14 BEN
BEN
I pull out my phone eagerly, knowing Janie must’ve just received her gift.
Janie: Thank you, it’s gorgeous
Hm. That’s not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.
Ben: Where’s my selfie?
Janie: [photo]
I smile. She’s flipping me the bird. I can barely see her or the cubicle. But the decorator sent me photos in the wee hours. I know it’s a stunning makeover and I know it suits my new wife. Nothing cheesy, nothing obnoxious. Not too cheery. It’s classy, cool, low-key. Just like her.
Ben: Do you like it?
Janie: I do.
Ben: I can definitely tell that from the call, the FaceTime, all the photos, emojis and exclamation marks.
Janie: Ha. It’s very cool. Thanks again.
Ben: That’s all I get?
Janie: Shouldn’t have put “wifey” on the card.
Ben: Malarkey. I bet Ellie gobbled all the cute romance bits right up.
Janie: True, she did.
Ben: Then my work there is done.
Janie: K. See you Friday.
I frown.
I’m not sure which is bothering more, the fact that she wasn’t particularly moved by the gesture or the fact that I bungled it up further, making it sound like the whole thing was for Ellie.
Shit.
I pull up my message with my sister-in-law.
Ben: So, about the grand gestures
Wait.
I delete my draft message. I can’t very well ask Samantha for advice on how to win over Janie now. As far as my sister-in-law and everyone else in the world knows, she’s been won. Signed, sealed, and delivered, as seen on the pages of all the major tabloids.
Just as well.
I shake my head and tuck my phone away.
What the hell am I on about? I don’t need to woo this woman. I wanted to brighten her gloomy office. I did. End of.
“Why're you sighing like a ninny?” Nigel disrupts my silence in the back of the town car.
“Sorry?”
“You keep shifting in your seat and sighing. Bloody annoying.”
I huff, “Well I’m sure the substantial raise you just received covers a bit of extra sighing by your boss, eh?”
He glares at me in the rear view mirror. I’ve never truly been his boss. The man’s only ten years older than me but much wiser. Plus, he’s been my guard since I was a teenager. In truth, he feels a bit more like my boss than the other way round.
“You just seem off is all,” he studies me.
I wave a dismissive hand. “You’re just grumpy that you have to play driver today.”
“No,” he draws out the word. “Your twitching have anything to do with your new lass?” I make the mistake of making eye contact with him in the reflection. “Who’d have thought a shotgun wedding wouldn’t work out.”
“Spare me your lectures, it’s working out fine.”
“I’m sure, what with you across the country and her back at her desk job,” he mutters at me.
He has a man secretly guarding her in New Jersey. She’s a billionaire’s wife now. Better safe than sorry. Still, it irks me that he’s studying Janie’s movements.
Which is odd. Why do I care if a man watches her? That’s what I pay them for. What did I have for breakfast? Not enough protein maybe.
“She wanted to get back to her job,” I find myself getting defensive.
“Uh huh, and didn’t think her husband would, I dunno, stay in town with her?”
I snipe, “Really? You a love expert now, Nigel?”
“No, unfortunately for me, I’m a damned Ben Clark Expert.”
“Piss off.”
“You piss off. I know you, and you’re acting strange and something about this whole wedding business is weird.” He waits, but I just watch out the window. “Out with it so we can stop whatever is making you so…twitchy.”
“You’re wrong,” I start, “Everything’s grand. She and I—” I pause and he watches me. “Oh, alright. You’re sworn to secrecy anyway, I don’t need to remind you. She and I are contractual. Dad pinned me in a corner about getting married by the end of this year.”
“Ah,” he says, not shocked. He knows my world well. After a minute or so of internal processing he looks at me again. “Why her?”
I shrug, “We’re friends. Or…friends of friends. Emerson’s wife knows her well so we’ve been ‘round each other quite often. She’s genuine, unlike everyone we know in this world.” I gesture toward the jets surrounding us as we pull into the small, private airport. “And she needed the money.”
“She didn’t look particularly friendly in Las Vegas,” he says slowly.
I snort, “You caught that, did you? She’s not my biggest fan. Kind of up my ass about everything all day long, actually. I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone so squarely unimpressed. But. Like I said, she needs the money.”
“That’s shite, mate,” he says, his Irish accent coming out.
My head snaps from the hangars outside to his furrowed brow in the mirror. “Pardon?”
“You like her.”
“Of course I like her, I just bloody married her. As I said, she’s funny and smart and—”
“No, I mean you like her. Enough to start sighing like an angsty teenager back there.”
“Quit exaggerating, it’s only charming when I do it,” he starts to argue but I talk over him, which he hates. “She needed the money, Nigel. I needed someone I could trust who wasn’t a total bore or a vindictive wench. Or at risk of falling in love with me. She fits the criteria. Full stop.”
“Okay,” he says, grumpy. Now I’m grumpy too. Hell if I know why. Probably because my opinionated bodyguard is not saying what he’s really thinking.
I press him, “Okay, what?”
“Okay, nothing. You say that’s it, then that’s it. You just seem...” He puts the car in park outside our hangar. “Off. That’s all.”
I sigh. “Well, if you must know, I…I think I buggered up already.”
He twists in his seat to face me as he deadpans, “I’m shocked.”
“Back before the wedding, I was putting my sister-in-law Samantha on, acting as if I was trying to win Janie over. She knows Janie well. She said not to do any grand gestures, nothing romantic, nothing extravagant or expensive.” Nigel makes a face.
Because he knows me. I always do all those things.
Not only for women, either. Friends, family, staff.
I give giant gifts. I used to pull huge practical jokes on my brothers.
Anything to make people smile, release some tension.
I’ve never really held back before. “Yeah,” I respond to his face.
“What’d you do?”
“It wasn’t crazy, I hired a decorator to make over her work cube in Halloween decorations. The whole office does it. And it wasn’t even that expensive.”
“D’you pay off the night security guards?”
“Of course.”
“Pay overtime for the decorator’s staff, pay extra for the materials the decorator probably had to expedite and—”
I raise a hand. “I get it.”
“Did she at least like the stuff?”
I let out a small laugh. “I don’t really know.”
“Huh,” he turns back around and grabs his keys and sunglasses. “Well, guess it’s a good thing you don’t like her like her, huh?”
I huff, “Don’t be cute, Nigel. I do not like her like her. I just don’t want to piss her off!” I find myself yelling at the man who is already out of the car. “You going to come round and get my d—” but he slams his door shut and walks toward the Clark Industries jet.
I let myself out and follow after him. I feel rattled from our conversation, but I’m sure I’ll feel better relaxing on the plane, drink in hand, seat reclined.
So, she didn’t love the gesture, so what? It was good for appearances, as I bloody said! Nigel says nothing more as I sit on the sofa across from him. But he grunts in annoyance.
Rude old bastard.
“Right, ready to head to whatever Clark Enterprises has going in North Texas?” our pilot asks.
I open my mouth and barely, just barely stop myself from telling him to take the jet to New Jersey rather than Dallas. “Yes,” I say instead.
I’m not rushing off to Janie, who doesn’t want to see me. This is what we agreed on. I travel, she works, we make appearances once a week. This is what I want.
…Is this what I want?
No.
Not really.
Purposely ignoring the smug look I receive from Nigel as I stand, I quickly head to the cockpit.