AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s too late for any more pep talk. Sally spots him coming back into the bar over my shoulder and quickly walks away.
Ben returns to his seat, watching her go. “Friend of yours?”
I nod.
“What does she think of all this?”
“She thinks I should go up to your room and do whatever you tell me to do.”
I surprised him with that, and I relish the brief, unguarded look my statement sends onto his face. It’s quickly replaced with his business stern face. “And what do you think?” he muses.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
He nods, holding my gaze tightly in his own piercing stare. “Yeah, I sure would.”
I shrug and say nothing.
After a full beat, where I’ve all but convinced myself that he’s going to bail, Ben reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a red keycard. He sets it on the bar between us.
“This is the key to the penthouse suite upstairs. If you hit R in the elevator, it will take you there.”
We both look at it, and when I finally glance up, I find him staring at me once more.
“I’m not going to go up with you. That would be…too much. You can head up when you’re ready, and I’ll meet you there.”
“And if you don't show up?”
A little smile flashes across his chiseled features. “If I don't show up, you can enjoy the best room in the resort all to yourself. Order room service, swim in the rooftop pool.”
“Okay.”
He sets his fingers back on the keycard where it rests on the dark bar, tapping them three times. I watch, mesmerized.
“Okay,” he says finally.
I swallow hard as he rises from his seat and stands beside me. The touch I’ve been waiting for finally comes—one hand lightly resting on the bare skin of my shoulder. I look up into his eyes as his warm skin burns into mine.
And then he’s gone.
Chapter Two
Victoria
Imake my way up to the penthouse after another short freak-out with Sally. She makes sure my phone is charged, assures me that the resort staff works twenty-four hours a day, and reminds me she’s just a phone call away if I need help.
It’s not that I’m scared of the guy. Not exactly. It’s just hard not to feel like I’m a walking lie, going up to the man's room with an invisible load of baggage that he for sure, one thousand percent would want to know about if given the option.
Baggage that would change his mind about our little rendezvous.
“All the more reason to keep your mouth shut,” Sally told me before disappearing into the night a little while earlier.
I suppose she’s right, although if my goal for talking to Ben was to tell him off for raising such a douchebag son, then what is my sleeping with him going to accomplish? It’s not like I’m going to tell Ainsley about it to make him jealous. Am I?
I shake the thought off quickly. I’m really not like that.
So why the fuck am I here?
I rise from the white chaise lounge where I collapsed after entering the penthouse to do my brooding. I should just go.
