Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Bennett
Leo’s apartment looks like the apartment a teenage boy would imagine in his head, apart from the fact that there aren’t pictures of half-naked women on the walls. Well, there are, but they’re black-and-white photographs in expensive frames, not dogeared posters. There’s the biggest TV screen I’ve ever seen on one wall, and right next to it is a smaller screen—presumably so he can game and watch TV simultaneously? A bar at the other end of the room is only a little smaller than the one at my hotel—the one where I met Efa.
I was on calls all morning and couldn’t request housekeeping until later in the day. Efa wasn’t with the older woman when she finally arrived. It took me by surprise how disappointed I was. I even picked up my phone to message her and ask her where she was, but I realized I didn’t have her number.
Where did she go?
“Beer?” Leo asks, stepping behind the gigantic bar.
“Am I the first here?” I sit down on the black velvet couch and spare half a thought for what residual substances I’m currently coming into contact with. I bet this couch has seen things no one should. To say Leo is a player is like saying Satan isn’t the kind of man you want to bring home to Mom.
“Of course you’re the first one here. This is our thing. We have a few minutes before the rest of the pack arrives.”
I nod. He’s right. It’s often the two of us together early. And today it’s not entirely by accident.
“How’s your love life?” I ask him, taking the beer he offers and glancing around the place.
He chuckles. “Absolutely dandy, thanks.”
“Do you ever sleep with anyone more than once?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. “Generally I have a regular-Tuesday-evening thing with someone. A sometimes-Friday thing with another. And then they cycle in and out. You know.”
I don’t. But I don’t say anything.
“I picked up this girl the other night and called her to come over last night. That’s not usually my thing. But she’s fucking hot.”
I half zone out of Leo talking about women. It’s not why I asked the question.
“How young is too young for you?” I ask.
He laughs. “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to feel better about yourself by comparing yourself to me?” He doesn’t sound offended. That’s the thing with Leo—he knows who he is and he’s totally fine with it.
“If that’s what I’m doing, I’m an asshole. But I don’t think I am. I think I’m just trying to…” There are so many reasons why lusting after Efa is wrong. The age thing is the biggest.
Before I can finish my sentence, Worth appears. Leo leaves his door unlocked most of the time. I hope he’s more careful about condoms than he is about home security.
“What’s going on?”
“Bennett’s fucking a younger woman and wants to feel better about it,” Leo says.
Worth raises his eyebrows. “How young?”
“How young is too young?” Leo asks. “That’s the question. What do you think, Worth?”
“We’re not talking underage, are we?” Worth asks.
I choke on the mouthful of beer. “No!” I half yelp, half gasp.
Worth nods and bends to take a bottle of wine from the wine fridge—a fraction of Leo’s wine collection, the rest of which is stored off-site. “That’s good. Because that would be…” He shivers. “Out of character and just gross.”
“I agree,” I say. “But very early twenties?”
“Nice,” Leo says.
“Don’t be a dick about this,” I say, my tone even. Because I’m actually serious. I want their opinion and we all have this bantery, jokey relationship, but we’re also there for each other when shit gets real. And I want to discuss this.
Leo sighs like he’s giving up on trying to make jokes. “You’re thirty-four. Early twenties is no big deal. It’s ten years.”
Worth joins us on the sofa with an empty glass, a corkscrew and the bottle of wine—an Argentinian malbec. It’s a favorite of mine and I sent it to all of them at Christmas.
“Twelve and a bit to be exact.”
“Because you did a background check on her,” Leo says.
Of course I did a background check. It’s what I do. It’s who I am. “But in your early twenties… you’re… still figuring stuff out.” What do I care if Efa is figuring stuff out? It’s not like I’m considering dating her. I’m not going to ask her to dinner. Marry her. I just want to maybe, possibly, see her naked again. So why am I so intent on discussing this?
“Do we ever age out of figuring stuff out?” Worth asks, and it catches me by surprise. Worth is one of the most together people I know. Maybe that says more about the people I know than Worth. “We’re human beings. The bar is always being raised. Ten years can be an ocean or it can be a puddle.” He shrugs, scoots forward on the sofa, and sets to work opening the wine.
“A puddle?” I ask.
“Yeah, it depends on who you are and life experience. If you dated a woman who was twenty-one, lived at home with her parents in rural Alabama where she was homeschooled, it’s going to be different to you dating a woman who has more in common with you. Someone who’s done some living, even at a relatively young age.”
“Right,” I say.
“Are you dating her?” Worth asks.
I shake my head.
“Interesting,” Leo says.
“Why is it interesting?” I ask.
“I’ve known you a long time. You’ve never talked about a woman you were actually dating. And here we are, talking about a woman you want to date.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to date her.”
Both Leo and Worth chuckle.
“What? I’ve slept with her. And… I don’t know. I wanted to know if I shouldn’t have because, you know, her age and…”
“And… what?”
“And she wants a job.”
Leo slides his beer bottle onto the table. “A job where?”
“At Fort Inc.?”
Worth slides his drink next to Leo’s like they both need to have their hands free for what’s about to happen.
“She knows you work at Fort?” Leo asks.
I pull in a breath and nod. This is such a can of worms. I’m not sure I should have opened it.
“Fuck,” Worth says.
Leo and I both turn to look at Worth, who looks right at me.
“She knows you’re Ben Fort,” he says.
Leo gasps like he’s just seen a dead body.
“I didn’t tell her,” I say. “She figured it out.”
Leo’s eyebrows crawl up to his hairline and his eyeballs look like they’re about to pop out of his fucking skull. “She figured it out? How the fuck did a twenty-one-year-old figure it out when the world media hasn’t been able to?”
It’s a good question.
“She didn’t know when I fucked her. The first time.”
“And then she figured it out and you fucked her again?” Leo asks. “I’m surprised you didn’t have her arrested and deported to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. So, what, she knows and it’s no big deal? Did you get her to sign an NDA?”
I let out a hollow laugh. “Actually no.”
“What?” Worth asks, standing up like someone just put a cattle prod up his ass.
“She pointed out that an NDA isn’t going to stop her talking if that’s what she wants to do.”
“It’s stopped all your employees talking.”
“Maybe,” I reply.
“Maybe?” Leo asks.
“I think they keep quiet partly out of the legal obligation, but when I spoke to Efa, she made me see that an NDA can’t actually do much. I think my employees don’t talk out of loyalty. Any of them could have made a lot of money by telling people who I am.”
“And… Efa made you see this?” Leo asks.
I grin. “Yeah, I guess she did… when she mocked me for asking her to sign the NDA.”
“I like this girl,” Leo says. “Sounds like she knows how to run rings around you.”
Was that her appeal? Is that why I was sitting here chatting to my best friends about her when I’d never discussed any woman with them before? Because she showed me how flimsy the NDA was? Because she had an ass that hypnotized me? Or because she figured out who I was? “I guess,” I reply. “I don’t know her that well.”
But not because she hides anything.
“Sounds like she knows you very well.”
Maybe that’s it. Maybe the fact that she figured out who I am makes me wonder what else she sees. In me. In others. In the world.
“I don’t know if the NDA is worth pursuing,” I say. “I don’t even know what pursuing means. I don’t think she’s in the country long, and anyway, if she’s not working for Fort, she’s going to be working with a rival or a customer. That brings with it a whole heap of problems.”
“Yeah, just give up,” Worth says. It’s such an un-Worth thing to say, I can tell he’s mocking me. “Sounds like you. A quitter.”
“I’m just saying. It’s complicated.”
“Life’s complicated,” Worth replies.
“Mine isn’t,” Leo says.
“If it isn’t, it will be,” Worth says.
“I’m not saying I want to marry this girl,” I say.
Worth frowns. “Woman.”
I nod. Worth’s right. “So if we’re not worried about the age difference, what about the power differential? She wants a job at Fort. I don’t want to be fucking someone because they want a job from me.”
“I’m not sure I’m the one to help you here,” Leo says. “I’ve never analyzed any of my relationships that closely.”
Worth’s eyes slice to mine, but neither of us says anything. Leo has had a complicated life, but he chooses simplicity these days.
“I think you should trust your gut,” Worth says. “If you thought she was assuming her skills in the bedroom would get her a job, you wouldn’t be sleeping with her.”
“Right,” I say. I’m pretty sure the sex we had the first time is the reason Efa wanted to have sex again. My skin starts to buzz just thinking about her bent over my desk, uniform pushed up over her ass.
I clear my throat before I start getting a boner in front of these guys, which is just gross.
But whatever’s between me and Efa isn’t just sex. If it was, I’m pretty sure I could figure it out on my own. I wouldn’t have brought it up here. Efa has complicated my brain. Why am I still thinking about her? Why am I so keen to delve beneath the surface? Why was I so disappointed when I didn’t see her today?
“I think your gut will know better, the more you get to know her,” Worth says.
“You’re right. So are we going to watch sports or what?” I ask, just as the door goes again and Fisher and Byron appear. I’m done discussing this. I’ve made my decision. When everyone’s settled, I’ll head out. Go and see her—take the NDA. Just one more time, maybe my gut will be able to tell for certain why I can’t get this woman out of my mind.