Chapter 10
Ihave to be up early for my class, but Sally talks me into dinner and wine with her at our apartment. Dinner is takeout and cheap wine from the little shop down the block from our ground level flat, but it’s a lovely little date anyway.
And my stories from the night before are good enough to make both of us forget about any shortcomings in the menu.
“He’s like, into you.”
“I mean, that’s what I thought too, especially after that shit he said on the beach, but now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I don’t know.”
“What’s not to know?”
“I mean, sure he said that stuff, but it could have just been the adrenaline from fucking or something.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing.”
I let out a sigh. “It’s just…it’s hard to believe that he could be so interested in me so quickly. And after having not dated anyone in, like, years? Why me?”
Sally shrugs and forces down another slug of her wine, trying not to grimace. “Men always want what they can’t have. Maybe he can sense the fact that you’ve got a big, nasty secret looming over you. Your dark cloud of deception is casting you in the perfect light.”
I roll my eyes and take a sip of my own wine. It really is a shame that they can’t import some nice pinots or even rosès from the States. I mean, they managed to get our peanut butter and Doritos on their shelves, why not wine?
I make a mental note to find out if the Merit Island house has a wine cellar.
“Our fling has an expiration date, that’s for sure,” I say finally. It’s what I keep reminding myself in my own head and it feels good to say it out loud. Makes it even more real. Because the worst possible thing I could ever do in this situation is take his kind words to heart and forget what it is we’re doing here.
“Well, get it while it’s good, I guess.” Sally holds her glass up and we cheers, but my heart isn’t in it.
It’s one thing to joke with my friend, or even to tell myself in my mind that this is a short-term thing. It’s quite another to be faced with the man himself and try to hold onto these thoughts. Try to do anything besides melt into a puddle at his feet. And then he goes and says stuff like I kind of want to see where this goes, and I let myself think that I want that, too.
But then the truth comes crashing down. I already know how this goes. We fuck for a while, I get attached while trying to play it cool and pretend I’m not attached, he leaves, and I pretend I’m okay with it while on the inside I’m devastated.
It’s the story of every “relationship” I’ve had in my short adult life, why would this one be any different?
Oh, maybe because I’m actually lying to him about something super important, which will be an extra spicy layer on the funeral pyre of my heart when this shit finally goes down. He’ll not only leave me for someone cooler or older or richer, he’ll do it knowing that I”m a deceitful, opportunistic loser who jumped from his son”s cock to his with not even a week between them.
“Are you going all doomsday in there again?” Sally asks.
The woman has only known me for a short time, and yet she can already read my mind. I’m so grateful to have her here, especially for this one. I’m going to need extra comfort after the storm that is Ben Adams leaves me decimated.
“Yeah.”
“Girl, you gotta either do it or don’t do it. You can’t do it while also beating yourself up about doing it. Do you need a pros and cons list?”
I laugh darkly. “You mean, do I need to see the reasons why this is totally fucked up and I’m a huge gold-digging loser written out on paper? Pass.”
“Is that really what you think?”
I shrug. “It’s what he’s going to think when he finds out about Ainsley.”
“He’s not going to find out about Ainsley unless you get stupid and tell him.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And you’re not going to do that, right?”
I shake my head. Just the thought of those words coming out of my mouth is enough to make me feel ill, so I can’t imagine actually telling him.
“Then you’re fine. Just chill and enjoy this.”
I try to remember her advice as I drag myself out of bed at the crack of dawn and get ready for my class.
I mean, this is why I”m here. This teaching gig is a great opportunity for me. After graduating from Pilates training, I only had a few months of subbing classes at the studio in my hometown before I decided to take a trip to Indonesia with some high school friends to help build a school.
It was just the break I needed after my injury, recovery, and my decision not to go back to college.
Dropping out wasn’t something I took lightly. I just couldn”t see a future for myself in business any longer. Once I experienced the broken healthcare system firsthand and knew that so many injured people who needed help were falling through the cracks, all I wanted to do was get trained in the modality that brought me from flat on my back with a slipped disc to dancing around and jetting off to build a school in Asia.
Pilates changed my life, and I wanted to change other people’s lives in the same way. I mean, I still do, of course. I just got a bit sidelined. First, by the trip of a lifetime to do some volunteering, and second by a handsome face I met while doing the volunteering.
Ben will not be a third derailment for me. I’ve been through this plenty of times before. Guys come and go. They want you and then they don’t want you anymore. Sure, this one is particularly good, and I want him extra bad, but that doesn”t change the reality of the situation. You can’t get attached to men because they just leave.
The studio is cool and quiet as I turn on the lights. I’m the first one down here, as usual, and I revel in the peaceful space as I get my class set up.
When the first students start to arrive, I’m more than a little surprised to see Ben among them. I try my best to hide my utter glee, as I walk over to say good morning.
“No Avery this morning?” I keep my voice calm and cool as I offer up the joke as a greeting.
Ben smiles and my knees go soft. “I think one class was enough for him.”
“But not for you?”
“The woman at the front desk told me this was a six-week series. I like to see things through.”
I pray to god that my cheeks aren”t as flushed as they feel as I retreat back to the front of the room without responding to that particularly leading statement.
I know it’s stupid, considering the secret truth of our situation, but just the thought of this handsome, genuine man thinking someone like me is worth seeing through, worth anything, well…it’s intoxicating.
I manage to make it through the forty-five minute class, averting my eyes as much as I can from the handsome as sin, half-naked man in the middle of the room while still fulfilling my role as a responsible teacher.
Ben is strong and lean, far more flexible than I generally see from men his age, or with his muscle mass. I wonder if he’s done flexibility training before. I wonder if he has a personal trainer. I wonder so, so many things.
I wonder if I”ll ever get a chance to ask.
The thing about walking around with a grenade in one hand and the pin in the other is that you just never know when things are going to blow. All you know is that they definitely will.
I wait in the large private bathroom after class for as long as I feel I can get away with it, but the knock never comes.
I finally find him again after resigning myself to heading home alone. He’s sitting on a bench just before the stairs that lead up to the resort, typing on his phone.
My heart lurches, but I keep my pace steady, approaching him cool as a damn cucumber.
“Hey, you did great today.”
He looks up from the screen and smirks at me. “Thanks.”
“This isn’t your first Pilates series, is it?”
He stands and approaches me, putting his body right into my space. “It’s the first time I’ve takenPilates, but plenty of the exercises are familiar from my own trainer’s routine.”
So, I was right about him having a trainer. Of course I was.
A guy like this has everything.
“You want to grab coffee?” he asks, pocketing his phone.
The invitation is nearly enough to send me to my knees, but no. I definitely don’t want to get coffee with the owner of the resort. At the resort.
“I…” I can’t figure out what to say, so I drift off, my eyes casting downward.
Ben takes my chin in his hand, a move so intimate that I can’t breathe. “You…”
I turn my head to free it from his grasp, and he lets me. “I’m just not sure if getting coffee with the resort owner is the best move for me. I mean, I”m new here, and I really like the fitness center. I’d like to stay a while.”
“Got it. Of course.”
I meet his eyes and offer a sad smile and a shrug.
“It’s not a problem. Go find a cab and have them take you to the helipad. I’ll be there soon.”
“Oh. Okay.” It’s what I dreamed he would say, but now that he’s said it, I’m not sure how I feel.
“But…” Ben asks, attuned to my thoughts, apparently.
“But I’d like to go home and grab a few things.”
“What time would you like to meet me there?”
I glance at the big clock on the wall. “Nine?”
“How about ten. That gives you three hours to prepare.”
“Prepare for what?” I squeak out.
Ben steps even closer, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “The possibility that I’m not going to let you leave my island.”
He turns and jogs up the stairs without another word.
It takes me a full minute to recover, and when I do, I’m practically giggling with glee. Omg, omg, omg. Why, oh, why does this guy have to be so freaking perfect?
I pack a bag and shave every inch of my body, primping and styling the best that I can in ninety degrees with 100% humidity.
When I arrive at the helipad, Ben’s already there.
It’s a short flight to the island, and an even shorter drive to the house.
I feel like a damn princess, and Ben is doing nothing to dispel that. His arm drapes over my shoulder as he drives the golf cart.
I’m part of the Merit Island royal family, and this man is my king.
For now, anyway.
Just enjoy it while it lasts, Vicki.
“I thought you might be hungry,” is Ben’s only explanation for the epic picnic laid out on the patio when we arrive at the mansion.
“Oh, I”m definitely hungry.” I practically throw myself at the food, heaping my plate with sliced meat and cheese, fruit, soft rolls, and pasta salad.
“Oh, to be able to eat like that again.”
I look up from my feast, mouth full of bread. “What?”
Ben chuckles and I feel myself blush. “I just miss the days when I was your age, and I could eat anything I wanted.”
I roll my eyes, even though I know it’s only driving his point home even further. “You gotta quit with all the when I was your age stuff. You’re not that old. Are you?” I have a vague idea of how old this guy is, but I keep forgetting to google him and find out for sure.
Ben just smiles and shakes his head as he watches me eat. “I’m old enough to wonder what you’re doing on Faraday Island teaching Pilates on a three-month contract.”
That’s enough to halt my hand as it lifts the next bite to my mouth. “What do you mean?”
Ben sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. I suddenly feel like I’m about to get scolded. And not in a good way.
“I mean, what is it that you’re doing with your life? What’s your plan for the future?”
Surprise makes my mouth fall open, but I snap it shut quickly. The last thing I need is for this guy to spot the weakness he just uncovered. I take a deep breath and set my sandwich down. “Well, I got my Pilates certification last year in Baltimore,” I start.
“Maryland?” Ben cuts in.
I nod.
“That’s where you’re from?”
I nod again and he nods, signaling me to go on. I narrow my eyes at the sudden interrogation I find myself in, but I continue. “I got my training hours at the studio, but I need more experience to be able to land a full-time gig in the States, so I took this contract.” I’m proud of myself for how succinctly I summed it all up, but my happiness is short lived.
Ben is not impressed.
“You just threw a dart at the map and landed on Faraday Island of all places?”
Shit, does he know?
I take a deep breath and try to figure out how I can lay the rest of this out without flat out lying, just in case. “No. I had some high school friends who were doing a volunteer trip, and I joined them to get away from my hometown. While I was there, a friend I met mentioned that they were heading to Faraday, and I looked into it. The job was there so I applied.”
It’s not entirely untrue. I mean, when people asked Ainsley who I was, he introduced me as his friend. The heartless bastard.
“Your friend Sally?”
I shake my head but don’t offer any more information.
Ben considers me carefully for a long moment but lets it go. “Why Pilates?”
Finally, a subject I can speak to from the heart. “I was injured at work my first year of college. I worked at the coffee shop on campus. It was a silly thing, really, I was lifting a box of chai concentrate onto a shelf, something I did all the time. But for whatever reason, I tweaked my back. I thought it was okay, like it would work itself out, but it only got worse and worse until I couldn’t leave my bed. The doctors just gave me pain pills, but they didn’t help anything, really. My manager suggested physical therapy and from there I ended up in Reformer Pilates. I went from drugged up and bedridden at twenty-one to perfectly healthy in just a matter of months. I was already on a break from school at that point, because I hadn’t been able to attend classes or focus with all the drugs, so when the Pilates studio owner suggested that I take the training, I went for it.” It’s my comeback story, the tale of how I succeeded in healing my own body when all the doctors told me I’d be disabled for life.
The last thing I expect to see on Ben’s face is disappointment. When he speaks, my heart sinks even lower.
“You dropped out of college to be an exercise instructor?”
“I dropped out of college because I was incapable of attending due to an injury. While I was on that break, I found a different path. One that lets me help people.”
“You could help people as a doctor. Or a physical therapist.”
“Or, as a Pilates instructor.”
“You’re not exactly helping rich white women heal themselves at The Sands.”
Oh, no you didn’t.
My anger flares. “I already told you that I’m gaining the teaching experience necessary to be taken on by a studio back in the States.”
Ben is undeterred by my fluster. “Will you go back to college?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” I’m nearly yelling the words, and I finally seem to snap Ben out of whatever prosecutor mode he slipped into.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I just…I have a nineteen-year-old and I’m struggling with his path. I guess the similarities in your story set me off.”
“Your son?” I ask. The moment of truth. If he knows, he’ll tell me now.
“Yes, Ainsley. He’s been on a bit of a break. A gap year that’s turning into two. And I’m trying to get him back on track, but it’s proving to be more challenging than I expected.”
This is news to me. I thought Ainsley was the golden boy, traveling endlessly with his father’s credit cards, not a care in the world. “He doesn’t want to go to college?”
“He does,” Ben snaps quickly, and then softens and shakes his head with a sigh. “I mean, he’ll go. He’s just taking a more roundabout way to get there.”
“Maybe what he wants in life isn’t at college.”
“That’s not an option. College is where adulthood begins. He can do what he wants with his life after he graduates.”
“Can he, though?”
“What do you mean?”
I’m overstepping here, but I can’t stop myself. “Do you think this need you feel to control his life is just going to evaporate when they hand him a diploma? Somehow, I don”t think that’s the case.”
Ben lets out another sigh and leans back in his chair. He runs his hand through his hair and suddenly, he just looks exhausted. “I just want the best for him.”
I shake my head. “What makes you think you know what’s best? It’s his life. He’s the only one who can know which choices are right for him.”
Ben doesn’t argue, even though I hit straight at the core of his statement. He just shakes his head. “Young people just don’t understand how hard life can be. All I want is for him, for you, for all young people, to just give themselves a chance at a steady, comfortable future. To look at more long-term goals, rather than chasing after instant gratification.”
It’s my turn to shake my head. “Your rich son is going to be fine no matter what. If you really cared about the future of us ‘young people’,” I do air quotes as I try to keep the attitude from overtaking my tone but it’s a lost cause, “you’d be working toward scholarships and programs to help less privileged youth go to college. Not continuing to pay for a seat in class that your son clearly doesn”t want.”
“You’re right. I should probably do that,” he relents, looking as tired as ever yet somehow just as handsome. “I just can’t let it go. Let him go.”
I nod in understanding, even though I don’t understand at all. More than anything, I’m just terrified to speak. This conversation is not exactly what I was expecting when I was pretending to be a princess on the helicopter ride over. As a matter of fact, I feel a bit like a child now, waiting for instructions from my father.
Not the sexiest feeling I’ve ever had.
“Well, you sure know how to make a girl feel like a ridiculous teenager who’s throwing away her life.” I turn back to my plate. At least the food is good. Maybe I”ll head back to the helipad after I’m done eating and hope the pilot takes pity on me.
Ben sighs and crosses his arms. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put this on you. That wasn’t my intention.”
I look up from my plate and narrow my eyes at him. “It wasn’t your intention to drag me over here and hold a one-man intervention about my career choices? I’m sorry to inform you that?—”
“I know, I know. It got out of hand. I’m just not used to…the women in my world are all very…” He struggles to find words and I do nothing to help him, making myself a loaded cheese and jam cracker without even glancing up. “Settled. They’re all lawyers, for the most part. Or doctors or engineers or consultants.”
“That’s the kind of woman you like?” The words burn my chest on the way out, but what’s the point in not saying them? This isn’t a real thing between us for so many reasons. May as well let Ben think it’s one of his reasons that’s the death knell.
“Do you see any of those women here?”
I roll my eyes without looking up. It’s a sweet thing to say—or is it? This man is confusing as hell. “Those are the kind of women you respect, though. Not young exercise teachers who dropped out of college.”
My eyes dare to dart up from my food, and I find him watching me with such intensity that I have to look away. I kind of thought I was being dismissed here, but once again I”m not sure what’s going on.
“With women like that, the women in my world, in the city, I feel even more boxed in than I already do. Like I’m a character in the story of my New York law firm, and they expect me to play a certain part. My life there is already so rigid. I have an ironclad schedule. I have the exact same standing grocery order delivered from Whole Foods each week. I have the same suits made again and again. I just go through the motions of my life like a train on a track. The few times I’ve been set up with women in that world, all I”ve been able to see are years and years of the same thing spread out before me. Repeating the same day over and over until I’m dead.”
My mouth opens when he finishes his surprising little speech, but I can’t think of what to say, so I just suck in a breath and hold his intense gaze. It’s not long before I’m rewarded—or punished—with the exact words I hadn’t even known I wanted to hear.
“With you, it’s different. These last few days, I’ve felt more than I”ve felt in years. I’m having fun. I laugh.” He laughs softly as if surprised by the words. “I feel wild, like I”ve been released from my cage. I”ve never acted like this, never felt like this. And it’s you giving me this freedom, I know it is. You have this quiet self-assurance about you. As if you don’t care what I think. And you haven”t already decided what kind of man I am. You don’t have a box for me to fit in that says lawyer or potential husband, or anything like that. I feel like I get to watch you create each moment from scratch, and it’s fascinating. And terrifying. And intriguing. I can’t help but want to be around you. I want what you have for myself, even though I know that’s impossible. Forgive my incessant need to shove you inside a box that I understand. Know that it comes from a place of fear on my part. Fear of what will happen if I stay outside my own box for too long.”
The silence that falls is heavy. I can hardly breathe and can”t tear my eyes away from my plate. Far too scared to see the expression that goes with an admission like that. After too long of a moment, I do look up, and find him watching me. Our eyes dance around each other for a few seconds, speaking volumes without saying a word.
Finally, Ben must resign himself to the fact that I’m not going to respond because his face softens and he stands, holding out his hand.
“I brought you over today for a reason. Are you finished?” He motions to the feast on the table that I’ve only just begun to explore.
I look at the table, down at my plate, and then up at him, unsure if what he’s got in store for me could possibly be better than this.
He laughs. “The staff will package this all up and it will be in the fridge for you anytime you want.”
I set my plate on the table with a small sigh and stand, taking his hand. As soon as I do, I know I”ve made the right choice. His warm, strong hand sends shivers through my body, and I have to work to breathe. I can’t believe I was just wondering if some silly food would be better than this man’s touch—even if he did just say the most terrifyingly lovely things to me and will probably say more. Expect me to say some back.
I certainly have things I’d like to say. About how he makes me feel sexy and in charge. About how much I love teaching him new things about life and sex and exercise. About how I can”t close my eyes without seeing the look on his face when I do something that surprises him.
This man is addicting as hell. I’m fully and completely gone for him.
And that’s a problem.
But it’s a problem for later.
Because right now, this strong, handsome man, who just admitted to having some kind of feelings for me, is leading me by the hand through his giant, beachfront mansion and down a hallway I haven”t explored yet.