Because I met ‘the one’ while looking for anyone else—and then I lost her.
I’m going to tell you how not to make the same mistakes, and we’re starting with the basics.
You don’t know what women want.
I never did, but that’s because the answer is as complex as the woman herself.
My heart beat overtime. The skeptic in me stopped to wonder if this was a ploy to get eyeballs, but the Georgina in me knew the truth. Sebastian was laying his heart on the line—but to what end?
She’s the stuff of dreams but don’t call her my dream girl. She was as real as it got. A heart and soul girl. A kind person. A woman. At first, I loved to hate her, and then I hated to fall for her, but the truth is I’m made for her. The way gummy bears are made for brainstorming, gentlemen are made of more, and cinnamon is made to sweeten buns.
With a dry mouth, I consumed every word as Sebastian revealed the truth about his past, his reputation, and even his surname. The final paragraph left my heart in my throat.
And it’s with this newfound knowledge that I make my departure. My time at Modern Man has been valuable, eye-opening, and illuminating. I’ve become a better man for it in some ways and worse in others. I look forward to new challenges ahead and a clean, honest slate with which to approach them.
He was leaving the magazine.
My phone pinged with a text from Sebastian. The timing was too fortuitous for him not to have sent the magazine. I just didn’t know what he was trying to tell me. With unsteady fingers, I opened a message that said “watch me” with a video. In full makeup, and wrapped in the same red robe from the cover, Aliana’s high cheekbones, full lips, and almond-shaped eyes filled the screen. “Happy early Valentine’s Day from the February cover shoot, Georgina,” she said in her Polish accent, waving emphatically. “Sebastian tells me I was his dream girl until you came along and knocked me off the list completely. And, well, he’s going to ask you for a second chance. I think you should give it to him.” She winked. “It’s not every day a woman not only tops the list but totally obliterates it.”
She flipped the camera and Sebastian’s even more beautiful face appeared. “Hey, buns,” he said, his eyes crinkling in the corners with his smile. “Just wanted to warn you that I’m coming for you, so put down your phone and look up.”
I frowned, confused when the video ended. I lowered my cell, and in my doorway stood the most handsome, most intriguing, most infuriating man I knew.
In a peacock-blue pullover that brought out his eyes and his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, Sebastian sighed as if relieved. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
I knew the feeling. Just his presence drained tension from my shoulders I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying. “What’s going on?” I asked, standing. “Are you really here? In Boston?”
“All of what you just read is true.” He took a step and warned, “So if you ask me whether I wrote it for any other reason than as a declaration to you, I will come over and kiss you in a way that leaves no question as to my intentions.”
My chest rose and fell as I tried to think of one reason not to question him if it meant getting that response. Where did I even begin? I picked the easiest of his revelations to tackle first. “You’re leaving your job?”
“Left. Once it was in print, there was no turning back.”
“But why?” I asked. “What’ll you do instead?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for Vance to decide my value. I didn’t want to be there without you anyway. As for what’s next, I have ideas, but I’m a free agent at the moment.”
He’d gone and quit without a backup plan? It didn’t sound like Sebastian to flip his perfectly curated life on its side, but I couldn’t help but hope that was a good sign. He himself had admitted to feeling complacent. “How does it feel?”
“Weird. Overwhelming. But I can breathe for the first time in a while.” He glanced around my bare office, just a desk, computer, and some chairs for now. “It wasn’t a shock. Honestly, as soon as you said you were leaving New York, I was already coming up with ideas to make us work so I could eventually follow you—until you said Boston.”
I realized it was hope that’d eased my body because it left me again. I’d come here knowing he wouldn’t chase me, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t tempted to go to him now. I held up the issue. “I’m proud of you. It makes for a good story, but what does it mean? Why are you here?”
“You know why. You know what I’ve wanted for a while, even though there were times I would’ve jumped off a cliff before admitting it.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “You said it yourself—I can’t do this without you.”
My palm sweat against the glossy cover. I still wanted this—him. Enough that in darker moments, I’d questioned whether coming to Boston was the right choice. “Can’t do what?” I asked.
“Any of it. Now that I know what it’s like to be with someone like you, I don’t want anything else. Just you. You make me mad, and for better or worse, I refuse to live without that madness.”
Madness, I supposed, was him putting my interests before his so I’d enjoy a pretend date. Showing up for me and Bruno at the vet when I’d tried to run scared. Facing his own fears by coming here. I realized my mind had latched onto something other than “someone like you” for the first time in months. In his eyes, I was a prize, not a consolation.
I inhaled. “You don’t have to live without it.”
“Good, because I’m here for you, and I’m not going anywhere. If you need time, I’ll give it to you. But I won’t give you up.”
“But Sebastian . . .” I glanced at my desk, willing myself to keep a clear mind as my heart called for him. When he and I had last been together, my fear of the past had thrown me into overdrive, thinking I had to come first or not at all. Sebastian and I had to learn the art of compromise—but I no longer had that to give. “Are you saying you want to try this for real? Long-distance? I’m not ready to leave Boston. I just got here.”
“And? How is it?”
I hesitated, because I didn’t want to hurt him. Didn’t want to lose him now that I had him back. “I wish I could say I hate it,” I admitted, “but I don’t.”
He arched an eyebrow. “That so?”
“It’s something new. And it reminds me of you.” My cheeks warmed. “I won’t uproot Bruno again, and I won’t let Dionne or my team down. This is the job I want to be doing right now.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “How is the brute anyway?”
“Good.” I smiled a little. “Bull in a china shop as always.”
“Opal misses him. Turns out, she likes a little bull in her life.”
“I know the feeling.” I was still wary but unable to keep from giving in to the ease of our interactions or the comfort of having him there.
“You were right at the vet,” he said.
I had no doubt that was true, and that Sebastian would eventually realize it—but it didn’t diminish how good it felt to hear it. I tilted my head. “Can you repeat that, please?”
“You were right that I let fear get in the way,” he said, “right after I’d called you out for the same thing.”
“I’m not scared anymore, Sebastian.” I inched around the desk, my steps muted by the tufted wool rug beneath my heels. Though eager to go to him, there were still things that needed to be said. “When I met you, I’d been trying to hide or overcome my flaws out of shame. Then you came along and told me I was allowed to have them. That I was allowed to be kind.”
“Allowed?” he asked. “I love that part of you. More than you know. After so long of not having that, you feel like the lifeline I lost.” Longing showed on his face. “Don’t tell me you’re weak. Don’t tell me your flaws aren’t my blessings.”
I swallowed through the urge to cry. To run to him. To let myself fall, finally, into him. But the distance between us kept me from opening my heart all the way. “I’m sorry it had to be Boston,” I said quietly. “I wish there was another way.”