Chapter 7
The car pulled up to the small Clarence County Airfield, and he heard her gasp.
“Please tell me you are not taking me somewhere in a helicopter.” Her face had turned an alarming shade of green and he couldn’t resist reaching out and touching her arm to calm her nerves.
“No.” He laughed as she sucked in a sharp breath, holding it for a few seconds before releasing it. “I’m taking you somewhere on my private plane.”
“Sebastian, no. It’s too much. We’re supposed to have a simple date. I can’t leave here.”
“It’s just for a few hours, Sprinkles. I promise to have you home at a decent time, and I have a feeling you are going to be excited when you see where we’re going.”
The car pulled into the hangar where Sebastian’s private plane was being stored. Natalie had assured him earlier that day that she had taken care of all the scheduling and clearance for their trip that evening. Was it cocky of him to assume things would go in his favor? Yes. Did that matter at all as he looked at the stunning woman sitting across from him? Not one bit.
Once on the plane, Sebastian couldn’t help but nervously check his watch. The timing on the trip was crucial if they were going to see sunset in the vineyard like he had planned. Emma sat in the leather seat across from him, looking as excited as a kid on Christmas. He couldn’t help but notice that as she looked out the window, she would bite her bottom lip.
“Do you get nervous when you fly?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I mean, I am right now, but that’s because it’s my first time on a plane.”
“Ever?” He couldn’t hide his surprise.
“Yes. Ever.” Emma looked back out the window. “We didn’t have a lot of money growing up. I mean, my mom worked hard and we had a comfortable life, but there wasn’t money for vacations, and certainly not vacations that required you to take a plane. When I left Michigan, I took the bus.”
“Wow. Well, I’m honored to be sitting across from you on your first flight. If you get scared, you can hold my hand.” Her eyes snapped to his and he couldn’t help the wink that flashed along with his sly smile.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, but he definitely noticed how the blush rose across her cheeks and the way her throat slightly moved as she swallowed.
“Oh!” she squeaked as the plane started rolling out towards the runway.
“Here we go.” Sebastian smiled as he watched Emma’s eyes grow wide with adrenaline. Her hand shot out and he took it firmly in his own, tracing different patterns across her skin to calm her nerves.
Over the next few minutes, he watched Emma as she experienced flying for the first time. He noticed how on takeoff, her free hand flew to her stomach and she bit her bottom lip each time the plane changed directions. It was a whole different outcome than he’d been expecting, but there was something churning in his own stomach as he watched the vulnerability roll through her while she fully experienced flying for the first time. She had yet to let go of his hand, and he certainly wasn’t complaining.
* * *
The time on the plane went by faster than she had been expecting. There was somewhere in the back of her mind that feared the time spent with Sebastian would feel tense, or the conversation stilted, but she was having a wonderful time.
Flying had been a completely new experience and in that, all her fears seemed willing to show up with each bout of turbulence or change in direction they took, but Seb was there to hold her hand through it, never once making fun of her reactions.
Before she knew it, they were landing on a private airfield and Sebastian was helping her into a limo. An actual, real life, exactly like in the movies, limo. She hadn’t gotten to attend her senior prom, but if she had, she imagined the excitement of riding in a limo would have been the same then that it was for her now.
She sat all the way to the left, expecting Sebastian to sit on the right side of the car, but that sneaky flirt sat directly next to her, his thigh pressing against hers with his arm around her shoulders.
“You do know there is an entire limo’s worth of room for you to sit in. You don’t have to sit right next to me.”
“But this seat has the best view in the whole car.” She looked out the window, but his hand slid over her cheek, moving her face back to his. “I wasn’t talking about the scenery outside the window, Em.”
His hand moved from her face down to her lap, where he weaved his fingers through hers. She really hoped he couldn’t sense how her skin felt like it was on fire every time he touched her. Trying to focus on anything other than his touch, Emma turned her attention to the world passing them by outside the limo.
She’d never been to California before, but the landscape as they drove to the destination Seb was keeping a secret was absolutely stunning. They passed acres and acres of grape vines, and Emma knew they must be somewhere in wine country. God, now she was really glad she wore the dress Sebastian had sent to her. Wherever they were going was probably a million times fancier than she could pull off gracefully.
“We’ve made it,” Sebastian said as they pulled onto a skinny dirt road that meandered through more rows of grape vines.
The limo pulled to a stop in front of a large stone building and Sebastian stepped out first, offering his hand to her as she placed her feet on the uneven ground.
Looking around, her breath caught in her throat.
“Sebastian, it’s so beautiful here.”
“I’m glad you like it. My brothers are thinking about purchasing it. They want to expand their business to the west coast and asked me to check this place out for them.”
“Wow. Really? It’s incredible. How many brothers do you have?”
“Four. I’m smack dab right in the middle. My older brothers, Declan and Wyatt, always wanted to own a distillery. So, while I was overseas, I gave them a little money to start up their own company. A few years after they started, my younger brothers, Cooper and Sawyer, joined the business.”
“Wow. Mama Montgomery must be an angel. Five boys. I can’t even imagine.”
“She absolutely is a saint. But you’re the one who looks like an angel tonight.”
“Smooth,” Emma laughed.
“Thank you,” Seb’s eyes sparkled in the setting sun and there was something in the way he was looking at her that stirred up her emotions. “Shall we continue this chat as we walk to our dinner?”
Emma nodded, accepting his arm for stability as they walked across the grass and dirt. “What was it like growing up in a big family?”
“Amazing and yet, just pure chaos most of the time. I don’t know how my parents survived us. My brothers and I were wild.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“What about you? You mentioned your mom on the plane, was it just the two of you?”
“Pretty much. No brothers or sisters. I loved it though, our relationship was very much Lorilai and Rory.”
Sebastian looked at her with an eyebrow raised in confusion and she laughed. “Gilmore Girls, Suits. That was a Gilmore Girl’s reference.”
“Do I even want to know?” he asked.
“Probably not, but now that I know you don’t know anything about one of the greatest shows of my youth, I’ll be needing to fill you in on the whole series.”
“Sounds like a great idea for date number two.”
“We’ll see.”
“I had to try,” he laughed.
They came to the end of the grape vines and Emma gasped. There, in a small clearing, was a beautiful candlelit table waiting for them.
“Sebastian, this is amazing. How did you pull this off so quickly?”
“I told you, Sprinkles, I already knew what I had my sights set on for the auction. I’m just glad I’m the only billionaire in Clarence County, because I would have bid against any other man until I had spent every last dollar I had to have this date with you.”
Fuck. Her whole body was on fire, again. Those gray eyes held no secrets, and she could see just how true those words were.
She nervously cleared her throat as she tightened her grip on his arm. “Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”
“Me too.” Something in the way he was looking at her made her feel like perhaps he wasn’t talking about food. And in a way, she knew she wasn’t either.
“So, all your brothers work at the distillery, but you don’t?” She brought the piece of steak up to her mouth and moaned as the flavors danced on her tongue.
Sebastian was staring at her, but she didn’t care. Well, maybe she cared a little, as the heat rose to her face. But it wasn’t enough to stop her from cutting another piece of meat and repeating the reaction.
“No,” he cleared his throat, taking his suit jacket off and placing it on the back of his chair. God, she needed to send a personal letter of thanks to whoever his tailor was because the way his chest and arms looked in his shirt should be illegal. What he was wearing would be on repeat in her mind the next time she found herself alone in the shower. “I’d rather stay a silent partner. My interests are elsewhere. But I’ve made good money from my investment in their business and it helped me form Montgomery Equities.”
“Ahh yes, the company where you buy up all the mom and pop shops in a town and make an outrageous profit from the rents you charge businesses.” There it was. The sobering reminder of why she’d held off from allowing his flirting to go any further. She didn’t understand how a businessman could be so heartless, all in the name of profit for himself.
“Emma, that’s not what I’m doing at all. I take over the mortgages, that’s true. But I lower the cost of rent for the businesses.”
“I didn’t know. Color me surprised, Suits.”
He nodded while taking a bite of his own steak. She watched the cords in his neck strain and move as he chewed, and she wondered how the hell he made chewing look sexy. She was in so much trouble.
“My parents owned a pharmacy when I was growing up. It was the one place in our little town where you could get groceries, school supplies, hell, even baby formula and maps of Tennessee. My parents always made sure our neighbors had the medication they needed, whether they were able to pay all up front, or on a payment plan. I saw the stress that ate away at them when it was time to pay their bills, and I want to alleviate that for people in Bell Ridge. People all over America, really.”
“But you’re a businessman, Seb. Isn’t the whole point to make as much money as you can?”
“I have enough money, honestly. My family will be set for generations. What I really want is to make sure other families are able to have that security, too. Besides, I don’t want my kids growing up in a world where there is a huge divide between them and other people. I want them growing up knowing how to operate a tractor and how to grow their own food. I want them to know the value of being neighborly and kind. Clarence County is important to me for more reasons than just good business opportunities.”
His kids. Of course, one day Sebastian would have a wife, and he’d expect her to give him children. Emma picked up the glass of wine and swallowed the contents down, before turning to look over the vineyard.
A warm hand brushed over hers.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Perfectly fine,” she tried to push as normal a smile as possible onto her face, but his stormy gray eyes were searching hers.
“You went somewhere just now.”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s just enjoy tonight. Tell me more about what you’re doing in Clarence County. It doesn’t quite make sense to me.”
He sat back, his eyes still searching over her face, but she didn’t let her smile falter.
“My main goal is to continue helping out business owners and farmers by taking over their mortgages and renting to them at affordable rates so their families can have more money in their pockets, with plans to return the properties to their ownership once the mortgages are paid off so that their families can continue on with their legacy. I’m also in the early stages of bringing a security firm to the area.”
“What would that business do?” She watched Seb take a sip of his wine, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t gulped hers all down. “There are different aspects of it. The facility we are hoping to open will offer a range of things like self-defense lessons, gun safety, things like that. We’re also working on building a top tier training arena for special ops teams. It would give law enforcement agencies a chance to come train their teams in real life simulations.”
“Wow. That all sound so impressive.” She bit the inside of her bottom lip as she swirled the last drop of wine around in her glass. “So, if someone was running from something, from someone, you would be able to protect them?”
Sebastian set his fork on the table, his gray eyes piercing into Emma’s soul.
“Are you running from something, Sprinkles?”
“No, no. Not me.” Emma set down her glass before continuing. “I just was thinking about Jackson and Grace, and how they had to deal with her ex.”
“I wish I had been able to do more for them. I didn’t have all the legal business aspects in place yet and could only offer certain things, but ultimately, that is what we are hoping to do. Protect innocent people from getting hurt.”
“That’s really nice, Sebastian. Clarence County is lucky to have you.”
“I’m starting to think that I was the lucky one, to stumble into the sleepy little town and find a beautiful baker who keeps me on my toes waiting there.”