Chapter 26
The ride home from the Hamptons feels short, even if I keep looking at the clock every five minutes. I’m not as restless as I was on the way there, but it doesn’t mean I can pay any attention to anything slipping by outside the window in the distance or to the traffic around us, let alone anything Ben says to me. When I see the city skyline looming closer, it feels strange all of a sudden, like something’s wrong, but I can’t pinpoint the reason.
Ben opens my door for me and then grabs my bag out of the back of the Range Rover, carrying it up to my apartment once I get the key in the lock of the door. I’m not sure what to do when he sets it down on the kitchen counter, his palms curving over the edge as he looks over at me.
There’s a silence that feels expectant when he looks over at me. His gaze is unwavering, the steady presence comforting. I haven’t even kicked off my shoes or stepped more than a foot into the apartment.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asks, and my stomach drops all of a sudden.
I realize I don’t want him to go, but I don’t want him to feel obligated to stay. He shouldn’t have to ask me that question, though, especially after just having me with him for a weekend in the Hamptons.
I fiddle with the strap of my purse as I hang it on the hook, because I can’t look at him when I say the words, “No. Go home, it’s Sunday afternoon. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
There’s a beat of silence until I can hear his sigh, even as quiet as it is.
“Okay,” is all he says before breezing over to me.
I turn toward him as his fingers lift my chin, tilting my face up so I have to look at him. I can’t decide whether he looks disappointed or relieved, the emotions flickering in his eyes as he fixates on me aren’t as straightforward as normal.
“I’ll call you.”
Ben leans down to kiss me, and I rise up to my tiptoes to meet him, because this feels like a goodbye I want to treasure. Somehow, it feels like it’s going to be the last.
My hands fist in his shirt as I pull him to me, deepening the kiss, committing it, him, to memory. He’s the spicy cinnamon I’ve learned to crave, to salivate for on demand. My tongue swipes over his just as he brushes my cheek.
My skin is wet beneath the press of his thumb.
He falters, pulling back and my eyelashes flutter, wet and sticking together. I don’t even realize I’ve started crying until a sob bursts from my chest. And then it just doesn’t stop.
“Emmeline…What’s wrong?”
That only makes it worse.
My chest is tight, and I suck in a breath as I shake my head, teeth biting into my lower lip. Because as much as I want that word vomit, it’s frozen just like the rest of me. Like someone pressed the pause button. All I can do is stare up at him while tears run down my cheeks as I fight the way I’m crying, which only makes the whole thing uglier.
Ben wraps his arms around me to lift me off my feet as he walks us down the hallway to my bedroom, setting me down gently on the bed. He pulls off my shoes, letting my socked feet drape over his thigh where he’s kneeling at the edge of the bed.
“Emmeline,” he says again, brushing the hair away from where it’s sticking to my face. “Tell me how I can help.”
“I don’t—” I scrape my hands over my eyes, thankful I didn’t put any makeup on today. That’d make this even more awkward than how my face gets all red and blotchy when I cry. “I’m so fucking stupid, Ben. I’m sorry. You should just go. You need to just go.”
His silence is deafening, and I peek through my fingers at him.
He pulls my hands away from my face, gathering them in his hold, thumb brushing over my palm deliberately. “Tell me why, little bird.”
My lip wavers. Because the look on his face is breaking my heart, shattering it into a million pieces. Because I want what I can’t have. Because I’ve done exactly what Cora said not to.
“You need to go because I want more. I don’t want to just be a sugar baby,” I say. Suddenly, the weight pressing down on my shoulders feels so much lighter and my stomach eases up just a little from its clenching. But then my heart hurts even more when I say, “I can’t be your sugar baby anymore.”
Ben sits back, leaning away from me and every part of me crumbles.
But then his grip tightens on my hand and he brings it to his lips, kissing the back of my hand. His eyes close briefly before opening, and the depth of emotion is immense. I’m still not sure what I’m seeing from him, even when the hard edges of his normal facade seem to dip like when he’s tired or asleep.
I’m not sure of anything until he speaks, but my heart threatens to beat out of my chest regardless.
“I don’t want you to be my sugar baby anymore, either,” he says, and my heart begins to splinter further. “I want you to be so much more than that, Emmeline.”
“What?”
My heart skips and then I’m leaning forward, fingers slipping out of his grasp to graze over his face, to scratch through the grit of his beard until I’m holding onto the strands of his hair like it’s the only thing anchoring me to this world. And then I realize I’ve crawled into his lap, and he’s holding me tight.
“I want more, too.”
I feel dizzy because I’m still not sure I’ve heard him correctly, because what?
“I’m not gonna lie to you anymore, Ben. I feel really fucking crazy right now. I don’t want you to go. If you do, I want to go home with you so we can fall asleep together. Because I have never slept so well in my life. I want to spend as much time with you as I can because I enjoy our time together. I want to be with you.” My lip trembles under the heavy words and I can’t take them back, whether I want to or not.
He’s quiet again, absorbing my words without any change to his expression except for the crinkling of the skin around his eyes that I want to trace back to the silver strands more concentrated at his temples.
His hands grab hold of my hips and he brings me in closer, until there’s hardly any space between us. Until his nose brushes mine and our breath mingles together. Only then does my heart rate settle into a more comfortable rhythm.
“You know,” Ben begins, “when we first met, you asked what would happen if I wanted more and I said I wouldn’t. But I already knew I did, from the moment you sat down.”
My eyes go a little wide, and I plant my hands on his shoulders. “No. You wanted a no-strings-attached sugar baby that you could cut loose any time.”
“That’s what I intended, yes, because I had a hard time opening myself up to let someone in again after the hell that was my relationship with my ex-wife. But you wrapped those strings around me and fucking yanked from the moment you opened your mouth.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I say softly, my fingers tracing up his neck and he leans into my touch.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” he says. “And out of all the countless roads I could have chosen, I thank the stars I chose the one that led to you.”
I am, too.
I’ve been so fucking stupid, fighting against my heart from the start. The thought of missing out on a life meant for us—a sob works up my throat, and Ben’s hands tighten around my waist as he holds me close.
“More,” I choke out, desperate for whatever else he holds close to his chest.
“I love you,” he murmurs, and warmth spreads through my limbs like sunlight filling all the cracks in the darkest parts of me.
“You’re sure? You don’t just love that I’m young and new and fun—”
Ben captures my lips in a kiss, words dying on my tongue as he holds me close, reverently, carefully, like I might still float away. The kiss turns slow, the shared breath between us making my cheeks heat and my heart thump dangerously.
He licks my bottom lip, and I chase him even as he puts distance between us. His fingers grasp my chin to hold me still, his stare heavy through lowered lashes. It’s like he’s stripped me bare, every imperfection, every flaw visible for his purview. I don’t mind it when he’s the one that’s looking at me.
“I’m not just in love with how you make me feel, Emmeline.” He brushes his thumb over my lip as I suck in a breath, his eyes flickering over my face. “I’m in love with you. I may have lived half my life before meeting you, but I’ve never felt more alive than I have with you in my life.”
I almost ask if he’s sure again, but my mouth can’t quite catch up with my brain this time.
He takes a shuddering breath that makes my heart ache and I cling harder to him, fingers spreading through his hair and burrowing home.
“The only thing I fear is you sacrificing the best years of your life to be with me. I want to give you the rest of my days, because you deserve all of them. You deserve more than I have to give, and I have to live with that selfish thought as the only thing that’s been holding me back.”
A laugh wells out of me. “You’re an idiot.” I reach out a trembling hand to lay on his chest over his heart, and I can feel the thump beneath the press of my palm. “I want everything with you. Don’t make me beg for it.”
“Not for this,” he says softly, and it’s like a slow caress over my skin. “There is no one I’d rather spend the rest of my days loving than you.”
Something yanks on my heart—his words, the way he gazes at me, and I know I have to tell him. Every single bit of it.
I scramble off his lap, running down the hallway, nearly slamming my shoulder into the wall with the way I can’t even walk a straight line. Because he has to know. I have to tell him. Show him. So that he knows that this is everything to me.
“Emmeline?” he calls, his voice floating closer. And I hear the echo of his footsteps as I pivot back and forth in the living room, debating between turning back to him or carrying on to the kitchen. I search the counter for my tote bag, groaning when all that’s there is my overnight bag. I glance over the couch, the coffee table—before I remember it was on the hook by the door, right next to my purse.
I stumble over to it, just as Ben reaches out for me, his fingers grazing my side and tugging on the hem of my shirt. He steps with me, breath skimming my scalp.
“Emmeline?”
“Just—fuck—hold on.” A frustrated groan slips up my throat, hissing through my clenched teeth. I tear the zipper on the tote open as I spin on my heel and turn it upside down, holding it open wide to shake the contents out onto the floor. A lip gloss tube clatters onto the tile. An earbuds case. A pen. Two tampons. And the money—every bit of cash he ever handed me.
I drop the bag on top of the scattering of bills, thousands of dollars at my feet.
“I need you to know I never touched it, not one fucking dollar.”
He looks down, and my toes curl as I balance on my heels because I still want to kick the money away, so I can be sure there’s nothing left between us.
“Why not?”
I recoil, but he reaches out to soothe the jerk of my shoulders.
“It was a gift,” he adds.
“Because despite the fact that money was supposed to be a large component of our arrangement and I really, really”—my eyes drop closed, and I suck in breath—“need it, I didn’t want it to influence the way I felt about you. Not one way or the other.”
“You haven’t spent any of it? Not one dollar I’ve given you in almost three months?”
“No.”
“Emmeline.” He sighs, hands coasting down my arms to tug on my wrists as he pulls me over to the couch.
I slid into his lap and scoot up his thighs until my knees are tucked into the back of the couch.
“I want you to use the money. Pay off your loan. Your bills. Something.” He brushes my hair out of my eyes when my chin dips.
“Are you mad at me?”
He shakes his head, and relief courses through my blood like fresh oxygen.
“I love you,” I say, because I do. I love him so fucking much. I’ve never given my heart away like this, but with the tender way he smiles at my words, I don’t feel like running anymore.
“Good, because I love you, too.”
I lean in to kiss him again, and it feels like champagne bubbles popping under my skin; the hot and cold that raises goosebumps over my arms and neck as he threads a hand through my hair and tugs until I’m squirming in his lap.
I pant out a breath when he pulls away from licking into my mouth, his breath blowing over my ear as he slides his hand to curve around my ass.
“Promise me.”
“Anything,” I answer, and I realize he is so fucking dangerous.
“Use that money, or I’ll just do it for you.”
“Do what?”
“Pay off your debts.”
I push my bottom lip out at him, the tip of his tongue tracing it as I lean in.
“You still gonna be my sugar daddy?”
“Always,” he says. “You’re mine, baby. I’ll take care of you if you let me.”
And I think I will, because I fucking deserve something good in my life. I’ve given up a lot with my family for my sisters and nephews, and have reaped no reward other than their freedom, being in their life. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but I’m ready to step out of the shadows and live my life for me.
I run my fingers over his lips, glancing up at him before leaning in to kiss him again.
“Please,” I say, and he already knows exactly what I mean.