15. BEN
15
BEN
W hen Sofia came out of her room again, much later, she looked ethereal. She wore a white boho dress that emphasized her olive skin, and her gray eyes were striking. She’d tied back her hair in a low, messy bun with strands of hair escaping, making her look wild and free.
When she looked at me, she smiled shyly.
As if we hadn’t done the dirty just a short while ago.
As if we hadn’t seen each other naked, as if we hadn’t become so close that our bodies had melded against each other, turning two into one.
“You look… nice,” she said.
I’d put on chinos, a button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves and the top button undone, and my favorite Italian loafers. I’d wanted to keep it casual.
“Thanks. You look gorgeous.”
She blushed again.
Who was this shy creature, so compassionate and wholesome on the one hand and on the other, so wild and without restraint in bed?
Shit, I was in trouble.
Every time I saw her, no matter in what context, she made my heart skip a beat and my brain short out. She made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Actually, things I hadn’t felt, ever .
And I couldn’t afford that. I couldn’t start to fall for her.
But that wasn’t what this was, right? I was just really attracted to her, and I enjoyed her company, and she was so good at the emotional side of this business, drawing Richard Thompson in and getting him to eat out of her hand without even trying. I was probably just impressed by her business savvy.
Yeah, that had to be it.
I wasn’t falling for her or anything.
I was Ben fucking Blackwood, and I didn’t fall for a woman. I kept my wits about me; I was a shark in the boardroom, and that was the end of it.
“I was thinking we could have something rich tonight,” I started, but Sofia put her hand on my arm. Her hand was warm, and she looked at me with piercing eyes.
“Why don’t we leave the hotel for a bit and explore the town?”
I blinked at her.
“I’m sure we can find somewhere to eat, and it will be good to connect with the people.”
I frowned. “Connect with the people?”
“They’re the ones we’re going to be helping when we get the project and start revitalizing this place, you know.”
“Well, yeah. But I mean…” I didn’t know what I meant. I guess I just didn’t think the people were important because they weren’t directly related to the bottom line. Sure, they were there, but it was the same as with plane sales. I didn’t really care much about the buyer the moment they cut the check. It didn’t matter—the plane was sold, the money was in the bank, the deal was done.
“They’re not really the job, though,” I pointed out.
Sofia shook her head. “Without them, there wouldn’t be a town to revitalize, Ben. Without the people you’d be out of a job.”
Damn it, she was right. It pissed me off, and it intrigued me.
The people… were the reason we could do what we did at all. Sure, these people didn’t have the money, but that didn’t change the fact that the people were the bit that kept it all together.
“I’ve never really looked at it that way,” I admitted.
“There are a lot of things you don’t see unless you walk in their shoes,” Sofia said. “Let’s find a local mom-and-pop place and see what we’re working with here.”
I nodded. I wasn’t used to roughing it—that was more Chris’s and Alex’s thing when they went together on their little “adventures.” But Sofia was so dedicated to what she did, so committed to her stance, and her passion was contagious. It made me want to know, too. It made me want to try it.
Instead of ordering a car, the way I always did, Sofia suggested we walk.
“It’s a fine evening,” she said, glancing up. “There aren’t any clouds, and the town isn’t that big.”
I wanted to argue, but I bit my tongue and we set out.
The moment we left the hotel premises, the town enveloped us, and I realized I was very far from home. The buildings were on the older side, with architecture from a different era, and it all felt a little run down. Like the sands of time had worn it down to its most basic form, and it existed only on the bare bones of what it used to be.
It wasn’t an ugly town, though. Everything seemed almost outlandish. But maybe that was because I was so fucking far out of my comfort zone I had to stop myself from turning back.
Sofia drank it all in, though.
She gushed over the cute cobbled streets and the buildings that seemed to have sat down on themselves over the years. The little shops that had long been abandoned but could have been something incredible.
“I’d love to be in that head of yours,” I said to Sofia. “It must be a wonderful place.”
She looked at me, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“You look at the world and see wonder wherever you go. I look at it and see… ruin.”
Sofia shook her head. “There’s beauty in everything, you know. You just have to hold onto the one thing that makes it all possible.”
“And what’s that?”
“Hope.”
The word was so cliché and so simple.
And so true.
Not all the stores were boarded up and abandoned, only closed for the evening, and we stepped into the first restaurant we came across. It really was a small little mom-and-pop place, just like what Sofia had wanted. It was an Italian restaurant, even though the owners were more American than anyone I’d ever seen, and the tables had red checkered cloths on them, and the walls were painted a bright, bright green.
We sat down and ordered sodas, followed by their advertised pizza.
“Who knows,” Sofia said when the owner—who’d taken our order himself—left, “maybe it really is as good as it sounds.”
I snorted and looked around. The restaurant had a lot of good about it but it was clear there wasn’t a lot of money around here, and it wore the same hue of decay as everything else around here.
If we got the project, we could fix up places like this and make them what they were meant to be.
When our drinks arrived, I glanced at Sofia. She looked around, sipping her soda through a straw, and she had to be the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. Not just because of her features, but the more I got to know her and her outlook on life, the more I had a feeling I’d been looking at everything through the same glasses.
For a very long time.
Sofia made me want to change that. To see things differently, to react to things differently.
To get out of my box and see what else was out there.
But to be fair, this little box I’d put myself in was very comfortable, and to get out of my comfort zone more often…
Besides, whatever this was that I felt for Sofia was dangerous. I couldn’t get this close to her and I couldn’t afford to make this kind of change to myself.
“You’re quiet,” Sofia said, her eyes resting on me.
We sat in silence for a while, sipping our drinks.
I nodded.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“With a bit of luck, this project will go through, and that’s a plus, right?” she probed.
“Yeah, Alex will be happy with that, at least.”
“At least?”
I hesitated again. It was hard to talk about what I felt, but Sofia’s eyes bore into my soul and it was so damn easy to talk to her.
“I just feel like it’s hard to please him,” I admitted. “It’s hard to do what everyone else does, to pull my weight in the company.”
“In what way?” Sofia asked. “How do you think you don’t pull your weight? Don’t you manage the plane sales department?”
“Well, yeah.” It was a quarter of the work. All of us worked equally hard, even if it was in different ways. “I don’t know what it is. I just always feel like I’m not like the rest of them. I can’t do what they do, no matter how hard you try.”
Sofia nodded as I talked.
“Do you have to do what they do?” she asked.
“What?”
“You said you can’t do what they do. What is it they do that you feel you have to do, too?”
I froze. I wasn’t sure how to answer that. It wasn’t that I had to do exactly what they did all the time. We each had our strengths, we each did our jobs in the company to keep it working. It was a well-oiled machine, and we were all cogs working together.
“I just feel like I should be able to do more. Be better. You know? Getting this project will help, but it won’t be long before there’s the next thing…” My voice trailed off. I wasn’t even sure why I was saying what I was saying, and I’d already opened up more than I’d meant to. The words just tumbled out of my mouth with her.
She reached across the table and put her hand on mine. The contact was warm and reassuring and it was mesmerizing how her touch could feel differently—electric the one moment, charged with sexual need, and warm and reassuring the next, filled with care.
“You can’t always compare yourself to your brothers.”
“Much easier said than done.”
“But it’s not the right thing to do. I mean, you guys might all be cut from the same Blackwood cloth, but that doesn’t mean that any of you are the same. You each have your own strengths. Wasn’t it Einstein who said if you tell a fish to climb a tree, it will believe its whole life it’s stupid? Something like that, right?”
“Right.”
“You have certain strengths I’m sure they don’t have, and vice versa, and if you focus on those strengths, on what you can do that they can’t, then you won’t focus so much on what you can’t do that they can.”
“Huh,” I said.
“What?”
“You know, some people go to therapy for years to find out what you just put together in two sentences.”
Her eyes lit up, and she chuckled. She retrieved her hand and I missed her warmth immediately, but a moment later the pizza arrived.
It was enormous.
“Oh, wow,” Sofia breathed. “We might have to ask for a takeaway.”
I stared at her. “I’ve never asked for a takeaway in my life.”
She burst out laughing. “Because the gourmet food you eat is so small on the plate, you’re left hungry after the fantastic little bite you have! Tonight we’re going to eat until we’re so full they have to roll us out of here, but we’re taking some of this back with us, no arguments.”
I chuckled. “Okay, fine. We’ll take some home with us. We can’t finish this thing between the two of us.”
“But let it not be said that we won’t try,” Sofia said gravely and she took the first slice, putting it on a small plate for herself. I chuckled and did the same, and the pizza really was as good as advertised.
I glanced at her as she chewed. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about her that was so magical, but the way she looked at things, the way she said things… she made me think that maybe—just maybe—I’d been looking at the world all wrong.
I wasn’t sure what was the right way to look at it, but with her, maybe I could figure it out.