Beautiful Bitch

by Christina Lauren

  “What’s wrong?” I pulled my hand back, turned her to face me.

  She rolled her shoulders. “Nothing. I’m good.”

  “Unconvincing.”

  She threw me an annoyed look. “I’m fine. Just open the door.”

  “Holy shit,” I said on an exhale, stunned. “Chloe Mills is actually nervous.”

  This time she turned to glare up at me fully. “You spotted that? Christ, you’re brilliant. Someone should make you a COO and give you a big fancy office.” She reached to open the door herself.

  I stopped her hand from turning the knob and a grin spread across my face. “Chloe?”

  “I just haven’t seen them since before . . . you know. And they saw you when you were all . . .” She made a gesture around me, which I gathered was meant to indicate “when Bennett was a complete disaster, after Chloe left him.”

  “Just . . . let’s not make this a thing. I’m fine,” she went on.

  “I’m just enjoying the rare sighting of a jittery Chloe. Give me a second, let me savor this.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Fuck off?” I stepped in front of her, moved until her body pressed into mine. “Are you trying to seduce me, Miss Mills?”

  Finally, she laughed, her shoulders surrendering their tense determination. “I just don’t want it to be—”

  The front door flew open, and Henry took a step forward, enveloping Chloe in a massive hug. “There she is!”

  Chloe peeked up at me over my brother’s shoulder and laughed. “—awkward,” she finished, wrapping her arms around him.

  Just inside the doorway stood my parents, wearing the biggest shit-eating grins I’d ever seen. My mom’s eyes were suspiciously misty.

  “It’s been way too long,” Henry said, releasing my girlfriend and looking right at me.

  Groaning inwardly, I registered that this entire night could very easily turn into a giant recap of what a trial this whole thing had been for Chloe, of how impossible I’d been to work with; the details of Miss Mills’s challenging attitude would be whitewashed for history.

  It was a good thing she looked so damn fit in her little black dress. I’d need the distraction.

  I’d called Dad the morning of Chloe’s presentation, telling him I’d planned to attend and convince her to present the Papadakis slides. I told him, too, that I was going to ask her to take me back. As usual, Dad had been supportive, but guarded, telling me that no matter what Chloe said, he was proud of me for going after what I wanted.

  What I wanted now stepped into the house and hugged my mother, and my father, before looking up at me. “I don’t know what I was worried about,” she whispered.

  “Were you nervous?” Mom asked, eyes wide.

  “I just left so abruptly. I’ve felt bad about that, and about not seeing either of you for months . . .” Chloe trailed off.

  “No, no, no, no—you had to put up with Bennett,” Henry said, ignoring my irritated sigh. “Trust us, we get it.”

  “Come on,” I groaned, pulling her back. “We don’t need to make this a thing.”

  “I just knew,” Mom whispered, putting her hands on Chloe’s face. “I knew.”

  “What the hell, Mom?” I stepped closer, hugging her first and giving her a scowl second. “You ‘knew’ this even when you set her up with Joel?”

  “I think the phrase is ‘shit or get off the pot,’ ” Henry offered.

  “That is absolutely not the phrase I would have used, Henry Ryan.” Mom threw him a look and then wrapped her arm around Chloe, urging her down the hall. She turned to talk to me over her shoulder. “I figured if you didn’t see what was right in front of your face, maybe another man deserved a shot.”

  “Poor Joel never had a shot,” Dad mumbled, surprising all of us and apparently even himself. He looked up, and then laughed. “Someone had to say it.”

  Climbing out of the car, I smiled at the memory of the rest of that evening: the ten minutes during which we’d all dissolved into hysterics over our shared experiences of getting food poisoning at inopportune times, the unbelievable crème brûlée my mother had served after dinner, and, much later, the way Chloe and I had barely made it back inside my house before falling into a tangle of limbs and sweat on my living room floor.

  I turned the knob on my parents’ front door, knowing my dad would still be up, but hoping not to wake my mother. The knob creaked and I eased it open with familiar care, lifting it slightly where I knew the wood swelled a little at the threshold.

  But, to my surprise, Mom greeted me in the entryway, wearing her old purple robe and holding two cups of tea.

  “I don’t know why,” she said, extending one cup to me, “but I was pretty sure you were going to turn up here tonight.”

  “Mother’s intuition?” I asked, taking the cup and bending to kiss her cheek. I lingered there, hoping I could keep my emotions in check tonight.

  “Something like that.” Tears filled her eyes and she turned away before I could say something about them. “Come on, I know why you’re here. I’ve got it down in the kitchen.”

  Five

  “And you’re sure we’ll get the signatures on time?” I asked my assistant, who checked her watch and jotted something down in her notepad.

  “Yes. Aaron’s on his way over there now. We should have them back by lunch.”

  “Good,” I said, closing the files and handing them back. “We’ll give it a final look before the meeting and if everything goes—” The door to my outer office opened, and a very determined-looking Bennett walked inside. My assistant let out a terrified squeak and I waved for her to go. She practically sprinted out of there.

  Long legs carried him across the room in only a few strides, and he stopped just on the other side of my desk, slapping two crisp white envelopes down on a stack of marketing reports.

  I looked down to the envelopes and then back up to him. “Something about this is so familiar,” I said. “Which one of us is going to slam the door and storm out to the stairwell?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Just open them.”

  “Well, good morning to you, too, Mr. Ryan.”

  “Chloe, don’t be a pain in the ass.”

  “You’d rather be a pain in mine?”

  His eyes softened and he leaned over my desk to kiss me. He’d gotten home late last night, long after I’d fallen asleep. I’d woken to the sound of my alarm clock to find his warm and very naked body pressed against mine. I deserved some kind of a medal for managing to leave that bed.

  “Good morning, Miss Mills,” he said softly. “Now open the damn envelopes.”

  “If you insist. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Slamming things down on desks has never really ended well for us. Well, for me. Maybe you could rectify that . . .”

  “Chloe.”

  “Fine, fine.” I lifted the flap on the one with my name and pulled a printed sheet of paper from inside. “ORD to CDG,” I read. “Chicago to France.” I looked up at him. “They’re sending me somewhere?”

  Bennett beamed, and frankly, he looked so good while doing it I was glad I was sitting down. “France. Marseille, to be exact. The second ticket is behind that one.”

  Plane tickets, one envelope for each of us. Scheduled to leave Friday. It was Tuesday already.

  “I . . . I don’t understand. We’re going to France? This isn’t about last night, is it? Because we have busy lives, Bennett. These kinds of things will always happen. I promise I wasn’t upset.”

  He rounded the desk and kneeled in front of me. “No. This isn’t about last night. It’s about a lot of nights. This is about me putting what’s important first. And this,” he said, motioning between us. “This is what’s important. We hardly see each other anymore, Chloe, and that’s not going to change after the move. I love you. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too. But . . . ahhh, I’m a little surprised. France is . . . really far and there’s so much to do and—”

  “Not just France. A priva
te house—a villa. It belongs to my friend Max, the one I went to school with? And it’s beautiful and huge and empty,” he added. “With a giant bed, several of them. A pool. We can cook and walk around naked; we don’t even have to answer the phone if we don’t want to. Come on, Chlo.”

  “I love that you threw in the walking-around-naked part,” I said. “Because that’s most definitely how you’d close the deal.”

  He moved closer, clearly aware my resolve was breaking. “I pride myself on always knowing my opponent, Miss Mills. So what do you say? Come with me? Please?”

  “Jesus, Bennett. It’s like ten in the morning and you’re killing me with the swoons here.”

  “I debated tranquilizing you and throwing you over my shoulder, but that might make things sticky at customs.”

  I took a deep breath and peered down at the tickets. “Okay, so we’d leave on the ninth and come back . . . Wait, is this right?”

  He followed my gaze. “What?”

  “Three weeks? I can’t just drop everything and go to France for three weeks, Bennett!”

  He stood, confused. “Why? I was able to make arrangements and—”

  “Are you serious? First, we’re moving in a month. A month! And we haven’t even picked out an apartment! Then there’s my best friend, who was cheated on by the world’s biggest asshat last week. And let’s not forget the minor detail called my job? I have meetings and an entire department to hire and move to New York!”

  His face fell; clearly this was not the reaction he’d anticipated. The sun was behind him and when he turned his head, tilting it the slightest bit, the light caught his eyelashes, the angles of his face.

  Ugh. Guilt swelled in my chest like a balloon. “Fuck. I’m sorry.” I leaned into him and laid my head against his shoulder. “That is absolutely not the way I meant to say all that.”

  Strong arms wrapped around me and I felt him exhale. “I know.”

  Bennett took my hand and led me to the small table in the corner of the room. He motioned for me to take a seat, while he took the chair opposite me. “Shall we negotiate?” he said, a challenge in his eyes I hadn’t seen since he’d stepped into my office.

  This I could do.

  He leaned forward, hands clasped and elbows on the table in front of him. “The move,” he began. “Admittedly, it’s a big one. But we have a Realtor; I’ve seen the top three contenders. You just need to decide if you need to see them, or if you trust me to choose. We can let the Realtor handle the rest and pay people to do the actual packing and moving part.” He raised a brow in question and I nodded for him to continue. “I know how much you care about Sara. Talk to her; see where she’s at with all of this. You said you didn’t even know if she was leaving him, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And your job . . . I’m so incredibly proud of you, Chloe. I know how hard you work and how important you are. But there will never be a perfect time. We’ll always be busy, there will always be people who want our attention, and there will always be things that feel like they can’t wait. It’s a good exercise for you in delegating tasks—I love you, but you suck at delegating. And it’s going to be even more hectic when we move. When’s the next time we’ll have a chance to do this? I want to be with you. I want to speak French to you and make you come on a bed in France where nobody can just drop by on the weekend or call either of us away for work.”

  “You’re making it very hard to be the responsible adult here,” I said.

  “Being responsible is overrated.”

  I felt my mouth fall open and could do nothing but gape at him. I was just about to ask who this easygoing person was, and what they’d done with my boyfriend, when there was a knock at the door. I pulled my eyes away from a very pleased boyfriend to see a terrified intern walk in, staring at Bennett with fear in her eyes. No doubt she’d drawn the short straw and been sent down to retrieve the Bastard.

  “Um . . . Excuse me, Miss Mills,” she stuttered, gaze locked on me instead of her real target. “They’re waiting for Mr. Ryan in the conference room on twelve . . .”

  “Thank you,” I answered. She left and I turned back to Bennett.

  “We’ll discuss this later?” he asked quietly, standing.

  I nodded, still a little off balance from his change in attitude. “Thank you,” I said, vaguely motioning to the tickets, but meaning so much more.

  He kissed my forehead. “Later.”

  Travel had . . . never really worked out for Bennett and me. San Diego had been perfect while we were still tucked away in our own little bubble. It was when we tried to rejoin the living that it had all gone to hell. In a big way.

  And then we’d planned to travel last Thanksgiving, and ended up canceling the trip because of work. We tried again in December; Bennett had been drowning in a huge fitness account that was set to launch just before the New Year, and we both had the Papadakis launch in early January. Somehow, though, I’d convinced him to come home with me for a long weekend over the holidays.

  To meet my father.

  Bennett hadn’t wanted to—he’d been in the final stages of this huge campaign, had a family of his own to contend with. And a girlfriend who had spent the better part of the last year telling her father what a giant, overbearing dick her boss was, only to then finally admit she was having sex with this boss. This trip had disaster written all over it.

  Bennett had been quiet throughout most of the flight, and when he hadn’t suggested we join the Mile High Club even once, I knew something was going on.

  “You’re being awfully respectful over there, Ryan. What’s up?” I asked after we’d landed and were making our way to the rental car.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, you haven’t made one inappropriate comment or referred to me riding, sucking, licking, touching, stroking, grabbing, or otherwise praising your dick once in the last three hours. I can practically hear you thinking and frankly, I’m a little concerned.”

  He reached down and smacked my ass. “Better? Your tits look great in that sweater, by the way.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “I’m meeting your father,” he said, pulling at his collar.

  “And?”

  “And he knows what an asshole I was.” I cleared my throat and he glared at me. “Can be.”

  “Can be?”

  “Chloe.”

  “It’s all part of the Bennett Ryan charm everyone goes on about,” I said, batting my lashes at him. “Since when did you apologize for that?”

  He sighed. “Since we’re going to see your father. And if he owns a calendar, he would have figured out that I was sleeping with you while we worked together.”

  “I had to face your family after all that, too. I’m sure Mina told Henry about the Bathroom Incident, and if Henry knows then Elliott knows. And if Elliott knows . . . oh my God, your mother knows we had sex in her favorite bathroom . . . when Joel was there on a blind setup to meet me.” I smacked my palm to my forehead.

  “Yeah, well, my family practically walks around wearing Team Chloe shirts under their regular clothes so it’s a little different.”

  We reached the door to the rental agency and I took his hand, stopping him. “Look, my dad knows who his daughter is. He knows I can be a little spirited—”

  “Ha!”

  It was my turn to glare. “And he knows I give as good as I get. You’re fine.”

  He sighed and leaned forward to rest his forehead against mine. “If you say so.”

  Dad let out an evil whistle as he circled the shiny black Benz now parked in his driveway, boots crunching in the snow. “Always figured there was only one reason a man would drive a car like this: compensating for something. Wouldn’t you agree, Benson?”

  “Bennett,” he corrected under his breath, before smiling tightly over to me.

  “It’s Christmas, Dad. All the four-wheel-drive vehicles were gone.”

  T
hings didn’t improve at dinner, either.

  As we sat around the table, my father stared at Bennett like he was trying to match him up with a face he’d seen on the news. “Bennett, huh?” he said, shooting a skeptical eye over his wineglass. “What kind of a name is that?”

  I groaned. “Daddy.”

  “My mother was a bit of a Jane Austen fan, sir. My brother’s middle name is Willoughby so I like to think I got off easy.”

  Dad didn’t even crack a smile at that. “Named after a character in a romance novel? I guess that explains a few things.”

  “Your first name, Frederick,” Bennett said, with a small smile. “It’s a good name, if you don’t mind me saying so. Frederick Wentworth is also the hardworking, self-made protagonist in Persuasion. My mother made me read all of Austen’s novels when I was in high school, and I generally do what my mother tells me.” He took a bite of his dinner, chewed, and swallowed before saying, “That advice also includes dating your daughter.”

  “Hmmm. Well, be careful with her,” Dad said, glaring at Bennett from across the table. “My hygienist’s boyfriend is in the mob, and I doubt anyone would miss you.”

  “Dad!”

  He looked at me, eyes wide and innocent. “What?”

  “Mark’s boyfriend is not in the mob.”

  “Of course he is. He’s Italian.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything!”

  “Trust me. I’ve met him. Drives a black car with very dark windows. Mark called him Fat Don at the office party.”

  “His name is Glen, Dad, and he’s studying to be a CPA. He’s not in the mob.”

  “I don’t know why you have to be so damn argumentative all the time, Chloe. God only knows where you get it.”

  At that point Bennett started laughing so hard he had to excuse himself from the table.

  Later, after Bennett won my father over by letting Dad beat him at Monopoly—how anyone would believe Bennett Ryan lost a game involving money, I’ll never know—he snuck in from the guest room and climbed into my bed.

  “You’re going to get us busted,” I said, already climbing on top of him.

  “Not if you’re quiet.”