Champagne and Bullets: Book 1 (Military Moguls) (7 page)

“And?” she prompted. “Is that all you want to talk about?”

He heaved a big sigh but a smile played on that gorgeous mouth of his. “Okay, maybe I wanted to talk about us a little bit. Are you going to let me in?”

She took a few more steps back so he could cross the threshold. “Only because you have food and I’m starving. I was about to order a pizza.”

Seb laughed and headed straight for her kitchen. “That answers my first question. Your eating habits are as appalling as they were thirteen years ago. Just in case, I brought a wide selection.”

“I resent that remark. My diet is much better than it was.”

Amanda rummaged through the cabinets for plates, silverware, and napkins while he unpacked the food, then she filled a vase with water for the flowers. She leaned in and breathed in their scent, eyeing him warily over the fragrant buds. She shouldn’t let a bouquet of simple flowers soften her up, but it did feel nice that he’d gone to the trouble.

“Really? When was the last time you ate a vegetable?” Steam rose from the food as Seb lifted the lids. “Too slow. If you have to think about it, it’s been too long.”

Some things never changed. Seb had always given her shit about her eating habits, not that he was a whole lot better. The only difference was he was willing to eat green things and she wasn’t.

“I had corn on Wednesday,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. Their bantering brought back many happy memories and for once she didn’t shove them away. If this was closure on the past, she might as well embrace all of it – good and bad.

Seb snorted and they sat down at the table opposite one another. “Corn is not a vegetable and neither are potatoes. They’re a starch. I’m talking green, Mandy. When was the last time you ate a green vegetable?”

“I think I was about five,” she conceded. “Now what did you bring? Is that lasagna?”

“It is.” Seb pointed to another container. “Chicken parmesan, and this one over here is fettuccine alfredo. There’s also salad and garlic bread.” He sighed in resignation. “You don’t eat salad, do you?”

“Pasta salad,” she said, hopping up from the table. “Wait, I forgot drinks. What would you like? I have water, ginger ale, milk, orange juice, or iced tea.”

“Ginger ale.”

She grabbed two cans from the refrigerator and re-joined him at the table. They ate in silence for a few minutes, but once her stomach began to feel satisfied the rest of her wasn’t.

“You wanted to talk about an offer,” she prompted.

Seb placed his fork on the edge of his plate. “For starters. I talked to Poplin yesterday and the new offer is significantly better at twenty percent over market. Plus, he’s willing to pay any relocation fees. Is that good enough to think about?”

“It is. I’m just surprised he made another attempt. Can I have some time to discuss it with the staff?”

“Absolutely. He won’t wait forever but he’ll wait a few days.” Seb sat back in the chair. “Now let’s talk about us.”

“Us?” she echoed, her stomach fluttering with nervousness. Actually discussing this with him was more than scary. It was terrifying.

“Yes, us. And more specifically what future we may have.”

“You think we have a future?”

She needed to stop repeating things like an idiot but she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t been prepared for this. They didn’t have a future. Did they?

She was too afraid to let herself feel hope for the first time in a very long time. There were so many obstacles between them. So many things he didn’t know.

‡

“I
think that
we can have one if we try and put the past behind us.” Seb felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. His future happiness might hinge on this exact moment. “A fresh start for both of us. Two different people who still have feelings for one another. And don’t tell me that you don’t, Mandy. I wouldn’t believe it. You still trust me. In the bedroom at least, if not anywhere else.”

Amanda fiddled with her fork, the pattern on the flatware elegantly simple. Quite different than what both of them had been brought up in. In fact, her entire home was almost an anti-stance against her childhood. He’d taken in the comfortably elegant decor the minute she’d let him past the threshold. Did she know it spoke volumes about the person she was without her saying a word?

The kitchen was oversized with country white cabinets and a large granite island in the middle. The living room had beige leather furniture and light oak tables with wide-plank honey maple floors. No Swarovski chandeliers, no Chippendale originals, no furniture that was purchased more for its value than for its comfort and utility.

This home stated loudly and clearly that Amanda didn’t live to socialize or gather material possessions.

“I don’t see how we can start again if we haven’t cleared away the questions of the past.” Side-stepping the question of trust, she went straight to the heart of the matter. He’d expected her to do that but it still hurt that she wasn’t ready to use the word “trust.”

Even though he knew the answer to the question, he asked it anyway. “What questions are unanswered for you?”

Her features were composed but her hands were shaking slightly as she set down her fork and met his gaze head on. “Why did you really call off the wedding? Was there someone else? Did you fall out of love with me? You told me that you needed to join out of patriotic duty and that you didn’t think it was fair for me to have to wait, but military families wait all the time.”

Seb took a drink of his ginger ale before he tried to answer. When he’d decided to try for a second chance, he’d known he would have to tell the truth no matter how it made him look. The moment was here.

“There was no one else, I swear.” He didn’t imagine that her shoulders relaxed. “I didn’t fall out of love with you. The fact is I’ve always loved you. I’ve never stopped.”

Amanda hopped up from her chair, her blue eyes almost gray. “That’s bullshit. If it were true you wouldn’t have called off the wedding. If you’re not going to tell me the truth, you can leave.”

Seb stood and grabbed her shoulders to turn her toward him. Their gazes clashed, her lips trembling. He had to find the right words. “I called off the wedding because I was a coward, Mandy. I was afraid.”

Her brow knitted as she processed his words. “You were afraid of the commitment? We could have postponed the wedding, Seb. We could have waited a few more years if you felt that way.”

If only that had been the problem.

Seb shook his head regretfully. “That wasn’t what I was afraid of. I was afraid of losing you. Afraid of leaving you a young widow, or worse, coming back disabled. I was afraid you couldn’t love me or respect me if I was that way. The thought terrified me.” His hands fell away and he took a deep breath. “So I broke off our engagement. I left.”

Amanda rubbed at her temples, conflict clearly showing in her features. “If you were afraid of dying or being injured why did you go at all? You didn’t have to do it. Did Dane and Chris convince you?”

“I wanted to serve my country,” he denied. “After 9-11 I felt it was my patriotic duty to serve. All three of us did.” He scraped a hand through his hair in frustration. “I wasn’t afraid to die or of being injured. For myself. I was afraid of how you would see me if that happened. Dammit, Mandy, you were so young.”

Amanda grabbed her soda and took a drink, her lips pressed together. “What does my youth have to do with this? I was twenty. Hardly a child, Seb.”

“Hardly a woman, either,” he replied, needing to put his emotions into words. It wasn’t easy. He’d been ignoring his feelings for too many years. “I was already twenty-five, and you looked up to me to care for you. Fuck, who am I kidding? I loved the fact that you admired me, that you leaned on me. It made me feel special. It made me feel like a man. I thought it made sense at the time but it sounds stupid now.”

“Yes, it does.” Amanda’s voice was tight with emotion. Whether it was anger or regret, Seb couldn’t be sure.

“Dane, Chris, and I had just finished law school and were studying for the bar. Then 9-11. Hell, I don’t know how to explain this. You always seemed so innocent and naive. I didn’t want anything bad to touch you. I wanted to protect you. But I wanted to protect myself too. I just couldn’t admit it at the time.”

Slapping the can down on the table, she whirled toward him, her face red with anger. “Once again the great Sebastian Gibbs makes all the decisions. Pulls all the strings. Amanda’s just along for the ride. You talk about trust? You never trusted me. Did you think I would care if you came back injured? If you couldn’t walk or couldn’t see? Fuck you, Seb.”

Her last words came out more as a sob and she turned her back to him, her arms wrapped around her torso. He wanted to go to her, comfort her, but he hadn’t yet earned that right.

“That’s the second time you’ve told me to go fuck myself in as many days. That would have earned you a spanking before.”

She looked over her shoulder, her chin lifted in defiance even as her eyes were bright with tears. “Don’t you dare. I won’t be bossed around by you anymore. I’m tired of the men in my life thinking they can make decisions for me.”

“I’m sorry about how I treated you before. As I said, I want a new start for us and that includes a new dynamic. It was wrong of me to leave you and not tell you why, and it was wrong to take the decision out of your hands. I’m asking you to forgive me, Mandy.”

“I’m not sure I know this Seb before me. He’s never apologized before.”

“I’m sorry about that too. I was an arrogant SOB that needed to be taken down a peg or two which the Army was happy to do. Will you accept my apology?”

He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until she nodded. “I do. But I wish you had told me then. I wouldn’t have cared if you came back with a scar or something. I loved you.”

Her voice was urgent and something inside of Seb stirred at the sincerity in her voice. If she’d loved him that much then, would it be too much to ask for the chance to try and win it again?

“I was your Dominant.” She started to protest but he held up his hand. He needed to get this out in the open. “We may never have called it that. Shit, we were just kids experimenting with sex but now that we’re older we can put a name to what we were doing. I was your Dom and you were my submissive. How could you love and respect me if I came back in a wheelchair? What if things were never the same between us?”

To his shock Amanda began to laugh, a few tears leaking from her eyes. “They’re not the same between us now. Mission accomplished, Seb. As for how I would have felt? I would have loved you and we would have worked it out. The same thing we’re trying to do now except that I wouldn’t have thought for the last thirteen years that you didn’t love me. That I was lacking in some way.”

She was yelling now but he couldn’t be sorry about it. Finally she was showing some emotion even if it wasn’t in his favor.

“You were never lacking in any way. I was a coward and an arrogant asshole,” he stated, not even trying to sugarcoat the facts. “I made assumptions and let fear rule my decision making and the result was I hurt you badly. Nothing I do can ever make that up, but I still love you, Mandy. I’m asking you for another chance. A new chance. I think deep down you still have feelings for me. You trusted me the other night at the party.”

Red stained her cheeks and she quickly averted her eyes. “It was out of habit.”

“Hell of a habit. Do you call everyone Sir?”

Seb wasn’t going to let her wriggle out of this. What they’d had two nights ago had been real.

“Of course not. I just…” Shaking her head, she plopped down into a chair. “I hadn’t been with anyone in a while, that’s all.”

“If you’re trying to say you were simply horny, I’m not buying it. You wanted me and I sure as hell wanted you. It’s not a habit and it’s not because you were sex-starved. It was because there’s something between us even all these years later.”

She finally looked up at him, and the fear in her expression made him want to reach out and pull her into his arms. He wanted to protect her from anything hurting her ever again. But he wouldn’t make that mistake once more. This time he would be her partner, not her Dominant. Out of the bedroom. In it—that was a very different story. Being submissive obviously still turned his Mandy on.

“So what do we do now?”

Kneeling down in front of her chair he took her hands in his, feeling her pulse beat wildly under this thumb. “Start again. Replace the bad memories with good ones. I can’t fix what’s happened before but I can vow that I’ll try to make the future the best it can be.”

“I’m not sure I can believe in this. I mean it, Seb. I won’t be treated like a child. If you do it again, that’s it. I’ve come too far to go back.”

Seb chuckled not at her words but at her tone. This woman meant business and he had to admit he admired the backbone she’d grown while they were apart. “I think you’d have my balls in a jar on the mantle if I tried it again.”

Her lips quirked up into a smile and she looked so goddamn beautiful it almost took his breath away. He couldn’t believe life had given him another chance to win this woman.