Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Sean,
For two weeks, we kept away from one another. We’d be polite and say hello if we passed in the hall or were in the same meeting.
Then we were assigned to work together on a project that, according to Bennett, would help us make our mark—something that would solidify our futures with the firm or wherever we went next.
It was for an outdoor shopping area, and our boss, Mr. Ewerdt, said he wanted to see what we could do together.
As much as I dreamed of us being thrown together, I knew Bennett wasn’t in any frame of mind to pursue something with me.
He was still wearing his wedding ring, for heaven’s sake.
Regardless, a small part of me was excited to spend time alone with him.
A week later, we were due to present the following morning, and Mr. Ewerdt didn’t like what we’d come up with for the fountain area—the largest attraction at the shopping mall—and we had to scrap it and start over, so we had no choice but to work late.
The office had cleared out hours earlier. We sat at the long table in the design room, sketches in front of us, Bennett on his computer, his mouse clicking as he tried to show me what he was visualizing on the giant screen in front of us.
I pretended to understand what he was saying, but my mind was somewhere else.
I had so many questions I didn’t have the right to ask.
The number one was whether he still loved his wife.
Every time I was away from him, I’d reprimand myself for still loving him, knowing he belonged to someone else.
But when I was with him, all those talks about letting go and forgetting him disappeared from my mind.
“I’d like lilacs there,” I said, getting up from my chair. He moved the mouse to point at the area, but I said, “To the right.”
He still wasn’t understanding what I meant, so I got up from my seat and leaned over him, asking to take control of the mouse. I felt his gaze on the side of my head—not the screen—as I dragged and clicked the spot I was talking about.
“I moved out the night I found them.”
“This is where I want them.” I ignored his confession, unsure where he wanted this conversation to go.
Then his hand covered mine on the mouse. The second we touched, it was there again—that pull we never really buried tightening beneath the surface of our skin.
If we had any chance of keeping this professional, we needed to forget the past, forget he was going through a separation, forget the way our bodies were still drawn to one another.
“Bennett,” I said, pulling my hand out from under his. Stepping back, I hoped the space would clear my memory too—of those calloused palms that used to run across my body.
“I wasn’t a good husband,” he murmured.
I leaned against the conference room wall, and he swiveled his chair to look at me.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“She wanted to stay in California after college, while I wanted to go back to Willowbrook. The longer we stayed here, the more resentful I grew. Stopped putting in as much of an effort.”
I blinked at him. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I just want you to know… she’s not the villain in our story. Blame can go both ways.”
“It’s your business, not mine.”
He stared down at his hands. “I’m not sure that’s true.” His voice was low and unsure. He lifted his gaze to meet mine, and I swallowed to soothe my dry throat.
“Why?”
He tilted his head as if that was his answer. As if he thought I knew. But I wanted to hear him say it. I wanted to hear his confession—that maybe he never forgot me either. I wasn’t going to be some rebound after his failed marriage just because I happened to be there.
We stared at each other for a long time, and the air between us crackled. I should’ve shut it down. I should’ve left the room—damn the presentation.
But my body betrayed me.
Because instead of walking out of that room, I whispered, “I can’t be your rebound.”
His breath hitched—the only sound in the quiet conference room. And had someone asked, I would’ve said that was all I needed.
My pulse drummed in my ears. I wrapped my arms around myself as if they could protect me from being hurt. His eyes didn’t waver from mine.
“We can’t do this, Bennett,” I said, stepping to the side and over to my stuff farther down the table.
“I hate it when you call me that.”
I huffed and shut my laptop. “It’s your name.”
“Not for you, it’s not.”
“What do you want me to do here?” Everyone who knew Bennett usually called him B. I’m not sure when it started. I think when he and Emmett used to be made fun of for having such similar names.
“I’m not sure I have the answers.”
I stuffed my laptop in my bag and grappled to pick up the papers off the table. “Then I need to go.”
I was halfway to the door, hell-bent on leaving him in that room to figure out what he wanted. The tension between us had built over the two weeks we’d been sharing space—there was no denying that—but he’d gotten married. He’d moved on with his life while mine had stalled when it came to love.
“I thought I could forget you,” he admitted. His voice was rough and pained, so I circled back around. “That I could move on.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I remained quiet and still.
“As my marriage dissolved, I started searching.”
“Don’t.” I didn’t want to hear that he’d been thinking of me on the nights I’d been thinking of him too.
“But you don’t do anything on your socials. You have one black-and-white photo of you, and the rest are only of your work.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes.
“Please look at me.”
I swiveled back around, glancing at him through my eyelashes, not daring to give him all of my attention.
He looked down as though he regretted what he was about to say. “I couldn’t control myself. I was so unhappy, and I craved the connection we had.”
More silence stretched thin in the room. I should have left, let him keep his confessions. Because looking back, he was in no place to start something with me.
Bennett did everything by the book his entire life—and maybe that’s why a part of me trusted his decision to rekindle whatever was between us. That his marriage was really over. That he wouldn’t have said those things if he wasn’t certain.
Now, I wonder if it’s just the pull—the invisible string that refuses to break, no matter how thin and taut it gets.
He stood from the chair, and my breath hitched. He was going to break the distance, and I didn’t have it in me to fight him.
“When you walked into that break room, I knew.”
“Knew what?”
He took another step forward. “That I was stupid to ever think what we had would’ve faded, no matter how hard I tried to bury it.”
Another step, and I remained still. I couldn’t breathe. My hands gripped my bag and papers to my chest like a shield.
“I can’t keep pretending.” He stopped in front of me, just inches away. “I look at you every day and try to convince myself that I don’t still want you. That I don’t dream about what our future would’ve looked like.”
His words slammed into me.
“You married her,” I whispered.
He exhaled as if he’d been holding it in for years. “You broke up with me… in a letter.”
“We were young.”
I had chosen safety for my heart. I couldn’t live that double life anymore, and he was already pulling away, so I’d made the decision I thought he didn’t want to. But that didn’t mean I stopped loving him. I was just scared.
“I never stopped loving you,” I confessed.
His eyes closed for a beat. When they opened, that brokenness wasn’t there anymore. As if he had wondered but would’ve never asked me.
He brushed a strand of hair from my face, and my body leaned into the touch as if it had been waiting all this time for a physical connection with him. His hand lingered at my cheek, his thumb warm as it rubbed back and forth.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you every day,” he said.
My breath hitched. “Then why haven’t you?”
“Because I didn’t know if you’d want me to. I know I’m coming to you with some baggage.”
“I want you too,” I said—and my admission broke something loose inside both of us.
He took the last step, our bodies flush against each other, and pressed his lips to mine.
The kiss was years of desperation unleashed.
His hands went to my waist, pulling me closer as though he didn’t trust me to stay in the room. My hands slid into his hair, conveying that I wasn’t going anywhere.
All the talking was done.
My back hit the wall of the conference room, and he deepened the kiss, our bodies moving like they remembered everything we thought we’d forgotten.
When we finally pulled apart, he rested his forehead against mine.
“I never got over you,” he whispered.
“I never wanted you to.”
The room could’ve burned down around us, and I wouldn’t have moved an inch.
For the first time in years, I was right where I was supposed to be.
Delaney