Beautiful Bastard (18 page)

My eyebrows inched to my hairline. “Do what?”

He waited.

“The meeting?”

He nodded.

“Without you?”

He nodded again.

“You’re sending me to a meeting alone?”

“Miss Mills, you’re as sharp as a spoon.”

“Fuck off,” I said, laughing and pushing him gently. “And I’m not doing it without you.”

“Why not? I bet you know the account we’re offering as well as I do. Besides, if we reschedule he’s just going to take a lavish trip to Chicago and send us the bill. Please, Chloe.”

I stared down at him, waiting for him to break into a teasing grin or take it back. But he didn’t. And the truth was, I did know the account, and I did know the terms. I could do this.

“Okay,” I said, smiling and feeling a surge of hope that we could figure this—us—out after all. “I’m in.”

His face grew harder, and he used the voice I had barely heard in days. It sent small waves of hunger through me. “Tell me the plan, Miss Mills.”

Nodding, I said, “I need to make sure he’s clear on the project parameters and timelines. I’ll watch out for overpromising; I know Gugliotti is notorious for that.” When Bennett nodded, smiling a little, I continued. “I’ll confirm the contract start dates and the milestones.”

When I ticked all five of them off on my fingers, his smile grew. “You’ll be fine.”

I bent and kissed his damp forehead. “I know.”

Two hours later, if you asked me if I could fly, I would have answered yes in an instant.

The meeting had gone off perfectly. Mr. Gugliotti, who had initially been peeved to find an intern in the place of a Ryan executive, had softened when he heard the circumstances. And later, he seemed impressed with the level of detail I was able to provide.

He’d even offered me a job. “After you finish with Mr. Ryan, of course,” he’d said with a wink, and I carefully demurred.

I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to be done with Mr. Ryan.

On the way back from the meeting, I called Susan to find out what Bennett liked when he was sick. Just as I suspected, the last time she’d been able to spoil him with chicken noodle soup and Popsicles, he’d been wearing a retainer. She was delighted to hear from me, and I had to swallow the guilt I felt when she asked if he was behaving. I assured her that all was fine and that he was only suffering from a mild stomach bug and that, of course, I’d have him call. With a small bag of groceries in hand, I walked into the room, stopping in the small kitchen area to drop off the food and take off my tailored wool suit.

Wearing only my slip, I moved into the bedroom, but Bennett wasn’t there. The bathroom door was open, and he wasn’t there either. It looked as if housekeeping had been in; the linens were crisp and neat, and the floor had been tidied of our piles of discarded clothes. The balcony door was open, letting in a cool breeze. Outside, I found him sitting in a chaise, elbows propped on his knees, his head in his hands. He looked like he’d had a shower and was now dressed in dark jeans and a short-sleeved green T-shirt.

My skin hummed, warming at the sight of him.

“Hey,” I said.

He looked up, eyes taking in every curve. “Holy
fuck.
I hope you didn’t wear that to the meeting.”

“Well, I did,” I said, laughing. “But I wore it beneath a very prim navy suit.”

“Good,” he growled. He pulled me close, wrapping his arms all the way around my waist and pressing his forehead into my stomach. “I missed you.”

My chest twisted tightly. What were we
doing
? Was this real or were we playing house for a few days and then returning to normal? I didn’t think I could do our normal after this and wasn’t sure I could see several steps into the future to how this all played out.

Ask him, Chloe!

He looked up at me, his stare burning hot on my face as he waited for me to say something. “Are you feeling better?” I asked.

Coward.

His face fell but he hid it quickly. “Much,” he said. “How did the meeting go?”

Although I was still on a high from the meeting with Gugliotti and was dying to tell him every detail, when he asked this, he removed his arms from my waist and sat back, leaving me feeling cold and hollow. I wanted to hit the rewind button and take us back two minutes to when he told me he’d missed me, and I could answer, “I missed you too.” I’d kiss him, and we’d get distracted, and I’d tell him all about Gugliotti a few hours from now.

But instead I gave him every detail of the meeting, how Gugliotti reacted to me, and how I redirected his focus to the project at hand. I recounted every aspect of the discussion in such detail that by the end of my story, Bennett was laughing quietly.

“My, you’re wordy.”

“I think it went well,” I said, stepping closer.
Put your arms around me again.

But he didn’t. He leaned back and gave me a stiff smile, the detached Beautiful Bastard kind. “You were great, Chloe. I’m not at all surprised.”

I wasn’t used to this kind of compliment from him. Improved handwriting, great blow job—these were the things he knew how to notice. I was surprised how much his opinion mattered to me. Had it always mattered so much? Would he start to treat me differently if we were lovers instead of fuck buddies? I wasn’t actually sure I even wanted him to be softer as a boss, or try to blend lover and mentor. I rather liked the Beautiful Bastard at work, as well as in bed.

But as soon as I thought it, I realized the way we used to interact now felt like a strange, foreign object in the distance, or a pair of shoes that I’d long since outgrown. I was torn between wanting him to say something dickish to jerk me back into reality and wanting him to pull me closer and kiss my breast through my slip.

Again, Chloe. Reason number 750,000 you don’t fuck your boss. You turn a well-defined relationship into a mess of blurry boundaries.

“You look so tired,” I whispered as I began running fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.

“I am,” he mumbled. “I’m glad I didn’t go. I threw up. A lot.”

“Thanks for sharing,” I laughed. Reluctantly, I pulled away and put my hands on his face. “I brought Popsicles, ginger ale, gingersnaps, and saltines. Which do you want first?”

He stared at me, completely confused for a beat before blurting, “You called my
mom
?
”

I went down to the conference for a few hours in the afternoon so he could sleep some more. He put up a strong front, but I could tell even half of a lime Popsicle made him queasy when he turned a matching shade of green. Besides, at this conference in particular he could barely walk ten steps without being stopped, fawned over, pitched to. Even healthy he wouldn’t make it far enough to see anything worth his time
anyhow
.

When I returned to the room, he was sprawled on the couch in a most un–Beautiful Bastard–like pose, shirtless and with his hand shoved down the front of his boxers. There was something so ordinary about the way he sat, bored, staring at the television. I was grateful for the reminder that this man was, in some ways, just a man. Just another person, moving around the planet, getting his bearings, not spending every second lighting the world’s stage on fire.

And buried within that epiphany that Bennett was just Bennett was a sense of wild longing because there was this chance that he was becoming
my
Just Bennett, and for a heartbeat, I wanted that more than I think I’d ever wanted anything.

A woman with freakishly shiny hair flipped her head and grinned at us from the television. I collapsed on the couch next to him. “What are we watching?”

“A shampoo commercial,” he answered, pulling his hand out of his shorts to reach for me. I started to tease him about cooties but shut up as soon as he began to massage my fingers.
“Clerks
is on, though.”

“That’s one of my favorite movies,” I said.

“I know. You were quoting it the first day I met you.”

“Actually, that was
Clerks II,
”
I clarified, and then stopped. “Wait, you remember that?”

“Of course I remember that. You sounded like a frat boy and looked like a fucking model. What man could ever forget that?”

“I would have given anything to know what you were thinking right then.”

“I was thinking, ‘Highly fuckable intern, twelve o’clock. Disengage, soldier. I repeat,
disengage
.
’
”

I laughed and leaned against his shoulder. “God, that first meeting was miserable.”

He didn’t say anything but kept running his thumb along my fingers, pressing and soothing. I had never had a hand massage before, and if he’d tried to turn it to oral sex, I might have turned him down just to keep him doing what he was doing.

Wow, that’s a total lie. I’d take that mouth between my legs any day of the—

“How do you want it to be, Chloe?” he asked, pulling me out of my internal debate.

“What?”

“When we’re back in Chicago.”

I stared blankly at him, my pulse sending my blood thrumming in heavy bursts through my veins.

“Us,” he clarified, with forced patience. “You and me. Chloe and Bennett. Man and shrew. I realize this isn’t simple for you.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to fight all the time.” I bumped his shoulder playfully. “Although I do sort of like that part.”

Bennett laughed, but it didn’t sound like a completely happy noise. “There’s a lot of space that comes after ‘not fighting all the time.’ Where do you want to be?”

Together. Your girlfriend. Someone who sees the inside of your home and stays there with you sometimes.
I started to answer and the words evaporated in my throat.

“I guess that depends on whether it’s realistic to think it can be anything.”

He dropped my hand and scrubbed his face. The movie came back on and we fell into what I think was the most awkward silence in the history of the world.

Finally, he picked my hand up again and kissed my palm. “Okay, baby. I can handle just not fighting all the time.”

I stared at his fingers wrapped around mine. After what felt like an eternity, I managed, “Sorry. This all feels a little new.”

“For me too,” he reminded me.

We fell into silence again as we continued to watch the movie, laughing in the same places and slowly shifting until I was practically lying on top of him. Out of the corner of my eye I glanced at the clock on the wall and mentally calculated the hours we had left in San Diego.

Fourteen.

Fourteen hours left of this perfect reality where I could have him whenever I wanted him, and it didn’t have to be secret, or dirty, using anger as our only form of foreplay.

“What’s your favorite movie?” he asked, rolling me over so he hovered above me. His skin was hot and I wanted to take off my blouse, but I didn’t want him to move even an inch, for even a second.

“I like comedies,” I began. “There’s
Clerks,
but
Tommy Boy, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Clue;
things like that. But I would have to say my all-time favorite movie would probably be
Rear Window.
”

“Because of Jimmy Stewart or Grace Kelly?” he asked, bending to kiss a trail of fire up my neck.

“Both, but probably Grace Kelly.”

“I can see that. You have very Grace Kelly–like tendencies about you.” His hand came up and smoothed a piece of my hair that had come loose from my ponytail. “I hear Grace Kelly had a filthy mouth too,” he added.

“You love my filthy mouth.”

“True. But I like it better when it’s full,” he said, meaningful smirk in place.

“You know, if you would shut up once in a while you’d be damn near perfect.”

“But I’d be a
silent
panty ripper, which I think is a lot creepier than the angry-boss panty ripper.”

I dissolved into giggles under him and he dug a finger between my ribs, tickling.

“I know you love it,” he growled.

“Bennett?” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “What do you do with them?”

He gave me a dark, teasing look. “I keep them somewhere safe.”