindness. Some shook Drake's hand but avoided eye contact. Others walked away. The story of their arrogance unspooled across the room.
The punishment had been public, visible, and slow enough that Drake and his mother went through the whole arc: complacent superiority, disbelief, denial, pleading, then helpless breakdown, watched by dozens of strangers and friends. They reacted—at first furious, then pleading, then devastated. The crowd reacted too: shock, a few murmurs of anger, many clicks of phones, and finally, business consequences that were immediate and unmistakable.
Later, messages flooded in: from colleagues, from old friends, from clients. Not a single one blamed me. Some called Fabian brave. Many said they'd never seen someone stand up so calmly.
Mason texted in the middle of it all, "You were so cool." I wrote back, "Because Fabian was there."
Fabian squeezed my hand and said, "You don't need to prove anything to them."
"No," I agreed. "But they needed to see the truth."
After the gala, life didn't return to its old rhythms. People watched us with a gentle curiosity, but it felt restorative rather than invasive. My boss, Cassius, clapped me on the shoulder and joked, "Jane, get ready for a bonus."
Fabian and I settled into something that looked like normalcy. We argued about small things—money, who would cook on Sundays, whether the plant in the office needed light. He learned to say my name in small, unexpected ways. I learned that his hands had stories in them: careful, exact, protective.
One afternoon, Anna sent a message that made me cry: "I drew you two for my brother. It says: I will like you like the river likes the morning." She attached a watercolor of Fabian and me holding hands beneath a sun. It was clumsy and precise and full of truth.
I laid the painting on my desk and traced the heart with my finger. I thought about how five minutes had changed everything—how a man can step out of a doorway and unravel your plan for being single and sensible.
Fabian watched me from the doorway, smiling in the way only he can when he knows a silence is shared. "Do you want dinner tonight?" he asked, casual as a promise.
"Yes," I said, smiling. "And Fabian?"
"Yes?"
"Kiss me like it's your birthday."
He grinned, and the gesture was familiar now: a slow lean in, a press of lips, the small pressure he used when he wanted to promise something without saying it out loud. It wasn't the end of a beginning. It was the shape of what we were—two people who showed up five minutes early and stayed.
The End
— Thank you for reading —