5. Bennett
Chapter five
Bennett
One room.
I watched Edda’s reflection in the polished marble counter.
She stood three feet to my left, still wearing the borrowed gown from the reception.
Her shoulders held in that precise, measured way that meant she was already calculating exit strategies.
The emerald silk caught the lobby light whenever she shifted her weight, like it had a mind of its own.
“One room,” I repeated.
“Our presidential suite. It includes a separate sitting area, and we would be happy to provide a complimentary upgrade, full breakfast service, and adjust the billing accordingly.” The concierge’s smile did not falter. “I can assure you it is our finest room.”
Behind us, a cluster of gala attendees filtered through the revolving doors, their laughter spilling into the lobby, too loud for the hour. Edda turned slightly at the sound. I caught the line of her jaw, the faint tension she hadn’t quite hidden.
“Fine,” I said. “Send up whatever arrangements you have for the sitting area.”
The elevator ride took forty-seven seconds.
I counted them. It gave my mind something precise to hold on to instead of noticing how the enclosed space seemed to sharpen her presence beside me.
Her perfume filled the small lift, floral at first, then something warmer underneath that I couldn’t quite place.
It pulled an unwelcome association with her bicycle shop, with metal, oil, and the faint sheen of work worn into skin that didn’t apologize for being used.
She hadn’t spoken since we left the reception. The silence between us wasn’t the same as before, not sharp or combative. This version was quieter, more contained, and somehow harder to read. I couldn’t categorize it, and that lack of definition bothered me more than I wanted to admit.
The suite doors opened into a room that cost more per night than most people made in a month. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the city, twenty-two stories of glittering indifference stretching toward the river.
Edda walked past me without a word, her heels quiet against the thick carpet, and stopped at the glass.
"You can have the bedroom," she said, voice flat. "The couch looks long enough."
"The couch is mine."
She turned. City light caught the sharp angles of her face, splitting it into brightness and shadow. "That's ridiculous. You're six feet something, and you have meetings tomorrow."
"I'll manage."
"Bennett." She said my name like she said everything else, direct, unimpressed. "I've slept on worse. I've slept behind a shop counter with nothing but a sleeping bag and a baseball bat. I think I can handle a designer sofa."
The image landed in my chest and stayed there. Her at twenty, guarding what was hers with nothing but stubbornness and a bat she probably had no idea how to actually use.
"You're not sleeping on the couch."
“Then I guess neither of us is sleeping on the couch.” She turned back to the window. “Unless you’d prefer we draw straws.”
I loosened my tie. The silk slid through my fingers with a soft hiss that felt too loud in the quiet room.
“When was the last time you slept somewhere that wasn’t your apartment or that shop?”
“Define somewhere.”
“A vacation. A weekend trip. Anywhere you didn’t have to be you.”
Her reflection in the glass curved into something like a smile, but it didn’t reach anything warm. “Three years ago. Lina’s wedding in Connecticut. I took two days off and spent most of it worrying about whether I’d locked the back door.”
A beat.
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I want to know everything about you. Because I’ve been cataloguing details since you walked into my office with that folder, and I can’t seem to stop.”
“Curiosity,” I said instead.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”
She turned again, and this time something sharp flickered across her face, the edge of an argument forming. Good. I understood the arguments. They had rules. Structure. A clear beginning and an end.
“You don’t get to do that,” she said. “You don’t get to ask me personal questions and then hide behind vague answers. This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Everything’s a negotiation.”
“No.” She stepped closer. “Some things are just conversations. Some things are just two people in a room trying to figure out what the hell they’re doing.”
The dress moved with her, silk tracing her hips in a way that made it hard to hold onto the argument. I forced my attention back to her face, the heat rising in her cheeks, the way her hands had curled into loose fists at her sides.
“And what are we doing?” I heard myself ask.
"I don't know."
He took another step.
Close enough now that I could make out the faint freckles scattered across her collarbone, vanishing beneath the neckline of her gown.
"You defended me tonight. In front of Diana Cassel. In front of everyone."
"She was wrong."
"That's not why you did it."
No. It wasn't.
The admission was settled between us, unspoken but unmistakably there.
“You’ve been reaching for your pocket all night,” she said quietly. “The medal. You touch it when you’re thinking about something you won’t say out loud.”
My hand stalled halfway there, hovering near my jacket like it had been caught mid-confession. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. She saw everything. Missed nothing. And instead of feeling exposed, something in me eased.
“It was my mother’s.”
“You told me. In the car.”
“I don’t tell people about it.”
“I know.” Her voice softened, the sharp edge from earlier gone now. “I noticed.”
The distance between us had shrunk to something I could have closed in two steps. One, if I wanted to.
The city pulsed beyond the glass, light and movement softened into a distant hum through thick windows. Inside the suite, there was only the sound of her breathing and mine, both uneven, both a little too fast.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” I said.
She let out a laugh, short and without much humor.
“Join the club.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She lifted her chin, steadying herself like she refused to give even an inch.
“You’re used to people wanting something from you. Money, access, influence. You’ve built an entire system around reading them, managing them.” Her gaze held mine. “And then I walked into your office and didn’t want any of it. And you’ve been trying to categorize me ever since.”
“That’s not—”
"It is," she cut me off. "I’ve watched you. You treat everyone like a puzzle to solve, a variable to account for. But I’m not a variable, Bennett. I’m a person.
And I’m standing here in a borrowed dress in a hotel room that was supposed to have two beds, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t notice the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention. "
The words landed like an impact, clean and immediate. I had been careful. Too careful.
"How do I look at you?"
"Like you’re trying to figure out how to acquire me," she said. Her voice faltered on the last word, just enough to betray her. "Like I’m a building you want to buy. And I keep telling myself that’s all it is, that you’re just another man with too much money who thinks he can purchase anything he wants.
But then you defend me in front of people who matter to you.
And you remember how I take my coffee after one conversation.
And you sit in a diner for forty minutes without checking your phone because I asked you to wait. "
My hand was on her jaw before I made the decision to move.
She went still. Not afraid, not pulling away. Still, the way a person goes still when they’ve been waiting for something without knowing they were waiting.
“I don’t want to acquire you,” I said. “I don’t know what I want. I’ve been running an empire for fifteen years. I have contingencies for everything, and you’re the only thing I can’t plan for.”
“Is that supposed to be romantic?”
“It’s supposed to be honest.”
Her fingers curled around my wrist, not pulling my hand away, just holding it there. Her pulse beat against my palm, fast and unsteady.
“I’m not one of your deals,” she said. “Whatever this is, you don’t get to negotiate it afterward. You don’t get to add clauses for things you didn’t anticipate.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because right now you’re touching my face in a hotel room, and I can see you thinking three moves ahead, trying to figure out how to control what happens next.”
She was right. She always was.
And I was so tired of being the man who thought three moves ahead, who calculated every risk, who controlled every outcome until there was nothing left that felt real.
So I kissed her.
Her mouth opened under mine, and whatever restraint I’d been holding onto didn’t just slip; it vanished. Champagne from the reception, something sweeter underneath, something that didn’t belong in a room built on contracts and control.
Her hands came up, fingers threading into my hair, pulling me closer. The sound she made against my lips wasn’t surrender. It was a demand.
The kiss broke. Her breath lingered against my mouth, warm, unsteady.
“This isn’t an arrangement,” she said.
“No.”
“This changes things.”
“Yes.”
Her hands moved to my jacket, pushing it off my shoulders until it hit the carpet.
The tie followed. Her fingers worked the buttons of my shirt with steady precision, like she was refusing to let her hands betray her.
Then her palms flattened against my chest, and the contact sent a sharp pull straight through me.
“I should want to stop this.” Her voice dropped lower, rougher than before. “Every logical part of me says this is a terrible idea.”
"And the rest?"
She looked up at me, and something shifted in her expression. Not just hunger. Something quieter underneath it, edged with hesitation, like she was standing too close to a line she hadn't meant to cross.
"The rest," she said, "has been wanting this since you walked into my shop and stood there like you owned the place."