by Abby Green
Her hand curled around the edge of the sink, as if that might stop her flying apart when she thought properly of just how comprehensively Ben Carter had seduced her.
After this weekend she couldn’t keep on fooling herself that it was purely physical for her...but what about for Ben?
Just then a knock on the door made her jump. She called out, ‘Yes?’
‘I’m going to run out to that French patisserie we spotted last night—do you want anything?’
Lia’s heart was pounding. ‘Just a croissant, thanks.’
‘Okay—back in ten.’
Lia waited till she heard the faint sound of the main suite door closing and then she emerged and dressed quickly in the jeans and silk shirt that Ben had ordered for her on that first morning-after.
A little desperate now, she tried to count all the mornings-after—and couldn’t. It was as if time had stopped and they were locked in this bubble.
Lia began pacing up and down, trying to calm herself. She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about the fact that perhaps there was more for Ben too. He’d told her so much last night, and his reluctance had revealed that he didn’t usually let people in.
He wasn’t following his usual pattern with lovers, if the gossip was to be believed. Did a man who just wanted a brief fling cross the Atlantic to find out more about a woman?
Against all Lia’s most hardened instincts, she felt a flutter of illicit excitement in her gut. Perhaps...just perhaps...this was more. And perhaps Ben wouldn’t just jet off back to New York. Then something sank inside her. And yet how could it work when they lived on different continents? How could she leave her father?
Her thoughts were racing so much that Lia put her hands to her cheeks and they were hot. A semi-hysterical giddiness rose up inside her. And hope. And a kind of euphoria. She was falling for Ben...
After the weekend they’d just shared, she couldn’t believe that what he felt for her was purely physical...and she couldn’t believe that she was even thinking about risking her worst fears. But right now, with Ben’s taste still on her lips and his touch like a brand on her skin, she felt absurdly confident and a little invincible.
Just then there was a sound at the suite door and Lia went to investigate, finding that a selection of the day’s newspapers had been pushed underneath. Ben must have requested them. Automatically she bent to pick them up, only half taking in the headlines—until one jumped out at her and the rest of the papers dropped to the floor, unnoticed.
American construction tycoon follows construction heiress back to England after million-dollar weekend in Brazil! Can Julianna Ford be the one to tame Ben Carter’s wild ways?
Under the headline was a grainy picture of Ben and Lia, kissing in the street the previous evening. It was just before they’d got into the cab. They hadn’t even noticed. There were also fuzzy shots of them eating dinner. Immediately the memory was tarnished.
Lia felt sick and walked back into the living area and sat on the edge of a chair. It was only to be expected that someone as high-profile as Ben Carter would be tracked and followed, but for Lia, who’d never fallen foul of the tabloids, it was a shock to see her name in print like this.
She kept reading even though she didn’t want to, frowning when she saw another picture that was familiar because she’d seen it before. It was of Ben and the three other tycoons, emerging from that private club in Manhattan some weeks before.
There was renewed speculation as to why the men had met up in Manhattan that night, and if it had something to do with reversing the negative press attention they’d all been receiving. And there was a lewd suggestion that Ben Carter was hoping to swap more than just bodily fluids with Lia, considering her own family background.
Lia thought of her father seeing this paper and barely managed to keep from rushing to the bathroom to be sick. The thought was literally nauseating.
Just then Lia heard a chiming noise and looked to see her mobile phone on a nearby table. Her gut clenched with dread at the thought that it would be her father because he’d seen the article, but she frowned when she saw the name at the top of the text: Dante Mancini. He was the Italian tycoon Ben had been meeting that night in Manhattan, along with Xander Trakas and Sheikh Zayn Al-Ghamdi. Why would he be texting her? And how did he even have her number?
The words of the message jumped out at her.
Have you seen the papers, Carter? Looks like your million-dollar gamble is paying off. You might just beat the rest of us to the altar—
The rest of the message was hidden unless she unlocked the phone, and it was only when she tried to do so and it wouldn’t unlock that the significance of the fact that it was addressed to Ben finally sank in—this wasn’t her phone. It was exactly the same model, but it was Ben’s.
The implication of the message was too confusing and potentially huge to take in at first. Words reverberated in Lia’s head: gamble...altar...beat the rest of us. That picture of them emerging from the club loomed in her mind’s eye now. Almost accusatory.
She recalled her initial meeting with Ben and how suspicious she’d been, and how somehow along the way she’d forgotten about that. Her conscience mocked her. Somehow? Her suspicion had been forgotten in a blaze of heat so intense she still felt scorched.
She looked at that photo again, a sick kind of dread churning in her belly. They all looked so grim and intent.
The fledgling tender emotions Lia had been feeling seemed to shrivel inside her. She had the very sick suspicion that she was the most monumental fool in the world.
She, of all people, who had seen how cruel and ruthless people could be. Even those who were meant to love you the most. She who had learnt her lesson, but had been all too ready to forget everything and believe in an illusion.
And just then she heard the sounds heralding Ben’s return from the bakery.
* * *
When Ben walked into the suite’s main foyer he saw the newspapers on the floor, where they’d fallen. He sensed instantly that something was wrong—like in Bahia, when he’d woken to find Lia gone. He stepped over them and his mouth tightened. If she’d run out on him again, like she had before...
But he came to a halt in the doorway of the living area when he saw her standing with her back to him at the main window. The relief that rushed through him would be worrying if he hadn’t still been feeling uneasy.
‘Hey, I’ve got some pastries and croissants.’
Lia didn’t turn around straight away, and when she did he saw her face was set. Pale. Her arms were crossed in a clearly defensive gesture. A million miles from the sleep-flushed woman who had smiled as he’d kissed her awake earlier...
Ben put down the bag on a nearby table. The way Lia was looking at him made him feel more wary than concerned. ‘Did something happen?’
‘You could say that,’ she answered tonelessly.
Ben frowned, but before he could respond to ask her What? she spoke again.
‘What is this, Ben? What are we doing here?’
A million carnal images came into his mind, but he desisted from making any facetious comment. An awful suspicion was entering his head—she knows...somehow she knows.
‘What do you think this is, Lia?’
She looked at him for a long moment. ‘To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. It’s an elaborate seduction—that much I do know. For someone who up till just weeks ago was a perennial bachelor with a tarnished playboy status.’
Now Ben flushed, and gritted his jaw. ‘You didn’t seem interested in analysing things before now.’
‘No.’ Lia sounded bitter. ‘More fool me.’
His gut clenched in rejection of that. ‘You’re not a fool, Lia.’
She arched a brow. ‘No?’
Then she reached down for the newspaper on the couch near her and lobbed it over to Ben, who caught it on a reflex. He saw the headline and felt inordinately relieved.
Barely skimming the article and photo, he looked at her.
‘Is this all?’ It was just the tabloids...if anything this would work in Ben’s favour.
‘No, that’s not all.’ Lia’s tone was even cooler now. ‘You got a text message from a friend. I mistakenly read some of it because I thought it was my phone. But I’m not sorry I read it. I found it quite illuminating.’
Ben saw his phone on a table nearby and picked it up. When he saw the message he unlocked his phone to read it all the way to the end.
You might just beat the rest of us to the altar, so enjoy your freedom while you can. Ciao. Mancini.
Ben could almost hear the man’s drawling, sarcastic tone and he had to restrain himself from hurling the phone against something solid.
When he looked at Lia she was even paler, and her eyes were like two stark blue sapphires. Swirling with anger and other things he couldn’t decipher.
‘Why did he call it a million-dollar gamble?’
Something solid and heavy settled in Ben’s chest. He really hadn’t wanted it to go like this, but perhaps it was better just to be completely brutally honest. He threw the paper and his phone down.
He funnelled a hand through his hair and looked at Lia. ‘I initiated a meeting with the others after the press seemed to have become intent on decimating our reputations. There’s a charity we’re all involved in, and it was beginning to be adversely affected. That was the breaking point for me. I figured that if Trakas, Mancini and Sheikh Al-Ghamdi would agree to join forces with me, we could beat the press at their own game.’
Lia’s voice was tight. ‘So you had your meeting and what...? Discussed strategies?’
Ben felt grim. ‘Something like that.’
She said nothing for a moment, but Ben could almost hear her brain whirring. She was a smart woman. It wouldn’t take her long. And it didn’t. Her eyes grew wider and her face was leached of the little colour that had come into it.
‘You set up that date with me a week after your meeting. What’s the betting that if I was to call Elizabeth Young now she’d tell me that you all signed up with her?’
Ben had to admit it. ‘She would tell you that, yes. We did all sign up with her. And we signed up with her because we decided that our best course of action would be to clean up our reputations by...settling down.’
Lia gaped at him. Her eyes were huge. Faintly she said, ‘I can’t believe it... You made some sort of sick pact to find women and get married to prove that you’re all moving on from your playboy images?’
Feeling tight all over, Ben said, ‘People get married for less every day of the week.’
Lia’s eyes blazed at him now. He wasn’t even sure if she’d heard what he’d said.
‘No wonder he called your million-dollar bid a gamble. Were you hoping I’d become completely infatuated with you? Or were you just going to pop the question after testing out our physical compatibility?’
Something on Ben’s face must have given him away, because Lia stepped back, shaking her head. There was a light in her eyes that skewered Ben to the spot, all at once accusatory and something more ambiguous.
‘To think that I suspected you had an agenda right from the start... But even I could never have guessed you’d go so far.’
* * *
The only thing anchoring Lia to the ground was the intense anger she felt. She told herself it wasn’t hurt and betrayal. She told herself the feelings she’d believed were real just a short while before had been just a flight of fancy and brought on by sex hormones. How could she have fallen for this man?
She cursed herself for not having trusted her gut at the start. For letting Ben fool her into thinking... Her heart stuttered—thinking what? That he cared for her? What a travesty! Clearly all he cared about was his precious business and his reputation.
Where had her healthy sense of cynicism gone? Melted, she thought disgustedly, along with her will power as soon as he’d touched her... But worse than anything else at that moment was the hurt she felt that he’d lied to her when he’d told her in Brazil that he’d wanted her after just looking at her photo, before he’d even known who she was. And she hated herself for being so weak.
Ben just looked at her, assessing her reaction. He seemed remote, a million miles from the seductive lover who had sent her to heaven and back more times than she cared to admit.
‘You were prepared to marry once before for convenience,’ Ben pointed out.
Lia felt even sicker now, when she thought of all she’d revealed to him. When all along he’d been playing her like a virtuoso. She lifted her chin and tried to ignore the sensation of something cracking apart in her chest. It was anger, she told herself desperately.
‘Yes, I was. But I was misguided and doing it for all the wrong reasons.’
‘We have more going for us than you ever did with your ex-fiancé. We have insane chemistry. We have ambitions and goals in common. We could build a good life together.’
To hear him so baldly laying out exactly what he’d had in mind all along was like a body-blow. And Lia realised for the first time that she’d changed. She might have agreed to a marriage of convenience before, for her father’s sake and on a subconscious level to protect herself from the pain of intimacy, but she’d never do it again. She knew she was worth more than that now. And the fact that it was this man who’d given her that sense of self was galling.
Ben continued, ‘I can take care of you and your father. You’ve admitted his health is failing, Lia. It’s only a matter of time before he has to step down. You can’t go on protecting him for ever. You can’t go on sacrificing your own ambitions for his.’
Lia hated him even more for being able to strike at the very heart of her. She’d given him that power. This was what happened when you let people in. They knew where your weak points were and she’d all but given Ben a map and directions. She had no one but herself to blame. She shouldn’t have stopped listening to her suspicions.
She bristled at the implication that she needed taking care of. ‘Wow, you must have really thought you had it all sorted when you spotted me in the Leviathan portfolio. Not only could you get your convenient wife, you could also be assured of further expansion into Europe.’
Colour scored along Ben’s cheeks, but Lia didn’t feel triumphant to have scored a hit—she felt worse...disappointed. Betrayed. She couldn’t keep denying it.
He said, ‘I’d make sure that your father’s business thrives, that his name survives. You’d want for nothing.’
Lia tightened her arms around herself as if that might hold her together. ‘What you’re describing is a business merger—and were you not listening when I told you that wealth and all its trappings mean nothing to me?’
Ben’s jaw clenched. ‘That’s easy to say when you haven’t had it all ripped away and seen the effect on your family.’
Lia was momentarily rendered speechless. He was right, in one way. Even if she knew that she could survive, she knew something like what had happened to his parents would kill her father. And she hated it that even now her heart ached a little for what had happened to Ben... She hated that she wanted to ask him if he’d felt anything at all beyond this absurd plan. But she wouldn’t. She wasn’t a complete masochist. And he’d just revealed a level of ruthlessness that took her breath away.
‘I’m not interested in a marriage of convenience with you, Benjamin Carter.’
A muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘And yet you were prepared to live a lie of a life with a man who left you completely cold?’
Terrified he’d guess what a personal revelation she’d had, she fired back, ‘I’d rather have that life than one with a man who would seduce his way to getting what he wants...lying with his body and his touch. You disgust me.’
* * *
You disgust me.
Something snapped inside Ben—some control he’d been clinging to. Something that had made him feel impotent in the face of her accusations. She was right...he had set out to woo her with marriage in mind...but she didn’t know that he�
�d almost forgotten that objective, that he’d found it so much more preferable to lose himself in her. Over and over again.
‘You still want me,’ he ground out, feeling feral. Feeling desperate.
She shook her head, eyes wide, icy. ‘No.’
Her denial pushed Ben over the edge of his control. He closed the distance between them in two long strides and reached for her, wrapping his hands around her arms and tugging her towards him. She tipped up her chin mutinously, her arms still locked across her chest, pushing up the tantalising swells of her breasts under the silk shirt.
There was a hint of panic in her voice. ‘This means nothing, Ben. Just because I might react—’
He stopped the rest of her words with his mouth, crushing all that tart sweetness, hauling her close to his chest. They were locked for long seconds in a tense embrace and then Ben gentled his hold. His hand reached for her head, fingers tangling in her hair. His other hand slid down her arm, and then to her waist.
For a long second she did nothing, and Ben expected her to pull away, but then, with something that sounded halfway between a sob and a moan, she softened and opened her mouth.
Exultation rose swiftly in Ben’s blood, drowning out the self-recrimination and guilt. He knew only this...her delicious curves melting into him...her tongue touching his.
They kissed frantically, passionately. Angrily. Her arms slid around his neck and her body bowed into his. Ben’s hands cupped her buttocks through her jeans and he notched his body against the juncture of her legs.
He was about to lift her up and hook her legs around his waist, so he could take her into the bedroom, when suddenly she stiffened and then pulled out of his arms. They were both breathing harshly and she was looking at him as if he’d just kicked a puppy.
She shook her head and said harshly, ‘No, I don’t want this, Ben. I want more than just a convenient marriage and a mutual lust which will inevitably burn itself out. And then where would that leave us? It’s all a lie.’
