An Act of Persuasion

by Stephanie Doyle

  That had her eyes widening. He was already worried about their kid getting cancer. It was thoughtful, but the thought of freezing her parts after they came out of her body… “Gross.”

  “No, smart. As a precaution.”

  “Fine. But I still think I should find my parents if I can. Or maybe even their parents. Obviously my mother had addiction problems. But we should see what else is out there.”

  “Do you remember her?”

  Anna shook her head. It was more accurate to say she didn’t want to remember her. If there were memories—and there were a few—she forced them out of her head until they were gone. Like the sound of her mother’s voice calling her name. Or a lullaby she knew had been sung to her. None of it needed to be remembered, because in the remembering there was only pain.

  “Then how do you know? I mean, about the addiction.”

  “The smell.” Sickly sweet and awful. It had filled the room where they lived and Anna had instinctively known it was a bad smell. Maybe melting crack or heroine. She remembered how it made her feel scared because after the smell came, her mother would be different. She couldn’t touch her or talk to her. Then all those very vague memories filled with a sense of wrongness.

  “Can I ask another question?”

  She shrugged.

  “Why Mark?”

  “Why not Mark? He’s an investigator.”

  “I mean, why not me?”

  “I don’t know. I guess with everything going on between us, asking you for a favor right now seemed a little over the top.”

  He frowned. “We’re supposed to be starting a relationship.”

  “Trying to start. Not in one.”

  “And you felt more comfortable going to Mark for help.”

  “Yes.”

  Everything was more comfortable with Mark. Because he didn’t make her feel this way. He didn’t make her feel any way. He was her boss. She wasn’t in love with him. They could talk about anything. Everything was easy between them. Not like this.

  As if making a deliberate attempt to back off, Ben returned to the grill and lifted the lid, studying the contents within very thoughtfully.

  “I’ve got steaks on. I hope that’s okay.”

  She wasn’t sure where this need to fight with him came from. But the dark edginess she’d been feeling since she decided not to cancel the date had taken up residence in the pit of her stomach and it wouldn’t let her go. It was taking over and she didn’t think she wanted to beat it back. Let him see this side of her. Let him know that it existed.

  “Um, do you have anything else? I’m not really into steak anymore.”

  He stopped and she could see his mind spinning. How long had he prepped the steaks and marinated them in some special recipe he’d found? Because he knew she liked steak. She’d always loved steak. Of course he would think enough of her to serve what he knew she loved.

  “I have some chicken breasts. In the freezer.”

  “Okay.”

  He looked at her then but didn’t say anything. “You want a refill on your drink while I’m inside?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  He headed inside. A few moments later and she could hear the beeping of the microwave as he unthawed the chicken she didn’t really care about. When he came outside with a plate of pale meat and barbeque sauce she grimaced.

  “What?”

  “It looks weird.”

  “It’s raw chicken. This is what raw chicken looks like.”

  “Okay, but I want it plain. No sauce.”

  “You love barbeque sauce. You put barbeque sauce on French fries instead of ketchup.”

  “I don’t like it now,” she argued. “I want the chicken plain. Is that okay? I mean, I am a guest, right? You want to please me, don’t you? That’s the point of this whole shebang.”

  “You’re more than a guest.”

  “Right, sorry. I’m also the mother of your one and only child.”

  “Anna…”

  She spoke over him. “How long do you think it’s going to take us to eat? Because The Bachelor is on television tonight and I don’t want to miss it.”

  “The Bachelor?”

  “Yeah. I know you don’t watch unreal reality TV. But I do and I don’t want to miss an episode.”

  “Isn’t that what a DVR is for?”

  “Yes, but then I can’t tweet at hash-tag Bachelor with everyone else watching at the same time. Talk about what the girls are wearing, predict who is going to get the boot, that kind of thing.”

  That was doing it. Now he was getting annoyed.

  “We’re supposed to be on a date. I hoped we could spend the time talking, not watching television.”

  She shrugged. “Sorry. This is me on a date.”

  “This is you in a snit.”

  Perfect, she thought. Anna moved her feet over the edge of the lounge and stood. “Look, if you don’t want me here, I can go.”

  But moving a little too fast she tripped over her flip-flops and the glass in her hand fell to the deck shattering around her feet.

  “Don’t move,” he barked at her.

  Anna stood motionless while Ben bent to pick up the largest of the jagged glass around her feet.

  “Sorry about the mess,” she mumbled.

  He said nothing. Simply picked up the pieces and took them inside to throw away. When he came back he had a damp towel in his hands. “Sit down.”

  Anna sat on the lounge chair while Ben crouched in front of her. He carefully removed her flip-flop and then used the towel on her ankle and foot picking up any stray bits of glass that might have hit her. He did the same routine with her other foot, picking it up, running his hands around the bottom of her calf and ankle checking for the tiniest pricks of blood.

  Then he used the towel on the flip-flops making sure not a single shard remained. When he was done, he slid the shoe on each foot and looked at her.

  “You want to tell me what this is about?”

  No, she really didn’t. “I think I should go. I’m obviously in a mood. Let’s blame it on hormones and call it a day.”

  Ben straightened and cupped her face in his hand. “It’s not hormones. You’re acting like someone who has been backed into a corner against her will. You’re frightened. I know fear when I see it. But why? I told you I wasn’t going to jump you as soon as you walked through the door. Even though you and I both know you wore those pants to be provocative.”

  Anna stood and Ben was forced to step back from her.

  “I wore them to be comfortable.”

  “You wore them to tempt me. Or maybe test me. I’m not sure. Did you really think something as simple as clothing would make me break my word to you?”

  No, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t any of the things he thought. She simply didn’t want to be here with him. It was too hard. It was too much to think about and worry and wonder about. It was too hard to keep her wits about her when he was rubbing her feet and checking for small pieces of glass in the event she might have been pricked. Too hard to remind herself that he did that because of the baby and not because he cared about her.

  He cupped her face again, moving closer until she could see the individual hairs in his eyebrows, and the new gray streaks that were appearing at his temples as his hair grew in. “Anna, talk to me.”

  “I want to go,” she said quietly. She felt weak. She felt so impossibly fragile. She felt as though if he continued to touch her the way he was doing, then she would shatter, just like the glass had.

  “You mean run. Again. Only this time I won’t let you.”

  “Because of the baby.” She swallowed. “I knew it. I’m trapped with you because of it.”

  She saw a faint reaction in his eyes. Pain. Pain she’d inflicted.

  “Why are you doing this? I thought…I thought you said…”

  “What? That I loved you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought I did.”

  “Thought. You. Did.”

/>   Anna caught his wrists and pulled them away from her face. She couldn’t look at him when she said it. She wasn’t nearly that courageous. She looked down and all she could see were their feet so close together. “I don’t know. Maybe it was an infatuation or a crush. These past few days I realized there is a ton of stuff we don’t even know about each other.”

  Ben didn’t say anything, although she could still feel his scrutiny, still feel him studying her. Like she was some fascinating new specimen of humanity.

  “I was, what, twenty-two when I started to work for you? Hell, what girl that age wouldn’t be in awe of the mighty Ben Tyler?”

  Again, nothing.

  “You didn’t even see me until that one night. Never looked at me. Really looked. How could I love you when you didn’t even know who I was as a person?”

  Ben shook his head. “I saw you. But Anna you were my—”

  “Assistant. I know.” She felt hollow. Like she’d purposefully thrown away her most treasured possession and now she could see she was nothing without it.

  He would give up on her now. He would run through her words again and realize they made sense. How could she have loved him when she wouldn’t let him know her? And he had already said he didn’t love her. Didn’t know if he could love her.

  He was smarter than she was. He knew what they were, while she didn’t. All she was to him was a moment of lust for a man who had been facing death. Really, what man wouldn’t take that opportunity to have the last screw of his life?

  She was pathetic to think this might have worked between them. Pathetic to think that something would change between them when, for six years minus one night, nothing ever had.

  Now that she was being difficult and temperamental, he would stop trying to woo her. Stop wanting to date her. Stop thinking that they had a future. She would pop the kid out and they would set up an every-other-weekend visitation thing like all other couples who had a one-night stand that resulted in a child.

  She lifted her chin, daring him to do it. To tell her this obviously wasn’t going to work out between them. But when the silence continued and she could tell he wasn’t going to be the one to say it, she opened her mouth to end this permanently.

  But he stopped her with a finger on her lips, keeping the words bottled up inside her mouth.

  “I have something for you. Something I think you should see. Do you trust me?”

  Trust him. The mighty Ben Tyler. If nothing else, of course, she trusted him.

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “It’s not here. I have to take you there. Will you come with me?”

  She could say no. She could say she was tired. She could say any other bitchy thought that came to her mind and let go of this night and let go of this man forever.

  Instead she nodded.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THEY GOT IN THE CAR without speaking a word. Every once in a while Ben looked over at her, but her gaze was firmly fixed out the passenger window. It was getting close to eight o’clock and the sun was starting to go down, but they would still have enough light and plenty of time for her to see it.

  It. What was it? It wasn’t a gift, or even something he’d planned to bequeath. Because it wasn’t something he had before he thought about giving it to Anna. He’d seen it after being diagnosed and bought it for her. At the time it seemed perfectly logical that she should have it.

  In hindsight, given everything that had happened tonight, he wasn’t so sure it was the best idea to show it to her. Yet he felt as though he was losing ground, as though there was quicksand beneath his feet and he needed her to know that she’d been more important to him during those years together than she realized.

  He had no idea how she was going to react to it though. Given her mood tonight she might think this was about the scariest gesture a man had ever made on behalf of a woman. But he owed it to her to show her.

  He hadn’t seen her?

  It’s what she said to him and it seemed almost comical. Especially after years of forcing himself not to see her. Years of telling himself her hair was too red, her freckles were too prominent, her smile was too big. Years of thinking how completely inappropriate in every way she was for him romantically. Years of putting her in the messy pile of life. A place he stayed very far away from.

  And she thought he’d been completely indifferent to her except for a pair of snug yoga pants one night.

  He could tell her the truth, he supposed. The truth he’d hidden from himself for so long. The truth he’d only recently let surface and openly acknowledged.

  The truth that he’d wanted her all the time they had been working together. So much so that it required effort to convince himself how much he didn’t want her. So much so that it got harder and harder to fall back on his rule never to get involved with an employee.

  He’d wanted her before that night and he wanted her now. But she seemed like she was desperately trying to pull away from him, while he was desperately trying to hold on to her. She’d shown up to his place with an agenda and it had nothing to do with giving them a chance at a relationship.

  “So how long is it going to take to get there?”

  “Not long.” They weren’t far from his home. Their destination was a couple of blocks away. He hit his turn signal and drove up the small hill of a street that ended in a cul-de-sac.

  Five houses lined the circle with large yards stretching out front and equally large yards in the rear if he recalled correctly. They were newly built, but each one was a custom-designed home so that they weren’t cookie cutter in appearance yet still blended together in a way that suggested this was a single neighborhood.

  He’d met two of the other home owners when he’d visited with the real estate agent. There was a middle-aged couple with grown children, one who still lived at home, and a young couple who had two children under the age of five. He, of course, had had no way of knowing then that having young children around would be a good thing.

  “What is this?”

  Ben didn’t answer her. He parked in one of the driveways and got out, circling the car to open the door for her. The sun was setting but, as he’d predicted, there was enough light to show what he wanted her to see.

  Anna stared at the darkened house not understanding.

  “You bought a new house?”

  His tongue felt thick in his mouth. What had been such a rational decision at the time now seemed very irrational. Probably, no, certainly, he’d completely overstepped his position in her life. Which might not have been a problem if he had actually died. It wasn’t like she could have called him out for it once he was buried. However, exposing himself like this, while still quite alive, was much more difficult.

  “I bought you a house.”

  Anna blinked. “You bought me a house?”

  He held up the key he’d stuffed in his pocket before leaving his place. “Want to see it?”

  “You bought me…a house?”

  It was hard to interpret her tone. Disbelief was probably the most distinguishable emotion.

  “I know. I’m not going to say it’s not a little crazy—”

  “A little crazy? It’s insane! It’s a freaking house.” She waved her arms at him. “Ben, I told you I wasn’t ready for marriage and, all of the sudden, you rush out and buy us a house? Was I supposed to be happy that you’re trying to buy me off with real estate? Is this some kind of massive bribe? I get the house, you get the baby… Wait a minute. This doesn’t make any sense. You already have a house. If I said I wasn’t going to live with you there, what made you think I would change my mind about living with you here?”

  “I don’t think that. This house isn’t for us. It’s for you. And I didn’t rush out and buy anything. I bought it months ago.”

  Her jaw dropped and he could see her processing the information. He figured it would be better to have the discussion inside. He didn’t know if her neighbors were nosy, but there was no point in taking the chance. He was fair
ly certain this would turn into a raised-voices kind of a battle. He didn’t want her to set a bad first impression.

  He walked up the driveway to the front door and unlocked it. The electricity and plumbing he’d kept on not wanting the house to be completely devoid of energy. He’d programmed the thermostat to keep the house at eighty degrees and automatic light switches that went on at timed intervals. While it was still stifling in the summer heat, it was at least bearable.

  Wordlessly, she joined him in the foyer following him as he pointed out the empty rooms. “The living room, a smaller den. The dining room. The kitchen and great room straight back.”

  She stopped and walked into the middle of the empty living room. Hardwood floors and newly painted white walls.

  He could see her taking in the crown molding, the light fixtures and the number of outlets along the walls.

  “I’d been by here a few times as they were being built to check them out. I had been thinking about getting something different for myself. Then the diagnosis came and obviously I had other priorities.”

  “When. Exactly.”

  It was a demand not a question. “After the results of the first round of chemo. I wanted to make sure you were set up…in case anything happened to me. I wanted you to have a place to go. Something that was yours and not mine. I didn’t imagine you would care for me leaving you my house, but I thought something new, that was yours alone would allow you to take it. I bought it outright. The deed is in your name.”

  “It’s a house.”

  “It’s your home if you want it to be. I thought about telling you when you let me know the lease was running out on your apartment, but I was afraid of how you would react then. Not going to lie, I’m still afraid of how you’re reacting now.”

  She turned to him, lifting her arms up only to let them fall listlessly at her side. “You did this. For me. Because you thought you might die.”

  “You said I didn’t think about you or notice you except for that night. You said I didn’t know you. But you’re wrong. I know what having a home meant to you. You talked about it frequently. You said mine was an architectural mess and that a real home should be comforting and embracing. When you talked about having a house your face would change. Like it was this mythical thing you couldn’t ever imagine actually owning. I never understood why that was. I would tell you all the time I could help you with a loan for a down payment and help you with arranging a first-time buyer mortgage you could easily afford. But you never seemed to want to do that.”