Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Avril
I get to Hotel on Ninth Street early on Monday after a terrible night’s sleep in my own bed.
Poppy was out all day yesterday with some old school friends, and I was in bed by the time she got back.
Which is good, because I was in the mood to wallow, and I wouldn’t have been able to explain to her why.
I’m not sure why I felt so sad. I got what I wanted.
I endured eight nights living with Ben without falling in love with him and secured his help getting the Boston site.
I wave and smile to the two women at reception. It’s quiet at this time of day. I like it. I can always get a lot done without the inevitable interruptions that crop up when the day is in full swing.
I slump down behind my desk and turn on my computer. I really want to go through the financials for the Boston hotel. I wonder how long it will take Ben to do whatever it is he does. How long will I have to wait before I get in front of the seller and make them an offer?
I didn’t even ask how long he was in Colorado.
He might be there all week. Worth is getting impatient about investing his money.
I need Ben to pull through for me and I need it to happen fast. I pull out my phone and open up our messages.
I could call him, ask him how long he thinks things will take.
I’m not even quite sure what he’s going to do.
But I don’t want to interrupt him. He’s in Colorado, doing…I have no idea. When he first told me, I assumed it was for business, but the reason I wasn’t able to sleep was because I couldn’t shake the feeling that business meetings don’t take place very often on a Sunday night.
Had he flown to the Colorado Club for a date?
He made the Empire State Building light up for me and we’re not even dating.
Flying across the country for dinner doesn’t sound like too much of a stretch.
But that’s fine, right? It makes sense he would choose to have dinner with someone he was actually dating over some girl who made a bet that she wouldn’t fall in love with him.
I’m using him, like he said. I want something from him.
Of course he’s going to choose a date over me.
“You’re early,” Poppy says, as she gets into the office. “You look terrible.”
I throw her an are-you-shitting-me look.
“I just mean you look tired. Are you missing the penthouse view?” She hangs her bright red winter coat on the coat stand and takes a seat.
“Terribly. I can’t sleep so close to sea level anymore,” I say.
“So you’re back home now?” she says.
“Yes. How was yesterday with your finance buddies?” I ask, not wanting Poppy’s focus on me right now. “Did you swap Excel hacks all night?”
“How did you guess?” she asks. “Don’t tell anyone what a geek I am.”
I grin, grateful that she didn’t take offense at my poking.
“So, now that you’ve proved Ben East wrong and not fallen in love with him…” She pauses like she’s just about to go off on a tangent, but then she resumes her original thought. “What happens now? He ends up getting you the Boston site?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. That’s his reputation, right? That he can pull off any deal. But I’m not expecting miracles. I just want to get in front of the seller and make our case.”
“So you’ll be traveling up to Boston together?” she asks.
“No,” I say, a little more sharply than I meant to. “Why would we do that?”
Poppy shrugs. “To meet with the seller.”
My heart tumbles in my chest at the idea that I’d be traveling to Boston with Ben.
I kinda assumed Ben would give me a name and number for the seller and the rest would be up to me.
“I actually don’t know what happens now.
Ben had to fly out of town unexpectedly yesterday, so we didn’t have a chance to discuss it. ”
There’s a knock at our office door and Adesh comes in with an envelope. “A courier just dropped this off for you, Avril.” He hands me a brown bubble envelope.
“Thanks,” I say, pulling open the package absentmindedly. I turn back to Poppy. “I guess we’ll speak next week.”
I peer inside the package. It’s just a bunch of papers. I pull them out and they’re marked EastHouse Inc. I scan the documents—and I can’t believe what I see.
It’s a report on the Boston site.
It sets out the objective and the problem with the seller disappearing.
It lists the seller’s company name and then the shareholder in that company—Patrick O’Leary.
It lists his address, then all the times Ben has reached out to him.
At the bottom of the page is a line that says, “Proposed Meeting”, and the date is Thursday of this week in Boston.
I stand up in shock. “Oh my god,” I blurt.
I scan the pages and look at the dates again. Ben’s been working on this all week. He was always going to help me.
So why did he go through the entire rigmarole of me moving in with him? The dates? It doesn’t make sense.
“What?” Poppy says. “Is it bad news?” Poppy always assumes everything’s going to be bad news.
“The opposite,” I say. “It’s really good news. It’s from Ben. He’s found the seller. I’m meeting with him on Thursday.”
I glance up at Poppy and she looks as shocked as I feel.
“That was quick,” she says.
“Really quick,” I say. “He’s been working on it all week.”
“Then why…I don’t get it. Oh! He likes you. He wanted an excuse to…be close to you.”
I frown. That doesn’t sound like Ben. Does it? He’s usually super clear about what he wants. “I don’t know why he had me move in. It’s weird.”
“Did anything happen between you two?”
“What do you mean?” My voice comes out slightly higher than usual. When I turn to look at Poppy, her expression tells me I’m busted.
“Oh,” says Poppy. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Come on, I’ve known you since you were born, Avril. What happened? Have you two been boning this entire time? Do you like him? Did you actually fall in love with him?”
I slump down on my chair. The jig is up. I’m busted.
I give Poppy a full rundown of my week. How fun it’s been, how well we got along and also how romantic Ben is.
I’ve never had any man I’ve dated put in the effort that Ben did to our dates.
And I know he has a lot of resources at his disposal, but I would have been just as likely to fall in love with him if we’d stayed in and ordered DoorDash.
“And nothing ever happened? Like, no kiss or—”
“Just one night,” I say. “We kind of agreed on a time-out.” I give her the outline of what happened and try not to get that feeling of fireworks going off in my stomach every time I think about that night.
“So, what now? You obviously like each other. Are you going to date or what?”
“I didn’t say I liked him,” I reply.
Poppy rolls her eyes. “Come on. You very obviously like him.”
“And he’s very obviously not a good idea. He’s…more complicated than he comes off. His job is to have everyone like and trust him. He’s very good at it.”
“What’s so bad about that? Are you saying that he manipulated you into liking him?” she says.
I shake my head. “No. I don’t think that.
I don’t think he manipulates anyone. He shows them the version of himself that they’re most likely to connect with, but he’s always the person he presents himself as.
” I think I saw the most versions of Ben.
I saw the pissed-off version, the slightly irritated version, the bed-rotting version—no one else ever saw that.
“Everyone likes him and he’s authentic. So, what’s the problem? Ask him out on a date.”
“I can’t. He’s helping me with Boston. He doesn’t want to mix the personal and professional, despite our time-out, and I’ve got to respect that.
” Ben’s deliberately put himself in a position where he has the power to make things happen and get things done.
In turn, that means people need his help.
I need his help. The entire reason I agreed to move in with him was because I wanted something from him.
“Maybe he’ll make an exception for you.”
It’s like someone is playing the double bass inside my chest as a dull sonorous string inside me is plucked.
“Every woman wants to be the exception for a man they like. But I’m more realistic than that.
” At least I want to be. “He’s a nice guy and we had some sexual chemistry.
That’s it.” My voice sounds hollow, even to me.
“I guess you can see how it goes on Thursday.”
“Why Thursday?” I ask in confusion.
“Because you’ll both be going up to Boston.”
My heart flutters a little in my chest. Will Ben come? “I don’t think Ben would be going. He’s always so busy. Now that he’s found the seller, I’m sure he’ll leave the rest to me.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think so. If he’s as good as Worth seems to think he is, he’ll want to see the deal through to the finish line—that’s his reputation. And maybe it’s a good excuse to see you again.”
“Why would he need an excuse?” I ask. “Ben’s the kind of guy who knows what he wants and goes for it.
If he wanted me, I would be in no doubt.
” The words taste bitter as they come out of my mouth, because I realize what I’m saying is true.
Ben is great at asking for what he wants.
And getting it. He’s told me he’s into me.
Maybe that’s true but that doesn’t mean he can get over the fact that he’s helping me with the Boston hotel.
If he wanted me, he’d say so.
And he hasn’t. So he doesn’t.
I swallow. It’s not until this moment that I realize I want him.
The thought of not going back to his apartment this evening is making me itch.
Not because it’s gorgeous and the bed is far more comfortable than my own, but because I want to hear about Ben’s day.
I want to eat his omelets and his chocolate chip cookies.
I want to see him when he’s just come out of the shower and his hair is still wet and he’s bare chested.
I want to lie in bed with him and hold hands.
I think back to those last few hours together.
Waking up together. Making plans to do nothing.
Talking. I believe our connection was real.
But I’m not sure Ben knows that. This entire time I’ve been living with him, I’ve always—well, almost always—had my eye on the prize.
I was staying with Ben because I wanted him to help me with the Boston site.
I was using him to get what I wanted—independence from my siblings, an opportunity to prove that I’m no longer the helpless baby.
But using him just the same. That’s what he will see. That I’m just like everyone else.
My stomach twists at the idea that I’m just another person in New York who Ben knows, someone who wants him to do something for them.
Maybe I’m a fool, but it felt like more than that for me. And I think it felt like more than that for Ben. But will he admit that to himself?
I have no doubt that Ben’s going to deliver on the Boston hotel.
He wouldn’t allow himself to let me down.
When he does, it will be more proof that everyone, even the woman he woke up in bed with on Sunday morning, even a woman he’s into, wants something from him.
Everyone’s using him. Just like he thinks.
Then he can dismiss me as being like all the rest.
He’s put himself in a position where people need something from him.
He’s made sure he’ll never be that helpless ten-year-old again without a home.
But at what cost? He doesn’t realize that it’s isolated him from the world.
It puts him on an island on his own. He’s created a wall between himself and everyone else.
Me included.
I’m just like everyone else to him, and when the Boston hotel goes through, he can throw me off his island.
But I did get to visit for a while. I did get to feel the sand under my toes and the sun on my face. And I don’t want to leave.