Conflicted (6 page)

I tried to avoid looking in his direction, but it was nearly impossible. My eyes were drawn to him involuntarily.

After the dinner course, Jack excused himself and moved across the room toward the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thank you for your support of Benson Industries and of One Heart One Way. Thank you for your continued charity and for celebrating here with us tonight. Each year, I’ve given a speech at this event where I discuss both Benson and One Heart, but tonight, I’m handing over the reins to someone else. I’m so proud of my son. He’s managed to make a smooth transition so far, and I know he’s going to revitalize the company and create more success than I ever could have imagined. Please welcome the new Chief Executive Officer of Benson Industries, Mr. Cole Benson.”

I clapped along with the rest of the attendees in the room. Cole’s eyes met mine for the briefest of seconds before he stood and strode confidently toward his father. “Thanks, Dad,” he said, and the two men hugged. I almost felt a tear in my eye at his tender display of affection for his father.

Tender. Now there’s a word I never would’ve thought I’d use to describe Cole.

He launched into the speech he’d sent me and I’d reviewed. He’d memorized it, and it was perfect…he was perfect. He was assured and confident throughout his discussion of Benson’s current state, and he explained how the money raised at the benefit would help One Heart One Way, a children’s charity. He ended with a plea for attendees to dig deeply into their pockets before telling everyone to have a good time.

I couldn’t help my fantasies about this man. I’d never do anything about it, but I was drawn to him for some inexplicable reason beyond my attraction to him.

I wanted to see his tender side again.

I wanted to be the one who could make him smile. Instead, more often than not, I was the one who made him scowl.

I glanced over at John at some point during Cole’s speech, and he was engrossed in reading something on his phone. I smacked him on the shoulder and gestured toward Cole on the stage with my head, as if to tell him to pay attention. It was flat out rude to sit on his phone while Cole gave his speech—especially considering he was my boss and we were sitting at the same table as him. I fumed in silence, but I forgot about it quickly as I found myself enraptured by the man on the stage.

Cole stepped down to a standing ovation and made his way back to our table. He sat, and everyone congratulated him on an excellent speech as he blew out a deep breath.

I caught his eyes, and I smiled at him. He held my gaze for a few beats before pressing his lips together and looking away.

His hot gaze on mine had sent a tremor of lust down my spine.

I shook it off. My husband was right beside me. I was imagining things.

The music started back up and the wine flowed. I’d had just enough that I wasn’t drunk—I refused to make a fool out of myself at a work function—but I felt light and happy.

The speech was over, and the auction would close in another hour. Until then, it was time to dance.

“Dance with me,” I said to John, looping my arm through his.

He gave me his “do I have to” face, and I met his expression with my best “yes, it’s your obligation as my husband” face.

“I’m really tired from work this week,” he whined.

“Come on. It’ll be fun.” I stood and pulled on his arm. We headed out to the dance floor as Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” started playing. I shimmied around to the beat, giving him some of my best moves, but he wasn’t having it.

He was being a giant stick in the mud, but I refused to let him ruin my good time.

Jack and Arlene started dancing beside us, and it was clear that Jack had been following Cody’s rule of taking a drink every time someone congratulated him. He was dancing like an old man, shaking it and boogying on down beside us, and I couldn’t help but laugh every time he bumped clumsily into John, who just kept rolling his eyes. The whole situation struck me as incredibly funny—especially the more annoyed John became.

A group of women stole Arlene away to chat just as John excused himself to the restroom. So I danced with my old boss as the song switched from dance music to a slower ballad.

Jack looked at me with raised eyebrows and held out his hand, and I smiled and took his hand in mine. He twirled me around the floor to the slow song, and I giggled. I caught Cole’s gaze from across the room, and my smile faded as he held my eyes captive with his.

“So, Lucy, tell me how things are going with Cole,” he said, making a bit of a slurred conversation as we danced. He bumped into the couple next to us.

“It’s fine. We miss you around the office.”

“He can be hard to handle sometimes. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about him.”

I didn’t have a chance to respond before he continued talking.

“He was a funny kid. Stubborn as hell and a pain in the ass. He’d do the dumbest things. He’d go out back and touch our cactus and then come inside crying because it hurt. Arlene would calm him down and then he’d go do it again.”

I giggled. I could imagine Cole as an adorable little boy just learning how to be the stubborn man he eventually grew into.

“When he was little, he used to take off his clothes all the time. It started when we’d gone to a deserted beach and he was wearing jeans. He didn’t have his swim trunks, so we told him to go in the water naked. Well then he thought it was okay to do it whenever he wanted. Once he even took off his clothes in the middle of a department store.”

My giggles turned into full on laughs.

“I’ll save myself from further embarrassment by cutting in.” His voice was deep, and I caught his scent before I saw him. Jack smiled at me and made a face like he’d gotten in trouble.

“I’m off to get Arlene some more wine.” He elbowed Cole in the ribs. “She gets a little randy after she’s had a few.” He laughed and scampered away to find his wife while Cole rolled his eyes in disgust.

He took my small hand in his big one, and my entire body flushed with heat at his proximity. Our hands had never touched before. If anything, he did his best to avoid any sort of contact with me.

His skin against mine was electric.

Just our hands touched, but it felt as if he was touching me everywhere.

He laced one arm around my waist as the notes of another ballad filled the room. We were dancing like old people, my hand in his, his arm around my waist, and my other hand resting on his shoulder.

That big, broad shoulder hidden behind his tuxedo coat.

My fingers flexed involuntarily, and I couldn’t help but notice how hard his entire body was beneath that sexy tux. My mind wandered and my mouth watered as I thought back to that picture I’d seen of him wearing just his swim trunks. That mental image mixed with the man in the flesh sent an aching need right to my core.

He pulled me just a bit closer to him, surprising the hell out of me, and I felt something rigid pressing against my hip.

Holy. Shit.

Was he as hot for me as I was for him?

No way. There was no possible way.

But his erection digging into me told a completely different story.

“What was my father telling you?” he asked in a deep rumble. I looked up into his eyes.

God, he was handsome. His milk chocolate irises had golden flecks in them that I’d never been close enough to notice before, and his breath smelled of peppermint.

I couldn’t think when I was this close to him. Words caught in my throat.

“That bad?” he asked. I sensed his nervousness.

I cleared my throat and broke our eye contact so I could think. “Just a proud father bragging about the time his son took off his clothes in a department store.”

“God. He tells everybody that stupid story. I’m surprised this is the first time you’ve heard it.”

I smiled. “It’s not so bad.”

“I was ten.”

I choked on my laugh as I tried to hold it in.

“It’s okay. You can laugh.”

I didn’t hold back, and even Cole chuckled along with me. I couldn’t help the joy that filled my heart in hearing even a small chuckle out of the man who was in a perpetual bad mood.

I made the mistake of looking up at him as we both laughed. When he smiled, adorable little crinkles outlined his eyes and he had a tiny dimple in just his left cheek. He looked carefree and young, ten times more beautiful than he had just moments earlier.

But when our eyes met, the mood instantly changed.

Neither of us was laughing anymore. Instead, an intense heat passed between us and the air around us filled with a raw and savage tension.

Cole cleared his throat and looked away first.

“Your speech went really well,” I said softly.

He nodded once to acknowledge my words, but the wall that had so briefly come down was firmly back in place.

The song ended. “I should get back to my date,” he said, still avoiding eye contact with me.

Of course. I supposed I should go find my husband, too.

He let go of my hand and dropped his arm from around my waist. “Thanks for the dance,” I said.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he walked away from me, and I stood in my place for a few beats as I allowed the disappointment to wash over me.

His date. He hadn’t been turned on because he was dancing with me. He’d just been thinking of his gorgeous date.

I headed back to the table and found my husband drinking another beer and messing around on his phone again.

“I thought you went to the restroom,” I said.

He set his phone down with a sigh. “I did. When I came back, you were dancing with Jack, so I figured you were fine.”

I had been fine. Better than fine, actually. I’d had a better time in the three songs I’d danced with Jack and Cole than I’d had with my husband the entire night.

I went off in search of one more glass of wine before the auction winners and the grand totals for the charity were announced.

I needed the wine to calm my nerves after my encounter with Cole, but instead, I found him at the bar ordering some bourbon.

“We meet again,” I said stupidly.

“It’s not that big of a room.”

“Well, plus I’m following you.”

He gave me an odd look.

I smiled. “I’m teasing.”

He raised his brows and then walked off with his bourbon. God, could that have been more awkward?

The benefit had been a huge success—even more successful than the year before, and I knew Cole would be proud of that fact considering it was his first benefit as the CEO.

I stared out the passenger window of John’s Volvo as we drove home, but I wasn’t thinking about my husband.

All I could think about was Cole.

He’d shown me a different side, even if it had only been for a split second. I’d been using the excuse that he was an asshole to keep myself from feeling more than a crush for him. Now that I knew there was a human being with real feelings behind that nearly impenetrable wall, everything had changed.

Everything.

“I have to go into work for a few hours tomorrow,” John said, breaking into my thoughts. I’d nearly forgotten my husband was sitting beside me despite the fact that he was driving.

“Fine,” I said, disappointed but not shocked that he was going into the office on a Sunday. Sundays used to be days for us to spend together. Not anymore, apparently. “Did you have a good time tonight?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

“It was alright. You?”

I thought back to Cole in his tux. “I had a great time.” It was a lie. There was a handful of moments that night that I’d considered “great,” but the rest of the night had been meaningless drivel that I was forced to endure to get to those moments.

Cole’s speech. Cole’s eyes meeting mine across the table. Cole’s arm around me as we danced. Cole’s erection pressing into me. Cole’s smile. Cole’s celebration at the end of the night when the final numbers raised were announced.

Those were all the great moments of the night. Those were the times that I’d remember.

But dancing with John for half a song? Sitting beside someone who couldn’t even be bothered with small talk? Finding him scrolling on his phone instead of paying any attention to his wife—who, by the way, looked smoking hot?

None of those moments made the list.

John pulled into the parking lot and parked the Volvo, and we made our way to the apartment in silence. A heavy ache pressed between my legs. As much as my husband had been ignoring me lately, I was still a wife with needs.

And my husband had to have needs, too. If he wasn’t getting it from me, where was he getting it from? I thought back to my conversation with Kaylee.

He wouldn’t cheat.

So when we walked through the front door of the apartment and John locked the door behind us, I turned around and pushed him against the door. Shock flashed across his face as I pressed my body against his.

I was horny as hell. It may not have been because of John, but John was sure as hell going to be the one to take care of me.