Considering all the shit she’d spewed at him, it should have felt awkward to sit down across from him at the candlelit table, while something sultry and soft played in the background. But when he simply started looking over his menu, acting for all the world like a guy who wanted a good meal and nothing more, Natalie finally started to relax.
We’re just two people breaking bread together. Just stay cool. Stay calm…
When their server came to the table, they ordered their drinks and some starters. She figured she’d probably sit there looking out the wall of glass, enjoying the breathtaking view of the approaching storm, and was surprised when Sean started a conversation, asking her the casual kinds of questions that enabled two strangers to get to know each other.
He asked her about her classes, and she explained that she was set to graduate with a degree in business in just under a year. With honors, no less, which she was proud as hell of, seeing as how she’d worked her way through school. His scotch and her glass of white wine were brought to the table, and after taking a delicious sip, she found herself asking him about his work, even though Sophie had already mentioned that he was a successful sportswriter.
Though she would never admit it, Natalie had even looked him up online and read more than a few of his articles, enjoying his voice, and glomming over the gorgeous photos that the press had taken of him with various high-profile athletes. She’d been stunned to learn that he played golf with the MVP of the last Super Bowl, and was involved in several charities.
But despite his success, he didn’t come across as arrogant or cocky as he answered her questions. Instead, she could tell just how passionate he was about what he did, and how lucky he felt for having the opportunity to do it.
Hmm. For a manwhore, he wasn’t at all what she’d expected. And, yeah, she might have started to feel just a “tad” bit guilty for expecting him to be as shallow as most of the playboys and two-timers she watched coasting in and out of Manolo’s every week.
Not that his lifestyle was something she could ever accept. For instance, it hadn’t escaped her notice that the phone in his pocket kept vibrating to signal a text message. He’d checked to see who was trying to reach him the first few times, then started to ignore them, and in his defense, he hadn’t texted them back in front of her, which would have been rude, seeing as how they were most likely from another woman…or women.
But, then, it wasn’t like he even needed a defense. He wasn’t in a relationship, and he sure as hell didn’t owe her anything. He was young and single and gorgeous, not to mention intelligent and fun to talk to, so she really couldn’t blame him for being such a successful bachelor as well.
It just sucked that he was so clearly not a settling down kind of guy, seeing as how she found him one of the most compelling, sexy, interesting men she’d ever met.
Somehow, by the time his steak and her seafood linguine were being set on the table, he’d gotten her to admit that her dream was to someday open a classy sports bar by the beach. One that catered more to women and couples, than men who were simply looking to get rowdy with the guys.
After wiping his mouth with his napkin, he said, “You know, I have some great contacts that I could put you in touch with when you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?” she asked, swirling another bite of pasta around her fork.
“To open your bar.”
She froze as she stared at him across the table, as stunned as she was embarrassed. “That…that’s really awesome of you, and nice, but I wasn’t…I wasn’t trying to suggest that you should—”
“Hey, I know that,” he said in a low voice, flashing her a disarming smile. “But I’d like to help.”
“Thanks. That’s…honestly, that’s super sweet of you. But this isn’t something that will happen anytime soon. I’m sure it’ll take me years.” And by that time, Sean Cartwright probably wouldn’t even remember her freaking name, much less his incredible offer.
Nodding his head in understanding of the nerves he could no doubt hear in her voice, he told her, “I know something like this can feel like it’ll take forever, but I’d put my money on you getting there a lot sooner than you’re expecting.”
“You would? Why?”
He finished off his scotch, and set the glass back down on the table, his dark gaze locking hard with hers in the soft light. “Because you’re the kind of woman who goes after what she wants and doesn’t take any bullshit from anyone.”
The corner of her mouth twitched with wry humor. “Um, thanks. I think.”
“It was a compliment.”
She looked down, surprised to find that she was still twirling that damn bite of pasta around her fork. Flushing, she lifted it to her mouth, and they finished off their meals without any further conversation. The server showed up only a moment later, clearing away their plates, and asking if they’d like to see the dessert menu. They both passed on dessert, but ordered coffee.
Stirring her spoon through the foam on her cappuccino, Natalie angled her head to the side, and finally said the words that had been burning on her tongue for most of the meal. “So now that I’ve bared my soul and told you my lofty plans for the future, I feel it’s only fair that I get to ask you something personal.”
He shot her a wary look, but sighed with resignation. “Go for it.”
“What’s the story?”
He slowly arched one of those dark brows. “The story?”
“With the women.”
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, leaning back in his chair. He rubbed his hands over his face a few times, then dropped them to his thighs and returned her stare. “Is this a deal breaker?”
This time, she was the one who lifted her brows. “A deal breaker?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, jerking his chin at her. “One of those things you won’t be able to get past.”
“Get past for what?” she questioned with a hint of unease, wondering where he was going with this.
His response was husky, but blunt. “Seeing me again.”
She didn’t glare at him, but she didn’t exactly jump for joy either. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Then don’t think,” he shot back in a low rumble, those dark eyes burning with a heady combination of humor and hunger.
She wanted to frown, but found herself smirking at him instead. “If that were going to happen—me seeing you again—then, yes. This would be something I would need to understand.”
A grim kind of acceptance shadowed his gaze, but he nodded his agreement. “All right. But I’m warning you now, it isn’t pretty.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
He gave a gritty, frustrated laugh, then stabbed his fingers through his hair, the fact that he really didn’t want to have this discussion so clear it was all but carved into the deepening lines of his expression. But he didn’t backdown and tell her to hell with it. To go fuck herself and mind her own damn business. He just cleared his throat, looked her right in the eye, and said, “I was married. For almost nine years. It didn’t work out.”
“Did you get caught having an affair?”
Something raw flashed in his eyes, and she instantly wished that she could take back the impulsive words. “No. I didn’t have an affair,” he rasped, rubbing his jaw. “I was faithful to my wife from the very start of our relationship. But it turned out she couldn’t say the same.”
Shock had her feeling like the room had just tilted off its axis, her body straightening in her chair. “Wait. Are you… Are you saying that she cheated on you?”
His gaze slid toward the stunning view outside the glass, the tightness around his mouth making those lines at the side more pronounced. She felt like shit for putting them there, her stomach sinking as he said, “The first few years were pretty good, or at least they didn’t suck. She was high maintenance, but I thought I loved her.” With a wry twist of his lips, he added, “And I did, or at least I loved who I thought she was. Tur
ned out I didn’t really know her at all.”
His name was little more than a murmur on her lips. “Sean.”
Turning his head, he looked right at her. “She married me because she thought I was going to be her ticket to a hotshot lifestyle.”
“But that… What the hell? I mean, that’s incredibly shallow, but what more did she want? You are successful.”
He shook his head and snorted. “Not enough for Dani. She wanted the big leagues. Penthouse apartments in New York and rubbing elbows with the richest of the rich. But that’s not my style, and it wasn’t what I ever hoped for. When she finally realized I was happy in San Francisco and wasn’t going to kiss a bunch of corporate ass to make it into television, she started making her plays for bigger fish.”
“She sounds like a completely idiotic bitch.”
He laughed without humor, the corner of his mouth kicking up in another grim smile. “I sure as hell don’t miss her.”
Fiddling with the linen napkin that she’d set on the table, she asked, “And how does this explain the women? Are you…is it all just making up for the years you were with her?”
He blew out a frustrated breath, and gave another brief shake of his head. “I can see how you would think that. But it’s…it isn’t like that.”
“It isn’t?” she asked, wanting—needing—him to explain.
Rubbing his hand roughly over his mouth, he muttered, “Shit, this is actually kind of embarrassing.”
Suddenly, she had to bite her lip to hold back her smile, finding him quite endearing at that moment.
“After the divorce, I made some promises to my family. Well, about nine months after it.” He shoved those long fingers back through his hair, then rested his hands on the edge of the table, thumb tapping a restless pattern as he stared out at the view again for a moment, watching the growing torment of the sea. Then he brought that dark, hooded gaze back to hers.
“I was in a bad place. Fucked up in the head, and feeling like an idiot, because I hadn’t seen any of the shit with Dani coming. My ego was in shreds, and I was bitter as fuck for turning into another embarrassing screwed-over-shmuck. So my family, they finally had enough. They kicked my ass into shape, told me to stop acting like an adolescent, and made me promise that I would start dating again.”
“That makes sense,” she murmured, still not sure how it worked into the endless stream of women she’d seen him with. Dating was one thing, but he’d become the master of the casual hook up.
As if reading her thoughts, he said, “What you don’t know is that they’re fucking militant about it. I had to practically sign in blood that I would keep giving women a shot, no matter how many it took, until I found one I was willing to date on a more permanent basis.”
“Ah. I’m starting to get the picture.” He’d basically been given a free pass by his family to screw his way through a bevy of beautiful babes. What kind of guy wasn’t going to grab hold of that with both hands and go full throttle? And why the hell would he give it up? The thought made her flinch, and she could have sworn she saw a fresh, sharper burst of frustration flash in his eyes.
Picking up his cup, he took a drink of his coffee, his jaw working as he set it down and looked back out the window. Rough voice a bit tighter than before, he went on. “Yeah, so, it turns out that my mom and Peyton have big mouths, and it wasn’t long before the rest of the family heard about their plan. My brother, Paul, got in on the action, and Jonah too.”
“Who’s Jonah?”
He gave her a rueful look. “My cousin and the jackass who keeps texting me.”
“Oh.” She smirked as she reached for her cappuccino. “I figured it was one of your harem making your phone vibrate like a sex toy.”
His blue eyes narrowed, the look in them so raw it sent her gaze skittering back to the window. But she could still hear the anger and frustration in his low words as he said, “I don’t have a goddamn harem, Natalie. And I’m not a playboy, no matter how badly you keep trying to make me out to be. I’ve been taking these women to the same damn restaurant every weekend because it keeps it simple—in perspective. Because I’m not out there playing the fucking field—I’m just trying to keep my family from worrying about me!”
He paused, and she couldn’t stop her head from turning back to him, their gazes locking with a breathtaking jolt. He worked his jaw a few times, then grated, “And the honest fucking truth of the situation is that despite how many women you’ve seen me take to dinner, I’ve only slept with two since my divorce. And yes, before you ask, I was still faithful to my wife, even after I found out she’d been taking it up the ass by one of the defensive linemen for the 49ers.”
Oh…shit. Knowing she’d screwed up and finally taken her bitch routine a step too far, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Sean. For…all…um, yeah. It’s, uh, really not any of my business. We should probably just go.”
“Like hell do you get to run.” His chest rose sharply as he pulled in a deep breath. “You pushed the point, Natalie, so you can give me the courtesy of listening to my explanation.”
She swallowed and gave him a jerky nod. “Fair enough.”
He pulled one of those big hands down the lower half of his face, nostrils flaring as he exhaled, his storm-dark eyes pinning her in place, daring her to move. His jaw worked for a moment, and then he spoke in a low, grit-edged voice. “That was Paul’s angle, when he finally got in on the action. The jackass wouldn’t let up until he got me to promise that while I was fulfilling my promise to my mom and Peyton, I would stop being so damn picky, get my dick out, and actually fuck a few of the women I was taking out.” His dark gaze drilled into hers. “So I did. Two of them in the first month, and that was five months ago, just after I moved down here, when I was still looking for a place to buy.
“And when I say I fucked them,” he added in that low, husky voice that still held the rough edge of frustration, “that’s exactly what I mean. I didn’t spend the night with them. Didn’t go down on them. I barely even kissed them. I took them to nice hotel rooms, screwed them with my dick wrapped up, and then left. If that makes me an asshole in your eyes, then fine. But they weren’t expecting anything more from me than what they got.”
It took a couple of shallow breaths before she was able to make her throat work. “And now?”
He angled his head to the side, silently asking for clarification.
“What happened with them?”
“Nothing,” he said flatly. “They both knew it was just sex.”
She ran her tongue over her lower lip. “They…they didn’t try to see you again?”
Jaw tight, he admitted, “They tried. I told them as nicely as possible that I wasn’t interested.”
“And that’s what you want with me?” she asked, struggling to make sense of everything buzzing through her head. “A night of sex?”
His head went back, and he suddenly looked even more pissed off than before—and a thousand times more frustrated. “If all I wanted was to fuck you once, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’re too damn difficult for something that brief.”
“Oh.” Oh? What the hell did that mean?
He lowered his head, and his nostrils flared again as he blew out a sharp breath. “But getting inside you is definitely a part of it.”
She stared, stunned by how much those rough words affected her. And absolutely scared down to her marrow by how badly she wanted to forget everything that had shaped her, and just let herself believe what he was telling her. If only for one night. Just one perfect, mind-shattering night, where she could finally feel and let go and stop acting like such a cold, emotionless shell.
Quietly, he said, “Jesus, Natalie. What the hell are you thinking now?”
She drew in a shaky breath, and swiped her tongue over her lower lip again, unnerved by how easily he could read her.
“Damn it,” he hissed, that dark gaze locking hungrily on her mouth. “You’re fucking killing me.”
She
took a deeper breath, hands clenching into nervous fists on the tabletop, and forced herself to be honest with him. “I’m attracted to you,” she whispered, making herself hold his gaze when it shot back to hers. “I…I know you get that. That you see it. But this, whatever you’re offering, whether it’s a single night or…or a dozen of them before you’re ready to move on—it’s not the right thing for me.”
His dark brows started to draw back together. “How can you be so sure?”
She made a restless gesture with her hand. “Because I’m not into flings or affairs or whatever you want to call what you’re offering from your bed.”
“And you think I’m incapable of anything more than a dozen hard fucks?”
Oh, God. Hearing him quietly growl hard fucks nearly made her come right there at the table.
“I’m talking about me, not you, Sean. I’m not judging you.”
Those long fingers were stabbed back through his hair again, the grim bark of laughter on his lips drawing more than a few looks from the tables around them, because there was nothing quiet or soft about it. “Like hell you aren’t,” he muttered, sounding done. “And you’ve already decided exactly what I’m good for, which is apparently my dick and nothing more.”
She blinked, taken aback by his tone. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you finished?”
She was startled by the cold abruptness of the question, then realized he was talking about her coffee. “Um, yeah. I’m done.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”
He signaled for the server, then turned his attention back to the window. Natalie sat back in her seat, hating that it felt like she’d screwed up, when she was only trying to do the right thing. The smart thing. The thing that would keep her protected.
She reached for her purse when the server put the check down, but stopped when Sean cut her a sharp look. He took out his credit card, passed it over, and they were leaving less than a handful of minutes later, his long legs eating up the ground so that she couldn’t keep up without practically running. She sucked in a couple of deep breaths of the storm-scented air, unable to get rid of the sickening, deepening feeling that she’d made a huge mistake. That he’d offered something precious and rare, and she’d stomped on it because she was too afraid to take a freaking chance and end up like her mother.
Keeping His Promise: A When It Happens Novella, Book 2 Page 5