SEAL's Technique Box Set (A Navy SEAL Romance)

by Claire Adams

  I shrugged my shoulders, eating my breakfast. The tables were turned now. She used to drive me crazy not telling me where we were going when she’d take me out. She waited for me to get ready, and I called a car to take us into the city.

  This wasn’t LA. We weren’t exactly spoiled for choice when it came to places to shop, but that was sort of a good thing. I didn’t know how Abby would be in a boutique, but just in case she was one of those girls who didn’t know when to stop when you gave her a credit card, it was good there were just a few places we could go.

  But really, I owed her so much more than a dress and some fucking shoes. I wouldn’t stop her if she really wanted to cut loose. She deserved it. She had put up with my ass without a single complaint for weeks now. She definitely deserved it.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked, when we got to the store.

  “The place we’re going tonight has a dress code,” I said, holding the door open for her. “I want you to get something.”

  “I can’t afford this place, Nate.”

  “It’s on me. Pick whatever you want,” I said. She ran her hand down a dress hanging on a rack to her right, sighing.

  “You don’t need to do all this. Taking me out somewhere is already too much,” she said.

  “I want to, Abby. Just let me do this for you. I want to.”

  She bit her lip, thinking. “Just one. The cheapest they have.”

  “A whole outfit. Shoes and accessories, too. Budget is unlimited.”

  “Nate,” she whined.

  “Okay, two outfits,” I said, taunting her. She made a cute frustrated face.

  “You’re making fun of me.”

  “You’re throwing my generosity back in my face. That hurts, Abby,” I said, dramatically putting my hand over my chest.

  “It’s too much.”

  “I’ll decide when it’s too much,” I insisted. I picked a dress off the rack nearest to us. It was pink. It would look good with her tan. “I like this; try it on,” I said, holding it out to her. She took it and checked the price. I saw her eyes widen.

  “Is everything all right?” a cheerful shop assistant asked, coming over to us.

  “Can we get that in her size please?” I asked. “We’re celebrating tonight, and I want her to wear something special.”

  “That actually looks like it might fit,” she said, taking the dress from Abby. I smiled smugly. “Go to the dressing room, and I’ll pull a few more for you. Is there a certain style you’re looking for?”

  “Nothing too over the top,” Abby said.

  “I want every guy in the room to lose their minds when they look at her,” I said. The shop assistant laughed and said she’d see what she could find. Abby was frowning up at me.

  “I can’t take all this from you, Nate,” she said. I cupped her face and kissed her softly.

  “You’re not taking anything. I’m giving it to you. If I had my way, I’d buy up this entire store for you. You gave me my life back, Abby. I owe you the world for that. Let me buy you a fucking dress. Please. It’ll make me feel like I deserved any single minute that you’ve spent with me.”

  She chewed on her lip before finally conceding. I kissed her forehead and let her go to the changing room.

  She let me pick for her. She was getting really flustered and overwhelmed with all the different choices; it was cute. The one I picked eventually was short, with no sleeves, and was white with these big, bright, pink flowers over it. Her legs looked amazing in it — of course, she was a knockout in everything I had ever seen her wear — but it reminded me of her personality: bright and beautiful.

  I convinced her to get ready in my suite with me, suddenly getting a little nervous. It started to feel like a real date, like I really wanted to impress her. This was more than just a thank you. I wanted her to know what she’d done for me and this was the only way I knew how.

  The restaurant was at an old, restored plantation house that had been turned into this countryside lodge. Abby had been trying to guess where we were going the entire short trip from the hotel. She never did.

  It wasn’t really her scene, I realized. She worked at a five-star resort, but she was so detached from the world that the people who stayed at places like that belonged to. From my world, I guess.

  It was nice, I guess. I knew now as an adult that not everybody had gotten to live the way that I had, and not everybody’s father was Nathaniel Stone II, but this sort of scene was my everyday reality. I was lucky I had managed to stay this way so long, but like anything you experience long enough, it became sort of regular. Boring almost.

  Not for Abby, though. If she liked it, then it was good. That was all I wanted.

  “I can’t believe you got a reservation here; it’s so expensive,” she said, taking my arm as we went up the stairs to enter the building.

  “Have you been before?”

  “Never. I’ve heard about it a lot, though. It’s incredible,” she said, looking around the lobby at the furnishings and decorations.

  Yeah. It was pretty nice. I liked how much she seemed to like it. Looked like she was one of those girls who I could impress with shiny things, after all. It wasn’t gross and gold-diggerish with her, though. She seemed genuinely impressed that I had brought her here. Like if I had gotten her a ring or something, she’d thank me and say it was beautiful. She wouldn’t take it to a jeweler to figure out the karat value and tell her friends, that sort of thing.

  I liked it. She was so unspoiled. She’d managed to get to her twenties somehow without becoming completely jaded and cynical. Maybe by the time I was heading back to LA, some of that will have rubbed off on me.

  A maître d’ greeted us at the door of the restaurant and led us inside. I heard Abby’s breath catch as we stepped into the room. I smiled. It was perfect.

  I had asked for the entire restaurant. I had had to talk to three different people before they finally agreed to do it. I had asked for low, scattered light and one table. The light coming from the ceiling fixtures was warm and gentle, and around the room were standing lanterns, so it was like the sort of light you got a sunset, but inside.

  “Oh my God,” she said quietly.

  “Do you like it?” I asked her. She looked at me, and she had tears in her eyes.

  “You did this?” she asked. I nodded.

  “I wanted to say thank you. It’s not enough. It’s nothing compared to what you’ve done for me, but it’s something. I wanted to take care of you for once.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said.

  “Say you’re hungry so we can eat,” I said. She laughed and let me lead her to the table. I pulled her chair out for her and sat across the table. The waiter came in quickly to take our orders. I ended up ordering for Abby, getting us the same thing because she had tried to get herself the cheapest thing on the menu. Wasn’t happening tonight.

  “When did you plan all this?” Abby asked.

  “When you had left this the morning. They were closed, but they let me talk to the manager.”

  “Why did you book the whole space?”

  “Because I wanted to,” I said nonchalantly.

  “One table would have been more than sufficient,” she teased.

  “Next time we’ll go to the McDonald’s drive through, how about that?” I asked. She smiled and looked down at her place setting.

  “I’m sorry. I love it. I’ve just never done anything this grand before.”

  “I’m kicking myself for not doing this with you earlier,” I said.

  “You do this sort of thing often?” she asked.

  “Only with people I care about.”

  “Must be nice to live like this sometimes,” she said lightly.

  “It’s not everything.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “No?”

  “You know how they say money can’t buy you happiness?” I asked. She nodded. “It’s not quite true. It can give you stability, luxuries, and pay for experiences that could
give you a lot of joy. It can even get you a wife and buy you friends, but if it does, then they’ll be gone as soon as the money is.

  “It can be really isolating and turn you into a different person. My father almost doubled his net worth when I was a kid, but the last time he was truly happy was when my mother was still alive.”

  “Can I ask when she died?”

  “A long time ago. I was just a kid. He stopped getting stuff when she died. He’d get stuff for me, but never really for himself. It was like he only cared about owning and having things when she had been there to share them with him,” I said. My phone, which I had placed on the table, lit up, ringing. I ignored the call.

  “It must have been hard growing up without her.”

  “Yeah. It didn’t matter that my dad paid for me to go to private schools and expensive vacations; I was still the kid without a mom.” My phone rang again. I ignored it.

  “Are you and he close?” she asked. My phone rang again. I turned the sound off and put it in my pocket.

  “We are. He’s great,” I said, distractedly.

  "You should take the call," she said.

  "No, not during dinner."

  "If they're calling you like that, it must be important."

  "No. It's not a big deal. I'm turning it off."

  "Really," she said. "Take it. I can wait." I sighed, getting up.

  "I'll be right back," I told her. I walked outside and looked at my phone. Oh, Kirsten, you always had the worst timing, I thought, calling her back. She picked up before the first ring.

  "Nate?"

  "Kirsten, this better be because someone died," I snapped.

  "Nate, why weren't you picking up?"

  "Because I'm busy. Because I don't want to talk to you. What do you want? Hurry up, I have somewhere to be."

  "Somewhere to be? I know you're not working, Nate; where do you have to be? The beach? The bar? Do they have nice shooting galleries in Hawai’i?"

  "The next time you want to call me, don't."

  "I don't know if it’s smart to discourage the only woman who'll still talk to you."

  "Who told you you’re the only one?" I challenged. She was silent for a beat.

  "What?" she demanded.

  "Whatever you called me to say, hurry up and say it. My date's waiting."

  "Your what?" she scoffed. "You're on a date? Right now?"

  "Tick tock, Kirsten."

  "Wow. I knew I had to get away from you when you started drinking, but I really dodged a bullet."

  "What do you mean?" I asked frowning.

  "I mean, you're coming back to Los Angeles. Is the girl a tourist?" she asked. I was quiet. "Oh, of course she isn't because you would only go for someone you know you have no chance of running into again once you leave."

  "This is none of your business, Kirsten."

  "It isn't. I guess I just wish I was surprised to hear it. You, using a girl during your vacation knowing that you get to come back here and forget about her in a couple months. That's classic, Nate."

  "Are you done?" I asked through gritted teeth.

  "So sorry for interrupting you during your date," she said sarcastically. "It wouldn't be that bad if she was in on it, too, but something tells me that she isn't." I hung up, not wanting to hear anything else from her.

  Fucking Kirsten. What had I ever seen in her? We weren't even friends. She had been my longest relationship, and I knew that the reason it fell apart was because of me. She was a bitch, but she probably knew me better than a lot of people did.

  But she wasn't here, and she didn't know Abby. There was no way she knew anything about this. What was happening between the two of us?

  What even was it?

  We were hanging out. She was helping me detox. We were spending nights together, and we'd had sex. I didn't know what kind of label I was allowed to put on that. Nothing, I guess, but did Abby think it was nothing, too?

  I liked her. She was great. Happier and sweeter than most people I'd met in my entire life, but she lived here. I was leaving in a couple months, and she was going to stay here. I wasn't using her. I wasn't making her think that this was something it wasn't — something that could last a long time — because it wasn't. She knew that. She had to know that.

  I slid my phone back into my pocket and walked back inside. Abby smiled at me from the table. Oh God. She didn't know that.

  "Everything all right?" she asked.

  "Yeah. It was just someone from LA. I've been silent lately; they wanted to make sure I was okay," I said vaguely. It felt horrible lying to Abby, but I had to do it. I wasn't going to tell her that my ex-wife thought I was using her, or that, even worse, I thought I was using her, too.

  I couldn't wait to get out of there. Abby didn't want anything for dessert, so we were able to leave quickly. She tried to talk to me during the ride back, but stopped when she noticed I wasn't really in a chatty mood. I was mad. If Kirsten hadn't called me, I wouldn't be thinking about this shit. I wouldn't be on a date with a beautiful girl trying to think of ways to let her down easy.

  Why'd Abby tell me to take the call? Why did I fucking take the call? I could have turned the phone off. I could have just told her that we were on a date, and I wasn't going to let someone interrupt us. It was done now. I couldn't pretend it hadn't happened. I couldn't just unhear what had been said. It wouldn't stop being true even if I chose to ignore it.

  When we got back to the hotel, we went to my suite just like we had night after night before that. She walked right into the bedroom because that was where we had been sleeping together and took her heels off.

  "That was amazing, Nate; thank you so much," I heard her say, following her into the bedroom. I nodded.

  "I'm glad you had a good time."

  "Is everything okay? How are you feeling?" It was routine at that point. She'd check in with me multiple times a day or when she felt I was off to make sure my symptoms weren't too bad.

  "I'm fine. Just tired."

  "Oh, well, that's too bad," she said walking over to me. She put a hand on my chest and another on my shoulder, running it down my arm. "I was hoping we could stay up a little while." She leaned in and kissed me.

  "We shouldn't," I said. She looked up at me.

  "Are you feeling sick?"

  "No, Abby. I mean we need to stop. I think it would be better if you went back to work."

  "My shift is over today. I don't have to leave until... Oh," she said, realizing what I meant.

  "Yeah."

  She frowned a little and took a few steps back. "Did I do something?"

  "I've kept you here long enough," I said, not really answering her question. "I know my way around the island, and I'm clean. You can leave." I saw something flicker in her eyes when I said that and wanted to take it back.

  "If that's the way you feel," she said quietly. She bent down and put her heels back on. "Can I ask why?"

  "We have no reason to spend all this time together anymore."

  "All this time together? You asked my boss whether you could have me as your personal guide. You asked me to stay here with you, and now it's too much?"

  "It's enough. I haven't used in days. That's what you wanted to do, right? Make sure I stopped?"

  "It's easiest to relapse while you're still detoxing," she protested.

  "And since I know that, I know it won't happen to me."

  "Are you serious? Why are you doing this?"

  "Doing what? You were helping me get off my drugs, and now I'm off. I don't need you anymore."

  I saw how hard that one hit her. She was speechless before she walked past me and grabbed her bag, heading for the door. Good, if she's upset, she won't come looking for me again, I thought. I hated it, but leading her on was worse. This way, she would leave and hate me enough not to come back.

  "I'll tell Joseph tomorrow that you've had a change of heart," she said, opening the door.

  "Don't bother. I will." She looked over her shoulder at me.


  "I wish you'd tell me what I did so I could apologize," she said.

  "If I did, would you shut up and leave already?" I snapped. She glared at me and stormed out of the room, closing the door loudly behind her. "Fuck," I said going back into the bedroom. I got to the bed and fell onto it backward. "Fuck!"

  It was the right thing. It was wrong leading her on. Just breaking it off was the right thing to do. I had done the right thing. It was hard now, but it would get better. It fucking had to. Kirsten had called me a bad person for leading Abby on. Why didn’t I feel better now that she was gone?

  Chapter Twenty

  Abby

  If I just kept my eyes closed, I could go back to sleep. I didn't know what time it was, but it was morning, and it was early. I knew that for sure because my body was wide awake, and I had been trying to get back to sleep for the past half hour. I had tried sleeping on both my sides and my stomach, keeping my eyes closed, but it hadn't worked yet.

  I wasn't tired, I knew that, but how did other people do it? Just stay in bed even though it was time to get up? I didn't want to get up. I was trying to mope.

  The last time I had seen Nate was Friday, and I had spent all of Saturday doing my best not to run into him by accident. I'd made the mistake of finally getting him to come out of his hotel room, and now I got to pay for it because I didn't want to see him.

  Come on, Abby; there's no way he's in bed right now rehearsing what he's going to do on the off chance that he sees you today, I tried to convince myself. Of course, he wasn't. He wasn't the one who had been left hanging. He wasn't the one who had begun to think that this had been deeper than it had really been.

  I had done it to myself. I had nobody to try to peg the blame on but myself. I'd told myself things that he had never said or promised me. I had let myself believe promises he had never made.

  This was why I didn't do this. It was risky, and it was stupid. There was no way to win. There was no way to save yourself from feeling like this. It would always happen: whether it was small or big, you always got hurt.

  I rolled onto my stomach. Face down. At least I wasn't crying anymore.

  I heard a knock at the door. Squeezing my eyes shut tighter, I ignored it. It came again, louder that time. I knew who it was, and part of me was dreading seeing her. I dragged myself out of bed and went to let Makani in.