7. BEN
7
BEN
T he flight to Harborview was only two and a half hours, but it was the longest flight of my life. I had to look at her all the time.
And it was a fucking nightmare because looking at Sofia was incredible. She was a sight to behold, with those mercury gray eyes and olive skin—an exotic beauty.
And she was here to babysit me.
I was torn because half of me didn’t want her here, and half of me really wanted her here. In ways I wasn’t supposed to want her now that we were working together.
But the more I told myself I didn’t want her, the more I did. Something about forbidden fruit. And the fact that I’d tasted that fruit a couple of nights ago… and then some.
When we finally landed, I was first off the plane. Screw being a gentleman, I had to get out of there before I said or did something stupid.
The air hostesses greeted me with their empty smiles.
When I looked over my shoulder after disembarking, Hannah and Susanne were talking to Sofia, and their smiles were a lot more genuine. They liked her. She knew their names. She talked to them like they were friends.
That just pissed me off. I didn’t know why—it just did.
When she stepped down from the plane, her eyes were bright.
“Do you have the same air hostesses every time you fly?”
“I don’t know.”
She frowned. “What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?”
I shrugged. “I tell them I want to fly, they make it happen.” I was being gruff with her, but I had to keep her at arm’s length.
“Oh. They’re really nice if you get to know them.”
“Why would I want to get to know them?”
God, I sounded like a complete asshole. It wasn’t completely untrue, though. I didn’t notice if the staff were the same people or different ones every time I traveled. There were jobs to do and someone had to do it. I paid them to do their jobs, and if they did it, there were no problems.
“Susanne, the dark-haired one? She had twins a short while ago,” Sofia said as we walked to the car. “Can you imagine having to deal with twins? I can’t imagine handling one child, but two!”
I snorted. “I don’t really think about children.”
“I guess it’s not part of your job description,” she said dryly.
I grunted, and we climbed into the car that would take us to the hotel.
I turned my attention to the window, hoping that it would stop Sofia from talking to me.
Ignoring her wasn’t that easy, though. The moment the door shut behind her, her scent filled the car. It wasn’t the kind of scent most of the girls I knew wore. It was something very subtle, very feminine. And very Sofia.
Natural.
Intoxicating.
I flashed on the night we spent together, on peeling her clothes off her delicious body.
Don’t think about that.
I focused on the passing landscape instead.
We drove through the outskirts of Harborview. The once-thriving town was now cloaked in decay. Dilapidated buildings lined the streets, their paint peeling, and the facades were weatherworn from years of neglect.
Storefronts were abandoned now, with boarded-up windows.
Once upon a time, this place must have been beautiful—a quaint coastal town that drew tourists, a pleasure to live in. Some of the buildings still had the faded glory tugging at them. We passed a historic building with grand architecture, the kind of thing that would have been built in a time when things went well.
“This is so sad,” Sofia said softly. “So much potential has gone to waste.”
“Well, that’s why we’re here.”
“Sure.” She glanced at me but I refused to make eye contact. When she sat this close to me, looking at her would be dangerous.
We finally arrived at the hotel. The Seabreeze Grand sat like a gem on the coastline. This part of the town was beautiful and less neglected. Rugged cliffs, lust vegetation, and golden sandy beaches surrounded the hotel.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
The driver opened my door, and I got out. Sofia followed. The sound of crashing waves close by made it feel like we were on holiday, and the squawk of seagulls in the distance just made it that much more like a fairy tale.
We’d somehow stepped out of reality and into some alternate dream world or something.
I walked into the grand lobby and up to the reception desk.
“Oh, wow,” Sofia breathed behind me. She looked up at the high ceilings, took in the marble floors, and looked at the artwork on the walls. “This place is incredible.”
“A far cry from the rest of the town we just saw,” I muttered. “Thank God.”
“I wonder why this place is so different,” Sofia said.
“If it wasn’t, we would have stayed somewhere in Georgia and driven all day. I wasn’t going to stay in that .”
“It might do us some good to understand what the townsfolk are going through with how things are right now,” Sofia pointed out.
“We don’t have to know what they’re going through. We’re here to change it, and then it doesn’t matter.”
“It helps to know why you’re working on something, you know…”
I glanced at her.
“Do you know what your problem is?”
I turned to look at her, surprised. “I don’t have a problem.”
Sofia snorted. “You do. And it’s the fact that you miss the human element in everything. It’s not just about places and money, you know. The people are the heart of everything we do.”
“I don’t miss that part,” I said. “I just don’t see the point in spending energy on something when it won’t change the facts.”
Sofia narrowed her eyes at me. “And you only spend energy on the things that are important?”
“Yep.”
“Then your view is a lot more skewed than I thought.”
I turned around to stare at her. People didn’t usually talk to me that way. I was Ben fucking Blackwood, for God’s sake. People feared the four of us, just because of our name, and they were extra careful around me. Of the four brothers, I was the one who took the least amount of shit from anyone.
And here Sofia was, telling me to my face that my views were skewed.
Just like that.
“We’re here to do a job,” I said, my voice hard. “I intend to do it, and then the project is done. Start, finish. Facts.”
Sofia shook her head and turned away from me. She didn’t think I was right, and that irritated me.
Why the hell do you want her to think anything differently of you?
Right. I didn’t care what she thought. She was nothing but an employee. Someone who was here to do her job. I could have done it alone, but I wasn’t going to keep harping on that. At least… not now. I would pout about that again later.
One thing to be pissed off about at a time.
It was called project management.
I snorted inwardly at my stupid joke.
We were taken to our rooms in a private elevator, and finally Sofia was led to a different room from me.
I let out a breath. I felt like I’d been holding it since the moment I’d picked her up from her place. Finally, I could stop bracing myself and relax.
The suite was just what I’d wanted. Spacious, indulgent, comfortable. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the sea, with an intimate living room with plush sofas and a fireplace, a wet bar—thank fuck for alcohol—and a sleek desk and chair. A king-sized bed in the next room took center stage with more windows that looked out over the breathtaking landscape.
Harborview was fucked when it came to the business district, but the part that attracted tourists didn’t need a lot of help from what I could see.
I assumed Sofia’s room looked just about the same—I’d book the two penthouse suites. Would the room be to her liking? Was this kind of life, opulent and lavish, something she could get used to?
The moment I thought about her, I dismissed the thought.
My phone rang.
“Yeah,” I said when I answered Alex’s call.
“How’s everything?”
“Good,” I said. “Just got settled. The place is pretty bad on the one end and only half-bad on the other.”
“You think it’s salvageable?”
“Anything is salvageable,” I said. “If you throw enough money at a problem you can usually fix it.”
Alex chuckled. “Yeah, well, life doesn’t always work that way.”
“This isn’t a life lesson, Alex. It’s a business project.”
“How are things with Sofia there?”
I bristled. “I didn’t need her to come along,” I point out again, just in case Alex forgot that I’m pissed he assigned her to the project.
“Yeah, you keep telling me that, but what’s done is done and she’s there now. You can use her help, Ben. She’s damn good at her job, and it never hurts to have a feminine hand around.”
I frown. I’m not sure what he means by that.
“Marina scheduled the meeting with your investor,” Alex said. “Richard Thompson. I sent you the file. He’s a philanthropist and he lost his wife a few years ago, so he’s really throwing himself into rebuilding places. It was his wife’s life goal, and it’s become his.”
“Oh, that aligns us pretty well then, huh?” I said. “Since that’s what we’re here to do.”
“Just focus on what that actually means for a change, Ben. He lost his wife . He’s doing this in her memory . That’s a big thing. It’s a different driving force than money.”
“Right,” I said. I got what Alex was trying to say, but the fact of the matter was he wanted to invest in rebuilding a town, and we were here to help make it happen. The reasons behind it didn’t really matter all that much.
If I bought a tie for a funeral or a tie for a wedding, I’d still bought a tie. The transaction had been made, and that was the end of it.
“You’re meeting him for lunch tomorrow,” Alex added. “And for God’s sake, Ben, try not to be so grumpy all the time.”
“What are you talking about? I’m a regular ray of sunshine.”
Alex snorted. “Just make this work, okay? Remember, you’re representing the company.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m on it.”
We ended the call, and I tucked my phone back into my pocket, looking out over the ocean. I was here to do a job, and I was going to do it. It was not really that complicated. Everyone thought it was such a big deal, but business, at its essence, was very simple.
What made things complicated was when Sofia had to come along. But that was fine—I could handle it.
I was Ben fucking Blackwood.
There wasn’t much I couldn’t handle, least of all a woman.