by Lindy Zart
Two days after Duke’s birthday party, Duke set up a meeting between his employees. He told us the organization, and he told us what they were looking for. Then he told us to wow him, and them. One by one, he took us into his office, and had us pitch a slogan to him.
I didn’t think. Ben’s grandmother’s words popped into my head and I blurted them out. Horrified, realizing what I’d done, I wanted to melt into the floor. When Duke announced whose pitch he decided on, I looked at Ben. His eyes went blank, his face cold, and that was the end. It was too late. I wanted to take the words back, but Duke said yes before I could say no.
But would you have said no?
That’s the question I can’t seem to answer.
Now, yes. But then? I still don’t know. My head was in a different place entirely.
I cover my face with my hands and inhale slowly, releasing the breath with my eyes closed.
Not that it makes it right, but Ben doesn’t understand how the words have helped so many women. His grandmother’s words are captioned on billboards and pamphlets and commercials. They are the one time I gave credit to a woman other than my mom, and it went to Hillary Stitzer. The money made off the sale is in a savings account in Ben’s name. I never told him that. How could I?
“You are more than a number on a board.”
Those are the words that gave Ben solace, me Duke’s attention, and tore what could have been between Ben and me into what never would.
“She wanted me to remember that whatever I do in life, I am good enough, whether I fail or succeed. I’ve always thought I had to prove my worth, and she wanted me to know that I don’t, that whether or not I think I succeed, I always do.” Ben shifts his attention to me. “Why did you do it?”
I open my mouth. “I don’t—I can’t—”
Ben’s eyes flash black. “Just answer the question!”
I cry, tears dripping down my face. “I wanted Duke to see me.”
“See you?” he says derisively.
I nod, my throat so tight it hurts to speak. “I wanted him to look at me the way he looks at you.”
“Like what?”
“Like I matter.”
“Why?”
I helplessly shake my head, keeping the truth hidden.
Ben gets to his feet, striding toward the trees and back. He jabs a finger at me. “You wanted to manipulate him.”
“No.”
“You wanted to make yourself indispensable.”
“No!” I shoot to my feet.
“You wanted to seduce him.”
My stomach churns. “No, no, I swear, no.”
Ben looms over me, furious and hurt. “You wanted him to think you’re more than you are.”
I shake my head again. Maybe what Ben is saying is true and I can’t admit it to myself.
“Admit it! You’re a fraud.”
“You’re right,” I shout, the dam holding my truths at bay finally breaking.
Ben blinks at the volume of my words.
I step closer and lower my voice. “I am a fraud, but not the way you think. That woman you think I am? That overly ambitious, sickeningly sweet person with a razorblade tongue and no conscience you think is the real me? She isn’t. That’s the act. I made her up.
“I made myself who I thought I should be. I spent more money on clothes, my hair, makeup, and exfoliations and waxes, in the last couple of months than I had previously spent on any of that crap over the course of my entire life. I didn’t even have my first manicure and pedicure until I moved to Illinois.”
Once I start talking, I can’t seem to talk. The words just come and don’t stop coming. I am confessing it all, and
It
Feels
Divine.
“I made myself perfect, but as you can see, I’m far from it.” I smile self-deprecatingly.
Ben watches me, not speaking.
“I like to read for fun. Yeah, that’s what I do. Or I watch television. I spend hours in my room writing. An exciting night to me is watching reruns of The Gilmore Girls and eating a pizza—a whole pizza, not even kidding. God, I miss those things.” I hit my chest with my palm. “I’m the boring one! That’s right. Me. I used to hang out with my mom, and okay, so a lot of people would think that’s strange, but if you ever met her—”
Pain slices through me and tears sting my eyes.
“If you ever had the chance to meet her, you would love her. Everyone loves—loved—her. Everyone. She’s the special one, the amazing one, the strong one. The beautiful one who knows how to act and dress, who can say a sentence that is so impactful you just stop for a moment and digest it—and the best part about her is that she didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. Me? I’m a copy, and a poor one at that. I care about what everyone thinks.”
“Avery—”
“These nails?” Sniffling, I wave them in the air, barely noticing the wary look on Ben’s face. “Are fake. The straight hair? Fake. I had to train myself how to walk in heels. It took days, and I hate wearing the things. I really and truly do. You’re right: the Avery Scottam from the office is a fraud. Really, I don’t even like her all that much.”
Each breath is shallow and sharp, bringing me back to who I am. I’m disappointed in myself for changing my exterior, but I had my reasons, and at the time, they seemed good. What is most disappointing is that my mom always told me to be true to myself, and somewhere along the way, I forgot that.
“I don’t like who I’ve become, Ben,” I admit in a broken whisper. I set a hand to my chest. “I’m real, Ben. Me. I swear to you I am. This is me. The person you see now. I have wavy hair and freckles and customarily dress in jeans and t-shirts. I’m scared of the most ridiculous things and I used to hate all those things about me, but even more than that, I hate that I changed who I am. I hate that I thought I had to. I never thought I wasn’t good enough the way I was until I lost…”
“You lost?” he prompts quietly.
I blink back tears and take a shuddering breath. “Everything changed this past year. I moved to Illinois and…I thought I had to be someone else to be seen.”
“I saw you perfectly, Avery, and I couldn’t understand the charade you were trying to pull off.”
I reach for him and Ben moves back. Heart aching, I confess, “That night we hung out together was the most real I’ve ever been. The most seen I’ve ever felt.”
Everything clicked the night of Duke’s birthday party. It was the first time Ben and I really talked and there was so much to say to one another. I told him all the truths I could, and he told me more than he should. We were talking about the stars and how infinite the sky seemed. I asked what would happen to the sky if all the stars fell at once. Ben said stars were like souls: something that would always be. He looked into my eyes and I saw the wonder in mine reflected in his. I think I fell in love with him right then and there. We kissed under the fireworks, hidden from the rest of the party.
Doubt darken his eyes, along with something else. “And you ruined it.”
“I know. I did.” My chest squeezes and squeezes until it hurts to even swallow. “I’m sorry.”
“Why did you do it?” Ben demands. “Why did you take what I told you in confidence, words I could never put a price tag on, and sell them?”
Frustration tightens my neck muscles. “Because I was stupid!”
“No.” He shakes his head. “That isn’t going to cut it. I want to know, Avery. I want to know the truth.”
“You don’t.”
“I do!” Fury flashes through Ben’s eyes.
“Because—” I falter, biting my lip. How do I tell him? I guess I just do. I take a deep breath I gesture helplessly. “Because Duke’s my father.”
The only thing that moves are his eyes as he blinks. “Come again?”
“Duke Renner is my father.”
“I don’t believe you.” The words come fast and brutal.
I shrug. “He is.”
“But…” Ben st
eps toward me, studying my face. “How?”
I roll my eyes. “Well, you see, my mom and him had sex and—”
“Nope, we’re good.” Ben covers my mouth with his hand. He stares at me, looking for truths in my face. He repeats slowly, “Duke is your father.”
I nod weakly.
An instant later, realization dawns on him. “He doesn’t know, does he?”
“No. I didn’t even know, not until my…my mom basically gave me a deathbed confession. She had cervical cancer and…well…she didn’t make it.” I smile weakly against the pressure on my heart. I miss her so much. I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing her.
Ben’s eyes drop.
“Growing up, it was just the two of us. I never asked about my dad, but I obviously knew I had one. I didn’t want my mom to feel as if she wasn’t enough. She was…she was everything to me. She was everything I ever wanted to be.”
He looks up and he doesn’t look away.
“But I think that it made her sad too, for me, that I only had her.” I swallow. “Before she died, she told me his name and she made me promise to not have preconceived ideas on the kind of man he is. Nothing could have prepared me for Duke Renner.” I laugh, swiping at my eyes.
A faint smile lines Ben’s face. “He’s one of a kind.”
“I honestly didn’t think I’d get the job,” I confess. “I figured he’d see right through me. I just wanted to see Duke once. I couldn’t say no to the interview, and when I was offered the job, I was agreeing to relocate to Illinois before I had a chance to really think about it.”
“Duke can be persuasive,” Ben says.
I take a deep breath and add another confession to my ever-growing list of them. “When I saw how much you mean to Duke, it made me jealous. I had to prove that I was good enough. I had to be important. I wanted to be the best and it got to the point where that was all that mattered. It was like poison was running through my veins and I couldn’t make it stop. I’m sorry, for everything, I really and truly am. It wasn’t me. That’s the only excuse I have.”
Ben’s mouth presses into a line.
“I cared about you, Ben, and…I still do. I tried to convince myself that what I did would be okay, but I knew it wouldn’t, not when I saw that look on your face…” I clap a hand to my mouth to keep a sob inside. That look of devastation on his face. That look that told me he couldn’t believe what I’d done.
“I swear I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t think. Or I did, but…not about what was really important. Duke wanted something spectacular and the first words I thought of were your grandmother’s. I was selfish and wrong, and I only thought of me, and I’m sorry.
“There’s a hole, right here.” I pat my chest. “And I don’t know how to fill it. I thought if I came to Illinois and got to know my dad, maybe the hole would fill, but nothing’s been how I thought it would be, not from the start.”
I hold Ben’s gaze. “You’re the only one who’s come even close to filling the hole, and I made you hate me. I can only apologize so much. I can’t go back in time and erase the mistakes I’ve made. I wish I could, but I can’t. I can’t do anything but hope you’ll see who I really am and want to get to know me better.”
He looks at me for a long moment before jerking his head in an ungraceful nod. “I know who you are. Now. I didn’t before.”
I let out a sigh of relief, weak with the hint of forgiveness I heard in Ben’s voice. Another chance. I get another chance.
“You have to tell him.”
I turn my focus to a nearby patch of dirt and sticks. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Why not?”
One shoulder lifts and lowers. “This whole time I’ve pretended to be someone I’m not. What’s he going to think when he finds out it was all a lie?”
“You’ll explain. He’ll listen. Duke isn’t an unforgiving man.”
I lift my eyes to his and ask the question that haunts me. “What if he doesn’t want me?”
Ben cups my jaw with his hands and brings his face close to mine. His eyes are deep brown with emotion. His thumbs stroke my cheeks. “You are special, Avery. Even I saw that when I told myself I couldn’t stand you. I still felt it. Duke sees it too, I know he does.”
“You’re just saying that.” I pull back, wanting to move closer. “You don’t really mean it. You don’t even like me.”
“I like you.” Ben’s eyes stare truth at me. “Here, this you, I like.”
My stomach somersaults. I say softly, “I like you too, so much.”
Ben gives me a smile, and he gives me all the light in the world with it.
I focus on the dirt beneath my fingernails that probably will never entirely leave. “I had this naive thought in my head that as soon as Duke saw me, he’d know who I was. I even put down my mom’s name instead of mine for each slogan I pitched—they’re all hers anyway, with a little tweaking from me. Another reason I’m a fraud. Most of what’s mine that’s sold has been a variation of something my mom told me at some point.”
“Duke doesn’t take care of a lot of the fine print details. I do.”
I look up. “But you’re a copywriter, like me.”
“I am, yes, but I do more than that.”
“You deserve a raise.”
He grins. “I do, and most definitely after this. Be sure to tell Duke that.”
“But you…are you still…” I don’t finish the words, not wanting them to be true. Sanders and Sisters won’t be right without Ben there.
The grim set of his face tells me Ben’s still planning on leaving the company.
“Just because I’m not at Sanders and Sisters doesn’t mean we won’t see each other,” Ben says quietly.
“Will we?”
“Will you want to?” He lifts his eyebrows as he waits.
“Yes.” I grab his hand and squeeze it. “A million times yes.”
He opens his mouth, and then pauses. Clarity filters through his eyes. “Wait. Cecily Scottam. That’s your mom’s name?”
My eyes fill at the sound of her name. “Yes.”
“I thought maybe you went by your middle name, but…you’re Avery.”
“I’m Avery.”
“Everything you did was for her and Duke—who is your father.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
Ben looks at me for forever, his eyes focused on mine. He slowly nods, the mask completely gone from his face. His features are softer, kinder. “I don’t agree with how you went going about it, but I understand why you did it.”
A wobbly smile overtakes my mouth, and I exhale deeply, relief taking a good chunk of weight from my bearing. “That’s enough.” I hesitate, shoving a lock of tangled hair behind my ear. “Did you…have you looked at the contract for A New You?”
“Not yet. Why?”
I look at my stained shoes and shrug. “I just wanted you to know that the words are accredited to Hillary Stitzer, and that the commission I made from it is in a savings account in your name. I wanted to at least do that for you, and her—”
Ben lurches forward, startling me quiet. I open my mouth to ask about the dangerous look in his eyes just as his lips descend on mine. With the flavor of berries on our tongues and heated lust our captors, the kiss is deep and erotic. I feel it all the way to my core, and I press close to him, wanting us skin on skin. Ben’s fingers tangle in my hair, tugging my head back to better manipulate my mouth. This is the way every woman should be kissed. With unbridled passion, with the knowledge that they are wanted fiercely, desperately. I moan, low in my throat, drunk on sensations.
He jerks back, his pupils dilated. Ben threads his fingers through his hair and pulls. Ben paces in front of me, agitated and intense. I watch him, wondering if I’m already losing him. Is he coming to his senses? Am I the illogical choice? What is his head telling him? And why won’t he instead listen to his heart?
If I’d listened to my head, I’d still be in Montana. I wouldn’t know my father, howeve
r secretly. I wouldn’t know Ben. Sometimes, you have to tell your head to shut up so that you can listen to your heart.
“This is madness, right?” He swings back, tight-jawed, speaking before I can utter a sound. “But I don’t care. I don’t care what you’ve done, or if this is wrong or right. I just want you.”
My stomach dips and spins. I can’t breathe, his words stealing the air from my lungs. I clear my throat and say hesitantly, “A wise person once said, take a chance on me.”
Ben frowns. “Your mom?”
“ABBA.”
His expression clears and he laughs. Ben steps closer, his stance stiff. Questions dance across his features. “Will you take a chance on me too? You weren’t the only one at fault. I didn’t have to be so hard on you.”
I open my mouth to interrupt, but Ben shakes his head.
“I was an ass. I know I was an ass. But if you’ll let me, I’ll do better. I swear.” Ben’s eyes entreat; they tug at the center of my heart. Ben crosses the distance that separates us, grabbing my face, holding it. Drilling all the force of his being into my soul. “I want you and I’m tired of pretending I don’t. God, Avery, if you say you want me too, I’ll be yours. All you have to do is say it.”
“I want you,” I say in a steady voice. “I always, always want you—even when you’re an ass.”
Ben’s face goes so completely blank that I wonder if I’ve somehow pissed him off. His eyes lower, and when they lift, they’re filled with sparking, maddening, electricity. He’s on me before I can inhale, his mouth like fire on mine. Burning me, scalding me where our lips touch. I taste heady desire. I want more.
The stubble of his face feels like ecstasy against my flesh. I lean into him, my fingers finding his hair. We’re kissing and ripping the already ruined clothes from each other’s bodies. His hands palm my backside and squeeze as he spins us around, pinning me to the rough bark of a nearby tree. I shift my hips, bringing his erection to the apex of my thighs.
I kiss Ben, feeling the moment he lets go, his taut body vibrating with need. The kiss deepens, his arms coming up around my back, his hands holding my head still as he puts all the other kisses I’ve ever received to shame. I explore his body with my hands. Each hard muscle, every divot. They are mine to touch and revere. Ben smells divine, like man and earth and a hint of sweat. Is this really happening? Finally, he is mine.
