He turns to Benny. “Perfect play. Trotting out the wife.”
Benny grunts, eyes still glued to his phone.
“Perfect timing, too,” Aaron continues.
“And a dream come true for me,” I say breezily, though in truth, I’m a bit apprehensive about the dress thing now.
Aaron fixes me with a hard gaze. “She gonna play nice?”
“She’ll play nice,” Benny assures him, thumbs flying over his phone.
I give Aaron a sassy smile.
Aaron addresses me directly while simultaneously speaking to me in the third person and possibly even threatening me. “She’d better play nice,” he says. “This is an important deal.”
“I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t play nice,” I say, also referring to myself in the third person. “I mean, being threatened with the loss of something I’ve worked my whole life to attain?”
As soon as I say it, I regret it. I can see the gears turning behind his eyes and I don’t like it. You never show people like Aaron what’s important to you.
I go for a smile. “Who could resist?”
“Don’t worry, she can charm people when she wants,” Benny grumbles.
“She certainly can…” I turn to Aaron now, all sassy, and add, “When she wants.”
Aaron frowns.
Benny finally looks up. “And she wants.”
“Oh, I’ll charm the stuffing out of them—don’t you worry about that,” I assure them. “Considering I have no choice.”
“All you gotta do,” Benny says, going back to the phone.
“So they want to buy your company, and this dinner is to talk about that?” I ask.
Benny says, “We’re not really sure what their agenda is. They’ve requested a social dinner. It’s likely that Juliana, our decision maker, just needs to meet me face to face, or maybe somebody else from the team wants to green-light who they’ll be dealing with.”
“Why would it matter?” I ask. “If she and her group think your tiny-robot-making company is worth buying, why do they need to meet you?”
“Because they want me to stay on for a year, overseeing the team that adapts my tech to different industrial environments,” he says, ever so bored and annoyed with me.
“Hold the phone. You’d stay on and work for them?” I ask. “As an employee?”
“Yup,” he says.
“For a year,” I clarify, trying not to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he asks, like he’s so weary of me already.
His whole freaking attitude is giving me a complex, but I soldier on. “You,” I say. “You’re funny in the way that you’re not using your cognitive faculty of memory.”
“Meaning what?” he asks.
“Meaning you hate working for other people. You thought the Beau Cirque bosses were idiots.”
“They were idiots,” Benny says.
“You think that about everyone—you know you do, Benny! Everybody in Beau Cirque knew it, too. You were practically unemployable at the age of twenty-two. And now you’ve made a bazillion dollars and your big prize is…drumroll…working for other people, a thing you absolutely hate!”
Benny frowns at his phone. Is he even listening?
“He won’t hate working with the Protech team,” Aaron says.
“And you’ve witnessed him being an employee when?” I ask.
Aaron gives me a dark look. “And you got your business degree where?”
Benny is finally looking up from his phone. “That’s enough,” he says.
“I know what I know,” I inform Aaron, getting in the last word. I turn back to Benny and his whole U-Can’t-Touch-This forcefield. “And, dude, you were literally apoplectic every time they gave you an order, but I’m sure you’ve completely mellowed now. I’m sure you have a way better disposition. So much sunnier,” I say.
Benny’s focusing on me now. He has this ability to hyper focus with his full attention to the exclusion of the whole world. It was one of the things that made people think he was rude, but I got it. I knew what it was to focus like a demon—it’s how you get good at things. Needless to say, it was something about him that I secretly loved. I sometimes wondered what it would be like to have that intensity turned on me.
“You sell your company, and your big prize is that you get bosses, something you hate. What could go wrong?”
“You almost done?” he asks.
“Oh, right, I forgot. We’re not supposed to go by what was true ten years ago. My bad,” I say.
The way he’s watching me, it’s absolutely unnerving. I focus right back at him; I will not be cowed. We’re focusing weirdly on each other, now, like Clash of the Hyper-focusing Titans. It probably shouldn’t feel as hot as it does.
It’s hot to me, anyway. I doubt it’s hot for him.
“In the world of business,” Aaron begins from the other side of me, employing the most infantilizing tone possible, “a business owner staying on during a transitional period is part of how a sale like this gets done.”
Benny and I are still in our gaze-lock, but now I smile prettily. “It was unbelievably entertaining to watch you get bossed around,” I say. “It was physically excruciating to you, but entertaining to others.”
“A company isn’t like a car where you just hand over the keys,” Benny says, pulling out his newly minted measured cool-guy tone. “My presence in the company ensures that it retains its value through the transfer.”
“Good luck with that,” I say.
“I don’t need you to be on board with this sale,” he says. “I just need you to go eat dinner and be charming.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be charming.”
“You’d better be,” Aaron chimes in annoyingly.
I’m just watching Benny. I forgot about his honey-colored eyes, how mesmerizingly saturated with light brown they are.
The limo stops yet again. The driver gets out.
“Are we there?”
“Aaron and I have to go up and sign something,” Benny says. “We’ll be back in ten minutes.”
“And what? I just sit here like a rutabaga?”
“Think you can handle that?” he asks.
I try to think of a good retort, like something about rutabagas being awesome, or at least I’m not a banana, but before I can come up with anything, the doors are shutting, and I’m alone, aside from the driver up front on the other side of the privacy panel. He comes on the intercom and asks me if I need anything.
“I’m fine, thanks!” I say. Because I’m not a jerk like Benny.
I finish my fizzy water, then I pull out my phone and do a selfie where I’m making a jaded face at my limo environment. I send it to my girl gang.
And I sit back and wait.
A new song comes on Benny’s Pandora mix. Something by Blur.
I slide up and check his Pandora. We’re listening to a mix that Benny created called Radiohead radio. I got a lot of my pop music education that summer in Vegas. I especially got an education in Benny’s specific tastes via the playlists he’d play before and after rehearsals and performances from his seat of power as head of lights and audio.
The way Pandora works is that you pick a few songs and bands you like, and Pandora creates a station with a heaping helping of that exact music plus other songs it thinks you’d like, and you thumbs-up or thumbs-down those songs, allowing Pandora to become smarter about what songs to play.
I click into the station history, and all the usual ones he always liked are there, largely unchanged from ten years ago.
It’s here I get my brilliant idea: I add a few of his hated Dave Matthews songs as “seeds.”
Surely he still hates Dave Matthews Band! I switch the view display back to the normal screen and wait. Sure enough, a Dave Matthews song comes on. Benny would have a fit!
This probably shouldn’t make me as happy as it does.
I give it the ol’ thumbs-up and sit back. Two songs later it plays yet another Dave Matthews
Band song. I enthusiastically thumbs-up that one, too. More of this, please! That’s what my thumbs-up says.
Rutabaga for the win, bitches!
Eventually, Benny and Aaron are back. The limo takes off again.
I wait excitedly, hoping Dave Matthews will come back on.
No such luck.
Never mind. Good things come to those who wait.
The rest of the ride is completed in phone-scrolling silence.
Twenty minutes and two loud-honking Saturday night traffic snarls later, the three of us are walking into a lovely and very chic restaurant done in an elegant style, all white finishings and silver crystal and potted palms. Beautiful people crowd into the bar area and linger over candlelit tables across in the dining room.
“Ah, there’s our party,” Benny says nonchalantly, gazing across the place.
I look at him, surprised. This sophisticated new Benny is really throwing me for a loop. Is it a natural thing that he grew into? Or is it something he has to concentrate on really hard? I suppose it’s nice for him in business and things, but I miss my old awkward Benny.
Somebody offers to take our coats. I keep mine. “Just in case I’m chilly,” I squeak.
“Are you ready to behave?” Benny asks me. “I’m expecting some convincing adoration. An altogether adoring wife.”
“Well, we know people are always at their most adoring when under duress,” I say.
He smiles. “That’s one of the things duress is good for—promoting adoration,” he informs me. “It’s one of my favorite uses of duress, in fact.”
“Ugh,” I say.
“Is that a yes?” He’s clearly enjoying bossing me around. It’s like I’m in a real-life drama of “Revenge of the Nerds.” Or more like, “Revenge of the Sullen and Antisocial Nerd From Your Past, Whom you Drunkenly Married.”
“Waiting,” he says.
“I think you should’ve given me that divorce when I asked for it,” I say casually.
His eyes twinkle. “And miss all this fun?”
“You make a good point,” I say, trying not to grin like a madwoman.
Benny narrows his eyes, suspicious at my agreement. Erp!
“Bringing the wife to dinner. Stroke of brilliance,” Aaron says, trying to echo Benny’s debonair tone, but it just turns out asshole-ly, because that’s Aaron.
Benny still has that suspicious look. “You are planning on behaving…”
“I wouldn’t dream of disobeying any one of your orders!” I say.
“Good girl,” Aaron says.
The host arrives and we’re led to a large corner table. Two women and three men stand as we approach, watching me with friendly curiosity. There are greetings all around and everybody agrees that it’s great to finally meet face to face instead of Zoom.
Benny turns to me, gazing into my eyes with a look of superiority tailor-made to irk me. “My adoring wife, Francine.”
Oh the fun he’s having.
Aaron looks on confidently.
“Hi, everyone!” I say, trying to act natural. “So great to meet you!” I give smug Benny my most adoring smile—I really pour it on. “I’ve been so excited about this dinner for so long. I don’t get out much. Barely at all, in fact.”
Benny cocks his head, maybe wondering why I would say such a thing.
Heart racing a million miles an hour, I start to undo the buttons of my coat, slowly revealing my dress. I smile innocently at him as I pull my coat off, baring the gathered sleeves, the embroidered apron, the full Swiss Miss madness.
Benny’s expression has shifted from smug pleasure to something far more delightful—let’s call it energetic surprise.
I was worried, but now…worth it!
Innocent as can be, I look around the table at the baffled glances of the Arcana Protech people, who have clearly heard the rumors about me being locked in a Swiss chalet.
“Uh…cute dress,” Juliana’s pink-lipstick-wearing Texan colleague says. Other people startled. One of the guys is a deer in headlights.
“Thank you! It’s one of Benny’s favorites. Pretty and stylish, he always says.” I drape my coat on the back of the chair. “This is really fun already. Seeing new people and all! It’s such a rare treat for me!” I sit and take a menu from the waiter. “Thank you,” I say brightly.
I turn to Aaron, who’s seated next to me and looks like he’s about to lose his mind. “This place looks amazing,” I say. “Did you pick it, Aaron?”
“No,” he says, managing to pack an astounding amount of growl into that single syllable.
I ask the leader of the small group, Juliana, if it’s her first time in New York City. It’s not, and we strike up a wee conversation about the different airports. For the record, I am being totally charming, as promised.
I can feel Benny’s gaze on me. I’m almost glad I came, now. I turn to him and smile. Our eyes meet. My pulse races.
His gaze lowers to the bodice of my dress, which plumps up my breasts in a super sassy and sexy way. When he looks back up, he’s still all cool and hard on the outside, but I know he thinks it’s hot. He can’t hide it from me.
And I think it’s hot that he thinks it’s hot.
“What is it, honey?” I ask innocently.
He gives me a heated look, his face hard planes. The way he’s looking at me, it’s like a very sexy arrow that goes right into me, right down to my curling toes.
My gaze drops to the side of his neck where his pulse pounds away. That place seems so unbearably alive; it’s the wild, beating heart of him, his highly annoyed molten center, and I have this crazy impulse to brush my fingertips down along his throat, right there, just to touch him, to breach the foreboding force field of Benny.
Would I be able to feel his pounding pulse? Would his skin feel hot? Or cool and smooth like his new personality?
It’s right here that I realize I can touch him. I’m his charming wife now, aren’t I? This is what he requested, is it not? Me to play his charming wife?
“Oh, Benny,” I say. Tentatively I reach up—I want so badly to touch him, skin to skin, to maybe slide my thumb over his mind-bendingly masculine lips, so thick and expressive, but I chicken out and straighten his collar instead, movements light and unsure.
His chest rises minutely, as if with a sudden intake of breath.
“My Benny,” I say, and then, as if my fingers have a mind of their own, they graze his neck, right over his thrumming pulse point, a slide of skin on skin, alive like fire.
My heart skips a beat. The floor seems to tilt.
His gaze is stony. Does he not like me touching him? Because I love it. I’m shocked at how much I love it. Touching him is strangely addictive. His skin is kind of…wonderful. Beckoning.
I pretend to rub something off of his jaw with my thumb. His eyes flare minutely.
I need to stop this madness—I really do. I’m literally helping myself to his face and neck.
I settle my fingers back on his neck, smiling at him like I’m so thrilled with life. I can feel his pulse, strong and hot as a war drum, this hard-pounding center of him. The pale brown crackles in his irises seem to glow.
Heat seems to rise between us.
Before I can even think what I’m doing, I brush the pad of my thumb over his bottom lip. It’s soft as I ever imagined—rosy and soft but strangely commanding.
Benny, I chant in my mind. Benny, Benny, Benny.
What is happening? What am I even doing?
“There,” I say, as if there was some kind of purpose to this whole melodrama. Like he had a crumb there or something.
Quickly I remove my hands from his person.
Seven
Benny
* * *
She touches my throat, fingertips like wicked butterflies, gazing at me the way that only she can.
The bright intensity of her radiates through my core.
I suck in a steadying breath. Calm. Cool. Collected. I say the words. I count backwards in my mind fro
m 237, a technique that usually keeps me steady.
It doesn’t work. She looks unbelievable. Her breasts look unbelievable. Her lips. Fucking unbelievable.
I focus on a color in the room. I imagine my arms heavy and warm. I have a whole arsenal of techniques to stay smooth and controlled, to keep the awkward, frenetic nerd at bay. He’s a relic of the past.
She’s worn the worst possible thing she could wear. Clearly she’s heard the rumors. It’s clever, I’ll give her that. Devil-may-care Francine, dancing across the stage like a firebird, setting the very scenery ablaze. She’s hot as hell in the dress. And she’s touching me. And I’m hard as concrete.
She removes her hands.
I pull my gaze away and glance over her shoulder. Aaron’s gaze is hard; he looks like he’s having a coronary event. I don’t blame him. Francine’s actively jeopardizing a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars with her bullshittery.
I fix her with a glare. Sleek braids twist around her head. She always wore elegant ballet hairdos; this one is more complex than usual. She looks gorgeous, yes, but if she thinks I’m still that kid from Vegas, she’s in for a rude awakening. That kid is dead and buried with a stake through his heart.
Gary, one of the Texans, is expounding upon the subject of taxis versus Ubers and Lyfts, and everybody is chiming in. The center of gravity of the table is elsewhere, being that everybody has an opinion, but it could be that they’re just seeking escape from the awkward and downright bizarre situation of Francine playing the part of my captive Swiss wife. And perhaps my inconvenient and entirely momentary enchantment with her as well.
I lower my voice. “You think you’re funny?”
“Very,” she whispers.
“Do you think that this puts me in the mood to help my wife with her problems?” I growl.
“I think your wife is wearing something pretty and stylish, just like you asked,” she breathes, leaning close. “That was our agreement, and I take my contracts seriously.”
She pouts theatrically, like she just got a new and distressing idea, and draws even closer. “Do you suddenly not like having a wife? I could see where having a wife isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in certain situations. You just never know what will happen. You can never tell what she’ll do.”
Just Not That Into Billionaires Page 6