Dreaming of the Billionaire 2

by Bright, Alice

  And I feel like the loser who can't even get her relationship with her boyfriend right.

  I end up being late to work, but no one notices. Paige is still busy from yesterday's cancellations, so she barely looks up when I walk into the office. I drop my purse off at my desk and check myself in the mirror. I look good. I look really good. You definitely can't tell that I spent the entire night crying or that I'm an emotional wreck, at least not by looking at me.

  Sean's office door is ajar and the light is on.

  Good. It means he's actually here today.

  I walk slowly into his office, taking a deep breath. I'm ready, I tell myself. I can do this. Most of me doesn't believe it. Most of me is terrified that this is the part where he breaks up with me. Most of me is terrified that this is the part where he says I just wasn't that good at sex, that I'm not as pretty as he thought I was, or that I'm just a little too weird for him.

  Sean is in the middle of a business call when I walk in, but he doesn't wave me away. Instead, he motions for me to climb onto his lap while he talks. Definitely not something a guy who is about to break up with me would do. Maybe I was overreacting.

  Maybe.

  I lean my head against his shoulder, comfortable and secure. This is how a romance should be. This is how a romance should look, and feel, and smell. My insecurities from the past day start to dissipate, albeit slowly, as I get comfortable during his call.

  I close my eyes.

  It's so close to perfect.

  His hands run through my hair as he speaks, his voice strong and steady. After a minute, he hangs up the phone and kisses me before I know what's happening. His hands are on my body and he's running his tongue along the inside of my teeth. It's a new, wonderful, amazing sensation that makes trying to talk with him nearly impossible.

  But then he stops kissing me and brushes my hair back.

  "Hi beautiful."

  "Hey," I say, placing my hands on his chest. I was wrong. I had to be wrong. I can't believe I freaked out so much over a day. When did I turn into such a paranoid weirdo?

  I'm still sitting in his lap, still close enough to smell him. I'm close enough to be picturing us naked here together. If only there were more time. If only there was a way we didn't have to work today. I would drag him to bed and keep him there until dinnertime, worshipping his body until the sun set, making him forget all about yesterday, making him forget all about my freak out.

  "What's on your mind?" He asks, obviously knowing that something is up with me. I'm not jabbering away like I usually do. I'm quiet and nervous. Honestly, I'm a little bit scared. What if he refuses to talk to me? What if he won't tell me what's going on? What if he has a horrible secret. A wife? Another life? Another girlfriend?

  "We need to talk," I start, but immediately cringe. We need to talk? Who starts a conversation that way? Unless you're breaking up, that's the worst thing you can say to someone. Even then, it's still the worst thing you can say.

  Sean knows because he winces at the words.

  "Do we?"

  "Yeah, but I mean, nothing bad..." I search for the right words. I have to find them. I practiced asking him all last night. I even stood in front of the mirror, making sure I didn't sound like a total loser. Apparently, my tactic didn't work because now I'm here like a total dork, freaking out in front of someone who has shown me nothing but love and tenderness.

  "You want to know where I was yesterday."

  "Yes..." I'm shocked. He read my mind. Of course he did. He's Sean Moormead. He's Mr. Perfect. He's Mr. Fuck-Me-Everywhere-and-Anywhere. He knows exactly what I need in bed, exactly what I need at work, and exactly what I need in a boyfriend. Why wouldn't he know what I wanted to ask?

  "I don't want to pressure you," I say, "but honestly, it kind of freaked me out. I thought we were moving forward together. I thought we were pursuing something special. Then you didn't text me back, didn't come to work, and I just thought...I thought something was wrong. Especially, you know, after the whole not sleeping in the same bed thing..."

  And now I sound like a whiny high school student whose boyfriend doesn't want to go to prom.

  Perfect.

  "Violet," he begins, and I know that whatever he's going to say is bad. "We'll talk. We will. I promise, but we can't do it here. There are some things you need to know about me, some things about my past. I'm ready to share with you, but it's heavy, and it's not something I'm at all comfortable talking about at work. Hell, I'm not even sure I'm comfortable talking about it at all."

  I rub my hand up and down his shoulder. I know he's hesitant still. We're still so new that we're both being careful. Neither one of us wants to fuck this up. Not just yet. Not before we really get started.

  "Okay," I tell him. "I appreciate that you're willing to open up to me. You have no idea what it means to me." And I mean it. Despite my freaking out and panicking over everything he does, he's somehow managed to make everything okay with just a few simple words.

  He nods slowly, painfully. He needs to be alone, so I get up.

  "Why don't we do dinner?" I ask. "I'm actually looking at a house at 6:15, but I could come by after, or we could meet somewhere."

  "A house?" He raises an eyebrow.

  "I'm taking your advice. I'm moving to Pinebluff as soon as possible." I discussed it with Amy and she was thrilled at the idea of me moving out. Even Colby seemed pleased.

  I turn and walk out of Sean's office without another word, but not before I see the little smile playing on his lips.

  He's glad I'm moving.

  And my heart soars.

  20.

  It's a funny thing, falling in love.

  You can feel like you're doing everything right.

  You can feel like you're getting everything under control.

  You can feel like you're floating and falling at the same time.

  You can explode.

  You can melt.

  You can die.

  You can feel everything and nothing all at the same time, but it's never quite what you expected.

  Love is always a surprise.

  When I finally get to Sean's house, it's after 8. I waltz up to the front door, still on a high from seeing the house I'll soon be renting. It's seriously perfect. I put down a deposit on the spot and can move in next week. I'll only be five minutes away from his house, five minutes away from work, five minutes away from getting the love and kisses I want whenever I want them.

  That is, if I survive what Sean wants to tell me tonight.

  He opens the door as soon as I ring the bell and lets me inside. He doesn't kiss me. He just steps aside so I can come in. There's a glass of whiskey in his hand. His eyes are dark. Has he been crying? No. I don't think he has, but could he have been?

  "Sean?" I ask. "Are you okay?"

  "Let's sit down." He walks to the couch and slumps down, downing the rest of his whiskey. He slams the glass onto the table and leans his head back. I don't say anything as he closes his eyes, obviously struggling. What is it that's so horrible? What is it that he has to say?

  "Baby?" I put my hand on his knee, but he jerks away. What the fuck is going on? This isn't the Sean I know. This isn't the Sean I've fallen for.

  "You can't touch me, okay?" He says it slowly and deliberately, as though it's painful to say, as though he can't quite express what he wants to. It's almost like touching him is a distraction and he needs all of his energy just to get the words out.

  "I'm right here," I tell him. "I'm not going anywhere. Take your time."

  "I was in the military," he says, but I already know. I saw the pictures in the guest room. I know that he served. With what branch or for how long, I don' t know. He's never talked about it and that information wasn't exactly in his Wikipedia article.

  "And I was overseas," he tells me. "I was happy to serve. I even volunteered to go. My dad tried to talk me out of it, said it was no place for me, but I wanted to do something. I wanted to give back." He pauses and I resi
st the urge to place my hand back on his knee. I want to touch him, to reach out, to have some sort of connection, but it's not what he needs right now.

  He needs me to just be.

  So I'll be.

  "Everything was fine for the first few months," Sean continues. "We got into a routine, sort of. Things were normal. Things were fine. But one day, everything changed. One day, we got shot at."

  I try not to gasp, but I can't help it. Shot at? Seriously? How terrifying is that? I've never even held a gun, much less heard one go off. The pain in Sean's eyes is evident, though. The horror he's feeling is real. He survived combat. He was in war and he walked away, unscathed.

  Sort of.

  "We didn't know what was happening at first. When it happens, you've been trained for it, you know what's going on. You get it, logically, but you don't really get it. There's a disconnect. It seems like it's happening to someone else."

  Sean sniffs, and I look back into his eyes. Tears are running down his cheeks.

  "Baby, we don't have to do this," I say calmly. "We can do this another time. It's okay. We don't have to talk about it."

  "No," he says. "I've waited long enough. It's not fair to you to not know this. I should have told you a long time ago."

  He takes a deep breath and continues.

  "Mark was my best friend. We were inseparable. When the first shots happened, we all responded the best we could, but I didn't know he'd been hit until it was too late, until I saw the blood."

  Sean starts sobbing now, crying louder, and I forget his no touching rule. Instead, I wrap him in my arms. What the fuck is going on? His best friend? Aside from my dad, I've never seen a grown man cry. The way his entire body shakes is unbelievable. The way he's breaking is unbearable. How am I supposed to be the strong one here? How am I supposed to support him through this?

  "He died. He died in my arms. He died and I didn't save him. Couldn't. Didn't. He died. And I...I should have saved him."

  "Sean," I hold him tighter. "Sean, it's okay. You did everything you could." I struggle to find the right words to offer comfort, knowing the entire time that nothing I say will be enough. He lost his best friend, his brother, his companion, during a time when there was nothing he could have done. He did everything he could have, but it wasn't enough.

  How do you comfort someone when they're dealing with that?

  Sean stops crying and pulls away, wiping his eyes.

  "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm not trying to freak you out. You just...you need to know this about me, Violet. If we're going to make this work, you need to know what you're getting into." I know that he's right, but it doesn't make this any easier. It's not easy to listen to the person you love tell you how broken they are. It's not easy to listen to how much pain they've had to endure alone. It's not easy to hear how they hurt.

  I nod and he goes on.

  "When I came back, my girlfriend was waiting for me. She didn't know I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Neither one of us knew. I didn't talk about what happened and she didn't ask. She was just glad I was home."

  My stomach clenches at the thought of him with another woman, a woman he shared a home with, but I try to push it aside. This isn't about jealousy right now. This is about Sean confiding in me. This is about Sean sharing his darkest pain with me.

  "The nightmares were bad. Every night I'd wake up in a sweat, reliving that moment. I couldn't be in crowds. I couldn't watch television. I couldn't be around anything to do with war or guns or violence. Shit, I couldn't even drive down a gravel road. The rocks hitting the car reminded me of gunshots. I couldn't do it. I freaked out.

  "Eventually, Tiffany started to get worried. I stopped going to work. I'd just lay in bed all day. It got bad. She begged me to go to counseling and I did for awhile, but then I stopped. The diagnosis scared me. The medication didn't seem to work the way my therapist promised me that it would. The whole world seemed cruel and dark."

  He pauses, catching his breath. My own heart aches for Sean. How could I have not known? How could I have not seen the signs? PTSD. Of course. This explains the no sleeping in his room thing, how uncomfortable he was at the donor luncheon on campus, even how he missed work unexplainably. It explains everything. He's not hiding a secret girlfriend: he's hiding a secret world of pain and horror.

  Sean is suffering.

  He's broken.

  He's the strongest man I've ever met, but he's damaged and hurting.

  And he's not even done talking yet.

  He takes a deep breath before he continues.

  "One night, it all changed. The nightmare was the worst I'd ever had. It was so real. In my dream, I was seeing him die, but I fought back. Only, I was actually fighting back."

  He looks at me, making eye contact.

  "And it was Tiffany who was in my bed, not the shooter."

  Oh my. Holy shit. What the fuck. What the fuck happened?

  What the fuck did Sean do?

  I don't have to wait long to find out because he keeps talking.

  "I broke her wrist. She was my whole world, and I broke her."

  The tears still fall, but they're silent now, racing down his cheeks and dropping onto his hands, casting me into a world I've never been a part of. No longer is this a relationship of joy and excitement, of newness and pleasure. Now there is only pain.

  Now there is only darkness.

  And I don't know how to find my way without a light.

  Look for the third and final installment of Dreaming of the Billionaire, coming March 1st!

  Author

  Alice Bright spends way too much time dreaming up characters who fall in love with each other. When she's not writing, she can be found playing her keyboard or reading a book by one of her favorite authors.

  More Books by Alice Bright

  Underneath the Mistletoe

  My Billionaire Holiday

  Between the Two of Us (Just Between Us Book 1)

  Promise Not to Tell (Just Between Us Book 2)

  Romancing Her Heart

  Dreaming of the Billionaire 1

  Dreaming of the Billionaire 3

  Want to dress like Violet?

  Sterling Silver Hourglass Pendant