21. BEN
21
BEN
“ P erfect timing,” I said when I clapped my hand into Luke’s.
We met at the Harbor Lounge, a bar in the Savannah Bayview Hotel. “You couldn’t even stick out one more night with your family?”
Luke groaned. “No, it was time to go. This place is much better. The price tag is worth not having all the drama.”
“There’s a reason we don’t see our family more than once a year,” Amy said. “They keep wanting to marry me off and get Luke to take over the family business. I’m so sick of being treated like a pawn just because of my bloodline.”
The Harper family had a huge name in Savannah and the fact that Luke and Amy had managed to fly the coop was a feat all on its own. I couldn’t relate to that kind of family drama.
“Hi,” Amy said to Sofia, who stood a little behind me.
“Oh, sorry. You guys remember Sofia, right?” I asked. “Luke and Amy.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Sofia said and smiled.
I put my arm around her, hand on her hip. Amy glanced at my hand before she looked up at me, and she and her brother exchanged glances.
“Let’s get something to drink,” I said.
Luke and Amy nodded, and we sat down in the cozy booth that I’d held for us at the back.
The Harbor Lounge was a great place, looking out over the harbor and the ocean, and it was lively, with music and a lot more patrons than those who stayed at the hotel. It was like Jester but with classy bedrooms and suites on top of it.
The seats were luxurious, deep red velvet, and we were surrounded by brass and marble countertops, giving the place a vintage feel, although it had modern touches like speakers and tablets on each table to place orders.
“What are you having?” I asked Sofia, lowering my voice. “Wine?”
She nodded. “Surprise me.”
I winked at her. “I have just the thing.” When I looked up, Luke’s eyes were on me.
“What are we drinking?” I asked, trying to ignore the pointed looks I was getting from my friends.
“Woodford Reserve Bourbon,” Luke said. “I had it here last night and you’ll want to try it.”
“That’s easy, then,” I said and picked up the tablet. “Amy?”
“Whatever Sofia’s having, we can share a bottle of something nice.” She grinned at me, and Sofia smiled, her cheeks flushed pink. She was shy around Luke and Amy. I didn’t know if she was generally a shy person or if it was just because it was my friends. I didn’t know her well enough to know things like that.
But I wanted to find out.
I ordered the Bourbon for me and Luke to share, and a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc for the girls. The crisp taste suited Sofia, and I was sure she would like it. I added an artisanal cheese and charcuterie board, with extra dried fruit and nuts to snack on while we chatted. We weren’t here for supper and I didn’t want anything too formal and heavy.
The drinks arrived not much later.
“Don’t you get along with your family?” Sofia asked after Luke and Amy had talked about how horrible their family gathering was.
“Not really,” Amy said, rolling her eyes. “I mean, I’ll always love them, and if someone says something mean about them, I’ll throw blows.” She smiled cheekily. “But I don’t want to spend time with them if they’re just going to tell me what I’m supposed to do with my life.”
“Yeah,” Luke said, cutting off a piece of cheese and putting it on a cracker. “Amy and I are thirty, for God’s sake. We’re pretty good at living our own lives by now.”
Amy rolled her eyes when Luke said it.
“We’ll always be our parents’ babies.”
“I get that,” Sofia said and Luke and Amy both looked at her. She looked suddenly unsure of herself. “I mean…” She cleared her throat. “We were both miracle babies. They told my parents they were never going to be able to have kids, and yet, here we are. My parents were so scared something would happen to us, they never let us do anything or go anywhere, and I sort of understand why they were like that.”
“Do you?” Amy scrunched her nose. “I don’t really think that’s fair.”
Sofia shrugged. “It’s not, but our parents can’t be faulted if they did the best they could.”
I stared at her. Was it really supposed to be that simple? Maybe… but I had parents somewhere out there, too. Parents who had given me up just because the going had gotten too tough. Because looking after me had become too much of a burden and they’d surrendered me to the state. Was that forgivable? Had they really tried their best and couldn’t be faulted for that?
I was suddenly pissed off. I never got this angry about my birth parents and the hell they put me through. At least, not right away. It usually took some thinking and a lot of drinking to get me this pissed off.
But what the fuck?
“Are you okay?” Amy asked.
“Fine,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“How about you and I go get some shooters at the bar,” Luke suggested, and I nodded.
Shooters sounded great right about now.
Before I stood, I paused, turning to Sofia. “You’re going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, but her eyes searched mine. She was sure she would be okay, but she wasn’t sure I would be.
She knew a bit about my past, but she didn’t know all of it and Luke was the one who knew how to talk me down from the ledge when I got like this.
When we got to the bar, we ordered tequilas, and I glanced back toward the booth where the girls sipped their wine and talked and laughed.
“Come on, man,” Luke said. “What’s got you so riled up tonight? You’re not usually this touchy about all the bullshit from the past.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I had no idea why my past was suddenly hitting me square between the eyes as if it had all happened again yesterday. “It just pisses me off sometimes how you guys have a perfect family but you try to avoid them as much as you can because they care too much.” I wasn’t sure where that had come from, but the words tumbled out, and I knew I could tell Luke anything.
“Look, Ben,” Luke started, but then the tequilas arrived. We tapped the shot glasses on the counter twice and threw them back. Luke waved at the bartender for two more. “I know your past is fucked up. I know you come from hell, and I get that. It pissed you off, and it’s fine that it does. But you have a great family now. You have people who are always there for you, people you don’t even have to try avoiding, you’re fine seeing them every day at the office and partying with them sometimes, too. I mean, if that’s not a top-shelf life…”
I sighed heavily. “I know, okay? I don’t know why I got so pissed off.”
I glanced at Sofia again and her eyes met mine, glancing at me at the same time.
“I’m starting to think it might not be that kind of family that’s got you so worked up,” Luke said.
“What do you mean?”
“It looks like you and Sofia are doing a hell of a lot more than just pretending.”
I shook my head, and the next round of tequilas landed in front of us. I lifted the glass in a salute to Luke, and he did the same to me before we threw them back and tapped the glasses on the table again.
We both leaned on the bar on our elbows, facing each other.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
Luke raised his eyebrows. “It doesn’t look like nothing to me. Not by the looks of that diamond on her finger and the way you’re making sure she’s okay every step of the way, almost like you’re set on looking after her.”
I groaned. “It’s not that simple.”
“No? You don’t want to tell me you’ve fallen in love with this girl and it’s not just a lie, you really do want to play happy families together?”
“I don’t,” I growled. “I’m not the kind of man to play happy families. I’m not cut out for it, man.”
“Of course you are. Any girl would be lucky to have you, and it looks like she’s the kind of girl that makes you feel lucky to have her, too.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly a lie. But like I’d said, it wasn’t that simple.
She was an employee. If Alex found out what was going on, he was probably going to lose his shit. Not to mention the fact that if we had to keep working together on this project, since we’d got it now, we would have to keep pretending we were married in front of Richard.
Alex wasn’t going to go for that kind of bullshit, either.
Except if we weren’t pretending…
But I wasn’t someone worth dating, let alone worth marrying. My parents hadn’t gotten rid of me because they didn’t have the money to raise me. I’d found out a couple of years after the Blackwoods had adopted me that they’d had three more kids and none of them had ended up in an orphanage.
There was just something wrong with me and they’d wanted to get rid of me.
And whatever it was, I wasn’t going to visit that on someone else.
Especially not someone as fucking amazing as Sofia.
Sure, I had money and a big name and a quarter of the Blackwood empire, but underneath all of that, I was still just me.
And just me didn’t cut it, not for her.
Not when she deserved the very best.