The Proviso

by Moriah Jovan

  “Shut up.”

  “I told him I’d find a way to throw him in jail if he fucked her before her receivership was over,” Knox offered.

  “Oh, nice job,” Giselle said and bumped fists with Knox.

  “We are not talking about me!” Sebastian roared. “We’re talking about Giz.”

  Knox laughed. “I’m stuck on ‘I want to fuck you, Giselle.’” He wiped his mouth, contemplating Giselle, still looking a bit stunned. “This would never have happened when we were at college. Look at you,” he said, pointing to her arms. “Those are just the bruises I can see. What’s that on the back of your neck? He bit you?” Sebastian looked terribly smug then. “Does he look any better?”

  She popped a piece of pepperoni in her mouth. “No. And I have fingernails.”

  “Freak. I knew there was a reason I didn’t want to marry you.”

  “Yeah, the same reason I didn’t want to marry you.” She sighed. “I honestly don’t know how any woman could pass him up.”

  Sebastian said, “You’re the only woman in the world a man like that could’ve said ‘I want to fuck you’ to and expected it to work. And you think I’m a freight train.” He paused. “Remember Francisco’s speech to Rearden.”

  She sat up suddenly, her eyes wide. “Oh! He quoted that at me! Before that, I’d told him I was looking for Rearden and it was like, he went from gentleman to predator in a microsecond.” She smiled wistfully. “He made me choose between Rearden and Galt.”

  “Crafty bastard. What’d you say?”

  “Kenard.”

  Sebastian’s face softened a bit and Knox sucked in a breath. “Giselle,” he said. “That’s— That was profound.”

  “I didn’t even have to think about it.” She sobered and slid down in her chair again, unhappy. “Then he saw that painting.”

  “Uh, Giz. I was there. He loved it.”

  “Yes. Except for the pacifier part and he realized kids were going to be an issue.”

  Sebastian stared at her for a long time, making her squirm. “What?” she snapped. Then his jaw dropped.

  “You’re scared,” he said in wonderment.

  “Pffftt. Not.” Not of Bryce, anyway. Exactly.

  He began to laugh again. “He is precisely what you thought you wanted and now you don’t know what the hell to do. He’s a whole ’nother animal than what you thought he was going to be, isn’t he? Somewhere deep down inside, you thought you could keep the upper hand with a Rearden. But Kenard doesn’t let you. He doesn’t need your protection. He can’t be terrified or intimidated. He’ll win any game you play with him.”

  Giselle sat quiet for a while, eating, thinking, ignoring Sebastian’s pointing and mocking, though he soon subsided when she didn’t respond.

  “That’s not it,” Knox murmured, still staring at her, studying her. “Or at least not all of it. Obviously she likes the Tarzan thing as well as she thought she would or she wouldn’t have spent the entire weekend being his rag doll and using him for a scratching post.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Sebastian murmured after a bit. “All right, Giz, out with it. Remorse? Guilt? What?”

  She swallowed, unwilling to confide in her family, her best friends in the world, but needing guidance. “All I wanted to do was tell him I lied to him and let him rant at me, then leave so I could come home and cry. I expected to never see him again.”

  “But you ended up in bed with him instead.”

  “At the gallery,” she said, nodding toward Sebastian, “you told me he was on the fast track to bishop and it didn’t take long to figure out that wasn’t true. But I guess I thought he would know— I thought he’d want— I mean, he grew up the same way we did and he knows the routine: date, temple marriage, sex, kids. Okay, so we had sex first, but I assumed he’d eventually want to get back on the straight and narrow.”

  “And he doesn’t,” Sebastian said flatly.

  She shook her head. “No kids, no church, no repentance, no temple. Take it or leave it.”

  “Don’t confuse remorse with betrayal, Giselle,” Knox said. “You’re not sorry you fucked him before he married you. You’re sorry you got two-thirds of your dreams blown away.”

  “For nothing,” Sebastian said.

  “No,” Knox snapped. “Not nothing. Bryce wouldn’t fuck her and dump her. I’ll bet she walked away from him.”

  “That’s not fair!” she protested. “I just need some time to sort all this out.”

  “Do you want to be with him?”

  She looked at Knox. “Yes, but he— He’s so wounded.”

  Sebastian started. “I thought you liked that.”

  “Not on the outside. The inside. What if all he wants is someone to heal him so he can move on? Nobody can heal anybody else. I don’t know what I’d do if he left me now that I’ve given him everything I have.”

  Neither had anything to say to that. Sebastian wouldn’t; he’d never been in love until this woman whose receivership Knox had given him. He didn’t have a clue.

  Finally, Knox spoke. “Bryce isn’t like that, Giselle. When he made snap decisions, they were excellent ones. It was when he started listening to what other people wanted him to do and second-guessing himself that he got into trouble. Somewhere along the line, he’s learned to trust his own judgment. Okay, so he’s a freak in bed, but he’s an honorable man. Honorable men don’t expect their women to heal them; they either deal with it or their women heal them with their presence and their love. Don’t assume that’s what he wants from you and don’t try to do it for him. All you have to do is be there and love him. He’s never had that.”

  “Just because he’s never had it doesn’t mean I’m obliged to give it to him.”

  “True, but do you want to ditch him just because you think he might suck you dry and leave you? Don’t you want to find out for sure? Ride the ride and see where it goes. For you, not for him.”

  Coming from Knox, that was significant and she looked at him. “How do you deal with that, people sucking you dry and leaving you?”

  He shrugged and looked away. “I teach. Comes with the territory.” He cleared his throat and looked down at the table. Suddenly she realized she had never known how deeply that affected him. No wonder he had always clung to her when everything else in his life went south. No matter they had never been lovers and weren’t in love and wouldn’t have been able to live together, she was his only constant.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d talked to Bryce in March? In fact, why didn’t you tell me about him and what I needed to know when I came home from the Nelson that night? You saw what a wreck I was.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “You could’ve made it so easy for me.”

  He flinched.

  “Giselle,” Sebastian rumbled. Giselle. Not Giz. She gulped at the edge in his voice. “Don’t you start in on Knox. He didn’t have to go to Kenard at all, but he did. For you. Then Kenard did what he was supposed to do and pursued you. You are the one who threw it back in his face. So Knox stepped in again to make this work. For you.” He stood and leaned across the table, got in her face, stabbed his index finger into the tabletop right in front of her. She reared back, her eyes wide.

  “You’re an adult,” he snarled. “You knew what you had to do to get all this squared away and you weren’t willing to do it because he turned your tidy little hypocritical and self-righteous Molly Mormon world upside down. So now you’re pissed he won’t give you everything you assumed he’d give you and you’re scared he’ll break your heart. Well, what about his heart? He’s not a manwhore. What about what he gave you? That was no less valuable than your virginity. You’re using this as an excuse not to follow through because being with a man you can’t emasculate scares the shit out of you and you’d never marry a man you could emasculate or you would’ve by now.”

  Sebastian slowly sat and Giselle closed her eyes and swallowed, uncaring that tears rolled down her cheeks and dampened her tee shirt. She sniffled and looked away, feeling th
e implications of every word Sebastian spoke deep in her soul— His disappointment in her, his anger on Bryce’s and Knox’s behalf. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, but she didn’t know for what, really, or to whom she said it.

  Knox remained silent for a long while. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “It would be a mistake for you to let him go, Giselle. He’s a good man and he’s been in love with you for a long time.”

  Another minute of silence passed before she wiped her eyes.

  “And,” he added, “he wouldn’t be so pissed off if he really didn’t believe anymore. Think about that a while.”

  Give him time. Love him.

  She heard it as clearly as if he had said it.

  She nodded and slowly stood to pick up her Glock. “Night.”

  After closing her door, she turned her lights up only enough to see what she was doing and put her gun in its spot on her night stand. She took off her clothes, slow, easy, the way Bryce had done it when they’d returned from the Ford exhibit.

  Soft seduction, slow and easy, languid, long-lasting. Candles. Soft music. Oils. Massage. Quiet conversation. Hushed laughter. Cherries and strawberries and warm, melted chocolate, for which they had found a variety of uses. They’d slept nearly twelve hours after that, both completely worn out, too sore and raw for any more.

  She couldn’t look at her bed without remembering what she’d done to him there, what he’d done to her, that he’d taken her wherever he wanted to go. Just because he could.

  Once she stepped into the hot shower, she was beset by the memory of what Bryce had done to her here, too.

  He doesn’t need your protection.

  Sebastian was right. Bryce Kenard didn’t need protection. He could protect her. Much bigger, much stronger than most men, he could lift all one-sixty of her with ease. She nearly melted when she thought of that magnificent body of his, burnt, shredded, sliced, wounded, with that incredible musculature underlying his skin. He had those eyes, that face . . .

  He did intimidate her, that was true. The way he could lift and manipulate her body: And it would do whatever he wanted it to, like a rag doll.

  That didn’t frighten her; it aroused her. Being intimidated aroused her. Being taken aroused her. Being weaker aroused her.

  Leave it on.

  Being stripped down to her skin, understood for herself and wanted because of it, not in spite of it—it was better than she’d ever hoped for.

  . . . he turned your tidy little hypocritical and self-righteous Molly Mormon world upside down.

  Don’t confuse remorse with betrayal, Giselle . . . You’re not sorry you fucked him before he married you.

  She sighed. Of course the two of them would distill her issues to their essence and stake her in the heart with them.

  Be careful what you wish for, Miss Cox . . . you might get it.

  Ares. The god of war, of violence and bloodlust.

  He was angry, bitter, and deeply hurt, his soul as scarred as his body—a soul that had started out dark and savage anyway.

  . . . being with a man you can’t emasculate scares the shit out of you . . .

  Yes, Giselle feared him. She feared his eventual disappointment or resentment if she couldn’t deliver what he really needed. She feared he would someday go back to the church, regret having lain with her, having broken his covenants with her and for her, having given up that part of himself that had always striven to be faithful, righteous, and pure.

  Perhaps it was for the best that he couldn’t have children. She didn’t think a child’s fragile soul could handle all that underlying rage. Knox said Bryce had been a wonderful father and she believed that. She had no doubts he would continue in that vein, but children could sense things and then they assumed and extrapolated other things from those sensations that usually bore no resemblance to the truth.

  Giselle got out of the shower and dried herself off, looking at her naked body in the mirror. Bruises everywhere, bites. She hummed to herself as she tried to figure out how he’d given her each one and relived the entire weekend.

  I want them to look and know that woman is mine.

  She was his. He’d marked her. She liked that he’d marked her.

  He had fared no better. She’d marked him similarly, once high on the inside of his thigh and once just over his shoulder blade. She’d grabbed the upper hand with him once by virtue of a surprise attack—

  —and a couple of very strong scarves.

  She smiled when she remembered his surprised, hearty laughter at awakening to find himself bound, blindfolded, and at her mercy. “Oh, it’s like that for you, is it?” he’d asked wryly.

  “So . . . who’s the alpha again?”

  “I don’t need rope.”

  Then she sobered. At thirty-six, it would only be a matter of time before age betrayed her and then what would he think? Giselle was no great beauty and never had been. The Dunham women didn’t age as well as they’d have liked, but what woman did, really? Once Bryce met Giselle’s mother and the rest of her aunts, he would know everything he needed to know about how Giselle would look in fifteen years.

  Giselle would probably start packing the weight back on again. Her hips would spread out again—and not in that sexy fertility goddess way. Her breasts would sag, though probably not as quickly since she wouldn’t have children. She’d go gray. She had started to find streaks of gray in her hair a couple of years ago. They had since multiplied, but as long as people continued to mistake them for the cleverest of blonde highlights, she could delay her surrender to Miss Clairol.

  She turned all the lights out and rolled into her bed, covering up with the duvet that still had traces of chocolate. She couldn’t bring herself to launder it because it smelled like Bryce. She buried her nose in it and breathed deeply, then used it to mop up the tears that began to fall.

  Yes, she feared him. On looking into a future with Bryce Kenard, whose soul had shattered long ago, she felt real fear: The fear of proving inadequate to the task of being that wolf’s mate. What had she told Justice McKinley not five days ago?

  You have to be willing to fail.

  Giselle didn’t know if she could live with that depth of failure.

  * * * * *

  34: PINK SLIP

  Sebastian had completely exposed weaknesses Eilis didn’t know she had. Thus, she was very careful not to be at her window over Cubicleville the next morning, even though she wanted to watch him come in the door, watch how he talked to people.

  The lunch room was underneath her mezzanine office suite. She had made it her business to take her breakfast of a bagel and fat-free cream cheese to work and eat there so she could watch him without being seen.

  A little after eight, he walked in, and the people he talked to yesterday greeted him by his first name; he remembered every one of theirs. He very deliberately stopped and talked to different people today, even going so far as to enter the cubicle paths. He passed out of her sight when he did that.

  He emerged a while later and she heard snatches of conversation as he drew closer.

  “Hi. I’m Sebastian Taight. Who are you and what do you do?” Oh so direct, which was par for his course, but then, no one seemed to take offense. Firm handshake, warm smile on the employee’s part.

  That person, whose name and job description were a mystery to Eilis, told Sebastian everything about himself except his social security number and his job description.

  “Yes, but what do you do?” Sebastian asked after this recitation.

  “Well, a whole bunch of stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “I run reports and stuff.”

  “What kind of reports?”

  “Customer databases and other stuff.”

  “Do you like your job?”

  The man’s face dimmed, but only for a split second. If Eilis noticed it, Sebastian definitely would. “Sure. HRP’s a great place to work.”

  Eilis felt a sharp pain behind her sternum. He was lying throug
h his teeth. He stayed because he had bills to pay and probably a family to provide health insurance for.

  “Glad to hear it,” Sebastian said, shook the man’s hand and called him by name.

  He only stopped in two more cubicles with the same routine. The last was Karen Cheng’s, the ad executive who had some questionable ideas about marketing, but did what Eilis asked and did it well.

  Karen wasn’t an inexperienced executive straight out of college; Eilis would put her in her late thirties with an impressive portfolio. She was short and rather roundish, like an apple. Her bad perm did nothing to improve her nondescript brownish hair. Her glasses did her no favors, but didn’t do anything against her, because her face was pretty in an exotic way.

  Sebastian ran through the same routine, but unlike the others, Karen stood to speak to him, shook his hand firmly and with complete detachment. “What do you do?” he asked her.

  “I am supposedly in charge of marketing,” she said coolly and Eilis could see the surprise in Sebastian’s face. Eilis began to get a bad feeling.

  “Supposedly?”

  “Yes. I have ideas. I have good ideas. They don’t meet the approval of my supervisor.”

  Eilis’s gut clenched and her throat stopped up. She was Karen’s supervisor.

  “I see,” Sebastian said after a slight pause. “Do you like it here?”

  “No. I’m creative. I want to create. I’m not allowed to do that.”

  Eilis swallowed. Hard.

  “Then why do you stay?”

  “Because I have a child with leukemia and I need the benefits. When she dies, I’m leaving.”

  Eilis put a hand to her mouth and barely fought back tears. When. Not if.

  Sebastian tilted his head and looked at Karen for a moment and then said, “Please come upstairs with me.” Those who had gathered around gasped and scattered immediately. Karen gulped, but she didn’t hesitate. Proudly, she went up the stairs with Sebastian, who was careful to climb at her pace and level. Eilis knew Karen thought she’d be fired, and truthfully, Eilis didn’t have a clue if she would or wouldn’t be. Sebastian could do exactly what he wanted to do.