18. SOFIA
18
SOFIA
I was getting ready, putting my earrings into my ears, when someone knocked on my door. We were getting ready to go to the dinner. The one with Richie where we were supposed to be a wedded couple.
Ben and Sofia.
God, it didn’t even have a terrible ring to it.
“Come in,” I called out.
I’d expected it to be the cleaning lady bringing me the extra towels I’d asked for, but it was Ben who walked into the bedroom.
“Oh,” I said. “It’s you.”
Ben’s eyes slid up and down my body, and I blushed, feeling self-conscious.
“Is this okay?” I asked, suddenly unsure.
I wore a navy blue knee-length dress with an A-line silhouette and I’d paired it with nude low heels and a cream blazer. My earrings and necklace were both a little boho, handmade and cute, and I felt like it gave my outfit a bit of a casual touch so that I didn’t look too much like I was just there for business.
“It’s more than okay,” Ben breathed, and he tugged on his brown leather belt, rearranging his pants. That only made me blush harder.
You’re still mad at him, you’re still mad at him, you’re still mad at him , I reminded myself. I couldn’t melt like this when he looked at me, no matter how much I knew exactly what that look meant and how it would feel if I allowed myself to act on it.
“Not too much?”
Ben shook his head. “Just perfect.” He still had heat in his eyes and I forced myself to focus on something else.
“You clean up well, too.” I tilted my head a little. “Or should I say, you dress down well.”
Yeah, maybe focusing on his outfit wasn’t going to take my mind off the dirty wild sex I wanted to have with him.
He wore a tailored navy blazer—how did we color-coordinate without even trying?—with beige chinos and a white button-down shirt that made him look crisp and polished. Ben always had this sheen to him, but with his brown suede loafers and belt completing the outfit, he looked edible .
“Do you think Richie will buy it?” I looked into Ben’s eyes instead of at his delicious body. His arms were muscular in his blazer sleeves, and the way the chinos hung off his hips… oh, my .
“That we’re together? With our dressing style matching, you bet.” He grinned at me and pushed his hands into his pockets, but his grin faded again.
“Listen,” he said and took one hand out to rub the back of his neck. “I want to apologize.”
I blinked at him, surprised.
“For what?”
“For getting too personal yesterday. I shouldn’t have done that—you clearly didn’t want to talk about your past and I kept pushing and… well, I know what it’s like not to want to talk about your past. So, I’m sorry.”
I shook my head, suddenly feeling guilty for how I’d snapped at him. I hadn’t expected at all that he would apologize for what had happened, especially as I could have handled it much better.
“I’m the one who should be sorry,” I said. “I could have told you I’m not comfortable talking about my past.”
Ben nodded. “Looks like we’re okay, then.”
“We are,” I said with a small smile before I glanced at my phone. It was still much too early for us to go to the dinner. Richie had sent us an address and according to the GPS it wasn’t very far out of town.
“Would you like something to drink?” I offered.
“That would be great,” Ben said, gesturing for me to walk to the living room first. “You can have a seat, I’ll pour.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.” He was always such a gentleman and it always surprised me. He was so gruff sometimes that when his soft side showed it caught me off guard.
“What do you want?” Ben asked.
“What are the options?”
“This bar is stocked with just about everything you can imagine,” Ben said. “Wine? There’s a really good Chardonnay here, Rombauer Vineyard.”
“That sounds good.” I wasn’t sure about the vineyard, but this bar was stocked with very good alcohol, and I trusted Ben’s taste. He had pretty good taste in everything he’d chosen for me so far.
Ben poured me a glass and brought it to me where I’d sat down on the couch before he returned to the bar and poured himself a tumbler of whisky.
“To tonight,” he said, holding his tumbler in the air. “Let the pieces fall where they may.”
I giggled. “I don’t know if that’s the best toast I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, to us, then,” Ben said.
My stomach erupted with an involuntary rush of butterflies.
“To us,” I echoed softly, and we both took a sip of our drinks. A rush of warmth flowed over me that had nothing to do with the wine I was drinking and everything to do with the fact that we’d just toasted to us .
Ben came to me and sat down on the same couch. He sat close enough to me that our knees almost touched, and his warmth radiated through his chinos.
“This trip is very different from what I expected it to be,” Ben said.
“What did you expect it to be?”
“I don’t know…” Ben swirled his whisky around in his glass.
“What are you drinking?” I asked when he didn’t answer me, letting the silence stretch thin.
“Macallan 12-Year-Old Scotch,” Ben said, studying his glass. “It’s a really good whisky, and aging something for twelve years before putting it on the market is really something that sits well with me, you know? I mean, good things sometimes take time and rushing things… well, there’s a life lesson to be learned in whisky.”
I chuckled. “Who would have thought drinking could be such a good thing?”
“Drinking is always a good thing,” Ben said gravely. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. “And I’m fully aware that made me sound like a complete alcoholic.”
I giggled. “A little, but I get it.”
He opened his eyes and glanced at me, his eyes full of questions he didn’t ask.
“Sometimes we all need a way to escape, right? And who knows what those who drink more need to escape from? I don’t like to judge others because I know what it feels like to want to drown pain. It’s all well and good to stand tall, to be strong, to do the right thing . But quite frankly, that’s exhausting and we all need a vice, right?”
“Is yours work?” Ben asked.
I laughed. “Am I that transparent?”
“Sweetheart, I was put into the management position because I’m a Blackwood but you… you worked your way to where you are and I know that’s a hell of a lot of overtime.”
I blushed when he called me sweetheart.
He took another sip and held his hands up in defense, one hand still clutching the tumbler with three fingers.
“Don’t worry, I won’t ask what you’re escaping from.”
“Maybe just myself,” I said softly.
Ben lowered his glass and his eyes were the color of honey when he looked at me, his face serious.
“There’s nothing I can see you might want to run from.”
“Yeah? Not everyone feels the same way.”
“If you’re talking about the asshole who dumped you…” He scowled. “Yeah, I went there. But he was a complete dickhead for hurting you, and letting you go will probably be the biggest mistake he’s ever made.”
Ben’s words were really sweet.
“Sometimes I feel like I might have been the mistake he made and he’s better off now.”
Where did that come from?
Ben opened his mouth to say something but closed it again and took another sip of his whisky. I did the same, sipping my wine, my cheeks burning.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Ben said, his voice hard and his eyes serious. “Know your worth and insist that you’re respected for it.”
I nodded, pursing my lips.
“But having said that… I get it.”
I blinked at Ben, and he looked into his whisky tumbler again.
“It’s not that easy to feel like you have a lot of worth. Sometimes, life just fucking sucks, you know?”
I nodded slowly. That was the God’s honest truth.
“You know the four of us? The Blackwood brothers?”
“Everyone knows you,” I pointed out. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re a global name, not just national.”
Ben offered a lopsided grin. “Yeah, well, my dad gave us a pretty good runway, and we just sort of took it and made it bigger.”
“He’s a saint for giving you such a great start in life.”
“You have no idea—we’re not biologically Blackwoods.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“This isn’t common knowledge and I’m not just throwing this information around for the fuck of it… but we were all adopted. At various stages in our lives and from different backgrounds but it was my parents’ way of giving back when they realized they couldn’t have kids of their own.”
I pressed my hand to my chest. “Oh, my God, Ben.”
“I know. Like I said, it’s not common knowledge…”
“I won’t say anything, but I had no idea. You seem so close.”
“Not always,” Ben said, and he threw back the rest of his whisky, putting the tumbler on the sleek coffee table. “There are a lot of times where I feel like I’m just walking in their shadow. I’m older than the rest of them, but I was adopted last. They were with my parents since they were kids but I arrived in my pre-teens and it just feels like I never fully fit in with them.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I also couldn’t believe that Ben was telling me this. It was a big thing to share with someone, and for him to open up like this…
“I just wanted to let you know that not feeling worth it, not feeling like you quite belong, isn’t something that you’re struggling with alone. There are a lot of us out there, with different reasons for not feeling good enough.”
He shifted a little closer until our knees touched, and the contact sent a pulse of warmth through me.
Somehow, Ben and I were connected. We were the same, although we hadn’t been in the same situation.
“That guy I told Richie about,” I started, then took a sip of wine. “The one who didn’t see the same future as I did… we were so serious, engaged to be married, and I thought we were on the same page. Until he told me he didn’t want kids. Just like that—he didn’t want what he’d told me he wanted at first.”
“Asshole,” Ben said, and he looked pissed off.
“Yeah, well. I guess it was just me that was the problem, you know? I didn’t know if I could do a life without children—it was something I’ve always wanted and to find out that made me wonder about our pending marriage. But I really loved him. I loved him enough that I thought I could change myself for him, change what I wanted.”
“Did you?” Ben asked.
I shook my head. “No. I mean, not then. I guess he was the one who changed my mind for me. A week before the wedding, I found out that he’d been sleeping with my best friend and that she was pregnant with his baby. Not only that, but he actually wanted to be with her, be a father. I broke it off with him, and he just married her instead.”
Ben stared at me, and I chuckled without expression, downing my wine. My body felt like it glowed with the alcohol in my veins. Maybe that was why I was willing to open up about myself. Or maybe Ben’s moment of vulnerability rubbed off on me and I felt like I had to return the favor.
But Ben had never made me feel like I had to do anything.
Well, anything other than pretending to be his wife for a night.
But that was a different topic entirely.
Ben took my hand and squeezed it.
“You weren’t lacking—he was,” Ben said, his eyes serious, his words clear. “You’re more than enough. Sofia… you’re everything.”
I opened my mouth, not sure what to say. Ben was sweeping me off my feet, and damn it, I’d been determined to keep being angry with him. If nothing else than to guard my heart, which was very quickly getting in real danger.
Ben closed the distance and kissed me before I could find the words to respond to his statement.
When he broke the kiss, I was breathless and every nerve ending was on fire. I wanted him to take me into the bedroom and keep using that mouth and those hands to set me alight.
“I have something for you,” Ben said.
I frowned. “What?”
“Well…” He took a small box out of his pocket and opened it, showing a diamond ring and wedding band together. “If we’re going to act like we’re married, we should probably look the part.”
I swallowed hard. This wasn’t how I’d expected to get a ring. This wasn’t every girl’s dream. But Ben was sweet and kind and caring and the conversation tonight was different from the ones we’d had before.
We were connecting on a different level, and somehow the way he presented the ring was romantic.
It’s not romantic, it’s an act.
But it was hard to see it as an act when he offered me a shimmering diamond ring, and it reflected in the gold specks in his honey eyes when he looked at me, somehow nervous as if he didn’t know if I was going to say yes.
“This is… incredible,” I said. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I’m a Blackwood, Sofia. We don’t do anything half-assed and if I’m going to give you a ring, it’s going to be top of the line.”
I swallowed hard. He took the ring out and slipped it on my finger, and my heart fluttered in a way it shouldn’t have.
The ring looked stunning, and somehow it fit perfectly.
How had he known?
When I glanced up at him, he had a smile on his face.
“Ready to go?”
“Yeah,” I breathed. I’d almost forgotten we had to head out and a part of me sank with disappointment.
“Come on,” Ben said and stood. He held out his hand, and without even thinking about it, I took it.