More Than a Fling?

by Joss Wood

  Now she had her heels up on the chair, her arms wrapped around her bare legs and her fingers tapping against her arms. She was jittery as hell. Ross watched her out of the corner of his eye and wondered why she had such a hard time sitting still. Relaxing.

  The only time he’d seen her truly relaxed was in his bed, after he’d given her a spectacular orgasm or two...or three or four.

  Not to boast or anything.

  ‘I’ll just take the plates through,’ Ally muttered, starting to stand.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said mildly, and she sank back into her chair. ‘We’ll take them through later. Or tomorrow.’

  Ally looked at him as if he’d suggested that he toss them over the balcony.

  ‘This is supposed to be fun, Jones,’ he commented idly. ‘Dinner, a spectacular sunset, wine...’

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Ally admitted.

  Ross contained his sad smile. ‘You’re not supposed to do anything. That’s the point.’

  Ally gnawed her bottom lip. ‘I’m not so good at that.’

  Really? He would never have guessed. Ever.

  ‘Want to know what I think?’ Ross asked, refilling their glasses.

  Ally winced. ‘Will I like it?’

  ‘Probably not. You, Jones, are super-stressed, and I think that you have been for so long that you now consider this state of being to be normal.’

  Ally started to protest but Ross spoke over her.

  ‘How do you sleep? And how long does it take you to get to sleep? I bet you toss and turn while your mind races.’ She always left his bed and he hated it... He had this little fantasy of waking up to Ally and rolling over and sliding home.

  ‘Maybe.’

  Maybe, her stubborn ass.

  ‘So, not sleeping... We also know that you can be irritable and impatient.’ Ross grinned at the tongue she poked out at him.

  ‘You don’t enjoy food and you can’t relax. Look at you—sitting there, thinking of all the things you should be doing,’ he stated. ‘And we haven’t even touched on the fact that you frequently put your fist to your sternum, suggesting that something unpleasant is happening below.’

  Ross reached out and patted her thigh.

  ‘But apart from those you have no symptoms of stress.’

  Ross placed his glass on the table and rested his wrists on his bare knees, looking at her profile.

  ‘What’s pushing your need to work like a demon, Al? You work crazy hours, and I presume you make a pile of money that you probably don’t have time to spend, you have an unhealthy relationship with anti-acid medicine and no friends. This isn’t normal.’

  Ally sighed, pulled her thick hair up into a rough ponytail and secured it with the band around her wrist. ‘Okay, maybe I’m a little stressed.’

  And really good at avoiding the hard issues too.

  ‘Okay, maybe I am a lot stressed. And maybe you are right—maybe it’s become the new normal for me.’

  ‘Those demons are winning, Jones. Do you even know what they are?’

  Ross saw her throat bob and caught the flash of panic in her eyes, the sheen of emotion. But then those curtains fell in her eyes and she half turned away from him, seemingly entranced by Pic, who lay at her feet.

  She bent down to rub his enormous head. ‘God, he’s so sweet.’

  Ross felt the familiar burn of irritation as she shut down and avoided the question. Instead of just letting it slide, he was annoyed enough to shuffle his chair so that he was directly in her line of sight. ‘Don’t do that, okay? Don’t shut down. We can’t communicate if you shut down. And it pisses me off.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ Ally hissed. ‘It’s not relaxing me.’

  ‘Nice try, sweetheart, but that’s not going to work,’ Ross retorted. ‘Dammit, talk to me.’

  Ally closed her eyes. ‘Please don’t do this to me. Don’t push. I’m having so much fun with you and I don’t want to lose you...yet.’

  Ross frowned. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  Ally rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. ‘No, but I’ll push you away. It’s what I do, Ross. As soon as a guy starts to push for more...emotion, not sex...I freak out and I find a way to destroy it. I don’t want to do that to you.’

  Ross felt unbelievably sad at her fear-saturated words. He leaned across the table and held her jaw within his big hand. ‘Well, here’s a suggestion, Jones.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do something different: talk to me and don’t kick me into touch.’

  Ally held his eyes before shaking her head. ‘What’s the point, Ross? I’m here for a couple more weeks and then we’ll be living our lives on two different continents. And—not meaning to be rude or to insult you—if I can’t emotionally connect with my own family, why would I be able to with you? I want to...I do...but I can’t.’

  Ross felt stupid and ridiculous as if she’d shoved a red-hot poker through his heart. Why did that one statement have the power to suck the bones out of his spine, the blood out of his system?

  He sat back and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Jones, you are a friggin’ basket case.’

  Ally swallowed and nodded. ‘I know. So can I please take the plates to the kitchen now?’

  * * *

  There didn’t seem to be much more to say, Ally thought as she headed for her car to go back to her apartment a little while later. She’d refused dessert and coffee, and Ross had instinctively known that she wasn’t up for sex fun tonight and hadn’t pushed. Instead he’d hugged her and suggested that she get a good night’s sleep.

  She’d felt his hand on her back and felt the unfamiliar burn of tears in her eyes. This was why she wasn’t worthy of a relationship, she thought. She always managed to muck it up. It was better not to start anything because she knew that once Ross started really getting to know her—hell, once anyone started really getting to know her—then he would eventually reject her. She’d learnt that at her father’s knee. And if he hadn’t been able to love her, was she worthy of being loved?

  Because—and nobody knew this—deep down somewhere inside she was an emotional person. Hadn’t her father told her that all the time?

  ‘You’re too emotional—get a grip!’

  ‘Waterworks again? God help me.’

  ‘Can you at least try to cultivate some logic and reason? Think with your head and not your heart!’

  Life with her father had been an emotion-free zone. She hadn’t been allowed to express anger, sadness, fear. By the time she was fifteen she had come to believe that her feelings were wrong—so much so that she’d even battled to allow herself to grieve for her father, to feel scared at a lifetime to be faced without him.

  She’d become stoic. And when she’d been yanked into the Bellechier household she’d kept up the habit of repressing her feelings. She didn’t want to cause the Bellechiers the same trouble she’d caused her father by being emotionally unstable because, unlike her father, they didn’t have to keep her.

  And there was an even better reason for keeping her distance: if she didn’t get emotionally involved she couldn’t get hurt. Yep, that works for me, she thought as she got into her car and started it up.

  In many ways she was still fifteen, still scared, still feeling unlovable, still expecting rejection. But there was a piece of her that wanted to let Ross in, that wanted to share her inner thoughts and fears with him.

  She sent him an apologet
ic smile before lifting her hand and accelerating down the driveway.

  But that was such an impossible, impossible dream because it would mean destroying that Kevlar bubble she had constructed around her heart.

  To: rossbennett@rbmedia.com

  From: AJones@bellechier.com

  Subject: Arrangements for Thursday’s shoot

  Hi Ross

  With regard to Thursday’s shoot...

  In his office at RBM Ross skimmed through Ally’s e-mail, quickly realised that it was a rehash of everything she’d told him at least six times before and that it contained nothing personal—you are a sex god would have been nice—and deleted the message.

  What was it with these corporate types that they had to check and double-check every last detail? It was as if the rest of the world couldn’t function without their continuous input. It drove him nuts...

  Ross lifted his head as a sharp rap sounded on his door and gestured for his CFO to enter. Gavin out-nerded even his nerdiest computer geeks, but behind the Coke-bottle-thick glasses and crappy clothes was a first-class brain.

  Ross rather liked first-class brains—especially when they were working for him. ‘You’re looking serious,’ he said, gesturing Gavin to a chair on the other side of his messy desk. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘As you are well aware, due to the success of Win! you’ve had quite a few offers to buy out RBM.’

  Ross shrugged; as with the branding issue, people wanted a piece of the hot action. ‘Yeah? So? I don’t want to sell.’

  ‘Most people back off when they hear that...except for a company called Benrope. They won’t hear any of the “not interested” messages I’ve sent and have continued to send offers to purchase. That piqued my curiosity and I did some digging.’

  Ross raised his eyebrows and Gavin continued. ‘Benrope is a subsidiary of Bennett Inc. Your dad wants to buy your company. I thought you should know.’

  Ross closed his eyes, counted to ten, and then to twenty. When he opened them again he saw Gavin shutting his office door behind him. Benrope: Bennett, Ross, Hope. Grateful to be alone, he dialled a number he knew by heart, and realised that his father was expecting his call when he was put through almost immediately.

  ‘Why do you want my company, Jonas?’

  ‘I need you back here, and if buying out your company is the way to do it then that’s what I’ll do,’ Jonas replied, his voice gravelly from a lifetime of smoking. ‘I need to pass the baton.’

  ‘I’d rather swallow cut glass.’ Ross gripped the bridge of his nose with his free fingers, pushed back his chair and stared at the floor beneath his feet. No I’m sorry. No Come back into the family. Just business. All business. Always business.

  Frick.

  ‘What will it take to make you change your mind?’

  Jonas used the same line Ally had, and Ross wondered if he’d missed Learn to Speak Corporate at uni or whether it was an advanced class you only got to attend when you became a bona-fide workaholic. He felt his temper bubble and pop and fought the urge to throw his phone across the room.

  ‘I don’t want anything from you. I don’t need anything from you.’

  ‘You belong here—with me,’ Jonas insisted.

  Like hell. ‘The days when I take orders from you, or anybody, are long over.’

  ‘You’re a Bennett. I built this for you.’

  ‘And you’re still lying to yourself. You built it for yourself—to satisfy your need to be the king of the hill. Everything else was sacrificed for Bennett Inc. Mum, Hope, me.’ Ross swallowed down his bile. ‘When are you going to understand that I don’t want your life?’

  Jonas was silent for a long time. A minute? Two?

  Ross was about to hang up when he spoke again, his voice low, old and frustrated. ‘This is all I have to give you. I don’t know what else you want.’

  This was the frankest, most open conversation they’d ever had and Ross took the opportunity to say the things he’d left too long unsaid.

  ‘I think it’s too late for what I want. I wanted your time, your attention, to feel that I was more important than a business. I wanted a dad I could watch sports with, have a beer with, shoot the breeze with. Except I got you: inattentive and uninterested unless I was as involved with and as consumed by Bennett Inc. as you. It was too high a price to pay. It will always be too high a price.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say to that.’

  ‘There is nothing to say, Jonas. Tell your minions at Benrope to stop annoying my CFO with buy-out offers. It’s never going to happen.’

  Ross very gently and very deliberately placed the receiver into its cradle—he was not going to allow his father to make him lose his temper!—and jumped to his feet. Moving over to his window, he opened it wide, allowing the air-conditioned air to rush out while he sucked in fresh, clean air.

  Jonas... Talking with him was always such a pleasure.

  Ross heard his phone beep the arrival of a text message and pulled it out of his pocket. Ally.

  It’s nearly three o’clock. Time to leave. Don’t be late. We’re on a tight schedule.

  Irritation welled again, hard and true. Another work-obsessed, stubborn-ass, anal corporate drone. Sexy as hell, though. Unfortunately.

  TEN

  Ross parked his Ducati next to the stairs leading up to Ally’s apartment and yanked off his helmet. What a God-awful crappy day, he thought, and he still had to walk a little way up Table Mountain with a fake girlfriend and play nice with the cameras.

  Kill me now, he thought, kicking down the stand and climbing off the bike. It was ridiculous how one conversation with his father could derail his mood, make him feel off balance and pull all those stupid feelings of disappointment and resentment to the surface.

  His father was an emotional moron, he thought in disgust as he headed for the stairs. So why did he still wish he could have a proper relationship with the man? Why did he still seek his approval? Maybe he was the moron, he thought as he climbed the stairs, wishing he’d taken a handful of aspirin before he left the office. His head felt as if it was ready to explode...

  Thanks, Dad.

  Ross felt his mobile vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out to squint at the screen. Ally...of course it was.

  WTH are you????

  Frick. Why did he have to deal with two managing, corporate, controlling personalities in one day?

  Deciding to jerk her chain, he quickly formulated a reply.

  Why? Did we have plans?

  Because, really, he needed sixty reminders to get something in his head.

  Don’t mess with me, Bennett! I’m not in the mood.

  Ross jerked that chain again.

  Let’s compare days, sweetheart. Bet I’ll win. I’ll be there in an hour. Some bugs in a string code that we need to sort out.

  Ross stood outside her door and waited, knowing that it was coming. Five, four, three...and his mobile rang in his hand. That was the problem with control freaks and people with tunnel vision—it made their actions easy to predict. It was a lesson he’d learnt the hard way with Jonas. Along with ‘Do it my way or get the hell out of my life’.

  He’d chosen to get the hell out...but, man, he still wished that there had been a middle ground.

  Ross shook his head and walked into the apartment, waving his ringing mobile and rolling his eyes.

  ‘You really should trust people more, Jones,’ he said.

  She didn’t look ha
ppy with him and Ross silently suggested that she get in line.

  Ally watched Ross’s long-length stride as he made his way past the clothing racks and camera equipment to her side, his hair pulled back from his face. His eyes were hard, his mouth unyielding, and tension had his shoulders up around his ears. Okay, so he wasn’t having a good day. Well, she wasn’t having a good week.

  Ross’s mobile chirped and while she waited for him to finish his call she mused over the fact that her time in Cape Town work-wise had been eye-opening. Trying to plan and organise a shoot in a strange city was always a challenge, and Cape Town was no different.

  Half of the Bellechier collection of clothing and accessories for Ross was still in Customs and Ally was struggling to get it released. Their cameraman had flu, and for some reason her normally crazily efficient, focused and dedicated crew—from both Bellechier and the ad agency—were treating this shoot as a working holiday.

  They dressed for work as if they were heading for the beach, sloped off early to watch the whales or to visit one of the nearby wine farms. Didn’t they realise how important this campaign was? How essential it was that everything had to be perfect?

  The chances of this going badly wrong were stratospheric—Ross was a gamble, teaming his bad-ass CEO look with the upmarket but casual clothes of the new line was a gamble, and shooting the commercials in Cape Town was a gamble—and she didn’t like to gamble when it came to Bellechier or her job.

  She liked certainties, plans, a clear route to the goal...and she definitely didn’t like the fact that she was frequently distracted from said goal by thoughts of Ross...in and out of the bedroom.

  Ross disconnected and jammed his mobile back into his pocket. Such a heart-grabbingly handsome man, she thought, with his wizard eyes, grim mouth and short hair... Dear Lord, he’d cut his shoulder-length hair.