CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE BENNET
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BENNET
"Pick up two more bottles," I tell her, "because this one is sad, embarrassing, and baggage all at once. Three for one deal."
She looks at the bottles in her hand and then at me. "How is it a three for one deal if I have to take three shots?" She tilts her head. "I guess you don't have to be good at math to be a billionaire."
This smart ass.
"Fine. But I'm taking two first. For courage."
She raises an eyebrow. "That bad?"
"Just take the shots, Blaire."
She picks up two bottles. "Fine. I'll match you."
We both throw back two in quick succession, and I feel the burn settle into my chest. We probably should have eaten something before we started this game, but it's too late now.
I take a breath.
"I...am a virgin." I hold my arms out. "I win. Three for one."
Her mouth opens.
Then she lets out a laugh so loud it probably carries through the walls. "Get fucked, Bennet. You are such a liar."
"Hand to God." I hold mine up. "No lies detected. Never had sex. Not even close to sex." I reconsider for a second. "I’ve kissed and made out a little here and there. But that is the full and complete extent of my sexual experience."
Blaire stares at me.
"How is that even possible, Bennet?" She's sitting back up, gesturing towards me with both hands.
"You're successful and you're so — " she pauses.
"You're so lickable it's criminal. Are you saving yourself for marriage?
Is it cultural? I'm sorry if these are insensitive questions; I genuinely cannot wrap my head around this.
" She shakes her head. "God, what I would do to you. "
Fuck, she can’t say shit like that. I think she realizes the same things a second after I do, because her hand flies to her mouth.
I don’t think my eyes could get any wider than they are right now.
She looks equal parts mortified and defiant, like she's deciding whether to take it back or own it.
I pick up a bottle very slowly. Take my time opening it. Take the shot.
"Lickable," I say.
"I had a lot of tequila."
"You said lickable."
"Bennet—"
"What exactly would you do to me? I’d like to dive into that statement."
She points at me. "We're not talking about that."
"You brought it up."
"I rescind it."
"You can't rescind it. It's out there. It's in the room." I gesture at the air between us. "It lives here now."
She grabs a pillow and buries her face in it, making a sound that is somewhere between a groan and a laugh. I watch her and feel warmth moving through my chest that has absolutely nothing to do with the whiskey. I adjust myself while she's distracted.
This weekend is taking a very interesting turn.
"For what it's worth," I say, turning a bottle in my hands, "it's not cultural or religious." I glance up at her. "Something happened when I was younger that made it hard to let people close enough. Left a mark I haven’'t figured out how to get past."
She's lowered the pillow from her face and is watching me with quiet attention.
"That's the baggage part," I say.
"And the sad part?"
"Same story."
"And the embarrassing part?"
"I'm a twenty-eight-year-old billionaire who just told you he's never had sex." I gesture to myself. "Take your pick."
She is silent for a moment as she studies me. I’m sure she’s looking for some sort of tell that I’m lying. Wondering if I’m playing her, giving her a line.
"Whoever she was," Blaire says quietly, "she was an idiot."
She holds my gaze and doesn't take it back.
I pick up two more bottles and hand her one.
"Your turn," I say. "Choose."
"I'll see your inexperience and raise you this." She meets my eyes. "I've never had an orgasm with a partner."
My mouth drops open. "Not ever?"
"Nope." She pops the cap. "I've only ever been with Colt, and he was not interested in my pleasure.
Not even a little. Never fingered, licked, petted.
Not even a nipple. Our sex life was me bent over something and him railing into me until he was done.
Each and every fucking time." She shakes her head.
"God, I feel pathetic and disgusted even saying it out loud. "
I open my mouth and close it again because what I want to say about Colt Monroe right now would derail this entire day and probably result in a felony.
"The boy," I say carefully. "From high school. You mentioned—"
The expression on her face reads sad, and the way her fingers twiddle with the fabric of the pillow makes me feel anxious. I feel almost immediately like I shouldn't have asked. No good can come from us going anywhere near that particular past right now.
"He's the only one who ever came close. But we didn't — we never actually—" She shakes her head.
"I came from sheer friction and loving him.
And I've never felt anything even close to that since.
" She throws her shot back and sets the bottle down quietly.
"Ten years and nothing has come close to a make-out session with a boy who told me I had a pretty collarbone.
How sad and embarrassing is that baggage. "
The air leaves my body completely.
I pick up a bottle. I need a minute.
"That's three for one," I say finally, and my voice only barely holds. "Sad, baggage, and—"
"Devastating," she says. "That one's just devastating."
"Yeah," I say. "It is."
***
"What have your girlfriends thought about the no sex thing?" Blaire asks, dipping a fry in ranch.
Our shots game is taking a much needed intermission while we get some food in our systems. I ordered tacos, wings, fries, jalapeno poppers — a laundry list of things Blaire mentioned she'd never tried, which came out in pieces over the last hour.
Growing up without a lot of resources, which I didn't know until today, and then years of Colt's monitored diet that stripped all the good things out of her life one by one.
So, I ordered everything I could think of, and we pushed the coffee table to the fireplace so we could lay it all out on the floor between us with Cokes and slushies.
We've been sitting here like two people who have nowhere better to be and have decided that's fine.
"I've never had an actual girlfriend," I say, picking up a wing.
"The women I've dated have mostly been for show.
Part of it was genuinely not having time for a relationship, though.
What I built in six years, most companies don't achieve in a lifetime, and that's partly because I gave every waking moment to it. The past four years have just been the icing on a very successful cake.”
She looks at me over her ranch cup. "Every waking moment."
"Every one."
"That's lonely, Bennet."
I look at my food for a moment. "Yeah," I say. "It is."
"How did you even get the capital to launch something like this? Being a billionaire before thirty is unheard of unless you're born into it."
"In college, I built a platform that did pattern modeling and property analytics.
I used it to track distressed assets, ownership changes, anything that hinted at undervaluation before it became obvious to everyone else.
" I pick up another wing. "My parents passed when I was younger, and I gained access to my portion of their insurance policy when I turned nineteen.
I used that to round up properties, then sold the app for seventy-five million in a sealed contract.
Didn't want the information public. I kept the core model, turned it into a licensing platform.
Firms pay to use it. Bigger firms pay more.
And when they act on something that it flags, and it performs well, I get a percentage. "
"A percentage of every deal?"
"Not every deal," I correct. "Just the ones I'm tied to. But they've been extremely lucrative. Globally."
She lets out a quiet breath, shaking her head slightly. "So, you don't even need to buy the properties anymore."
"I can," I say. "I just don't have to."
“You’ve had a good part of your life sealed off, even your earlier years.” She says quietly after a few beats.
My chest tightens.
"Yeah. I've always been a private person." I take a long chug of my Coke. "I have a pretty personal question, so feel free to tell me to fuck off."
She pauses, weighing it. "Go for it."
"Why have you protected Colt all this time? Going along with the stories instead of leaving him?"
She's quiet for a long moment, turning a jalapeno popper in her fingers without eating it.
"Because leaving felt impossible for a long time.
" Her voice is even, like she's thought about how to say this before and has landed on the version that doesn't break her open.
"When your entire life — your parents' stability, your social standing, your career, your identity — is built inside someone else's orbit, leaving feels like detonating all of it at once.
And Colt was very good at reminding me of that whenever I got close to the edge.
" She sets the popper down. "The protecting was just survival.
If I controlled the story, at least I knew what it said.
The moment I stopped controlling it, it became his. "
"What changed? Why now?"
"Have I mentioned Colt is as dumb as a bag of rocks?
" She smiles and I let out a laugh I wasn't expecting.
"He's always been good at the people stuff.
The public figure, the athlete. No book smarts whatsoever.
I filled out every form for him because he reads at a third-grade level.
His entire personality is football and being an athlete.
I passed his classes for him in high school, and he didn't go to college. "
Wow. Who fucking knew.
"Over the past few years, I've had security systems installed throughout the house.
Motion censored, recorded, uploaded to the cloud every night.
I have footage of every time he's hurt me over the past five years.
" She picks up her Coke. "I needed the capital to leave and keep my business.
I may have started it because he forced me to, but it's the only thing that truly belongs to me.
He's taken everything else. Hell, even my parents. "
"Your parents?"
She lays back on the floor and stares at the ceiling. "I've told them things he's done to me. They refuse to believe me. Or maybe they just want to protect their lifestyle; who knows. But I cut ties with them when I came here. Had Cammy change my number."
"Have you ever shown them the footage?"
"No. I've never even touched it. I just know it's there." She turns her head to look at me. "I need my settlement so I can live without his thumb pressing into everything I've built. The footage is the insurance policy. The moment I need it, I use it."
"Release it." I sit up straighter. "The money you're making from this contract alone is worth more than your settlement, and you said so yourself. Hell, I'll buy it from you and release it myself. Fuck Colt Monroe."
The anger moves through me fast, and I can't stop it. That man needs to be under a prison for what he's put her through. For what he took from her.
"What's holding you back?" I ask, seeing the hesitation in her features.
"It will be a shitstorm." She sighs.
Tears start to well in her eyes, and I move to lie next to her on the floor, leaning on my elbow, rubbing slow, gentle circles on her stomach. It feels intimate, but I need her to feel grounded and safe right now.
"You don't want to be seen as the victim," I say. It's not a question. I know that feeling from the inside — it's the same reason I don’t speak about what happened in that poolhouse. Surviving something doesn't mean you want to be defined by it.
Her tears start to fall; I pull her face into my chest and hold the back of her neck.
"You will be the reason another woman decides she can walk away," I say quietly.
"Even when the whole world is against her.
You will be the reason a life gets saved before the abuse puts her in the hospital.
Whether it takes a year or ten, Blaire, you're fucking strong for walking away.
" I hold her tighter. "Put that fucker where he belongs.
And you hold your head high when you do it. "
"Can we do it Monday? I really just want to be here with you this weekend. Is that okay? Can I stay?"
She looks up at me, and I'm done for. I'm hers. Maybe I've always been hers and was just too buried under everything else to admit it.
I tuck her hair behind her ear.
Her eyes close briefly at the contact, like she's letting herself have it, just for a second, before she opens them and finds my face and goes very quiet.
"Bennet," she says softly.
It’s just my name. But the way she says it sounds like a door opening.
My thumb traces the line of her jaw, and she tilts into it, barely, like she doesn't mean to and can't stop herself, and I feel that small surrender in every part of me.
I lean down and press my lips to hers in the softest kiss I've ever given anyone. I let myself look at her the way I haven't allowed since I walked away from her ten years ago. I trace the pulse jumping in her neck, her jaw, the soft curve of her bottom lip.
"You're so fucking beautiful, Blaire."
"You taste like tacos," she whispers against my lips.
"You taste like heaven." I close the distance again, deeper this time, and feel her smile into the kiss before she lets it go and gives herself over to it completely.
Her fingers find my hair and pull me closer.