Billion Dollar Man
Page 30
Ben put his other hand on my good cheek and looked me in the eye. His face was so serious.
“I will always come for you.”
He pressed his lips against mine. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t want to.
The kiss didn’t last long.
“We have to get out of here,” Mr. Gun said.
Ben nodded and helped me up. He led me to the stairs with an arm around my waist. When we reached the top of the stairs, there were men everywhere. Some of them were on the ground or on their knees with guns pointed at them. Other stood, looking at us, wielding the guns.
“Thanks, boys,” Ben said, and we headed to the door.
I looked around and realized we’d been in a dilapidated apartment building, on the bottom floor with a basement. When we stepped outside, the bright light from the lamp posts hurt my eyes. The men with their guns ran out of the apartment building as if it was on fire, suddenly. And a minute later, police cars pulled up. Four of them. Police officers jumped out with their guns, shouting. When they ran into the house, they would find the bad guys on the floor without anyone keeping them there. Ben’s gunmen had all disappeared as if they had never been there at all.
I frowned at the police cars. They had NYPD on the side.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“We’re in New York.”
My stomach turned. I felt dizzy. It was all too much to take in. I had been knocked out for long enough for them to bring me to New York all the way from Portland. Even if the whole city had been searching for me, they wouldn’t have been able to find me.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” I said. I felt like I was going to cry again.
“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,” Ben said. He kept calling me that. “Let me take care of it.”
A police officer came to talk to us. He asked me questions, and I told him everything I remembered. Afterward, Ben talked to him and gave him names. When he said things like “mafia” and owed debts, I felt dizzy. Who was this man? Why did I feel like I didn’t know him at all?
“Come, Mila,” Ben said, using my name again for the first time since he’d found me in the basement. “Let’s get you to a hospital.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to go.”
“Sweetheart, your cheek needs to be looked at.”
“Okay, but I don’t want to stay overnight or anything. I just want my cheek patched up.”
Ben nodded in agreement. I wanted to be somewhere safe. I couldn’t imagine being trapped in a hospital bed for God knows how long, in a city so far away from home.
“How long have I been away from home?” I asked when we climbed into Ben’s car.
“You were taken on Monday morning. It’s Wednesday evening.”
The time reference calmed me so much more than I had thought possible. Not knowing the time or how much of it had passed had disorientated me, making me feel untethered. It was crazy how much I relied on time.
Ben took me to a clinic close by. We lied about what had happened, and the doctor scolded me for not taking care of myself. I would never have let a cut get this bad. I didn’t tell him I was a nurse.
The cut turned out not to have been deep at all and barely infected. I was lucky. It would heal without scarring if I kept it clean and didn’t fuss with it.
“And no makeup on it until the skin is fully healed,” the doctor said.
“I don’t really wear makeup,” I said.
“She doesn’t need to,” Ben said in a gentle voice and warmth spread through my chest, stirring emotions for Ben that I had pushed very far away.
I told the doctor that I might have a concussion. He checked up on me and determined that it had healed enough not to be a problem if I was careful.
“So no more of whatever you were really doing,” he said, looking pointedly at me. He hadn’t bought any of our lies.
“Definitely not,” Ben said at the same time as I shook my head.
When we were finally done, Ben handed me his phone. Mine was lost, I would have to get a new one. I called my parents to let them know I was safe.
They were terrified and freaked out. My mom broke down in tears when she heard my voice, and I started crying again, too.
“I’m okay,” I reassured her and my dad for the umpteenth time. “Everything is okay. Ben is here with me. He’ll make sure I come back home safely.”
When I finally managed to end the call, they were relieved.
“Thank you,” I said, handing the phone back to Ben.
“Of course,” he said, putting it back in his pocket. “Let’s get you home. I have a penthouse. You need a shower and a bed.”
I nodded in agreement. I was suddenly exhausted, and I was pretty sure I smelled. The musty smell of that basement still clung to my clothes. I wanted to get rid of it.
Ben drove me to a tall building. We rode up in the elevator to the very top floor. The elevator opened to his front door which he unlocked. When I walked into the penthouse, it was bigger than any house I had ever stayed in. And it looked nothing like the Ben I had come to know. It was all glossy marble tops and clean stretches of wall interrupted at intervals with abstract art. Large, full-length windows looked out over New York. The view was breathtaking.
“So, this is where you come when you’re not in Portland,” I said.
Ben nodded. “I’m moving soon, though. I bought a place.”
At the news, my stomach sank. Of course, I couldn’t expect one little valiant act of heroism to be an indication that he would come back into my life. He cared that I was safe, but he didn’t want to be with me.
“The bathroom is through here,” Ben said, gesturing toward a hallway. I followed him through the strange house that had been a home to him for so many years, wondering about everything I had found out about Ben, trying to figure out how he was someone completely different than I thought I’d known all this time.
But then again, how well did you really know someone?
Chapter 51
Ben
When I woke up, Mila was in my bed. I didn’t think that was something that was going to happen again. She was still asleep, and I moved carefully not to wake her. She was lying so still that I checked to make sure she was still breathing. I knew I was being paranoid, but she had been through such a terrible ordeal, and it was my fault.
The cut on her cheek had been patched up; her cheeks had a bit of color now that she had eaten. I pulled the covers up higher to be sure she was warm enough before I carefully slid out of bed.
Waking up next to Mila was amazing. We hadn’t done anything last night – after her shower and a bit of food she had looked so tired I had offered the spare bedroom to her so that she could get some rest.
“Can I sleep with you?” she’d asked. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Of course, she hadn’t. So, I had led her to my room and gotten into bed with her, holding her until she fell asleep. Which had been almost instantly.
Now that I was awake, and it was the light of a new day, I was racked with guilt over everything that had happened. I had left Portland, breaking Mila’s heart in the process, so that this wouldn’t happen. I had been so worried that my loved ones would get hurt but leaving had done nothing to prevent that.
I felt terrible that I had put Mila in danger even though I had tried not to do that. If I had known earlier that this was what was going to happen, I would never have gone back to Portland. But I just had to live a different life, hadn’t I? And now, look what had happened.
I walked to the kitchen and put on the state-of-the-art coffee machine, one of the few appliances that came with this place that I used a lot. I opened the fridge and searched for food to make something to eat for Mila. I wanted to cook her a breakfast fit for a queen, to spoil her so that she could forget about her horrible ordeal. Not that something as traumatic as being kidnapped and held hostage for two days would go away with the perfect fluffy omelet, but I had no idea what else to do.
&n
bsp; When I had left Portland, I had walked away without an explanation. How did I fix it all, now? She didn’t even know exactly what had been going on. I would tell her when she woke up if she needed to know. I wouldn’t hide it from her anymore. Even though I didn’t want her to be part of this life and all its dangers, she deserved to know.
I took eggs and bacon out of the fridge and fired up the stove, ready to cook up a storm. I put bread in the toaster.
God, when I had seen her on the floor, her face cut up like that my heart had damn near stopped. She had looked so wilted, so scared. And I had been terrified that she had been hurt so much more than just the cut on her face. But aside from the concussion that had happened when they’d grabbed her and the cut on her cheek, Mila had thankfully been fine.
To think what they could have done to her made me sick to my stomach. Mila was gorgeous, and men were pigs. Especially if they were associated with Brantley.
Before I could work myself up over what they had done to her, I pushed the thoughts out of my mind and thought about Brantley, instead. He had gone to serious lengths to get me to pay for what my dad had done. I hadn’t realized how deep my father had been into the criminal world and how much shit he had caused. But getting Mila back didn’t make any of that go away. And I was under no illusion that I was safe now because I had managed to throw around a little muscle. If anything, they would only up their game to get what they wanted.
What they rightfully deserved, in my opinion. Yeah, so they were bad guys. But they had started this. And it was time for me to finish it.
“Hey,” Mila said behind me. I had been so caught up in my thoughts and making breakfast I hadn’t heard her come in. She was wearing my t-shirt and boxers. She looked like a vision. But the bandage on her face and her haunted eyes reminded me that she had been through a terrible ordeal, and sex should be the last thing on my mind.
“How are you feeling?” I asked as she leaned against the cabinets closest to me and watched the bacon sizzle in the pan.
“Better,” she said. “Amazing what a good night in a soft bed can do.”
She looked around the kitchen. Having her here from Portland in my New York City penthouse was strange. It was two worlds together, and that was unsettling.
But to have Mila here with me, safe and sound, was a relief.
I dished up food for us on two plates and carried them to the breakfast nook. Mila sat down next to me. She studied her food as if it was foreign and eventually took a bite of the scrambled egg. It killed me to see her so careful, testing everything as if she wasn’t sure how real it was.
“Do you want me to take you home?” I asked after we had eaten in silence for a while. Mila wasn’t speaking much at all.
She looked at me. “Can I be honest?”
I nodded.
“I don’t want to go back yet. They’re all going to have so many questions, and I’m not ready to answer them.”
“Of course,” I said. If there was anyone that understood what she meant, it was me. When Uncle Dean had died, so many people had come to offer their condolences, and I hadn’t wanted to talk to any one of them. I had wanted to lock myself away and be quiet for a few days.
“I don’t want to impose,” Mila said. “I’ll only stay a few days.”
I moved my hand to hers, slowly so I didn’t scare her. When she didn’t pull away, I gently put my hand over hers.
“You can stay as long as you need.”
She offered me a small smile before carrying on eating without saying anything.
After breakfast, Mila showered again. When she emerged, again wearing my t-shirt and boxers, I offered her the clothes she had worn when I’d found her.
“I washed them for you,” I said.
Mila paled. “I really don’t want to wear them again.”
Of course, they would remind her of everything.
“Let’s go get you some new clothes, then,” I said.
“What?”
“We’ll go shopping.”
She blinked at me with a confused face. “Now? Don’t you have work?”
“Work can wait,” I said. I wasn’t the boss for nothing. I had people that could take care of everything for me. If there was a crisis, they would call.
“I don’t know,” Mila said, hesitant.
“I insist,” I said. “You need something to wear. We can burn these.”
At the mention of burning them, her eyes brightened. “It would be good to get rid of them.”
“That’s settled, then.”
In the end, she put on a pair of tracksuit pants that were too small for me and a t-shirt that hung past the middle of her thighs. She had to put on the same shoes, but I vowed to buy her the first pair we found, and she could wear them right away.
“Do you feel like you can head out in that?” I asked when she looked at herself in the mirror.
Mila nodded. “I don’t really care what they think of me right now. I just want to find something to wear.”
“Right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I had never been shopping with a woman, but I was pretty sure that Mila was efficient and not at all full of shit the way I had heard. As it turned out, she knew what she wanted. She knew her style, and she only tried on the clothes to be sure they fit right, not because she wondered which color would suit her skin tone best or if it made her hips look big.
“Make sure you have a couple of different outfits,” I said when she came out of the change rooms with the clothes she wanted over her arm.
“No, it’s okay.”
“I have more than enough money. You’re not putting me out. And if you want to stay a few days, I want you to be comfortable. Get pajamas as well. Whatever you need.”
It took a bit of arguing but before long, I managed to convince her to get a couple of different items, and we left the store with bags of clothing.
Mila was starting to get tired again. She often worked between twelve and twenty-four hours shifts, and she was always on her feet, but after being held captive without food and water for two days, it was understandable that her stamina wasn’t what it usually was.
We sat down at a restaurant to take a break and get something to drink. I watched Mila as she sat back in the chair and closed her eyes for a moment. She was beautiful, no matter what she did. And even though she had been through so much, she handled it with finesse. Mila didn’t freak out or break down and cry. She didn’t curl up in a ball and rock back and forth. It had been tough to go through, but Mila was strong.
She was the strongest person I knew.
It felt amazing to be with her again. I thought about the time when she had been there for me when I had been such a mess after the accident. When other firefighters had been injured instead of me. She had been my rock through that. I wanted to be there for her, now. I would be there for her to lean on if she needed me.
But it wasn’t just that. I still had strong feelings for her, and it felt great just to be around her again. Even if I knew that we weren’t together anymore, even if I was just going to be here for her as a friend. I would have loved to be her man, but to just have her as a friend, and to have her safe and sound, was plenty.
Besides, I fawned over her the way I had before. I couldn’t afford to fall so hard for her again that I forgot about the bigger picture. All the difficulty wasn’t over with the mafia and Mila had already been hurt enough. She didn’t deserve anything like that again. Being with me was only trouble.
“What happened?” Mila asked me. “Why was the mafia after me?”
I hadn’t expected her to ask so soon, but I was glad to be able to tell her. Not only to bring her out of the dark on it all but to tell her that none of this was about me. When I had talked to the police, I realized it had sounded like I was a part of it all. I wanted her to know it had nothing to do with me, directly.
Talking to her about it also reminded me that no matter how good it felt to be with her, I needed to keep her far away from
this bullshit. I had no idea what was going to happen in the future. As long as I remembered why I had pushed her away, I could stick to my guns instead of letting my heart get into this too much.
Mila deserved to be alive and well, far beyond anything else.
Chapter 52
Mila
After we were at the store, I was exhausted. It wasn’t that I couldn’t deal with walking around from one shop to the next. I had no idea why I felt so drained. But the last few days had been a lot to handle.
“How about we get some takeaway and head back home?” Ben suggested.
“And wine?” I asked.
He looked unsure. “Is that a good idea with your concussion?”
He was right, of course. But the idea of an escape was a great one. The dinner did sound fantastic, though, and I agreed to that. Even if I couldn’t have the wine just yet.
We picked up Chinese on the way home. I hadn’t had Chinese in a long time, and I was excited about it. We put a movie on the monster television in Ben’s state-of-the-art living room. The surround sound made me feel like I was being submerged, which was exactly what I needed. We sat at the coffee table with our food instead of the dining table, and everything was perfect.
Ben sat next to me on his plush carpet, and I was aware of how close he was. His cologne hung in the air around him. I liked having him so close to me. It made me feel safe and loved.
Even if being loved by Ben could be an illusion. Tonight, I didn’t care. All I cared about was feeling like everything was okay again.
When we finished our food, Ben leaned against the couch with his back and lifted his arm. I moved so that I sat against him, and he put his arm around me. It was warm and safe, the way it had been to lie with him in his bed when he had brought me home from the hospital and crawled into bed with me to keep me safe. When I was with Ben, I felt like nothing could get to me.
It was another illusion, but I would take it.
Ben turned his face to me somewhere in the movie. When I looked at him, his face was so close I could see the flecks of green in eyes that were the color of the ocean. His eyes were on my lips, and his face was riddled with something I hadn’t thought I would see again. It immediately took my breath away.