An Act of Persuasion(54)

Ben shook his head. “I saw you. But Anna you were my—”

“Assistant. I know.” She felt hollow. Like she’d purposefully thrown away her most treasured possession and now she could see she was nothing without it.

He would give up on her now. He would run through her words again and realize they made sense. How could she have loved him when she wouldn’t let him know her? And he had already said he didn’t love her. Didn’t know if he could love her.

He was smarter than she was. He knew what they were, while she didn’t. All she was to him was a moment of lust for a man who had been facing death. Really, what man wouldn’t take that opportunity to have the last screw of his life?

She was pathetic to think this might have worked between them. Pathetic to think that something would change between them when, for six years minus one night, nothing ever had.

Now that she was being difficult and temperamental, he would stop trying to woo her. Stop wanting to date her. Stop thinking that they had a future. She would pop the kid out and they would set up an every-other-weekend visitation thing like all other couples who had a one-night stand that resulted in a child.

She lifted her chin, daring him to do it. To tell her this obviously wasn’t going to work out between them. But when the silence continued and she could tell he wasn’t going to be the one to say it, she opened her mouth to end this permanently.

But he stopped her with a finger on her lips, keeping the words bottled up inside her mouth.

“I have something for you. Something I think you should see. Do you trust me?”

Trust him. The mighty Ben Tyler. If nothing else, of course, she trusted him.

“Okay, what is it?”

“It’s not here. I have to take you there. Will you come with me?”

She could say no. She could say she was tired. She could say any other bitchy thought that came to her mind and let go of this night and let go of this man forever.

Instead she nodded.





CHAPTER TWELVE



THEY GOT IN THE CAR without speaking a word. Every once in a while Ben looked over at her, but her gaze was firmly fixed out the passenger window. It was getting close to eight o’clock and the sun was starting to go down, but they would still have enough light and plenty of time for her to see it.

It. What was it? It wasn’t a gift, or even something he’d planned to bequeath. Because it wasn’t something he had before he thought about giving it to Anna. He’d seen it after being diagnosed and bought it for her. At the time it seemed perfectly logical that she should have it.

In hindsight, given everything that had happened tonight, he wasn’t so sure it was the best idea to show it to her. Yet he felt as though he was losing ground, as though there was quicksand beneath his feet and he needed her to know that she’d been more important to him during those years together than she realized.

He had no idea how she was going to react to it though. Given her mood tonight she might think this was about the scariest gesture a man had ever made on behalf of a woman. But he owed it to her to show her.

He hadn’t seen her?

It’s what she said to him and it seemed almost comical. Especially after years of forcing himself not to see her. Years of telling himself her hair was too red, her freckles were too prominent, her smile was too big. Years of thinking how completely inappropriate in every way she was for him romantically. Years of putting her in the messy pile of life. A place he stayed very far away from.

And she thought he’d been completely indifferent to her except for a pair of snug yoga pants one night.

He could tell her the truth, he supposed. The truth he’d hidden from himself for so long. The truth he’d only recently let surface and openly acknowledged.

The truth that he’d wanted her all the time they had been working together. So much so that it required effort to convince himself how much he didn’t want her. So much so that it got harder and harder to fall back on his rule never to get involved with an employee.

He’d wanted her before that night and he wanted her now. But she seemed like she was desperately trying to pull away from him, while he was desperately trying to hold on to her. She’d shown up to his place with an agenda and it had nothing to do with giving them a chance at a relationship.

“So how long is it going to take to get there?”

“Not long.” They weren’t far from his home. Their destination was a couple of blocks away. He hit his turn signal and drove up the small hill of a street that ended in a cul-de-sac.