"Yeah. You didn't think I would mess around with a woman like you and it not be something serious."
"It can be serious. I just don't want to get married."
"Again, I say that's stupid. Just because you lost one man doesn't mean you'll lose me."
She blinked at him. "Really? You think this is about his death?"
"What else could it be?"
She drew in a deep breath, and for the first time ever, she admitted out loud just what her problem was.
"It had more to do with the way he lived."
"What?"
She didn’t want to do this, to be the one to tell him. It was odd that it was more to protect Mal’s feelings than the honor of her husband. But she knew he wouldn’t be happy without an explanation.
"Your friend, the guy you said you could count on, was a fucking cheater."
For a moment, Mal said nothing. "Explain."
Most women would get pissed at his tone, but she dealt better with it. She had grown up with it in her house from her brothers and her father. On top of it, if he was sweet, she would never be able to get everything out, to tell him just what a disaster her marriage was.
"So, you think I had some kind of great love story. It wasn't. It was sad and it was pathetic. The man couldn't stay faithful for even two weeks from what I found out."
"You seemed so happy."
And that made her sad. Because at first, she had been so happy, so full of excitement for their future. Kyle had ruined that, ruined any chances she had at believing she could have forever with a man.
"Oh Mal, things are never as they seem."
He said nothing, and she scrubbed her hands over her face. "Okay, I'll tell you. I might as well. Someone else should know what a bastard that man was."
"He was in love with you."
"Yeah, you would think that, right? The man was such a romantic, right?” She asked but didn’t expect an answer. “He always struck those wonderful cords, making sure that I knew he cared for me. But apparently, it was an act. He couldn't keep it in his pants. When I got the first credit card bill when you were deployed on that last mission, well, I was pissed. I mean, he hadn't sent me flowers, and I know damned well I hadn't gone to New York with him. Okay, so truthfully, I wanted to believe that it was a glitch. Like the other bills that he had explained away. But when he died, I had to face the truth.”
“I can’t believe it. I knew him.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. Her heart hurt when she saw the expression on his face. For Seals, they thought of themselves as family. Finding this out for him was probably more like finding out his brother was a bastard who cheated. Well, she was sick of pretending.
"Your friend was a slut, or at least the male version of it. For some reason, I could never really get excited about going to bed with him, and the last time I talked to him, he blamed me. Me. So it was my fault he went looking for women. That he cheated. After he died, I figured I would just walk away and be whole at some point, but then the rest of the bills started coming in." He opened his mouth to interrupt her, but she stopped him with a shake of her head. "If you stop me, I'll never finish.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“So, there I was having to hear what a great guy he was when I was paying off his debt...paying for the fact with not only my money, but my heart. Every week brought something more horrible. I was lucky, seriously. I was worried there would be something that I couldn't pay. That a bill would come in and I would have to go take out a loan, or worse, go to my parents and have to explain to them why I didn't have the money to pay it and what it was."
She couldn't stop the tears that were burning the backs of her eyes. But she blinked them away. She refused to cry over the cheating bastard again.
"I am not the marrying type. See, I couldn't keep him faithful. I know what everyone will say, but you don't know every bit of my background. I have never in my life had a man stay faithful to me. Not for an extended period of time. They all cheat. There is something broken in me. I will not be married again. I will not tie myself to a man who will just end up leaving me at some point because I can't give him what he needs."
"But you give me what I need. You're everything I want. When a Dupree marries, they marry for life."
Oh God, that sounded wonderful. And she didn’t doubt it. She had seen his brother with his wife and baby, along with Shannon and Kade. But…she would ruin that. If they married, she was sure something she did would ruin it. And while he would be faithful, he wouldn’t be happy. Amanda couldn’t live with herself if she made him unhappy. In her head she knew it was stupid, but she had to listen to her heart.
"I made a promise. I will not marry."
The room went silent, and it seemed odd. Very odd. She wasn't used to the tension that lay in the air between them. This was something...wrong. But she couldn't change her mind.
She needed to get away, to be away from him and everything that she wanted. Did she want to marry him? Hell, with every fiber of her being, but she couldn't take that chance. Not again. She didn't think she would survive. This time.
“Please take me home.”
"Amanda."
“No, please. I need…”
She couldn’t come up with an explanation. He nodded.
He said nothing as he followed her out, locked the door, and then the whole ride home. Nothing. It was actually five minutes from her apartment.
She looked at him. "If you can take what I can offer, then call."
"What, sex, no commitment?"
He sounded angry, and she knew it was more about his pride than his heart. With men, it was always that.
"A commitment, but one without the ties of marriage."
“That’s not what I want.”
“We don’t get what we want most of the time.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek, but he grabbed her.
“I love you, Amanda.”
The intense look on his face told her he believed it. She knew it was true without a doubt, but that didn’t mean she could accept that level of commitment. When she said nothing, he pulled her to him and gave her a hot, wet, fast kiss. She felt his irritation, his need, his passion for her. Then he released her.
She couldn’t say anything else. She wanted to soothe his pain. She couldn’t. It was selfish, but she was in too much pain herself.
She slipped out of the car and walked up to her apartment. It was embarrassing how much she wanted him to come after her, and if he had pushed, she would have broken. She knew he waited until she closed and locked the door. She leaned back against it, hoping against hope that he would come knocking, but she knew better. He wouldn’t. Mal was the type of man who would honor her request.
She slid to the floor, dropping her purse beside her as she felt the tears she’d been fighting slide down her face. Amanda had been so sure when she had given him her ultimatum, but now she wasn’t so sure. She physically hurt…needed him to be there, to hold her. And that was stupid. She had just told him to leave her alone unless he did what she wanted. But she had to keep herself safe and her heart whole.
She couldn’t handle losing her pride for a man all over again. At the moment though, she couldn’t exactly remember why that was so important.
* * * *
Mal heard the knock at the door, but he ignored it. He wasn’t in the mood. The only phone calls he was taking came from the office. It had been a long three days, but he had resisted, mainly because the woman he wanted to call hadn't called him.
"Open up, Dupree," Kade said through the door. "That's an order."
Mal snorted. "I outrank you."
"Yeah, well, I have a visitor here who is ready to kick your ass."
He rolled his eyes thinking it might be his sister Shannon, Kade's wife. But when he opened the door, he found himself face to face with a very pissed Dylan.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dylan asked.
"Well, that's a nice way of saying hi. I've spoken to your
mother. She wouldn't be happy to know one of her kids was so ill-mannered."
Mal turned and walked away. If they wanted to follow him into his room, so be it. He didn’t give a damn.
"I went to the house looking for you, but Kade said you would be here."
Mal ignored the conversation. Seeing Amanda's brother was a little too much. If he was going to deal with him, Mal figured he'd have a beer. He opened the little fridge and pulled one out.
"Good God, Dupree, it's two in the afternoon and you are already drunk," Kade said.
"Yeah, well it's five o'clock somewhere."
Kade reached over and took the bottle from Mal and then marched to the bathroom and poured it out in the sink.
"I have more."
"You will not have more. You've got to get your ass dressed and over to Amanda's apartment," Dylan said.
He gave her brother a look and opened his mouth to respond, but then the room began spinning.
"Shit." He almost fell on his ass.
"When was the last time you ate?" Kade asked.
"Uh, yesterday, I think."
"Seal, you know better than to drink that much with no food in you. Come on."
Kade sat him on the bed while Dylan called room service.
"Now, first you have to get some food in you, then you need to get yourself cleaned up."
He looked at Kade and realized there were two of him there. "Yeah, I agree on the food, but I think that I don't see the reason for getting cleaned up. It's Saturday morning. I don't have to be back at work until Monday."
The men shared a look. Kade nodded and stepped back. Dylan leaned down. "Okay, I wanted to kick your ass when we got here, but I see that Kade was right."
"Kade is never right. Ask Shannon."
Kade chuckled but then stopped when Dylan shot him a look.
"Really? Because he said you were head over heels in love with my sister, and I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen what a mess you are right now."
"So I took a few days to be lazy. Shoot me."
"I was ready to. You have my sister so damned miserable, I wanted to beat the hell out of you. Kade convinced me otherwise. You have to get yourself cleaned up so you can go over there and stop her."
"Stop her from what?" Then he shook his head and felt his stomach quiver. Shit.
"From going to Capital Punishment. That ass who runs the club is letting her and Addy in again, probably because he wants to get into Addy's pants. So they are making a night of it."
His brain didn’t seem to be working right. Did her brother just say Amanda was going to the club?
"She's going to the club? What for?"
"Step aside, Major," Kade said.
He did and Kade took his place. Then his brother-in-law slapped Mal upside the back of his head. "That's from Shannon. She said to use it if you were being a stupid man."
“Dammit, Kade.” His head was spinning even more. "Your sister won't marry me, Dylan."
"Yeah, well, what did you do? You rented a fucking house and just assumed she would be happy with it. First of all, if you love her, you have to understand that she will never do what you want if you try to arrange it without asking.”
He squinted at Dylan. "Yeah?"
He wanted to spill his guts and explain why she would never marry him, but he knew she hadn't told anyone else. He alone had been the person she had told.
"You think I don't know what that bastard Forrester did to her?"
Mal looked at him, surprised. "You know?"
He nodded, and his frown turned darker. "I would have ruined him. If I would have let him live, which was questionable."
"When did you find out?"
He sighed and settled in the chair beside the bed. "After he was dead. I was over at Amanda's checking on her. She did a lot of sleeping those days from the depression. I thought it was because of losing him. But I found out about the bills. She'd left them sitting open on her desk. I knew then what he had done. The fact of what he did was made worse by the fact that she had to pay off his bills. It took a little digging, but I even found a few people he dated in the Pentagon. Bastard."
Mal squinted at him. "Why didn't you ask her about it?"
He snorted. "Really? Are you sure you know Amanda at all?"
"Her pride."
"Yeah, her damned pride. She could never take a slight. Ever. I know friends of hers she hasn't spoken to because they weren't truthful with her. I thought it was all idiocy until I thought back on the guys she dated. She always seemed to pick guys who cheated on her. I thought Forrester was going to be good for her, but he was worse than all the others. I thought she might never date another military guy after that. Until you, she wasn’t ready to trust again.”
"According to her, I will at some point. Or hate her in the end."
"But she trusts you, Dupree."
He shook his head. He wished. He hoped, but he knew she didn’t. "No, she doesn't.”
"Really? Because the truth is, I think she does."
“Now I’m not so sure I’m the one with three days of drinking under my belt.”
Dylan made a face. “Okay, I have to go where a brother doesn’t like to go. But I know that you’re a Dom, and that you are a member of CP. And I know that the first night you hooked up, you did it there.”
“Are you spying on her?”
He rolled his eyes. “No. I know people and they know she’s my sister, that’s why I know. I need you to think about the one thing a truly good Dom/sub relationship has. What is the one thing that definitely makes it special? And don’t even think about love. She loves you, and we both know it. She’s probably already told you.”
He nodded.
“The one thing you need for that relationship to really work on a level of the greatest satisfaction is trust. Shit, Dupree, she trusts you. She just doesn’t trust herself.”
He squinted up at her brother and shook his head.
“Being a coward, Dupree?”
“No, there are two of you.”
He chuckled. “Get cleaned up and gear up. You have to go get your woman and save her from making a really big mistake tonight. I’ll call Addy and make sure she’s late.”
“She’ll be pissed if she finds out you did this.”
They both knew who he was talking about. Amanda held so much in, tried to hide so much that he knew she would be pissed that her brother had shared so much. The fact that she didn’t tell him until he upset her meant she hadn’t wanted anyone to know.
“Yeah, well, in the end, I expect a nephew with my name.”
That stopped him for a second. The idea of marriage, babies, and more importantly, Amanda in his bed every night sunk in.
Her brother nodded “Ah, he finally gets it. I’m calling Addy. You get your friend ready. If I don’t help you fix this, my mother would probably kill me.”
Mal stood up but the room tilted again as there was a knock at the door. He sat down. “Maybe I need to eat that food.”
“Then get your woman?” Kade asked.
He smiled. “Yes, definitely get my woman.”
Chapter Ten
Amanda pulled on the little leather black skirt she had worn the first time she’d gone to Capital Punishment. Had it been less than a month ago? God, it seemed like it had been a lifetime since she had challenged Mal that night.
“I think we need to stay home tonight," Addy said as she leaned against the doorjamb. "There is something telling me that this is not a good idea."
She glanced at her friend. She'd dressed in all black, except her hair was now pink. Amanda had sensed there was something else going on with Addy, but she couldn't figure it out. She had been so self-involved that she hadn't questioned her weird mood the last few days.
"Is there another reason?"
Addy fidgeted and avoided the question, which was not like her at all.
"Does this have to do with Walton?"
Her face flushed. "Not really."
"N
o?"
She shook her head but wouldn't meet Amanda's gaze. Another weird thing that had been happening.
"So, this guy you aren't that interested in--"
"I am not interested in him at all. I told you, I found him attractive, that was it."
Ah, so that was it. "Okay, anyway, he lets us get in, but you don't want to go because you have a bad feeling? Or maybe you're a little too tempted by him."
Addy’s hands fisted by her sides, and she looked madder than a hornet. "Take that back."
Amanda laughed for the first time in days. "Oh. My. God. You're really attracted to him."
"I am not. Well, yes I am. I admitted that before. He's...well, you saw him." Amanda nodded. "But he's totally wrong for me. Worse, he keeps me off balance. I thought he would use my father to pressure me to date him, but he hasn't. And I know now he won't."
And to Amanda, he sounded perfect for Addy, but she wasn't going to say that to her. She might get a smack to the back of the head for it.
"But don't think you’re getting out of the discussion. I don't think we can go to CP tonight. You're not in the right frame of mind."
She shrugged and walked to the bathroom to run a brush through her hair. "I’m not really in the mood, but I figured Walton wanted you there. Plus, it would get my mind off the problems with Mal."
Addy followed her and watched her brush her hair before answering. "Sweetie, there's a reason he hasn't called."
"Yeah, I think he saw what I had to offer and walked away."
Addy shook her head. “No. I think you both need some time, then you will get it straightened out."
She opened her mouth to respond, but the doorbell rang. Amanda frowned.
"Who could that be?"
"Hey, I'll get it, and then we'll decide about CP."
Amanda nodded but she had made up her mind. Amanda looked at herself in the mirror, realizing she had spent so much time mourning what she thought she'd had with Kyle that she had wasted her life. It was too short to worry about things that wouldn't be.
And feeling like shit wasn't going to help her. She needed people, needed a break from the pain she’d dealt with every day that Mal hadn't called.
A Little Harmless Military Romance Bundle (A Little Harmless Military Bundle) Page 28
