by Fiona Brand
“Did I give you permission to follow me, or touch me?” She rubbed her wrist to underscore the severity of the touching transgression. “The short answer to both questions is no.”
Ben’s gaze was cool and disconcertingly direct. “What are you doing here? Now?”
She shook out her umbrella and tossed it on the back seat. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I, too, have an arrangement to meet Francesca.”
Gratifyingly, a faint hint of color burned on his cheekbones. “I thought that was at six.”
She extracted her phone from her bag and placed the bag on the passenger-side seat. “So, I’m early.”
“Way early. You were already parked when I arrived—”
She spun and glared at Ben. “Meaning what? That I’m spying on you? What makes you think I would even want to spy—”
He lifted the cap off her head. “The way you’re dressed, for a start.”
Embarrassed heat burned through her as she snatched the damp cap from his fingers and tossed it onto the back seat along with the umbrella. So much for going undercover. “Last I heard you aren’t a member of the fashion police.”
She should leave. The problem was, arguing with Ben was addictive and oddly satisfying. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how furious she was with him.
She met his gaze squarely. “And what would you know about how I dress, or actually, anything about me at all? We’ve dated twice. In actual fact, they don’t even count as dates, because you never asked me out. I just happened to be there, and it was just casual sex, which is horrible to think of when you were the first—”
His gaze sharpened. “The first what?”
Her jaw locked, but there was no point trying to cover up what she had almost said, because she could see by his expression that he knew.
* * *
Ben felt like he’d just been kicked in the chest.
When he spoke the words rasped out of him. “Are you telling me that, a year ago, before we made love, you were a virgin?”
Sophie’s expression became smoothly blank as suddenly as if a blind had dropped. She glanced at her watch. “Well, this has been fun, but I need to get moving.”
And right there he had his confirmation, because if Sophie hadn’t been a virgin she would have made very sure he understood that fact. Instead, she was trying to fob him off, as if he was an underperforming employee or one of her dates whose services she no longer needed.
With the revelation that Sophie had been a virgin, suddenly, a number of puzzling details fell into place. Sophie’s touch-me-not manner and the formidable reputation she had garnered for preselecting, vetting and controlling her dates. It might also explain how from the time they had first met, it had taken eighteen months of simmering attraction and cool distance before they finally did go to bed.
He was beginning to understand why Sophie had been so angry with him when he had walked away a year ago. At the time he had thought she had set out to seduce him because he had just inherited a fortune, but that was the kind of move a more experienced woman undertook. Understanding that she had been a virgin put a whole new slant on what had happened.
He considered that she could have intended to use her virginity to ensnare him, but he instantly discarded the thought for the plain fact that she hadn’t ever told him she was a virgin.
Added to that, Sophie had never tried to place pressure on him, and with the financial power wielded by her brothers and their business connections, she could have. Instead, she had done the exact opposite. The instant he had walked away, she had set about publicly and effectively ditching him, to the point that even Nick had commiserated with him. The clincher was that, even when they had slept together the other night, she hadn’t mentioned the fact that she had been a virgin the first time they had made love.
If he hadn’t come after her now, he doubted he would ever have found out. Sophie would have closed up and cut him out of her life, the way she had before.
But now he did know, and the knowledge changed everything.
He was beginning to understand that, unlike a lot of the women he had dated over the years, what you saw with Sophie was only the tip of the iceberg. He was also beginning to understand that the more she felt, the more closed off she became. Getting to know Sophie Messena was like peeling an onion, and the layers were fascinating and frustrating. In a curious way, it made sense of his obsession, because if Sophie had been easy to figure out, he would have walked away without a backward glance.
The ring tone of a phone cut through the sound of traffic and the distant rumble of thunder. Giving him a cool glance, Sophie dug her phone out of her bag and half turned away to take the call.
Ben caught the name John and every muscle in his body tightened. It had to be John Atraeus, and Sophie’s lowered tones, her attempts to keep the call private, confirmed it. She repeated a date and a time, which were instantly recognizable to Ben because he had received a courtesy invitation for the opening of Atraeus’s new mall complex in Manhattan on that date. If he didn’t miss his guess, Sophie had just agreed to go as Atraeus’s date.
Over his dead body.
The fierce surge of possessiveness that accompanied the thought was clarifying.
He had spent the past few days, the past year, attempting to dismiss what he felt for Sophie. She was too high-maintenance, too problematic and, with her wealth and connections, she reminded him of his ex-fiancée. Nothing about Sophie’s cool elegance or sharp business focus had suggested that she was even remotely capable of fulfilling his own need for a relationship based on emotional warmth and family values. Now, in the space of a split second, everything had changed.
“That was Atraeus.”
Sophie’s fiery gaze clashed with his. “It was John. Not that it’s any of your bus—”
“Atraeus is all wrong for you. You’d be bored within a month.”
She shoved the phone back into her bag. “What you know about me would fit on the back of a postage stamp. Just because I made a mistake and slept with you doesn’t mean you can have an opinion, or interfere in my love life.”
Ben crossed his arms over his chest. “I talked to Atraeus a couple of hours ago, when he forgot to join a conference call we’d arranged. He told me about the car accident and the amnesia.”
Sophie leveled him with a chilly gaze. “And your point would be?”
“You didn’t sleep with him. Just like you didn’t sleep with that other guy.”
“Which other guy would that be? In the last year I’ve dated quite a few very attractive men. I’m pretty sure the number stands at around twelve, not including John.”
“That’s a lot of one-night stands.”
Sophie’s brows jerked together. “I don’t do one-night stands.”
And with that statement, a vital piece of information clicked into place. “But you did with me,” he said softly.
Sophie seemed to freeze in place. “Sleeping with you was a mistake. Both times.”
But she had slept with him, when he was suddenly certain that she had not slept with anyone else, yet.
Atraeus had been a smoke screen so far, just as the guy she had dated a few days after their first night together had been a year ago.
After talking with Atraeus, he had done some checking online. It hadn’t taken long to discover that most of the men Sophie dated had only lasted the one date. The overwhelming picture was of Sophie organizing her social life by picking safe, controllable men for various occasions. Probably by interview, he thought.
The knowledge that Sophie had only ever been his settled in.
Just minutes ago he had been caught in the grip of obsessive desire. That hadn’t changed. What had changed was the raw surge of possessiveness that was now part of that desire.
And the knowledge that if he didn’t claim Sophie, John Atraeus—with hi
s reputation for running through beautiful women—would.
In that moment something shifted and settled inside him. Yesterday, all he had wanted to do was purge himself of his obsession with a woman he thought was driven by cold practicality and his bottom line. But in the space of a few minutes everything had changed. Sophie Messena was complex, intriguing and unexpectedly vulnerable, and he wanted her back in his arms and in his bed.
And Sophie Messena wanted him. Nothing else explained the fact that she had slept with him, twice.
But getting seriously involved with Sophie Messena could have only one outcome: marriage.
He had been on the verge of canceling his date with Francesca tomorrow, but he decided to stay with the program for two very good reasons. If he took Sophie with him tomorrow and Buffy made a play for him, Sophie would go nuts, and the last thing he needed was a scene. Added to that, he needed some time to figure out how this was all going to happen, because getting involved with Sophie Messena would send ripples through every avenue of his life, personal and business. That left him still needing a date to neutralize the pressure Holt was applying for Ben to cement their business relationship by marrying his daughter. At this point, the way he saw it, he couldn’t afford to cancel the date with Francesca.
A last remnant of the storm whipped hair across Sophie’s face. She hooked a glossy strand behind one ear and shot him a defiant gaze. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to Francesca?”
The satiny tumble of dark hair around her shoulders, when normally Sophie’s hair was pinned smoothly back, spun Ben back to the last time they had made love. It made him abruptly aware of the mistakes he had made with Sophie and the need to soften his approach. With Atraeus in the wings, he also had to think about staking some kind of claim. It was a complete about-face, but finding out that Sophie had been a virgin, and that she had only ever belonged to him, had changed the rules.
His gaze locked with hers. “Did you get my roses?”
She looked briefly confused. “What roses?”
“The ones I sent after Nick’s party.”
She frowned, tilting her head slightly to one side as if she was having trouble remembering. “I seem to remember some flowers arriving. Were they from you? I couldn’t tell.”
Ben guessed he deserved that since he hadn’t enclosed a note, but that didn’t change the fact that, suddenly, he was ticked. “Were you expecting flowers from someone else? Atraeus, for example?”
“If Atraeus—John—sent me flowers that would be none of your business.”
Ben’s jaw locked. “Atraeus won’t be sending you flowers.”
And the gloves were off. Her eyes shot dark fire as she stepped closer and jabbed a finger at his chest. “I don’t see why it should matter to you one way or the other.”
Sophie was so close he could feel the heat from her skin, smell the delicate, exotic scent of her perfume, see the dark shadows beneath her eyes as if she hadn’t slept. Join the club, he thought, and his control shredded.
Catching her hand in his, he spread it against his chest.
“This is why.”
He took a half step forward, and a split second later, his mouth came down on hers.
Nine
Sophie’s response was hot, conflicted and instant.
She should be utterly rejecting the soft brush of Ben’s lips; she should be pushing him away. She was hurt—he had hurt her—and she was angry, with a passionate, burning anger that he just didn’t seem to get.
But then he didn’t get her. Because if he did, he wouldn’t have treated her as if she was some kind of convenient bedmate. A disposable lover without vulnerabilities and needs, who wouldn’t be wounded when he walked away.
But the very fact that Ben had been upset at the notion that Sophie might have considered the flowers came from John Atraeus, even knowing she hadn’t slept with him, had filled her with a weird pulse of hope, because the words had been possessive, even jealous.
But how could that possibly be? That would mean that she mattered to him, that he cared. And if he cared, why had he walked out, twice? And why was he dating Francesca now?
Her fingers wound into the damp fabric of his T-shirt. If she still had access to the gorgeous bunch of red roses he had sent her she would have flung them in his face, then ripped the tender, velvety soft petals from the stems and stamped them into the ground.
She didn’t have the roses, but she did have Ben. Anger and passion twined together as she found herself lifted up on her toes. Grasping his shoulders to drag him closer, she angled her jaw to deepen the kiss, all of which underlined the problem she had with Ben: she was a possessive, jealous lover, and she hated it that he should want anyone but her.
Ben muttered something low and flat. His arms closed around her, pulling her in tight against him. Heat swept through Sophie and with it a hot, piercing ache. Her arms clamped around his neck, and a sensual shiver swept her as her breasts flattened against his chest, the nipples pebble-hard. She felt the firmness of his arousal.
Dimly she registered that Ben’s arousal should ring alarm bells. It shouldn’t turn her on and she shouldn’t adore the feel and taste and scent of him, especially not when he was planning on dating Francesca tomorrow.
Ben lifted his mouth long enough for her to gulp in a mouthful of humid air. Sophie was vaguely aware of movement, one step, then two, and the brush of warm metal at her back, the solid weight of Ben pressing her against the side of her SUV.
His muscled thigh slid between hers, intensifying the heated ache low in her belly. It was the point at which she should have said no, planted her palms on Ben’s chest and pushed free. But the knowledge that he would stop in a heartbeat, contrarily, made her want the exact opposite, because in her heart of hearts she had always hated that Ben was so cool and controlled that he could step away from this—from her—unscathed. She needed him to want her, to feel something.
She must have stiffened slightly, because Ben lifted his head, his gaze locked with hers. “Do you want me to stop?”
In response she slid one palm down over his abdomen and cupped him through the taut denim of his jeans. He muttered something low and flat. A split second later she found herself hoisted up so that her feet dangled a few inches from the ground. Reflexively, she clutched at Ben’s shoulders, hanging on for dear life as he moved against her, once, twice. She dragged in a damp lungful of air and clamped her arms around his neck, holding him closer still.
They were fully clothed, damp fabric dragging over skin. The sun was out now, burning through the thin cotton of her top, reminding her that they were practically making love in broad daylight in a public place, but it didn’t matter. Desire shivered and burned, coiling tight as he moved against her a third time and heat and sensation exploded inside her.
For a long, endless moment time seemed to stand still. Her pulse was pounding, and she could feel the fast, steady thud of his heart. She couldn’t believe she had just climaxed, in broad daylight. But in some distant part of her she was also aware that while she had lost control, Ben hadn’t.
The honk of a horn flipped her eyes open. Steam rose in wispy tendrils off the road and sidewalk, wreathing cars and turning the air into a steam bath. Ben’s hold loosened as a car swept past, spraying water.
He stepped away, his gaze watchful. “Are you okay? I didn’t intend to—”
“Make love to me in broad daylight, in the street?” Sophie straightened, glad of the support of the SUV “Or make love to me, period?”
Feeling flustered and embarrassed, she yanked down her shirt, which had ridden up, baring her midriff. As she did so, a car pulled into a space behind Sophie’s SUV. A young couple exited, glancing at them curiously.
Ben frowned at the street, which, now that the rain had stopped, seemed to be filling with people. “We can’t talk here.” He extracted his phone from the back pock
et of his jeans. “I’m in town for the rest of the week. Why don’t we meet for lunch?”
Her chin came up. That did not sound like an invitation to Sail Fish Key tomorrow, and right now that was the only date she was interested in. “I’m free all day tomorrow.”
His gaze connected with hers and held it for a long moment. “I’m not. How about the day after?”
For long moments, Ben’s clear refusal to give up the date with Francesca didn’t compute, because she had thought that, after the heart-stopping intimacy they had just shared on the street—the fact that she had actually climaxed in broad daylight—he would choose her.
She stared at the obdurate line of Ben’s jaw, the red mark on his neck that she must have made. For a wild moment she actually considered asking him not to take Francesca to Sail Fish Key, to take her instead, but that would be begging, and she had to be better than that.
She drew a deep breath. One thing seemed clear. She was tired of beating herself up by staying on hold for a man who simply did not want her enough and could not commit. That was victim behavior.
And she absolutely refused to compete for Ben with her own sister.
Out of nowhere a curious calm settled on her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognized it for what it was: a bona fide Messena trait. She had seen it in her grandmother, who had been a formidable businesswoman with an exceptional intellect. Very occasionally, the cold, scary eyes surfaced in her brothers when they had to make unpopular decisions that were set in stone.
With measured movements, she snagged her sunglasses out of her bag and put them on. She would not allow a doomed fatal attraction to ruin her life.
She had to completely eradicate any idea that she could take charge of Ben and make him fall for her by having sex with him. It hadn’t worked, twice. Make that two and a half times. She had to face the fact that it might never work with Ben, so trying to apply the tactics her sisters-in-law had used on Nick had been flawed, totally impractical reasoning.
