What?
“Are you married?” his mother asked, and Bennett didn’t miss her glance down to their joined hands.
“No,” Gia said. “We actually haven’t known each other that long.”
“Well,” said Bennett’s father, “sometimes you just know.”
“Sometimes you do.” Gia’s eyes twinkled. Ah, now she was playing him. But he couldn’t find it in him to be annoyed. To be anything other than profoundly grateful to her, in fact. And if there was a little part of him that wished what she was implying were true—that they were really together? Well, that was neither here nor there.
“I insist you have a lemon bar before you go.” His mother pushed the tray toward them. When neither of them reached for one, she added, “What will Rae Lynn think if no one eats one?”
Gia smiled—it was a fake one—and picked up a bar. Bennett followed suit. The old housekeeper’s lemon bars had been pretty damn good, and if these were from the same recipe, it would be no hardship to eat one before they left.
“Delicious,” he said, and it was the truth. A nice mixture of tart and sweet, a good flaky crust.
Gia took a small bite of hers. He braced himself for a moment. Would she let loose an “Oh my God”?
She chewed and swallowed and remained silent.
He gloated inwardly.
* * *
Gia wanted to run to the car. The only thing that stopped her was the presence of Bennett’s parents on the porch watching them take their leave. So she forced herself to smile and walk slowly, telling herself she was practicing her bridesmaid walk.
“You didn’t want to stay, did you?” she whispered. She was almost certain the answer was no, but she had to check. “Because we can easily do that.” Even if they waited until tomorrow to leave, they’d still arrive with time to spare, given that Wendy had moved the tailoring appointment.
Bennett placed his arm around her shoulders as they walked, presumably to shield their conversation from his parents, but oh, it felt good.
“Hell no.”
That was a relief. She would stay if he wanted to, but she’d had about enough of this stifling southern gothic soap opera.
“Let me drive,” she murmured as they approached the car.
“I’m fine now.”
“I want to do it.” She wasn’t sure why she was so adamant. It was probably a bad look, in the eyes of these traditional southern people, for the woman to drive. It likely emasculated Bennett or some shit. But then, they were getting into a tiny turquoise toy car, so what did it matter?
She just really wanted to drive. To be the agent that hightailed them out of here. She sort of felt like she’d gotten Bennett into this, and she wanted to get him out of it.
He gave her the keys without any further protest, which surprised her a little. So many guys made driving into this big symbolic thing that was somehow tied up in their masculinity. She would like to think it meant he trusted her, but he probably just wanted to get out of here without a big argument.
“Bye!” she called, pasting on a smile and waving to the Buchanans.
They got in the car, and she punched it, spraying gravel behind them as she took off through the creepy tree archway.
But then, just as they’d cleared the trees, she thought about how their creepiness was kind of cool. And the car was out of sight of the house now. So she stopped, reached into the back seat for her bag, and produced her camera. Bennett watched in silence as she hopped out of the car, aimed the camera at the oaks, and took a picture.
They didn’t speak, as if by mutual agreement, when she got back in. She merely handed him the photo and hit the gas again. He held it, waving it idly to speed the developing process, like they did this every day. She waited until they were fully clear of the property and she was accelerating up the road before glancing over at him. He must have felt her attention, because he turned to look at her, too.
She wasn’t sure how to interpret what had happened back there, other than to know that it had exhausted her. Which was absurd, because the whole thing had been twenty minutes, and it hadn’t been her family. Still, the combination of Bennett’s mother’s iciness and the heavy, unnamable emotions emanating from Bennett and his father had made for a potent, exhausting twenty minutes. It had been difficult to read the subtle undercurrents at work, to help Bennett, which had been her aim, without overstepping.
She raised her eyebrows questioningly.
“I don’t know,” he said, somehow intuiting that her unspoken query had been something along the lines of What the hell just happened there? “I can’t even…”
She nodded. She got it. He would probably have to process all that had happened for a good long while.
“But thank you.” The emotion was back in his voice. She wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but again, he answered her unasked question. “For getting us out of there when I didn’t know how.” He blew out a breath and let his head fall back against the headrest. “For bringing me to Charleston to begin with.” Then he lifted his head and she felt his attention back on her, though she kept her eyes on the road. “For being with me. I know this whole detour has been…intense.”
“No problem. I’m the one who kidnapped you while you were sleeping and brought you here. And sorry I sort of pretended to be your girlfriend. It just seemed…” What? The truth was that she’d wanted to make him look good in front of his parents, and she had suspected they—or at least his mother—were the sort of people who would put stock in a settled, monogamous relationship. She’d wanted them to think of Bennett as the sort of person who inspired loyalty and trust. Which he was. He would make a great boyfriend—for the sort of woman who did relationships. “Like the path of least resistance,” she finished lamely.
“So now that you’re my fake girlfriend, you’re going to have to come to New York for this hypothetical dinner, or else fake dump me beforehand.”
She chuckled. “Maybe you’ll fake break up with me first.”
“Unlikely.”
“How do you figure that?” She was suddenly a little too interested in his opinion on the demise of their fictional relationship.
“Of the two of us, you’re definitely the one who’s a flight risk.”
She shrugged and tried not to smile. She couldn’t argue with that assessment.
The sky had grayed over while they were inside Bennett’s parents’ place, and now the first drops of rain were starting. She flipped on the wipers and merged onto the highway, still feeling the urge to get them the hell out of Dodge.
They drove in silence for a good hour through the rain. There was still enough light to see by, though, and the rain wasn’t heavy, so there was no reason for her to be ruffled, but the farther they got from Charleston, the more unsettled Gia became. The feeling was growing stronger with each passing mile. Something was wrong with her body. It wanted out of the car. Eventually it got so intense that she had to silently lecture herself to keep her limbs still and the pressure of her foot even on the gas pedal. Which made no sense, because at work she often stood still as a statue in wildly uncomfortable poses and surroundings. Stick her on a beach in fifty-five-degree weather with sand in her butt and she would smile through the whole thing. But now, suddenly, she just needed out. The impulse she’d had to flee Bennett’s parents’ house, and then Charleston itself, had been focused, like a laser. Now it was as if there had been an explosion inside her—a crack of thunder to accompany all this rain—and all that concentrated focus had scattered to the wind, leaving her jumpy and unsettled.
Rationally, they should make as much progress as possible this evening, if not push all the way through. Though it seemed like a lifetime had elapsed since they’d left Virginia before dawn, it was only six o’clock. They could make it most of the way, if not all, this evening if they wanted to.
But once they got back on I-95, Gia started seeing signs for hotels. She could feel herself weakening. She was just so done with this day. It was l
ike all those scattered pieces of her attention had become magnetized, and the Hilton Garden Inn was her true north.
As they approached the exit they would have to take, there was a giant crack of thunder. Just the cosmic nudge she needed.
She pulled off. “Okay, that’s it. We’re done.”
“Really?”
“Really. I need a drink.” She glanced over at him. “And I imagine you probably need several gallons of your sugar water. On me, remember?”
By the time they pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, it had started hailing. She smiled. The universe was with her. There had been no rational reason to stop at six o’clock in the evening—“I’m antsy, and I can’t be in the car anymore even though I’m the one who’s been obsessing over getting to Florida as fast as possible” was certainly not going to make the grade.
But pea-size hail that was shading into marble-size hail?
That was a good reason to stop.
“Damn,” said Bennett as she pulled into the crowded parking lot. “Good call.”
She preened a little, as if she had a meteorological crystal ball and had done this solely to spare them the hail.
He tapped the dashboard. “I’m not sure this sorry excuse for an automobile would have survived this.” He twisted around, reached into the back seat, and grabbed the leather jacket he’d lent her—she had thrown it back there this morning. “Don’t move.” In a flash he was out of the car and had come around to the driver’s side. He opened her door and held the jacket over it, holding it with one hand while he used the other to gesture her to his side. “I’ll come back for our stuff once we’re in the rooms.”
She ducked her head, stepped under the makeshift umbrella, and allowed him to tuck her close to his side.
“Ready?” He arranged the jacket over their heads.
“Yep,” she said, and they ran.
The parking lot had been almost full, and they’d had to park at the very end, so they had a fair amount of terrain to cover. “Ahhh!” she shrieked as she took too big a step, losing her footing and lurching forward, out from under the protection of the jacket and Bennett’s arms. “Ow!” The hail hurt.
“Behave,” he admonished. “Just for once, okay?”
“I’m trying!” she protested.
A few more janky steps, and they got themselves in sync. They were no longer working against each other, but together, like they were on the same team. It had felt like that at Bennett’s parents’ house, too, except this time, their foe was not an icy, disdainful mother but actual ice falling from the sky, which somehow felt like much less dire a threat.
“This is crazy!” She laughed as they jogged along.
It was like their snowball fight of two nights ago. They were at the mercy of the elements—and these were some crazy-ass elements. But again, instead of being poised to fight each other, they were allied against the hail. Against Bennett’s parents. Against the world.
He was laughing, too, as they reached the shelter of the overhang that extended from the hotel’s main entrance.
“I don’t know why I didn’t just drive up!” Gia exclaimed, taking note of other cars idling under the protective covering, presumably while their occupants checked in.
“Because you are not accustomed to roadside motels,” Bennett said, and he was right. “You’re not accustomed to car culture.”
“That’s…exactly right.” It was still so weird, the way Bennett made these observations about her that were spot-on. It was like he knew stuff about her that she herself didn’t consciously know. She made a sheepish face, meant to agree with his assessment.
“It’s not a character flaw,” he said. “You’re used to New York and Paris. You don’t just drive up to your target establishment in cities like that.”
They’d reached the front desk, and Bennett turned his attention from her to the woman behind it.
“Good evening, ma’am.”
That was followed by an exchange about the weather that went on way longer than it would have in New York. Gia bit back a laugh, listening to Bennett’s drawl deepen as he flirted with…Gia glanced at the woman’s name tag. Oh my God, her name was actually Reese.
This was totally the beginning of a rom-com. Freak hailstorm brings handsome stranger to the front desk of a roadside hotel. Reese probably had something tethering her to this town—an ailing parent, an unpaid debt that had been run up by her loser ex-husband. Something keeping her here, in need of rescuing.
“Good thing you pulled off here,” Reese said. “You gotta go a long way down 95 before you hit any more hotels.”
Reese was cute as a button, too. She didn’t look like her Hollywood counterpart, but she was clearly a southern belle, with her perfectly coiffed honey-brown hair and her frosty pink lipstick. She was wearing a uniform, but Gia was having no trouble picturing her in a debutante gown. She probably had a tiara behind the desk for when she clocked out.
“Stopping here was a smart move,” Reese went on, clearly trying to flatter Bennett.
Gia waited for Bennett to inform Reese that the idea to stop had actually been hers, but he just flashed Reese a thousand-watt smile and said, “Well, ma’am, given this here hail, we are certainly hoping there’s a room at the inn.”
“Two rooms,” Gia said automatically, which caused Reese’s smile to sharpen.
“Actually,” Reese said to Bennett, stretching the word out on her tongue, “it’s not ma’am. It’s miss.” Then she looked between him and Gia like she was trying to make sense of their relationship.
Join the club, Reese.
Gia’s legs started feeling jumpy again, like they had in the car, but this time, instead of wanting to get off the highway, they wanted…to move her over so she was standing closer to Bennett? What the hell? And it was all she could do to prevent her hand from joining the party, from floating up and settling on his forearm.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. No need for her to piss on her territory, because Bennett didn’t do casual. He might charm the pants off Reese, but only metaphorically. Reese was no threat.
No. Wait. That wasn’t why it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because there was nothing between Gia and Bennett. God.
Bennett paused, taking in the “ma’am/miss” correction, which anyone could tell was meant to telegraph to Bennett that Reese was single. And probably also taking in the fact that Gia was kind of invading his personal space. He cleared his throat awkwardly, almost guiltily, which was ridiculous. There was no law against flirting—Bennett was eminently flirt-with-able, and he owed Gia nothing.
“Right. Miss,” he said to Reese, in a tone that Gia had trouble reading. In the movie, this would be the part where he turned up the wattage on the grin, leaned in close, and made a remark about how it seemed impossible that a woman as pretty and charming as Reese could be single, but he didn’t seem to be playing his part.
“I have one room left,” Reese said.
Of course. Except the plot was messed up because it should be Bennett and Reese forced to share the last room, right?
“This storm has pushed us to our limit,” she added.
And you, Reese, have pushed me to mine.
“One room will be fine.” Gia pulled out her credit card, let that renegade hand settle possessively on Bennett’s forearm, and smiled blandly at Reese because goddammit, if Bennett was going to refuse to sleep with anyone tonight, it was going to be Gia.
Chapter Nine
As they walked down the hallway toward the last room in the hotel, Bennett told himself it didn’t matter. They’d slept in the same room two nights ago, at his place, and they’d fooled around pretty extensively last night. Gia had gone from being a stranger to someone who knew all his shit. Like all of it—his checkered past, his modern-day hang-ups, his fucked-up family. So sharing a room with her was not a big deal.
“Don’t worry,” Gia said, apparently reading his mind. “Your virtue is safe with me. I just didn’t think we should give up a
sure thing, what with the hail out there.” She unlocked the door. “And look—two beds, so you’re safe.”
He chuckled. Right. This would be no problem.
She sighed, reached her hands up over her head, and stretched, sticking her chest out and arching her back. She either wasn’t wearing a bra or it was a thin one, and the air conditioner, which was on full blast, was making her nipples hard.
“I’m going to take a shower, okay?” she said over her shoulder as she turned toward the bathroom.
No problem.
She furrowed her brow and turned back to him, clearly waiting for his agreement—she was being polite, making sure he didn’t need the bathroom before she went in. But of course she could not see inside his head, where he was chanting No problem over and over again. Nope, from her perspective, he was just standing there mutely staring at her.
“No problem.” It came out a little too loudly as he attempted to get his mouth to add sound to his previously silent mantra. “I’m going to go back out and get our bags.”
“Why don’t you call down and ask Reese if she can send someone up with the bags?”
“Who?” He had missed something, because he had no idea who she was talking about.
“Your admirer at the front desk.”
Right. “Yeah, well, I think this is more of a ‘get your own bags’ kind of place than you’re probably used to. I’ll get our stuff, you shower, and then we can go across to the restaurant when you’re ready.” Which was an Applebee’s. How the mighty do fall.
“Nope. I’m done with this day. I know it’s ridiculously early, but after this shower, I’m not getting dressed until tomorrow.”
Of course she didn’t actually mean she was coming out naked. She meant that after the shower, she was getting into her pajamas.
No problem.
He sighed, nodded, and headed back outside. Came back and dropped her bag just outside the bathroom door before leaving again.
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