The thought of someone awful winning out over Ben sticks with me, even though it’s not my company. I feel for everyone on their team, and I know Ben would be a far better boss and mentor. He’s tough but fair, and wants to see his people succeed.
“This world is messed up,” he goes on, “and we have a chance to make it better. But until we’re calling the shots, the best way to get there is to do what people like Xavier and Richard Vane expect. After the gala, we’re home free. You’re off the hook. And in case it gets weird, rule three—we won’t do anything to compromise our friendship. We can lie to the world, but we don’t lie to each other.”
My stomach drops, but the intensity on his face has me nodding slowly.
Everyone keeps secrets, I remind myself.
“It’s not that strange,” he says, turning to stare at one of the paintings. “Hell, in another world, maybe we would’ve dated.”
The hairs on the back of my neck lift.
“In another world,” I say, “Vi and I wouldn’t have fought, and she wouldn’t have left. Your dad wouldn’t have been an asshole.”
“Sounds like a better world.”
His gravelly voice has the knots in my stomach tightening.
Ben clearly wishes my twin had stayed. I get why, but the hurt lingers anyway.
“It’s dangerous to deal in alternative worlds, Ben. It would also be a world in which we didn’t go through the things that made us who we are today.”
When I first met Ben, I knew several of our friends came from money, and I’d heard Ben had a sizeable trust fund. Eventually, I learned his dad had taken most of his family’s money, that he’d pressured his mom into keeping a trust for him so that he could invest it.
While most of the students in our class were complaining about course loads or relationship drama, Ben was quietly finding small, high-risk, high-reward investments with the right potential to pay off, immersing himself in business training after his engineering course load, and building back up what his father had taken from them to ensure his mother and brother would always have enough.
Now, he’s one of the most successful investors in New York.
Only a handful of people know why.
He crosses to another set of paintings, and I follow. “We should answer the questions on that list so we’re prepared if someone asks us.” He lifts my phone and reads off the screen. “‘What does the other person do that turns you on?’”
I try for nonchalance. “Sometimes you stop talking.”
He laughs. “Come on.”
I frown at the strap on my handbag. “You do this thing with your hair. It’s too long, and you kind of twist it in your fingers before you shove it out of the way. At least that’s what I would say if we were dating,” I add. “What about you?”
Ben casts a look around the room before his warm gaze finally lands back on me. “When you watch other people, I watch you. I like how your mind works. Sometimes, you cross and uncross your legs, and it makes me wonder how long it would take for me to get your attention if I slipped a hand under your skirt.”
Everything in the room grinds to a halt.
The paintings are a blur of colors.
The other patrons in the room are unmoving blobs.
Because it takes every inch of my brain to process the words Ben dropped on me as casually as if he was sharing the weather.
Heat chases down my spine, settles into a dull, throbbing ache between my thighs.
“…That’s what I would say if we were dating,” he goes on pleasantly before turning on his heel and heading toward the door. “Let’s keep moving. We have ten minutes,” he tosses over his shoulder, leaving me wondering if he came up with that on the spot or if he’s actually thought about putting his hand up my skirt.
As we start into the next room and I'm still recovering from his words, he asks a new question. “How do you like to fuck?”
“If that’s on the list, I’m killing the Vane interview right now.” I snatch my phone back from him.
“It’s not, but if we’re dating, it’s something I’d know.”
I tuck the phone away and find myself trapped in Ben’s intense, curious gaze.
There are a couple people on the far side of the room, a mother and a kid. It feels as if I’m overexposed, standing here thinking about how to describe the kind of sex I like to my best friend.
“Slow,” I say at last.
“It doesn’t have to have one speed.”
“No. But most men tend toward one.” We continue through the galleries. “What about you?” I ask after a moment.
“I like to be in charge.”
“Like, ‘blindfolds and whips’ in charge?"
His frame looms large, close enough his woodsy scent that has no place in Manhattan floods my senses. His smirk is entirely sexy, and I’ve never seen it directed at me before. “It’s still early days. You haven’t found out yet.”
I twist my bracelet, reminding myself this is make-believe. “We have to decide what to tell our friends when they ask why we got together now after all this time.”
His phone buzzes, and he jerks his head toward the door. “We’ll play it by ear.” We head back out into the lobby and he stops me. He heads straight for a display of umbrellas at the entrance of the gift shop and picks out one with my favorite painting on it. “There. For my girlfriend.”
“It’s touristy,” I say, but I can’t resist the smile tugging at my lips.
His eyes dance. “How can having your favorite thing to look at be touristy?”
He’s right. The more I look at it, the more I like it.
"You can be really sweet when no one's looking,” I accuse.
He cocks his head as he pays for the umbrella. "That's the time to do it. Can’t have women indiscriminately falling in love with me.”
I shake my head as we wind our way through the lobby toward the doors. “So in private, we’re still us, but in public…”
“We’ll act,” he concludes. “Convincingly enough they believe we’re falling for each other.”
He follows me out to the front steps. The rain has lightened, but I raise the umbrella anyway, stretching to hold it over both our heads.
His baby blue shirt pulls across his toned chest and shoulders and makes his hair and eyes look even darker.
“PDA,” I say before he turns to go. “We should agree on how much. A lot of couples keep their exchanges to their private lives. We don’t need to touch at all. In fact," I rush on, thinking of how his closeness affects me, "it’s probably better that we don’t.”
I expect him to concede the point, on account of him needing to leave, if nothing else.
He surprises me by stilling, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking at me with new appraisal. “Is there a reason you don’t want me to touch you?”
Because I might like it.
“It’s nothing personal.”
It’s totally personal.
With an unreadable look, Ben catches my umbrella and uses it to tug me toward him.
We’re near enough I can smell his aftershave. I’m trapped in that warm gaze that’s familiar and unsettling at once.