Chapter 2
I squeeze my eyes closed so tightly that blobs of neon green form behind my eyelids.
For a second there, it seemed as if the one guy to ever break my heart just casually strolled back into my life.
It seemed as if my boss wanted me and said heartbreaker to travel to Iceland together.
It seemed as if my suddenly revived dream of being promoted all hinged on said trip with said heartbreaker going well.
So well, in fact, that heartbreaker wants to join our team, and I’ll have to see heartbreaker every single damn day in this building. My building.
“Mona?” Ben’s deep, hauntingly familiar voice vibrates through me. Down to my bones. “Are you okay?”
At the same time, Calvin says, “You two already know each other? Excellent.”
Yes. Excellent indeed.
My eyes flip open, and I don’t bother trying to keep them off Ben. After all this time it’s a battle I’d surely lose. His green eyes roam me over in return, two boxers sizing each other up before we throw down in the ring.
Unfortunately, the first thing I notice is precisely how good the years have been to him.
Great, actually. The best the years have been to anyone in the history of all the years.
Not that Ben wasn’t good-looking before.
He always had that Tim Riggins–esque look and the accompanying enigmatic air that made all the girls in our high school fawn over him while simultaneously being too intimidated to talk to him.
But Ben never really paid any of it much attention—remaining quiet and reserved and somehow above it all—which meant the girls of Hudson Springs High were better off settling for one of my twin brothers, who were all too happy to fill the void.
But now…
Ben’s boyish face has matured into hard edges and stubbled growth on a chiseled jaw.
His tall, lanky frame transformed by lean, muscled biceps and shoulders, apparent by the way his long-sleeved shirt perfectly hugs his body.
The hair is still the exact same, though; light brown with strands of gold that catch the light, tousled by restless fingertips and grown out just long enough to suggest he needs an appointment for a haircut.
God, he looks good.
It’s only when my gaze drifts to Ben’s full lower lip that I realize he’s speaking.
He’s telling Calvin that we grew up together in Hudson Springs.
“Old family friends,” he says as I twist back around and flash my practiced smile at Calvin.
I have no other option here. I’m not about to cause an awkward scene and lose any chance of ever getting another opportunity like this.
So I’ll grin and bear it. Even if I’m dying on the inside.
Even if my forced, No Worries! smile makes my cheeks ache.
“If no introductions are necessary then—” Calvin stands, buttoning his suit jacket with one hand in that precise way wealthy men always do.
“Mona, you’re free to go. In fact, take the rest of the day off.
You’ve got packing to do. Benjamin, if you’ll stick around, Shirley has the contract ready for you to sign. ”
I stand at my dismissal, eyes again colliding with Ben’s as I pass by him on my way to the door.
He regards me with a slight wince, as if in apology, and moves to take the seat I vacated.
I wonder what’s going through his head right now.
This situation must be as awkward for him as it is for me.
Or maybe it’s not. Maybe for it to be awkward for him, I would’ve needed to matter to him in the first place.
“Mona, I almost forgot…” Calvin’s voice forces me to turn back just as I’ve almost escaped.
I grin politely, prepared to accept another obligatory Happy birthday.
“Could you arrange a little office party for Shirley’s birthday next month?
” He speaks in hushed tones, though I’m certain the woman in the next room over couldn’t care less about eavesdropping on our conversation.
“Doesn’t need to be anything extravagant.
And no need to worry about it until you get back, of course. ”
“Right. Of course.” My cheeks heat from the embarrassment of thinking Calvin would recognize my birthday, or maybe it’s the intensity of Ben’s gaze blistering my face like a sunburn.
Spinning in my black leather pumps, I flee Calvin’s office so fast that I don’t know if the smoke trailing behind me is from my high heels or Shirley’s cigarettes.
Back on the thirty-sixth floor—an oddly comforting home now—I don’t make it to my own cubicle.
Instead, I collapse into a cheap plastic chair in the cubicle next door belonging to Jacklyn, my best friend and roommate ever since we interned at Around the Globe together, and sputter through what took place on the floor above us.
“Wait,” she says when I finish. “Your Ben is the photographer Benjamin Carter? As in half-a-million-followers-on-Instagram Benjamin Carter?” Her wide, cobalt eyes blink several times in rapid succession. “How have you never told me this?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
Yes, I do. It’s because I wanted to avoid the expression staring back at me now. And because the Ben I knew—teenage Ben with faded jeans and worn-out T-shirts and a customary flannel button-up tied at his waist—is an entirely different person from the photographer upstairs.
“It didn’t seem important.”
“Yeah, okay,” she scoffs. “So, what are you gonna do?”
What am I going to do? Part of me wants to rush back upstairs and tell Calvin I’ve changed my mind, but I don’t have the nerve.
I suppose I could lie like a coward, call Shirley up later and tell her I broke my ankle, too.
Just like Suki! What are the odds? But I know I’m not going to do that, either.
“I’m going to Iceland,” I sigh. “With Ben.”
“Wow.” Jacklyn slowly shakes her head, tosses her wavy auburn hair. “Traveling across the ocean to spend ten long days with your ex. I don’t think I could do it.”
“You wouldn’t know. You have no such ex to speak of.” It’s not an insult. Jacklyn chooses to remain blissfully unattached despite a myriad of worshippers falling at her feet. “Besides, it was a long time ago.”
“Still. Hypothetically speaking, if I had to travel to another country with a guy who did to me what Ben did to you, I’m not sure we’d both make it back. I imagine there are plenty of accidents that could happen in Iceland.”
A genuine smile tugs at my cheeks for the first time today. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be professional yet distant. We’re two colleagues and nothing more.”
Jacklyn’s expression remains dubious, but she has the good manners to let it go. “Speaking of distant, you spending your birthday at your parents’ house with the fam?”
“Of course. It’s tradition.” But at the mention of tonight’s birthday dinner, dread rises in my stomach.
Okay, I shouldn’t use the term dread. That makes me feel guilty.
It’s more like the intense desire to stay curled on the sofa in the Brooklyn apartment I share with Jacklyn and eat strawberry ice cream straight from the carton.
(Although I’d never commit such atrocities; I’m a firm believer in bowls.
It’s just nice to think about sometimes.)
“Come with me?” I beg. “Pleeeeeeease?”
“Can’t. As much as I’d love to see Mason’s gorgeous face—”
My nose scrunches in disgust.
Jacklyn has no problem hooking up with a different person (or persons) each night of the week and then casually discarding them the very next day.
She’ll tell anyone willing to listen that commitment of any type shouldn’t be entered into until one is at least forty.
Because why would anyone want to miss out on all the fantastic sex they could be having with beautiful strangers?
That philosophy is all well and good, and I’m certainly not one to judge anyone’s lifestyle.
However, when Jacklyn and my brother Mason are in the same room, their underlying sexual tension permeates the atmosphere, and I don’t want any knowledge of that situation.
“—I have to finish my article on my weekend in Providence.”
It’s then, as Jacklyn shuffles a stack of old Around the Globe editions on her desk, that I realize how inconsiderate I’ve been.
“Are you okay with this?” I gently prod. “There’s no good reason why Calvin chose me for this assignment instead of you.”
“Yes, there is.” She folds her arms on her desk and focuses her astute blue eyes on me once more. “I like my job here, but I don’t love it. Moving up to the Internationals is your dream, not mine. I’m thrilled for you.” She grimaces. “I mean, minus the whole Ben thing.”
“Honestly though, I’m not sure it is my dream anymore.” I trace my index finger along the edge of her cheap particleboard desk and put voice to my biggest fear. “What if I don’t have what it takes?”
“No, we’re not doing that today,” Jacklyn answers without hesitation.
“You’ve wanted this for as long as I’ve known you, so I’m not allowing you to self-reject before the trip has even begun.
You need to get whatever self-doubt bullshit you’re telling yourself out of your head this instant and seize the damn day. ”
“Maybe you’re right,” I say, wishing I had even an ounce of Jacklyn’s confidence.
“Of course I’m right.”
After a moment, I rise from my chair with something akin to determination (at least my quieter, softer version) stirring inside me. “I guess I need to figure out what the hell one takes to Iceland.”
* * *