Chapter 22
22
ELLA
N ervousness is ransacking my body right now.
My palms are sweating, I’m stuttering out words, and I swear I have forgotten more things in the last twenty minutes than I have in my whole life.
And I can only think of one thing that could be causing it. Going on this honeymoon with Bennett.
Any newly married person would be loving the fact that they will be getting their new husband’s undivided attention for a whole week. And if I was anybody else and Bennett and I actually had a real relationship happening between us, I would be one of those people. There wouldn’t be nerves running through me, I wouldn’t have the urge to tell my husband to just forget about the trip and let’s go back to his house. No, I would be over the moon that I would be spending seven, uninterrupted days with my new husband.
Instead, I’m setting on a private plane, that looks like it could seat a good twenty people, bitting my nails off, wishing that I would have told Bennett no instead of yes.
All because I don’t know where we stand after yesterday.
Spending time with him is fine. It was bound to happen where we are going to go a few days, doing nothing but being around each other with no one else in sight. We work and live together. Sure, when we are doing those things we have the buffer of other Lane employees and the kids always around, but we can handle being alone for an extended period of time.
I don’t know how to do one full week of just me and him when I have a feeling he regrets our little sexcapades.
We’re three hours into our flight and I’ve been so close to telling him to turn the plane around, all because I’ve been in my head this whole time with Bennett being somewhere else.
From the second we left the house, Bennett has been on the phone only switching over to his laptop when we got on the Lane family jet. Apparently when you become CEO, there are lot of things that you need to do to make it all official. From what I can tell he has been signing paperwork and talking to lawyers the whole flight.
I volunteered to work with him, help him out wherever he needs, but he waved me away and told me no, to relax.
So I’ve been sitting here, watching whatever tv show or movie I’ve been able to find on of the many screens this plane has to offer, trying to relax but instead overthinking everything.
And by everything, I mean what happened in Bennett’s office yesterday.
Not only did we kiss, but he made me feel so damn good with that tongue of his. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to continue right there and then and not come up for air until we absolutely had to.
Having Bennett Lane between my legs was something that I’ve dreamt about a few times since I met him but never thought it would happen, and then it did and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
The way his mouth felt on my skin. The way his tongued licked me up as if I was a melting ice cream cone. The way he was so damn hard that when he thrusted into me, I thought I was going to be seeing stars.
He made me feel what others haven’t and I want to repeat it as much as I possibly can.
When he mentioned the honeymoon, for a second I was scared, but then I thought about what we would be doing. That we weren’t going to hide the attraction that we had for each other anymore and explore whatever was pulling us together. Hell, I even thought that he was going to land in my bed last night after the way he looked at me in his office, but he never came.
He said goodnight, closed his door and I didn’t lay eyes on him until this morning.
All night I couldn’t help but to wonder if what happened in his office was truly a spur of the moment thing and just saw me as a door to get off or if it meant something to him.
I tried to push that thought away, and be excited about this trip but instead of excitement, the nerves took over. What if something else happens between us and instead of bringing us closer together, it puts even more space between us?
Is that something that I even want, though? To get closer to Bennett?
It would be nice to leave this marriage at least as friends.
Who knows maybe once the two years is up, we won’t even get divorced and take out relationship in a direction neither of us expected.
Yeah right. I need to get a grip. We are only a week into this marriage, I can’t start thinking about us staying married after our two years are up. That wasn’t a part of the deal.
Two years and that’s it. Nothing more.
Besides, Bennett doesn’t even want to be married. Why, who knows, but he doesn’t and because he doesn’t I’m not going to force him into anything outside of the two years.
“You look like you are thinking a little too hard over there.” Bennett voices, taking my attention away from my thought and the clouds that we are flying over.
I turn my body slightly to look over at him and find him typing something on his phone.
A part of me wants to answer with a snarky comment but instead, I decide to give him a bit of truth.
“I’m just trying to get my nerves down a bit.” I say and surprisingly he takes his eyes off his laptop.
His eyebrows bunch up before he speaks. “What are you nervous about?”
I decide to be truthful again. “What we are going to do on this trip.”
This time, he shuts his laptop and he gives me his full attention. “What do you mean?”
I give him a shrug. “Exactly that. What do we do? Do we act like a married couple that is actually on their honeymoon, even though nobody that knows us is around? Do we just hang out and hope that we become friends once we go back home? Do we act like strangers and both go off and do out own thing? What do we do?”
There is more that wants to come out of my mouth, like asking if he regrets what happened yesterday, but I hold that particular question back. I really do need to get a grip. One orgasm and I’m feeling like I’ve become the clingiest person in the world.
Who cares what we do while we are on this trip? I’m on my first vacation that is all that should matter.
A sigh leaves Bennett, and he stand up from where he is sitting and comes over and takes a seat on the couch I have designated as mine for this flight.
He doesn’t say anything at first, he just sits there and looks out in front of him.
“What do you want to do?” He asks after about a minute. When his eyes meet mine, I see a bit of the sweet side of Bennett. The one he bring out when his niece and nephews are around. I’ve also seen him bring it out with Charlie this week and it melts my heart every time I see it.
“Would wanting to get to know you a little better be on the table?”
The man gives me a smile. Something that I’ve notice he doesn’t give to many people. “Yes. It would definitely be on the table and it is, but tell me something.” He says, moving so that his front is facing me. I give him a nod to continue. “Was there something else you wanted to ask?”
I swear this man, hasn’t known me long, but he know how to read me a little to well.
Now I’m the one sighing. There’s no reason to lie.
My head lands on the back of the couch. “Yes.”
“What?”
I take a second to find some courage. “If you regretted what happened between us yesterday.”
There is silence, and without warning, a laugh fills the cabin. And not just a chuckle or a small little laugh you give to a little kid, a full blown laugh.
In the time that I’ve known Bennett, he has never laughed like this. I don’t know whether to pull out my phone and record it in fear that I will never hear it again, laugh with him, or cower into myself because he is laughing at me.
“Great. You’re laughing at me.” I mutter, already feeling my face get red and hot for all the wrong reasons.
Bennett’s laugh dies down a bit but there is still a very prominent smile on his face when he speaks again.
“I’m not laughing at you.”
“Seems like you are.”
He shifts again, this time coming closer, his arm landing on the back of the couch.
With that move, his scent incapsulates me. It’s this cloud of citrus, wood and fresh air all wrapped up together. Smelling it takes me back to the first time I kissed him and how I didn’t want to pull away from. At this moment, I don’t want to pull away either. I want to come the distance between us and borrow my face into his chest so I can engrain the scent into my mind.
His fingers land in my hair and he starts twirling a few strands as he speaks. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing because regretting something like that is fucking ridiculous.”
Goosebumps form all over my body.
“But you closed your self off last night.”
It was careless of me to expect that he would have come to my room last night. It was careless to even think that things between us were going to change just because he stuck his tongue in my pussy and gave me the best orgasm ever. I should have thought better. I should have been oaky with sleeping alone, because now that I’m hearing the words come out of my mouth, I really do sound like the clingiest person in the world.
Bennett lets out a sigh, all laughter and smiles gone from his face. “I didn’t regret what happened between us. Actually, I very much want to continue what happened in my office. What happened last night wasn’t about you or regret.”
“Oh.”
If it wasn’t about me or him regretting what we did, then what was it about? The question forms on the tip of my tongue but I don’t let it come out. Looking from his facial expression, the answer is going to be personal, and I don’t know if we are at the stage of know those kind of personal things about each other.
I’m okay with not knowing everything about this man, just like I’m okay with him not knowing everything about me.
But apparently Bennett feels differently.
“How much do you want to get to know me?”
I want to know everything, seems like a little too much, so I give him the response that I would give him if he ever asked me that question.
“However much you are willing to tell me.”
There is silence. The only that could be heard it the roar of the plane and the flight attendant doing something with glass at the front of the plane. No other noise sounds out.
I don’t know how long we sit there, but it was enough time for the movie playing on the screen to end and for a new one to start playing.
When Bennett speaks, I’m on the edge of my seat.
“You know that my brother is gone. Left his kids with me and Henry and to this day has yet to come back.” I give him a nod. “I might have mentioned looking for him in passing or as a throwaway comment, but I don’t think I’ve told you the extent of it.”
I shift and place a hand over the one resting on his knee. “You don’t have to.”
No part of me wants to push him to give me information. If he wants to tell me than he can but it has to come from him and not because he feels obligated.
He looks down at our hands as he continues. “I want to tell you.”
A lump forms on my throat.
Who would have thought that a week after the wedding we would be having this heavy of a conversation.
I don’t say anything, but I know he able to read my face and see the encouragement for him to continue.
“I use whatever resource that are my disposal to look for him. Because Lane Enterprises works with security and high tech, it’s not hard to access things that are only available to the police or government agencies. I only ever use that tool when it comes to my brother, otherwise I use other tools to get pressing information.”
The way he says tools sends a shiver down my spine. Like there is something dark that comes with the word. It makes sense, though. Bennett is a billionaire, of course he has something like this at his disposal. He can’t just walk into a room without knowing who is in it. No matter how powerful his security team is.
“For the past couple of years, I haven’t been able to find anything new. At the beginning a new address would come up occasionally, but every time I would send someone to investigate, it either turned out to be an empty lot or he was long gone. Same thing with phone numbers. If one ever appeared it would be disconnected by the time ever I got to tracking it down or calling it. I think it had been four or five years since the last address or number appears.”
Something takes me by surprise. “Had?”
Bennett gives me a nod. “The day of the first board meeting, a number popped up.”
That’s the day he told me about his brother and how he hasn’t seen him in ten years. That’s a creepy coincidence.
“Did you call it?”
He shakes his head. “I wanted to but it took everything in me not to do it. For all I knew it was just a dead end. It was probably someone that shares the name that gotten a new number and it showed up under Robert.”
“You didn’t want to be disappointed.”
“No, but that didn’t stop me from committing the number to memory to save it for a later date.”
“Is that what you did last night? Call the number?”
He scoffs at my question. “No. The number called me.”
A chill runs through my whole body. I take my thought back. There is no way in hell this is coincidence. A number pops up under his brother the day that he is announced as Gerald’s replacement and then he gets a call from the same number the day the title is officially his? Someone is behind this and is trying to get deep into Bennett’s skin, but the question is who?
“Did you answer?” My question comes out almost a whisper.
Anger rolls through his face. “I did, but whoever was on the other line, wasn’t in a talking mood.”
Without even thinking about it, my hand wraps around his and I give him a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sorry.”
And I am. I couldn’t imagine looking for someone all these years, and something coming up on that search, and being so close to getting your answers but it just turns out to be a dead end.
“Don’t be. I’m going to find out who was on the other side of that call. Whoever it is, wants something and I’m not going to stop until I find out what.”
“What would you do?”
His jaw ticks and for a second I think he’s not going to tell me, but he surprises me yet again when he actually answers my question.
“Whatever I need.”
The way his eyes go dark, tells me everything that I need to know. This man will stop at nothing. I have a feeling that if he needed to, he would kill to get the answers he wants. The man got married to get hold of his family’s company for crying out loud. I’m sure getting blood on his custom made suits wouldn’t deter him.
Knowing that the man I married could possibly kill someone to get something he wanted should be terrifying. It should be reason enough to tell him to turn this plane around and to stay as far away from me as possible.
Instead, my heart opens for him a little more, because if I was in his position, I would do the same. In a way, I have.
I intertwine my fingers with his and decide not to run.
“And whatever you decide to do, if you need someone at your side, I’ll be there.”
His eyes fill with wonder as he squeezes my hand. “I appreciate that. I hope that you know that the same goes for you. If you ever are in a situation where you would stop at nothing, I will be there for you.”
I smile and try to make a joke. “Even after our two years are up?”
With all the seriousness in the world, he answers. “Even after our two years are up.”
Hearing those words, and seeing how serious he is, makes my heart swell. Bennett Lane is going to be a part of my life after all of this is over and I couldn’t be happier.
I don’t know why, but I get the sudden urge to kiss the man. Not only because he opened up to me but because he made a promise that not a lot of people in my life have given me.
After about ten seconds of trying to talk myself out of doing it, I say fuck it and lean in and place a small kiss against Bennett’s lips. This may be fake, but there is something happening between us and I will be damn if I keep myself from kissing my husband. For the next two years, my lips belong to him and only him.
“What was that for?” He asks, giving me a small grin as I pull away.
“For opening up to me, and because I wanted to.”
His smile grows even bigger, before he leans in and gives me a kiss of his own.
When he pulls away, his smile is still there. “About your other questions. The whole how are we going to act. What do you say to just acting like this. Having fun and doing things because we wanted to. There’s no need to put on a show, just us getting to know each other a bit more and seeing where the next two years can take us.”
I nod, and brining my body closer to his. “I’d like that.”
“Good. Now let’s give you the best honeymoon, Mrs. Lane.”
Mrs. Lane.
I’ve been called that since the wedding once or twice but it feels different coming from Bennett.
And I freaking love it.
Come time for our divorce, my heart is going to be shattered. I just now it.