Free Bastian: A Secret Baby Romance by Lauren Landish Page B

weekend honey, and keep Sebastian out of trouble."
    "I will Mom," I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. I could hear the rumble of Sebastian's car outside, and grabbed my suitcase. "Listen, if you want I'll give you a call later?"
    "Oh, go on honey. It'll be fun for me to have Donald all to myself for the weekend. Maybe get up to some things."
    "TMI Mom. Love you."
    Outside, Sebastian was leaning against the passenger door of the family BMW, a silver X6 that wasn’t his normal daily drive.
    "Where's the Benz?" I asked, referring to the blue SLK Roadster that was in his name. "I figured you'd want to take that up there."
    "I thought about it, but it has both leather seats and the sound system isn't as good as the Beamer," he said. "If we're getting food on the road, I want to have good tunes and a better chance at cleaning up if I spill something. Also, this has much better trunk space. We'd have had to pile our suitcases in the back seat of the X6."
    "Okay, fine by me," I said, wheeling my bag around. Sebastian met me, popping the trunk and leaning down to grab my bag. "Stop it, silly," I chuckled, pushing his hands away. "You saw me lift yesterday, you think I can't lift this little bag up into the car because of my condition?"
    Sebastian shook his head and smiled. "Sorry. Overprotective and all, you know."
    "I understand. I worry too, but we'll figure it all out together. Now, what music are we playing?"
    The ride upstate to Trafalgar was amazing. Instead of rushing and taking the interstate, Sebastian used the car's internal navigation system to take country roads — little-used highways that wound their way through hills and around forests. It reminded me of just how much natural beauty there was close to our home. We did stop for lunch at a roadside joint, although instead of burgers and fries, Sebastian chose a barbecue pork restaurant that was most famous for once being showcased by Guy Fieri.
    "You planned this out well," I said, licking bits of dark red spicy barbecue sauce off my fingers. "I mean seriously, you don't just find places like this because you had a whim for the scenic route."
    Sebastian smiled and chewed on his baby back rib.
    "What can I say? I wanted this to be a memorable event for us. Think of it as a two-day long date, not just a single trip to a restaurant. Which, by the way, we do have reservations for tomorrow night. Although I have no idea if it will be anywhere near as good as this. Remind me before we leave to pick up a couple of bottles of the sauce in the gift shop. Chef will be upset, but I have to let Dad try this stuff."
    "Sounds good to me," I said, squirting some of the sauce onto my hand-cut curly fries. "I think I could eat this with everything in the world. Seriously, you think this would go well on top of vanilla ice cream?"
    Sebastian groaned and laughed at the same time. "Please tell me that's the hormones talking."
    "Maybe. But it is some damn good barbecue sauce."
    We reached our hotel just before ten, the manager staying late to personally greet us and check us in. Face it, when the name "Sebastian Witherspoon," is on a hotel register and the credit card used is attached to the Witherspoon empire, people go out of their way to give that extra special bit of service. While I hadn't been to New York since my Mom married Donald, I was pretty sure that would be the case even in a hotel like the Waldorf Astoria. Hell, maybe even Parisians would be polite with Witherspoon money coming their way.
    In interacting with the manager, I chuckled on the inside as I saw Sebastian play his role as the scion of the Witherspoon empire. He was clearly the one in charge of the whole thing, but he acted with a sort of bored grace that let the manager feel like he was doing his job well, but that Sebastian knew exactly who was in charge of the whole situation. Then again, when you could literally buy the hotel, Sebastian was in charge. The manager actually carried our bags to our room by