“Why not? Darcy, they deserve to be in jail. Do you not remember what they did to you?”
“I remember well what they did.”
“Then how can you not want to fight this?”
“I want to forget it. I don’t want to fight it.”
“There is something called justice, Darcy.”
“Benjamin, you don’t understand. I can’t have any lawyers looking into my past,” I whisper urgently. This has become a complete mess.
His eyes narrow suspiciously. “Is this about your uncle? You didn’t do anything wrong, Darcy. He—”
“You don’t know the whole story,” I blurt, and his mouth shuts like a flytrap. I realize after a couple of silent moments he’s speechless and probably rethinking his whole opinion of me.
“I saw your background check. You don’t have any criminal offenses, so I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want people to see your past.” He rests his hand on my arm. “Darcy, you know you can tell me anything.”
“Can I?” I reply in a hushed tone, looking around frantically at the elegant people around us. “How much can I lay on you before you don’t want to deal with my shit anymore?”
“Your life, present or past, is not shit, and I want to know it, no matter how disturbing. I can protect you.”
I glance down at my feet, unsure of what to say.
“Let’s find a place to talk.” He takes my hand and leads me to the doors.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Benjamin is speaking with the hostess, and I’m wondering what the hell he’s saying.
My stomach is turning crazily. I know I have to tell him. I have to tell him everything. He’s the only person that can tell his lawyer to stop the second hearing.
Benjamin takes something from the girl’s hand and walks over to me. The young girl watches me enviously when Benjamin places his hand on my back and guides me down the hallway.
“Where are we going?”
“An empty conference room.”
Ugh. So formal.
He scans the numbers on the doors, stops at eighteen, and inserts the key into the lock.
“Are you sure you can miss the event, Ben? We can do this later.”
“It’s fine, Darcy. I provide them money, that’s it.”
“That’s not it.” I yank on his arm and he looks down at me, surprised at my outburst. “Everyone I spoke to in there said they wouldn’t be able to do any of this without you. They said this foundation is close to your heart.”
He sits down on top of the table, sighing. “Did John say that?”
I nod.
“Of course.”
“They didn’t tell me why, though.”
“My brother died of leukemia when I was thirteen,” he says.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“No one knows. Only my family, John, and the company’s crisis team. I keep it from the internet.”
“Were you close?”
He smiles somewhat sadly and nods. “Yes, we were. We were twins.”
Twins?
“I like to keep it a secret. I don’t want him in the tabloids amongst my shit.”
“I can understand that.” I take his hand.
He puts his arms around my waist and lays his head against my body, seeking comfort. I can scarcely breathe. I’ve never witnessed him like this. He’s always so calm and controlled. His body is trembling. God only knows how hard it is for him to come to this event every year. He’s had no one to support him, to care for him.
“I’m glad you told me.”
“Tell me about your uncle.” He stops me from going further, tilting his head back to peer up at me.
I take a deep breath. “You won’t think of me differently?”
“No,” he says with such certainty that I don’t have any doubt.
“My uncle was…a disgusting man. I woke up one day and he was touching me. He had never done that before.” I stare over his shoulder. I can’t look into his eyes while I say this. “I opened my eyes. I shouldn’t have. It just spurred him on.”
Digging his fingers into my waist, Benjamin is silent, listening intently. I wish I could know what was going through his mind.
“I was fighting him, telling him to stop.”
“Please tell me he didn’t…?” Benjamin whispers, his words full of anguish.
“He didn’t.” I get up and go over to an empty chair and sit down in it, staring at the shiny black floor. “He didn’t get the chance to. I hurt him.”
Benjamin’s eyes widen in disbelief. “What?”
“I stabbed him with a butter knife on a plate next to my bed.” I remember the moment vividly. I can still feel the dull blade struggling to pierce the skin, finally breaking through the barrier. I remember how good it felt to hurt him.
Benjamin is clearly processing the information I just laid on him. “Did you kill him?”
“No, I didn’t. That’s why I can’t have people investigating my life. My last name is not Fontaine. It’s a name I made up after I ran away.”
“My god,” he utters, clutching his head in confusion.
“Please, don’t turn me in,” I choke out, tears blurring my eyes. “I know it was illegal, but—”
He gravitates to my corner of the room to embrace me tightly, holding my face against his warm chest. Actually telling someone lifts my heavy burden.
“Darce, I would never,” he whispers, pressing his lips to my hair. “I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I’ll tell my lawyer to stop pursuing the hearing.”
The constricting in my chest lessens a little at his words.
“How do you know your uncle is alive?”
“When I got here, I went online and read the news for Tampa.”
“What did it say?”
I nuzzle my nose into his chest, smelling my favorite cologne on his expensive jacket. “He was in critical condition. The article I read said he had driven himself to the hospital and told them I stabbed him, and that I had anger issues. He had said it to all my teachers when I tried to tell them how horrible he was to me.”
“They never saw the scars?”
“No, but one saw my bruises. My eighth-grade teacher. She showed up at the house one day, said she was worried about my home life. She was a nice lady. But my uncle, he was good-looking and charming…he told her I tried to hurt myself to get attention because of my parents’ deaths and she ended up believing him. The cigarette burns happened that night and I never tried to tell anyone again.”
“I wish you had killed him.”
“Yeah, sometimes I wish I did too.”
“I don’t even know what to say except I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say anything. I have a happy life now. I like to keep him in my past.”
He gently lifts my head so I’m forced to look in his eyes. The soft pads of his thumbs wipe beneath my eyes and I cringe when I see black smudges on his fingers. Damn it, this makeup is probably halfway down my face.
“That’s the reason I can’t be with you again.”
His face contorts with anger, with confusion. “What do you mean by that? Are you saying I control you?”
“No, not in the way you’re thinking.” I push his hands down from my face. His touch makes my brain swirl with incoherence. I need to stay focused. “You have a power over me, so strong it scares me. When you fired me, it took a long time to feel okay again.”
“Do you think the time without you was easy for me, Darcy?” he replies, piercing my soul with those big green eyes.
“You spent the entire month raiding through women, Benjamin. It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“I was with those women to try and forget about you!”
I am at a loss for how to respond to him. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to do right now, but it’s cruel.”
“Cruel?”
“Yes, cruel! You say these things and it gets my hopes up, and then you back away and I have to pick myself back up all ov
er again. I’m tired of chasing after you. I’m tired of trying to get you to say the words.”
John is crazy. I can’t fight. I whirl away from him and make a beeline for the door of the conference room.
“Darcy!” he exclaims as I shut it firmly behind me. He yanks it open. “Darcy, stop! Where are you going?”
“I’m going home,” I announce irrationally. “Thank you for this evening, Benjamin.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you don’t want me to take the job with Cindy now, just tell me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he hisses furiously, grabbing my arm before I reach the sliding doors of the convention center. People are eyeing us suspiciously.
“Let go of me,” I mutter, my voice surprisingly calm.
He releases me instantly. “Do you think I’m trying to bribe you with that job or something? Do you honestly think I’d only give it to you if you sleep with me?”
“No.”
“Fuck, Darcy. I may be an asshole, but I’m not that horrible. I want you to have that job because I care about your well-being! I don’t want you in that bar anymore!”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“But I can damn well influence you in another direction,” he seethes, narrowing his eyes. “Dammit, Darcy, why does every conversation we have end with a fight?”
“Because you’re stubborn.”
“So are you.”
“As I said before, good night, and thank you for this.” I turn to leave, but he grips my arm again, gentler this time.
“Let me take you home.”
“No, I’m getting a cab.”
“I don’t want to end tonight like this,” he says passionately. “Please, just stay. You know you want to stay.”
“Why should I? We’re about to rip each other’s throats out!”
His lips curve into an irresistible smile. “Speak for yourself.” He brushes a loose strand of hair away from my eyes. I try to keep my face completely expressionless even though I can’t help the jolt to my heart at his touch. “I’ve never found you sexier.”
“Let me go, Benjamin.”
“No.” He curves his arm around my waist, drawing me close. “I won’t.”
“Stop doing this to me,” I beg, knowing full well there are people stopping to watch the spectacle. “I want to go home.”
“Okay, let me drive you then.” His face is mere inches from mine.
“Fine.” I give up the fight.
He grins, obviously enjoying the look of pure resentment on my face. “Now kiss me,” he whispers, anxiously observing the people staring at us. His words are so soft I barely know if he actually said them.
Surely not…Right?
“Excuse me?”
“Kiss me so that’s what is printed in the papers tonight and not this fight.” His nose nuzzles softly with mine.
Papers? I’m suddenly shivering and lean in, not having to be told again. Fighting with Benjamin is honestly the best foreplay. Hesitantly, I touch the smooth skin along his jawline with my cold fingers. As if a jolt of lightning shoots straight through me, I shiver in his arms and open my mouth against his, deepening the kiss.
His warm tongue tastes of champagne and I’m humming eagerly at the familiarity. My hand slowly travels into his hair, disrupting his combed-back style, but I don’t care. My mind, for once, is completely cleared and all I can focus on is the warm heaviness of his lips clashing with mine. Surprisingly, he is the one to pull back first, and a good thing too, considering I was about to start unbuttoning his shirt. I open my eyes to find him smiling warmly at me, the corners of his eyes crinkled, full of endearment. It’s a look I’ve never seen before, and it does something to me…everywhere.
Drifting back to reality, my consciousness finally resurfaces from the deep oblivion that is my brain, reinforming me that we are not the only people in this room. Far from it.
My face burns with the heat of a thousand suns.
How could I lose control like that? In front of half of New York?
Within seconds, reporters are swarming us, obviously realizing they have a better story here. Fortunately, Benjamin, used to this kind of publicity, reacts fast and ushers me out the front doors.
“When did this relationship begin, Mr. Scott?”
“Is it love, Mr. Scott?”
“Aren’t you Darcy Fontaine, Mr. Scott’s previous assistant?”
The last question gets my attention and I make eye contact with a young girl who has to be around my age, holding a microphone. A large man stands behind her, holding a camera with a red light on the top. They’re recording.
She just said my name. On television.
I immediately recognize the price of what I just did in my momentary incoherence. Benjamin probably wanted an inconspicuous kiss, one that would make people believe we were just two lovers finishing a heated discussion. But of course, being me, I had to practically profess my love for him in front of a room of people.
Dimitri is by our side in seconds, guarding us like a wall. Benjamin’s arm tightens around my waist and he helps me into the car. The reporters are still screaming, flashing pictures outside as Dimitri shuts the door behind Benjamin.
“Don’t move. Don’t let them know they’re affecting you.” Benjamin’s face is completely impassive. He takes out his phone and types a message while I stare at him in awe. How can he text in a moment like this?
The car starts and Dimitri pulls out onto the street. The partition between the driver’s seat and the back goes up and I silently thank Benjamin for knowing I’m about to lose it.
He tucks his cell into the pocket of his jacket. “Darce—”
“What have I done?”
“It’s fine, Darcy, calm down.”
I stare at him, bewildered. “That’s going to be on television! In newspapers! Magazines! Maybe you didn’t care, but I did just get through telling you that I can’t be photo—”
“First off, never say I don’t care about what you tell me,” he cuts in with an angry rasp, meeting my glare full-on. “Secondly, I have an entire team that at this moment is making sure there isn’t and won’t be a single picture or video of you online.”
I open my mouth to speak but shut it immediately, speechless.
“Are you okay now?” he rumbles after a moment, chuckling softly. He touches my face gently and I stare at his lips. The exquisite, full lips I had attached to mine mere minutes ago.
“I have to say, it was an immense pleasure to have you kiss me first, Miss Fontaine.”
“Well, I hoped you liked it, Mr. Scott, because it isn’t happening again.”
“You know you want to, though,” he teases and moves his fingers from my face to my hair. Throat trembling, I gain the courage to meet his gaze. His lips turn up slowly and the air in the back of this large, ridiculous limo thickens to the point of suffocation.
“You don’t know that.”
“Except I do,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to mine, gripping the hem of my dress. As he pulls it up, exposing my legs, I open my mouth to protest but he takes advantage of it, plunging his eager tongue through my lips.
Soon, I feel his fingers on the skin of my thighs and I tremble violently. “Ben—”
His breath hitches in surprise finding my lack of panties.
“You surprise me,” he breathes, his fingers gliding through the evidence of my arousal. My eyes practically float into the back of my head when he plunges a single finger into me, then another. “You’re so wet. My god, Darcy.”
Too aroused to be embarrassed, I begin to hyperventilate when he raises his sleek fingers to his lips. The sight of him sucking my arousal off his fingers is enough to make me whimper.
Hearing my small sound of defeat, he pierces me with a look of pure, unadulterated lust. I already know what’s about to happen.
I look out the windows, terrified someone can see us. “Ben, we’re in public and—”
“Tinted
windows. We can see out…” He gets on his knees. Surely he isn’t—“…no one can see in.”
I can’t believe he’s about to do this here, and with Dimitri in the front seat!
Benjamin’s hands stroke and knead my flesh until he is raising the skirt of my dress even higher so I’m completely exposed to his hungry eyes, which feast on the sight of my indecency. Thankfully, the bruises have faded to pale yellow and are almost gone. I know he means business when he sheds his jacket. I start to loosen his bowtie. He’s a man––primitive and beguiling, a full package.
“You’re so sexy,” I say deliriously, undoing the top button on his shirt.
Dimitri swerves and in a flash, both me and Benjamin are a giggling mess on the floor of his limo.
“Maybe this is a little dangerous.” I force myself off of him, pressing a hand to his washboard abs to sustain me upright.
He sits up but still reaches for me. “All the best things are dangerous, Darcy.” He palms the back of my head, lowering his mouth onto mine. His kiss is deep, his tongue searching, and I lose all sense of coherence. My barrier has crumbled, my resistance dissipated into thin air.
Within seconds, I’m fumbling with the buttons of his pants, desperate to be joined. His mouth travels lower, his tongue dragging over my flesh while he eases down the thin straps of my gown to expose my breasts. I shiver when the cold air hits my body, but it’s soon warm again as his fiery lips close around my pebbled nipple, softly suckling.
I arch my back, my hands twining into his silky locks. “Please.”
He plumps my neglected breast, only lifting his face from my other to whisper, “What do you want, baby? Tell me.”
My blood is humming loudly in my veins as his hand caresses the length of my body, his fingers dragging between my damp, quivery thighs.
“I want…” My muscles tighten, my body shivers when he eases a single finger between the sensitive tissues, entering me in answer to my unfinished demand while his emerald eyes never leave mine. Ah.
“Tell me.” With the same hand he twists and tilts his thumb to rub my clit in slow, sweet circles, bringing me to heel. I pray to God that I can stay quiet.
“I want you inside me,” I whimper, biting my lip. My hips are churning into his fingers restlessly and I know I’m close. I also know he isn’t going to stop until I come.
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