Her eyes narrowed even more. “Do what?”
“Fight me.”
“Be careful. That’s borderline creeper behavior again.”
“No, it’s not. It’s what I love about you.”
Livvie might not realize it, but her inherent warrior instinct—her drive to succeed and push away all obstacles in her path, her unwillingness to accept the easy way in anything—was incredibly rare. He knew far too many people in this world who’d been handed their fortunes on a golden platter, himself included. It was easy to be a success when you were bankrolled by your family and every door was thrown wide open as you approached.
But Livvie wouldn’t even laugh for him unless he earned it first. Every smile, every sigh, every gasp of pleasure was a treasure he had to hunt down and smuggle away. She forced him to work for things. She challenged him.
“You love that I fight you?” she asked, sarcasm and her teeth flashing. “How romantic.”
“I love that you want to fight me. I love that no matter how much you want to ignore that napkin and show me the door, you can’t do it. When I touch you like this, my hands caressing your breasts, your lips so close I can taste them, I know you’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”
“But I’m not yours. I belong to no one.”
“You belong to me.” He spoke with a vehemence he barely recognized, desire and something like panic filling his throat. “And I’ll show you—for hours, if I have to. I might have held myself back all these years, but as soon as I have you underneath me, I plan to take my time getting to know your body. I already know so much about what’s inside here.” He lifted his hand and tapped her temple. “But I haven’t gotten a chance to explore the rest.”
Even though Livvie was more than smart enough to know what the rest entailed, he dropped his free hand to her cunt. He cupped her over fabric and between her legs, pressing his palm so hard he elicited a moan.
“I’m dying to get to know the rest, love. The last taste was heaven.”
“You have no idea what’s going on in any part of me.” She spoke sharply but didn’t shy from his touch. If anything, she angled into it, forcing his hand to delve deeper into the juncture of her thighs. “Oh, I know you think you’ve got me all figured out. You memorized my outfits over the years. You learned my favorite hotels and favorite drinks and favorite meals. You met the woman who gave birth to me and charmed her into believing we’re soul mates.”
“We are soul mates.”
She looked away, the first time she ever willingly relinquished her ground to him. “This isn’t the place I grew up, you know. It’s not even close.”
He did know that, but he chose his next words carefully. “I know how hard you’ve worked to get where you are.”
“You know nothing.”
“Then tell me,” he begged. “Tell me what part of you I’m missing. Tell me where it hurts.”
“You really want to hear it?”
More than anything. More than he wanted to make her come in his arms. “Yes.”
“I hate men like you.”
Instinct had him recoiling from the anger in her voice, the pain she could inflict in five little words. Instinct urged him to let go.
Instinct, however, had nothing on love. He held fast.
“Hate is an awfully strong word.”
“No. It’s not. It’s not strong enough.” Her eyes met his, daring him to react. “You have everything. Everything. Money. Position. Power. Looks. Charm. Oh, I know it’s not your fault you were born with it, and I know how hard you work to maintain your standard of living, but you’ll never understand what it means to have nothing. To come from nothing. To earn every bit of success by the grit of your teeth and the blood on your hands.”
“We all have blood on our hands.”
Her look was full of disdain. “Some of us have more than others.”
Although it was a risk to release his hold on her, even a little, he lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “The fact that you come from less-than-noble origins doesn’t scare me.”
“Yes, but the fact that you don’t come from less-than-noble origins scares me. I understand men like you. I know how you see the world and your place in it, how easily you’ll leverage your wealth to get what you want.”
“You. I want you.”
“Exactly.” Her gaze softened, but it was a trap. He could see a flash of something dark, something pained, behind it all. “You’re not the first man in a position of power to want me. You’re not even the first to pull out all the stops to have me. Do you want to know who was?”
No, but he had the feeling he was about to find out. He also had the feeling he wasn’t going to like it.
“He was the photographer who got me my start,” she said, her voice cold. Not bitter, just cold. “And you’ve got some heavy competition there, because he had quite a bit to offer. Headshots and a full portfolio, even an interview with my first agency. That’s a hard bribe to top.”
“Livvie...”
“I know it doesn’t sound like much now, but you have to remember who I was at the time. An absolute nobody, living with my free-spirited mother in the middle of nowhere. Free-spirited is code for drunk on dandelion wine, in case you were wondering. We didn’t even have money to pay for a bus to take me to New York, let alone launch a modeling career there.”
“I don’t care about any of that,” he said fiercely. “Why should your origins change my mind?”
“Because I was fourteen years old at the time, remember?” As she spoke, his heart stuttered and stopped, picking up again only after some strong persuasion from his lungs. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he’d been the only one, but it takes a while to launch a successful modeling career. Years, in fact. Years and a hell of a lot of wealthy, well-connected men promising to help a poor girl from the sticks find a foothold.”
“Oh, love—” he began, but he didn’t know where to go from there. Affection and sadness and a fiery substance not unlike brimstone lodged in his throat.
“Can you understand my reluctance now? Why your promises and your position make me less likely to run into your arms, not more?” She shook her head, a sigh escaping. “You can’t. That’s the problem. Even now, you can’t see it. It’s not a question to you that I’ll eventually come around and see your side of things. No—that’s not right. It is a question, but not of if. It’s when. When Livvie finally realizes how great we are together. When Livvie can’t resist anymore. When Livvie understands the lengths I’m willing to go to have her.”
“I don’t think that—”
“You do,” she said with force, and he realized it was true. The only way this day ended for him was with Livvie in his arms. Anything else was unacceptable. “This whole grand gesture of yours is just that—a gesture. It’s not real. You brought the entire world to a halt for one day so you could prove to me that we’d be good together, pulled out all the stops to get what you want just like every other man in my life. But what happens when the world starts turning again? What happens when you get detained by business for months at a time and I have back-to-back bookings for an entire season? Where do we go then?”
“Anywhere, as long as we go together,” he said simply.
She shook her head, unwilling to listen, to see. “No. That’s not how it works.”
“It could be, if you’d only give yourself a chance—”
“Goddammit.” She swore without malice, her voice soft. “I’m not some prize you get for being the most persistent. I’m not a bunny at the end of the racetrack you get to fuck if you’re the first to catch it. Has it ever occurred to you that the reason I’m determined for us to be friends rather than lovers is because that’s a conscious decision I made for myself?”
No. It hadn’t.
“Exactly,” she said, as if
reading his mind. “Not once, in all these—what? Months? Years?—of planning did you stop and consider that I might have already made my choice. That I let myself imagine a future by your side and realized the price was one I wasn’t willing to pay. Me. I picked. I decided.”
He took in the mess of the courtyard, all flooded water and metal wreckage, and shivered with sudden cold.
“It’s hard for me, too.” She lifted a hand to his jawline, forcing his gaze back to hers. “Being friends. Wanting you. Loving you. And I do love you, you know. More than anything or anyone in the world.”
He swallowed, unsure what to say. This was it—the moment he broke through, the confession he’d been waiting for.
So why did it feel like the last thing he wanted to hear?
“I’m not like those other men,” he said, his voice hoarse with desperation.
“Yes, you are.” She smiled sadly. “Even now, you’re still trying to convince me. You refuse to accept any outcome but the one you have your sights set on. The only problem is, I’m not a fourteen-year-old girl without a clue anymore. I stopped putting my fate in the hands of men who are richer and more powerful than me a long time ago—and I won’t do it again. Not even for you.”
She stepped back, ripping herself from his arms and taking the last of his hope with her.
“Come on,” she said, her voice as calm as if she’d just won a game of checkers rather than a battle of the heart. “We should probably finish moving this fountain and get somewhere to clean up. The paparazzi will have a field day with this wet T-shirt contest we have going on. You’ll probably win. You certainly are one handsome bastard.”
He managed only a small quirk of a smile, but it was more for her benefit than his. “More bastard than handsome, I suppose?”
“Let’s call it a tie. It’s always been a close race with you, Benjamin Meyers.”
Close, but not close enough.
Unless he was very much mistaken, he’d just lost everything.
Chapter Seven
“Livvie, I don’t think this is the best place for us to dry off right now.”
Livvie got out of the cab without looking back. In a complete role reversal of the day before, she was the one in charge now. She could command cab drivers to take them to uncomfortable, glamorous places with bags full of butt plugs. She could refuse to look back at the man who obviously wanted to be anywhere else in the world.
It wasn’t as much fun now, was it? When he was the one with his heart ripped out of his chest and held up for closer examination?
“Too bad. I didn’t ask you what you thought. Your place is closer than mine, and we need to get your wet bandage changed. I won’t be responsible for your death when the tattoo gets infected and sends butterfly-shaped bacteria into your bloodstream.”
She refused to look at where Ben stood next to her on the sidewalk, the pair of them staring up at the towering building he called home. She was afraid that if she spent too much time on the tight compression of his jaw, on the pull of lines around his eyes she could have sworn weren’t there an hour ago, she’d cave.
And she couldn’t cave now—not when they were standing so close to his apartment, to the next item on the list. Number six. Sell your ridiculous Manhattan apartment. No one needs that much space. It’s obscene.
A smarter woman wouldn’t stick around to see if he’d actually gone through with it, but she found herself unable to drop Ben off and leave him to manage his disappointment alone. That was what friends did. They stood by and held your hand even when it was the last thing they wanted to do. They set aside their own problems to make sure you were okay.
She would make sure Ben was going to be okay, even if it killed her.
“Is there anything you want to tell me before we head up?” Livvie asked, forcing herself to sound bright. As she was a woman who never sounded bright even under the best of circumstances, she was sure he could see right through her fake cheer. “Any confessions about recent real estate ventures?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
She gave in and glanced at him. He was watching her with a wary glint in his eye, as if he wasn’t sure what kind of reaction to expect, as if he wasn’t sure how much more of today he could take.
Her throat grew thick at the thought, and a clenching hand grabbed her heart, refusing to let it go. Ben had never been anything but 100 percent confident—in himself, in her, in everything. “We’ll have to get it over with eventually,” she said.
“Yes. I suppose we will.” He brushed past both her and the doorman.
The apartment building was the same on the inside as it was on the outside, all glass and metal, a modern showpiece that made the most of natural light and unnatural elegance. Livvie had been there enough times that she knew her way to the elevators near the back. Ben had already made his way inside and waited only for her to step into the mirrored box before pushing the top-floor button.
It was the longest elevator ride of her life. Ben was stonily silent, careful to stand a few feet away from her so no parts of their bodies touched. In any other man, she might have called it a temper tantrum, his reserve an attempt to punish her for rejecting him, but she knew him far too well for that.
He was hurting, and like any majestic and infallible beast, he’d prefer to nurse his wounds alone. But she’d promised to stay by his side until eight thirty-four, and that was precisely what she planned to do.
“Well, we’re here,” she said as the elevator chimed their arrival.
“Don’t be surprised if things have been moved around since you last saw my place.” Ben’s voice was careful. “I’d like to avoid any projectiles making their way toward my head, if at all possible.”
Her heart sank. “You actually went through with it.”
“You know I did.”
Millions of dollars—that was the kind of transaction they were talking about here. Oh, she had no doubt that he brokered a good deal out of it, that he could recover his losses and move into another equally ridiculous and ornate apartment tomorrow, but that wasn’t the point.
The point was that he’d happily moved millions of dollars in this attempt to win her over. The point was that he thought she could be convinced of his affections based on his willingness to throw his checkbook around.
“Oh, Ben. I never wanted you to actually sell your apartment.”
“It was on the list.”
“A joke list. A pretend list.” Even after all this, he still didn’t get it. “It was never supposed to happen—I was just trying to hit you where I knew it would hurt the most.”
She felt his gaze land on her profile, saw in the mirrored panels of the elevator walls how painfully tender his expression became. “You don’t know anything about me if you think the thing that could hurt me most is a hit to my finances.”
She lifted a hand to him, but she didn’t have a chance to make contact. They stepped off the elevator to find the front door to his apartment open, a pair of men in dark clothes carrying his enormous flat-screen television out.
She groaned at the sight of them, at the finality of it all. “Where are they taking all your stuff?”
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“Does it matter? It’s just an apartment. I can get a new one.”
“It matters to me. You’ve lived here for as long as I’ve known you. You can’t just uproot your whole life for no reason.”
“I had a very good reason, if you’ll recall.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off with a sharply raised hand. “Livvie, don’t. Please. I know you see me as this selfish monster who can’t think of anyone but himself, but I heard you back at your mom’s house. I heard you loud and clear.”
“Then make it stop.” She was a few seconds a
way from slapping her hands over her eyes in an attempt to make it all go away. “Stop the list before it goes any further.”
“I can’t. I set these wheels in motion a long time ago, and even I know my limits as a man of business.” He broke off to pinch the bridge of his nose and noticed they still had an audience. His voice tight, he said, “Peter, Lance—why don’t you two take a break?”
The movers looked up, recognizing Ben’s authority despite the fact that his voice was on the verge of cracking and he was dripping all over the tiled floor. “Sure thing, boss. Where do you want us to set this?”
He waved his hand toward the hallway wall. “Anywhere is fine. We’re going to need a few hours, so why don’t you call it an early dinner, and be back here at, say, eight thirty-five to finish the job?”
Eight thirty-five. Of course. When everything came to an end. When everything they had was ruined forever.
“Buy it back.” Livvie barely waited for the men to disappear into the elevator before she pushed close to Ben, her hand flat on his chest. He backed up under her touch, the pair of them moving as one until they were planted firmly in the middle of his empty living room.
She’d always felt the apartment was too large for him, that he was just showing off with all the excess air and luxury, but the space felt oddly small now that his life had been packed up into boxes and set aside. They were just walls and a ceiling and windows that overlooked the bustle of the city below, but they were his walls and his ceiling and his windows.
She couldn’t take away his hope and also take away his home. She had to leave him with something after this awful day was through.
She curled her fingers into his chest, determined to fix at least this much. “I don’t care who you sold this apartment to or how much money you have to pay to reverse it. Buy it back. Don’t lose your home over this.”
His mouth firmed, and he looked down at her hand as though it had no right to come so near him. “No.”
“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. If you want to salvage our friendship, to go back to the way things were before, then you have to stop the wheels of commerce. Make this go away.”
Model Behavior Page 8