SEAL'd Heart

by Alice Ward

  Don’t act like it’s that bad, the smug little voice in my head quipped.

  I was drying my hair in front of the TV when my phone buzzed. I hit the pause button on Raiders of the Lost Ark and went to dig through my purse. Maybe it was someone looking to make plans for the night. That would be good. A night out would help keep my head clear, help keep me emotionally distanced from everything else suddenly going on.

  The buzz was due to a text from a strange number. I opened it up and gulped.

  This is Cristiano. Can we meet up? I promise it will be friendly. Nothing more. I’d like to talk to you about something important.

  “Damn,” I said out loud.

  Or maybe not. He swore it would be friendly, and I ached to know just what he had to say, especially since he’d used the word important. Scratch that. I needed to know just what it was he had to say.

  Coffee? I texted back.

  He responded almost immediately, throwing out a suggestion for a place and then asking if he should send a car. I laughed out loud and told him it wasn’t necessary. I’ll be taking my jet, I thought about texting back, but of course I didn’t.

  We set plans to meet in an hour — at eight — and then I threw the phone down and rushed to get ready.

  The coffee shop he picked was semi-familiar. It was near Evie’s apartment, and the two of us had popped in once or twice before. I searched the seating area as I closed the front door behind me, checking out the wooden tables and soft, cozy chairs for any signs of Cristiano. Finding the space clear of any hot stockbroker billionaires, I went to the counter and nabbed a mug of black coffee. A few seats in the back corner of the shop sat empty, and I settled down to wait.

  All around me, twenty-somethings typed away on their computers, serious looks on their faces. A younger group that looked like they were studying for a college class sat at the high table near me, laughing and trading notes. I smiled at the sight of them, remembering what it was like to be eighteen and feeling like the whole world was open to you. Having the opportunities of that age had a way of making everything else seem inconsequential. Even a boring study session couldn’t bring you down. You were a god, indestructible to the powers of the adult world.

  “Excuse me, miss, mind if I have a seat here?”

  I looked to my right, surprised to find Cristiano standing there. Once again, he had snuck up on me without my noticing. He wore the same suit he’d had on earlier that day, not so much as a hair on his head changed.

  I laughed lightly. “I thought I was a ma’am now, and not a miss. It’s nice of you to address me like that. It makes me feel young. So yes, please do sit.” I waved my hand with a flourish, trying to imitate a fancy lady of the Gilded age.

  Cristiano smiled and took a seat in the armchair next to me, setting his own mug of coffee next to mine. They rested there together, a cozy little pair. My red mug. His green mug. They looked good together, a perfect match made in coffee heaven.

  I bit down on my tongue. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “You’re wearing another great retro outfit I see,” Cristiano commented.

  I glanced down at my bell bottom jeans and Rolling Stones t-shirt. “Yeah, I went home and showered.”

  And accidentally thought of you while I made myself come in said shower.

  Heat filled my cheeks. I quickly reached for my coffee mug and took a sip, hoping the wide mouth of the mug would hide at least part of my blush. The coffee burned my tongue, and I jerked it away, a little bit of the brew sloshing out as I set it back down on the table.

  I cleared my throat and prayed that Cristiano somehow hadn’t seen my fumbling around. Funny that I was a good soldier. I could handle a gun in combat situations and could keep my cool when things were heated all around me. But in the real world, like this very normal coffee bar, it was like I was out of my element, unable to be anything but clumsy and awkward.

  “So, how are you?”

  “I’m... fine.”

  His hesitation made me glance at him. A surprising seriousness rested on his face. I remembered his text, how he told me he had something important to talk about.

  Over his shoulder, two college girls leaving the study group walked by, both of them ogling him. They pressed their heads together and giggled. Back off, I wanted to tell them, before remembering I had no right to do just that.

  “I wanted to thank you for earlier,” Cristiano was saying.

  My eyes flipped back in his direction. “For what?”

  He looked a little embarrassed as he gazed at me. “For the whole talk,” he responded in a low voice. “The part about our parents, specifically. It got me thinking... about my mother.”

  My mouth went dry. “Oh,” I rasped, feeling my heart speed up, and forced myself to stay carefully neutral. “Is that good?”

  He nodded. “I think so.” With a sigh, he leaned forward onto his legs. “Assuming the woman who dropped me off really was my mother… which I suppose she likely truly was... I’ve spent my whole life thinking she didn’t want to find me.”

  My heart nearly cracked in two. I opened my mouth to say something but realized I was at a loss.

  Cristiano went on, and it seemed more like he was just thinking out loud rather than carrying on a conversation with me. “But I’m coming to realize there are things I don’t understand... mysteries. And maybe I need to work on coming to peace with that.” He ran his hands over his face and leaned back in his seat. “I’m being awfully forward.”

  I smiled. “The impression I’ve gotten is that that’s just you.”

  “No,” he said seriously, staring at me intently. “It’s not.”

  A hot flush covered my body. Did the man suspect what he was doing to me? And if he did, was that his intention? Or could he really not help but drive me wild?

  “So why?” I asked, knowing full well what the answer would probably be. “Why have you been so forward?”

  He spread his hands and chuckled a little bit. “I guess it just feels right around you. As silly as that might sound.”

  If Cristiano was on a crusade to seduce me while appearing completely innocent, he was doing a decent job. Except for the roses, of course. Those had been a little over the top.

  “On that note,” he said, looking embarrassed again. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this... but I don’t usually have to be forward when I’m interested in a girl.” He looked down at his hands then peeked back up at me.

  I felt my eyebrows shoot up as a dozen questions filled my head. “Wow. That’s quite a thing to admit.”

  His cheeks darkened, which took me even more by surprise than what he’d just said. He chuckled. “Yeah, it is. That sounds pretty cocky, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “But it is what it is. So you usually have no problem getting girls?”

  He just blinked and looked at me.

  I dismissed the question with a wave of my hand. “You don’t have to answer that. I mean, look at you.”

  I bit my bottom lip. I’d said way too much. Again.

  Cristiano slowly opened his mouth. “I fear we’re getting off topic, and I apologize. I really didn’t bring you here to try and hit on you. Although...”

  “You want to?”

  He winced. “Yes.”

  He could stop himself if he really wanted to, but he wasn’t. And I was enjoying the whole game myself. I tried to ignore how happy it all made me. Me. Cristiano. We were flirting. And maybe Derek and I weren’t totally rocking the together forever, let’s start picking out our china pattern and get two dogs from the same litter thing, but what would it look like if he were to walk into that coffee shop at that very moment?

  And not even two hours after I’d gotten off to the idea of the man sitting next to me.

  I quickly reached for my coffee cup, wishing I could shrink and jump into it, thus making a quick getaway from the whole situation. It wasn’t Cristiano who couldn’t be trusted. He’d already made his intentions very clear. It was me who had a m
uddled brain, me who switched gears every two minutes, me who felt magnetically drawn to one man while still willingly tied to another.

  “I want to find my mother,” Cristiano said.

  I set the coffee back down without drinking so much as a drop. “Cristiano, that’s awesome.”

  He nodded, but his face still looked grim. “Even though it scares me. Even though I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive her.”

  “It’ll be all right,” I promised him. “I’m sure of it.”

  He smiled up at me and squeezed my fingers. With a start, I looked down at where our hands were locked together on his seat’s arm rest. When had I reached out and taken his hand? Had I been so lost in the moment that I hadn’t even known what I was doing?

  I needed to let go of it, I knew. I needed to pull my hand back into my own lap. But holding his felt so good, so right.

  But I just couldn’t keep doing it.

  I loosened my grip, and he got the hint and let me go. To cover up the awkward moment, I used my now free hand to reach for my coffee mug again. Good ole’ mug. It was always there for me when I needed some help.

  “What’s your relationship with your own mother like?” Cristiano asked.

  I gazed at a painting of a sailboat on the far wall and thought about that. “It’s... probably normal.”

  Or not. Since the day my dad died, things had been anything but normal. My mom lived for me. I knew that. She’d hated it when I joined the army. “It just doesn’t make sense,” she had said when I told her. “It’s not like you.”

  But at that time in my life, I didn’t know who I was. All I knew was that I wanted to become somebody. Not ‘somebody’ in a famous sense. I just knew that I wanted to create an identity for myself, or at the very least find out what I was capable of. I wanted to be strong, to be capable, to see just how brave I could be. I wanted to be the kind of person my dad had been.

  And I wanted to do something that I thought would have made him proud.

  “My mom worries about me a lot,” I found myself saying. “It wasn’t like that when I was little. At least I don’t think it was. But that changed after my dad died. I mean, everything changed.”

  I leaned back into my seat, keeping my hands wrapped around the coffee mug so I could soak up its warmth.

  “Where does she live?”

  “Pretty close to here. In Wheaton.”

  “Do you see her much?”

  I looked back at him. He seemed more relaxed than before, having leaned back into his own seat just like me. “I try to see her at least once a week. She’s pretty busy with work and volunteering at the shelter. Plus, she’s got her friends, so I don’t worry about her too much.”

  “I imagine she worries about you.”

  I smirked. “Yeah, she probably does. I’m her only kid.”

  “No siblings,” he mused. “I find that hard to imagine.”

  “You grew up in different houses,” I said, doing my best to be tactful. “So there were a lot of other kids around?”

  “Usually, yes. Things could get crazy. Both at Hampton Road and in the foster homes. There was a lot of competition for space.” His eyes drifted slightly up and to the side. “Although I suppose that might have helped me as an adult. I learned early on the tricks you needed to get ahead.”

  I sipped my coffee. It was at the perfect point, halfway between hot and lukewarm. “Like?”

  “Like the art of flattery... and the art of revealing the right information at the right time. Things like that.”

  “Huh. So you’re a master manipulator.”

  One of his eyebrows cocked, and he chuckled, that deep rumble that curled my toes. “Those are your words, not mine.”

  “You’ve become extremely successful at a pretty young age. How old are you? Twenty-eight?”

  “You know an awful lot about me. So you’ve done your homework.”

  Heat hit my face. I looked for an excuse, but there wasn’t one.

  “It’s all right,” he said, adjusting his weight and crossing one leg over the other. “With the internet, secrets are few and far between.”

  “I Google everyone,” I mumbled before realizing I sounded like a stalker. “Uh, I mean...”

  Cristiano laughed. “Isn’t that what social media is for? So people don’t have to go through the work of sifting through websites.”

  “Social media is a lie, though,” I blurted out, eager to turn the topic and get it away from me. “A facade. People get to pick their identity and then craft it on Facebook and Instagram.”

  He inclined his head. “True. But you can’t always trust news articles either.”

  “I trust them more than I do people’s passive aggressive posts or public declarations of love.”

  Cristiano laughed. “I wouldn’t know. I stay away from that kind of stuff.”

  Figures a guy like Cristiano wouldn’t have Facebook. He’s way too suave for something so mainstream.

  We both fell silent, and I occupied myself with running my finger around the rim of my coffee mug. It was over halfway empty and starting to get cold. I could go and get a refill. I could stay for another half hour, shooting the shit with the most attractive man in the coffee shop.

  Or I could go home and sit all alone in my apartment, watching Netflix and trying to stop myself from finishing off that chocolate ice cream in the freezer. Cristiano had already shared with me the ‘important’ reason for asking me out. We’d talked about his mom and then moved on.

  I’m being gullible. He wanted to see me. That’s why he texted me.

  And I didn’t really need to feel guilty about it, did I? After all, I had male friends. Derek himself had a couple female friends, though, for the record, they were pretty butch.

  Cristiano spoke up, his voice smooth and soft. “I hope I’m not pulling you away from anything tonight.”

  I waved my hand to dismiss the issue. “No. Definitely not. The only people I have any dates with tonight exist on my television set. And they’ll be there waiting for me when I get home. So…”

  An amused look crossed his face. “I’m trying to imagine you at home.”

  “Oh yeah? What do you see?”

  He shook his head and looked at the ceiling. “I’m actually not getting a very good visual at all.”

  I snorted. “It’s nothing interesting, trust me. Like I said, it’s me, the remote, whatever unhealthy snack I can find, and the worst fitting pair of pajamas you can envision.”

  Cristiano caught my eye. “There’s no way you’re as boring as you make yourself sound.”

  “You don’t know me that well,” I breathlessly answered. “We just met.”

  “Hm, true. But let me list the things I do know about you. One, you’re friendly. Two, you’re strong. You lived through losing a parent. Three, you like to express yourself through your clothes. Usually, people who do that are upbeat and generally happy people. They care about how they look, and they care about having fun. And four. You were in the army. Now that speak multitudes, and in more ways than I can know.”

  I stared at him. “So you have the exterior part of me figured out. But there’s more, of course.”

  “Yes,” he murmured. “Of course... so how about it? Would you like to open up? Is there anything you’d like to share?”

  I tapped my finger on my mug. “Not a chance.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Good answer. I’ll have to work to get to know you then.”

  If only you knew.

  “And what about you?” I countered, jutting my chin at him.

  “What about me? What would you like to know? We’ve already shared some pretty deep things with each other.”

  “We have, but what’s your life like? I mean, your day to day. You’re not much older than me and look at the difference between us. You’re...” I resisted using the word rich. “Successful. Way more so than twenty average Americans put together. And I’m fumbling around, trying to figure out who I am and what I want to do with m
yself.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that, Blaire. And you’ve already done a tremendous amount. You served your country.”

  “Thanks,” I responded, not really able to think about anything other than how much I enjoyed him saying my name.

  “And you seem to be fairly level headed. It’s all right if you don’t know what you want to do for the rest of your life. It’s brave, really, to admit that.”

  I looked down at my lap. I didn’t feel brave. If anything I felt confused and scared most of the time. But maybe most people felt that way. “Hey, you didn’t answer my question. What’s your day to day life like?”

  “Ah. That,” he said, like what we talked about was the most trivial thing ever. “I have an office downtown, not very far from my apartment. I go there six mornings a week, but I’m not chained to it. Actually, I like working at home. I have a small office there that has large windows. I can look down at the traffic below. People watch. It’s good for when I want to clear my head.”

  I could see it so perfectly. Cristiano in a white button-up and tie, his hands clasped behind his back, a mahogany desk sitting near him, his face turned down towards the busy street below. Or perhaps he wore something more casual at home, a t-shirt and jeans maybe. Though it didn’t seem likely. Just like I had a penchant for a particular style, Cristiano seemed to as well. Jeans and... God forbid, something like sweat pants, just didn’t seem to fit him.

  “I travel to New York at least a few times a month,” he went on. “Sometimes more and sometimes less.”

  “Why?”

  “Meetings. Talks with other investors, people in industries. To stay ahead, I can’t rely on studying the news to see how businesses are doing. I need to stay on the inside of them, keep my canaries fed.”

  “So you have people who... inform you?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”