Chapter 31
“Ohhhh, you’re evil , my friend.”
I spun around to find Quinn behind me and pulled her into a quick hug. “Thank god you’re here. I need an ally tonight.”
“I’ve got you. And this is the sexiest battle armor I’ve ever seen.” She gestured for me to spin, and I did with a little laugh. “Yeah, that’s definitely going to torture Ben and piss off your nemesis.”
I couldn’t stop my smile. “Thanks, but that’s not the only reason I need you here. Things have been… unexpected since I left you at lunch. That meeting James picked me up for? President Munchen offered me a job.”
“What?” she screeched, grabbing my hand with both of hers. “What’s the offer? Please tell me you’re moving to Boston.”
“A job in the business school teaching classes on professionalism. She dropped it on me right before I had to sit through dinner with my current boss and my potential new boss all together, so that’s not stressful at all.”
“Are you going to take it?”
“I do not know. I’m still in shock. Why did she even offer it to me? It should be yours. You have way more experience with students and saved me over the summer with your advice. And I promise I made sure everyone I talked to from Billings knew that.”
“I’m staff.” Her shrug said she wasn’t surprised she didn’t get the offer.
“I guess it makes sense. They don’t want to lose you in your current position.”
“No, not so much that. They wouldn’t offer a professorship to a staff member. Staff is staff and faculty is faculty, and ne’er the twain shall meet.”
“That’s ridiculous. So what you’re saying is Billings is toxic and I should run? Because that would make this a lot simpler.”
Quinn laughed. “No, not toxic, per se. Okay, maybe a tiny bit toxic, but a lot of small colleges have weird dynamics between the faculty and staff. I love Billings so much, and I’m not just saying that to manipulate you into living by me. It’s a great place to work. For all my complaining about the professors, I can’t imagine being anywhere else. I don’t want my bitching to give you the wrong impression. If the job sounds fun to you, I’m sure you’d be happy here. Just don’t let the faculty turn you against me.”
“You suck. Why won’t anyone tell me what to do?” I asked with a pathetic whimper.
She shrugged as we were all called back to our tables for the meal.
Dinner was surprisingly fun. They sat us with a few professors Ben and I met in April plus some other alumni, and the meal passed in a happy blur of shared stories. The professors’ stories about their students ranged from sweet to downright horrifying, and I noticed James always tried to steer the conversation away from the latter. I knew he wanted me to think the best of the job, but I remembered what I was like at eighteen. I knew it wouldn’t always be glamorous.
The alumni in return shared their stories about Billings, their favorite memories or haunts, and why they chose the school themselves.
“What about you, Eduardo?” asked an alumna who had just finished recounting her family’s long history with the school. “Why was it Billings for you?”
“Money.” Eduardo’s quick reply had the whole table laughing.
“But really, I am the son of Cuban refugees who came to Florida with nothing to their names. They worked and scraped their whole lives to provide for us, but there is only so much success you can achieve without education and little understanding of the language.
“Billings saw my potential and offered me a full-ride scholarship. It changed my life. I would not have been able to afford college otherwise. Everything I have achieved, every building my company has created, every person I’ve employed—all of these are because of that initial investment from them. And now I try to follow their example and invest in people where I see potential, even if they don’t seem like they have the perfect set of experiences on paper.”
He looked at me with a small smile. I appreciated the sentiment but was also feeling the pressure with James by my side, hoping I would choose the Billings position.
As the plates were cleared away, a big band made its way onto the stage and began playing jazz music. People started filtering out onto the floor, and before I knew it, James was offering me his hand.
“Care to dance, beautiful?” He wiggled his eyebrows, and I laughed.
“You are a shameless flirt.” But I took his hand and let him tow me to the dance floor. He was an excellent dancer, leading me confidently in a quick swing. I hadn’t danced like this in years, and I wasn’t the most coordinated individual on a good day. The fact that we made it through two songs without any crushed toes was a testament to his skill.
As we finished the second song, I caught Ben watching from our table, arms crossed across his chest and eyes hard. It felt like a bolt of lightning shot through me, and I excused myself from the dance floor, desperately in need of another drink.
At the bar, Maureen cornered me. “Did you read over the offer?”
Over her shoulder, I saw Eduardo watching us, and my heart ratcheted up.
“I did, thank you. I’ll need time to talk it through with my family, but it is extremely generous.”
Eduardo’s eyes were still on us, and he was now joined by Ben, who looked even more pissed off than he had when I was dancing. I excused myself, not able to have this conversation under their watchful gaze.
There was a fire underneath my skin. I caught sight of Stephanie, her eyes bouncing between me and Ben as he continued to glare. James tried to coax me into another dance, but I needed to get away. Getting in each breath was a battle as I pushed through the crowd toward the exit. Quinn tried to flag me down with a concerned look on her face, but I continued on like I hadn’t seen her. I felt like everyone was trying to grab a piece of me, and I wasn’t sure which parts I was willing to give away.
I burst out of the ballroom, desperate for a little space to clear my head. I headed down the hallway, finding an out-of-use meeting room. I leaned forward, slamming my palms on the long table, trying to catch my breath. Four seconds in. Hold for seven. Eight seconds out. My heart was pounding like I had run a marathon, and my throat tightened.
I called on all my old coping mechanisms. Visions of my girls, laughing and running through a field. My mantra about control, how this was temporary. The breathing exercises to calm my heart rate and loosen my muscles. I had just gotten it under control when the door opened behind me.
“Are you really leaving?”
My eyes dropped closed again, heart tightening in my chest. I turned to find a furious Ben standing before me.
“I don’t know,” I answered weakly.
“So, what, we break up and you abandon everything and everyone?”
“Excuse me? I didn’t seek out this job. They offered it to me. And you gave up the right to contribute your opinion. Or did you forget that?”
“You’re going to rip your kids away from their whole life?”
“Oh, fuck you. I would take this job for my kids. I could be home with them all summer. No more jumping from camp to camp and stressing about childcare. I’d make my schedule. I could be there to pick them up from school like I did before Jason died. And again, not your decision to make.”
“You sound pretty damn sure you’re taking the job.”
“I haven’t made my decision, and if you tell Eduardo otherwise, you’ll regret it.”
“You can’t leave,” he responded, arms crossed over his chest, and I turned my back to avoid the pain in his eyes. My own eyes filled with tears, but I couldn’t let him see how much I was hurting. If he knew, he’d never let me go. He came up behind me, slipping his arms around my waist and dropping his mouth to my ear. “Please don’t leave me.”
I shivered in his arms, knowing I needed to push him away but unable to do so. I settled back into him, allowing myself to find a minute of his comfort amid all this uncertainty.
“This dress is making me lose my fucking mind. It’s the same color as the one you wore the last time we were in Boston, and all I can think about is it in a pile on my floor.”
I whimpered as he pulled me flush against him. He skimmed his lips behind my ear, his beard tickling my neck, and I dropped my head back onto his chest. One hand came to my jaw, tilting my head back, so I had to meet his gaze. He held my eyes as he drifted closer, giving me the space to stop him.
I couldn’t, not when I had spent so many nights missing his touch. He brushed his lips over mine, gently reacquainting himself. I was the first to break, deepening the kiss with a sigh, bringing my hand to the back of his neck.
With a tight hand on my hip, he twirled me to face him, stepping quickly back into place and recapturing my lips. We worked together to shimmy my dress up to my hips. Ben hoisted me up, sitting me on the edge of the table and stepping between my legs. We both groaned when he pushed his hardened length against my core.
His lips left mine, leaving a trail down my neck, nipping at my shoulder below my dress collar, soothing it with a soft lap of his tongue. I was nearly crying from anticipation, pulling his hips against mine, desperate for friction even through our layers of clothing. His words cut through my need-muddled thoughts.
“We fit together perfectly, Juliana. We belong to each other.”
The contradiction of his words and his choices was enough to wake me up. I pushed him off me.
“Fuck.” My voice was thick with desire and frustration.
Ben stood a few feet away from me now, his hair and clothes deliciously disheveled. His hands were on his hips while he stared at the ground, struggling to compose himself.
My chest heaved with each breath I fought to bring into my body. “What do you want from me, Ben?”
“I want you,” he said, his voice and gaze so intense that I could feel them sinking into my bones. “That’s all I’ve wanted from the start.”
“How can you even say that when you didn’t choose me?” I screamed, my heart breaking like I was back in that park all over again.
“I wanted to, Juliana. You know I wanted to.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Do you know what I want? I want to not hurt anymore. I want us to be back in my bed, eating pizza and talking about our future together. You’re the one who threw that away, not me, and you’re killing me.
“I was fine before. Maybe a bit lonely, but most days I was happy. Then you came along with the teasing and flirting. You made me want more, imagine more, and then you left me crushed and alone.”
“You think I’m not crushed?” he said, his eyes bright as he fisted his hands in his soft hair. “That my heart doesn’t break every time I see you in the office? Or every time Asia mentions you and I try not to react so she’ll keep going and I can get some scrap of what’s going on in your life?” Tears kept running down my cheeks. I watched his throat work as he swallowed, wishing I could step back into his arms and kiss him there. “Nothing has happened with Stephanie. You have to know that.”
“I do, but you still picked her, and I understand why. Paris was so happy, and I couldn’t have imagined breaking her heart. But you can’t keep doing this. This in-between isn’t healthy for her, either, especially with the shit Stephanie’s pulling to get your attention. You need to either forgive her, have a real conversation about what you expect of her, and give your family a chance, or you need to end things and find a way to coparent with her before Paris gets too attached to the idea and ends up blaming you. And you can’t keep stringing me along, no matter how strongly you feel for me.”
I turned to straighten myself up, hoping I could get to a bathroom to check my reflection without anyone spotting me. I moved to leave the room when his voice stopped me.
“Juliana.” I forced myself to face him. “Whatever happens, I need you to know I love you.”
“I know.”
I did, but I wasn’t able to give those words back while my heart was breaking.