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“Goddammit, Ben.”
He flashed a smile of understanding. It was that smile, private and small, that was the only thing preventing her from getting up and walking out of the restaurant. There was nowhere she could go—no one she could talk to—who would understand as well as this man the way her throat tightened in a combination of fear and rage. Ben would offer her sympathy and make her smile and put her back on her feet so she could face whatever happened next, no questions asked.
It was why they were such good friends. Emphasis on friend.
“I know, Livvie. Believe me—I know. You’d like to kick me in the face with one of your high heels right now, wouldn’t you?”
“I really would.”
“We can make that part of the arrangement, if it helps.”
She choked on a laugh. On the very few occasions she’d allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to be with Ben—really be with him, the way nature and sexual organs and his perfect body intended—dominance hadn’t figured in the picture. She wasn’t against that kind of play as a general rule, but there were a host of other things she wanted to do to him first.
Not that she ever would. She liked Ben. She loved Ben. He was one of the first men she’d met in New York who’d treated her as an actual human being. Livvie remembered very little about that time in her life except for an overwhelming urge to wipe the world of its male population. At just twenty years of age, her younger bitch-face plastered on billboards across the country, she’d met dozens of men every day—rich and powerful and handsome men, men with every opportunity fed to them with silver spoons—and not a single one of them looked at her and thought, Now, there’s a person I’d like to get to know. At least, not unless the knowing involved biblical implications.
Except Ben. Suave Ben. Funny Ben. Sitting-next-to-her-at-a-dinner-party-and-making-origami-out-of-napkins Ben. He hadn’t quite reached his current state of intoxicating charm yet, but there had been no denying his animal magnetism was fully charged and ready to go. He hadn’t pressed her for anything beyond friendship, though. For the first time since she was fourteen, a man had shown interest in her that wasn’t sexual in nature, and she’d basked in it.
She’d been basking in it ever since.
The waiter came around again, this time with their plates of food and another gimlet. She hadn’t finished the first one yet, but now seemed as good a time as any to overindulge, so she kicked hers back and handed off the empty glass.
She was grateful for her lush-like behavior about two seconds later, when Ben dipped a hand into an interior pocket. In her experience, that was where men kept things like theater tickets and jewelry and the burner phones they used to separate their wives from their mistresses. The velvet box he extracted clearly fell into the middle category. Livvie felt a profound urge to jolt out of her seat again, but something about the way he pushed it across the table had her frozen in place.
“You don’t have to open it right away.” He spoke quickly, as if afraid she might flee. “But you should know that I refuse to take it back. If you don’t pick it up, it belongs to the busboy.”
She didn’t touch it.
“I also have this.”
The this in question was as recognizable as the velvet box, and it filled her with an even greater degree of foreboding. He held a crinkled napkin, frayed with age and crushed from its position in his pocket, just out of her reach. Not that her limbs were moving enough to make a lunge for it anyway.
“‘Number one.’”
“Don’t you dare read that out loud.”
He cleared his throat and carried on. “‘You must order the cheapest thing on the menu and drink tap water.’”
“I wrote that as a joke. A laugh.”
“We signed it. In my line of business, we call that a contract.”
He couldn’t possibly be serious. “I don’t recall signing anything. Let me see it.”
He tucked the paper back in his pocket and gave his chest an almost reverent pat. “You’re not getting your hands on it that easy. It’s our only copy. I fell for a similar trick once in Prague and lost out on an excellent parcel of land overlooking the Vltava. Never again.”
Ben brought out the business references only when he was trying to impress someone or shut them up. Since Livvie had ceased to be impressed by his career years ago, she could only assume he considered that napkin the last word on the subject.
But if she remembered that napkin correctly, it wasn’t the last word on anything. That sucker was a Pandora’s box she had no intention of letting him crack open.
“Technically, you haven’t touched your tap water yet,” she pointed out. She might not be a contract lawyer or have teams of experts like the man seated across from her, but she could fight. No one fought harder than a woman backed into a corner. And by her best friend, too. “You just sniffed it.”
His smile lifted the corner of his mouth, infusing a touch of the lopsided into his perfect features. It was all that was needed to take him from handsome to gorgeous. One of the first things they taught you in the modeling world was that blandly recognizable beauty would take you only as far as the catalog circuit. If you wanted to make it big, you needed an anomaly, a quirk, something that marred your perfection in the best possible way.
In addition to being known for her resting bitch-face, Livvie also had a heavy pair of brows she was contractually forbidden from overgrooming. A gift from the father she knew only from a single faded Polaroid, those brows had been the bane of her existence when she was a preteen.
Now it seemed the bane of her existence was the man seated opposite her.
Without dropping his gaze from hers, Ben lifted the glass of water to his lips and guzzled. Unlike frat boys and Wall Street tycoons—indistinguishable from one another except by age—he took his time with the act of chugging, his throat working up and down as the liquid made its way into his esophagus. Livvie wanted to look away and pretend she wasn’t witnessing this act that was half defiance and half foreplay, but her eyeballs were glued in place.
He even made drinking into a sexual act. How was that fair?
“There. That wasn’t so terrible.” He set the glass down with a satisfied sigh. “Though it tastes metallic. I wonder where it’s pumped from.”
“Are you asking me or being a conversational dickhead?”
“The latter, naturally. Now, it doesn’t say I have to eat the salad—just order it—but if this is all that’s going to sustain me until the next meal, I’m digging in. Pass the pepper?”
She grabbed the pepper and dropped it in her purse, heedless of spillage all over the satin lining. There wasn’t anything in there except her ID and an emergency tampon anyway.
He chuckled and picked up his fork, spearing lettuce with more flourish than the bland plant warranted. “Fair enough. I didn’t expect you to make this easy. Are you sure you don’t want to peek in the box?”
She ignored it where it sat, taking up a disproportionately large amount of table space. She also ignored her sea bass, even though she was starving and it was her favorite. Ben knew that, of course. He knew all her favorite things. It was what made that napkin so dangerous.
“Ben, you can’t be serious about this.”
“I assure you, I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“But we made that list years ago.” Three years, to be exact, the pair of them tipsy and bored at some theater gala with an open bar. All major life decisions made near an open bar were immediately rendered null and void—it was the cardinal rule of city living. “It was for fun. We were just fooling around.”
“No.” He set his fork down carefully on the table and leaned closer. “You might have been fooling around, but I was serious. I’ve always been serious about you, even though you refuse to see it. We’re good together, you and I.”
“We’re only good together because we’ve never been together.” Livvie leaned right back, dropping her voice to a strained hiss. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed important that no one overhear this conversation. And she was a woman who normally shouted sexual overtures from her fire escape, leaving them hanging there alongside her bras. “Sex ruins things. The second you cross that line, there’s no going back.”
“I told you, I already crossed that line. I crossed it the day I met you.”
Her heart picked up. That was the golden day. The origami day. How dare he ruin it?
“And I’ve been standing here for years, waiting for you to cross over and join me. I thought I could wait forever, but it turns out I’m not as patient as I thought. I’m sorry to have to call in your promise like this, but you leave me with no other choice.”
He made another motion toward his jacket pocket, this time extracting his cell phone. His umbilicus, she liked to call it. Although he was always polite enough to turn it off when they had their dinners, he kept it on for all other events and gatherings. She’d once thought about taking up smoking, if only so she could have a reason to step outside whenever he did.
But no one could smoke every time Ben was on the phone. Not even a chimney.
“Oh, shit. You’re not really—”
He dropped his phone into her gimlet. She could see the screen flashing out as the alcohol seeped into the cracks and rendered the expensive electronic useless.
“‘Number two. You must spend an entire twenty-four hours without your cell phone.’” He flashed her another one of those sympathetic grins. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay close by my side until, let’s see, eight thirty-four tomorrow night. You’re going to want to make sure I don’t cheat on this one.”
“You can’t really expect me to sit around babysitting you until then.”
“Oh, but I do. There are five other requirements on the list I need you to witness. I’m sorry, Livvie, love, but you’ve forced my hand. By this time tomorrow night, I’ll have satisfied all your obligations.”
“Don’t say it.”
“And then it’ll be your turn to satisfy mine.”
Chapter Two (#uefcc4e46-8125-5802-881a-069cc9c30bfd)
“If you think the silent treatment is going to work on me, I’m afraid you’re headed for disappointment.” Ben sat next to Livvie in the back of the cab, the warm length of his thigh pressed against hers in what she could have sworn was an intentional act of defiance. “The things I have planned for us don’t require much in the way of talking.”
She crossed her arms and scooted two inches to the right. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a response—not even to tell him how much she hated him right now. He was ruining everything.
“This also makes it easier for me to say what I want without interruption. I can’t decide whether I should start by telling you all the things I love about you, or if I should jump right into seduction. Do you have a preference?”
She felt his searing gaze land on her profile, and although she didn’t say so out loud, she prayed for the second one. At least with generic sexual overtures, she stood a chance against him. Withstanding overly aggressive male advances was something of her specialty.
“Since I still have to complete five more of your herculean tasks before the seduction portion of events takes place, I guess I’ll start with the compliments. Do you know what it was about you that first struck me? And before you start guessing, it wasn’t your sweet disposition.”
She snorted, immediately regretting it when a satisfied grin moved crookedly across his face.
“I remember it like it was yesterday.” He adopted a falsely poetic air. “I saw you at that Beck concert, rocking out in leather pants as if you hadn’t a care in the world, and was determined to introduce myself. I almost did, but my friend Mike told me not to bother. ‘That’s the infamous Olivia Winston,’ he said. ‘She hates pretty little rich boys. She’ll devour you before you get past hello.’”
“What are you talking about? We didn’t meet at a Beck concert.” This had to be the worst attempt at sweet talk she’d ever heard. He didn’t even have the right woman. “We met when we sat next to each other at some political fund-raising dinner that dragged on for four hours. We were bored out of our skulls. Our friendship was forged on mutual misery.”
He flashed a cocky smile. Dammit. She was supposed to be ignoring him.
“That’s where you’re wrong, love. The dinner might have been the first time we met, but I knew who you were well before that. Do you have any idea how much I had to slip one of the waiters to get him to move my place card next to yours that night? No. I won’t tell you. It’ll only make you vain.”
All her resolutions to ignore him fled as the taxi came to a stop in front of the Montluxe Hotel, with its impressive stone facade and glinting windows. He wasn’t happy to just step on her origami-night illusions—he was destroying them, ripping them to shreds and casting them to the wind. “Liar. You didn’t do that.”
“I did. You think they make it a habit to put the two youngest, best-looking people at those shindigs next to each other? Of course not. We were there to charm dried-up millionaires into opening their wallets for the next election, not make googly-eyes at each other over the dessert course.”
“I beg your pardon. I didn’t make a single googly-eye at you.”
“I know.” He reached into his back pocket to extract his wallet, then handed a large bill over to the driver with the request he keep the change. “And that was the first thing about you that struck me.”
He exited the cab in one smooth movement, not bothering to open her door or check to make sure she was following. The action wasn’t rude so much as it was telling, announcing his certainty that she would accompany him without question. It was yet another example of the way he saw the universe and his place in it. Right at the center.
And she would follow him—that was the worst thing. Ben knew exactly how to get the results he wanted from his audience, and she wasn’t immune to his hold on the strings. He’d done the unthinkable and wedged the idea of romance between them, and she wouldn’t be able to relax until he took it back out again.
She took her place next to him on the sidewalk, prepared for battle, but he didn’t turn to acknowledge her. At least, not physically. He remained gazing up at the hotel’s facade, almost as though he’d never seen one before.
“Do you remember that time you called me from Tokyo because you couldn’t sleep, when all the neon lights of the city were driving you crazy, and you didn’t know how to make it stop?”
She paused, uncertain whether to answer or not. Answering would only be playing into this game of his, but she did remember that night. She’d been feeling homesick at the time—not for a place, since the concept of home had never really existed for her, but for the comforts of a friendly voice and an understanding ear. For his friendly voice and his understanding ear.
“Of course I remember,” she said irritably. “We played Twenty Questions for hours, only you kept picking the same object over and over again. It was so annoying.”
He laughed. “After the fifth or sixth time, I figured you’d start catching on.”
She frowned. She had caught on, but that was the way Ben played the game. He lulled a girl into a false sense of security and then yanked, turning everything upside down.
Obviously.
“It wasn’t even a very good object, if I remember correctly. A butterfly or something.”
“It was a monarch butterfly,” he corrected her, and dropped the subject as quickly as he’d picked it up. He gestured up at the hotel. “I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty of getting us a room. My apartment is undergoing a few repairs, so I thought we’d be more comfortable here. I know how much you love this place.”
She did love the Montluxe, but that was hardly the point here. The point was, well, rather pointed.
Hotels had beds. And privacy. And room service. And beds.
“Wait a minute—doesn’t a reservation at the Montluxe have to be booked months in advance?” she asked, another realization hitting her with a start. The nerve of this man. “You planned this attack far enough in advance to get a reservation? Or is this just a standing order with you? ‘Hold my room at the Montluxe in case a lady friend needs some extra convincing’?”
“Which one do you think?” He winked and handed her a small satchel he’d extracted from the trunk of the cab. “I also took the liberty of packing you an overnight bag. I think you’ll like what’s in there. I know I do.”
“It’s full of lingerie, isn’t it?” She shook the bag, a clanking rattle making her rethink her stance. “Oh, God. It’s either that or sex toys. All I can say is this bag better not be full of butt plugs. You won’t like what I plan to do with them.”
There was his gaze again, dark and intense and not supposed to be there at all.
“How would you know?” he asked, and whisked past her through the revolving glass doors.
* * *
“You’re sleeping on the couch.” Livvie barely registered the sprawling, open-floored layout of the penthouse suite as she followed Ben inside. This might be one of her favorite hotel rooms in the city, ideal for romance and all its perks, but she wasn’t about to be swayed. If nice linens and marble floors were all it took to get her to open her legs, she’d be enjoying a vastly different profession right now. “And I’ll give you until eight thirty-four tomorrow evening, but not a minute more. I don’t have time to play your games forever, and I doubt you do, either. You’ve never gone this long without work before.”
“It’s a deal.” He shut the door, the electronic latch sealing them to their fate. “I probably won’t need the whole twenty-four hours anyway.”
She threw up her hands. There was cocky, and then there was Benjamin Meyers. Bravado wrapped in balls and dipped in titanium for good measure. She didn’t know why she even tried. “You’re lucky I’m here at all, you jerk. I could have just as easily walked away.”
“I know,” he said. “But you didn’t.”
She refused to be the first to look away, even when the heavy note of meaning in his voice pulled her into a panic. There was no way his confidence went any deeper than the surface, all part of this ploy of his to win at any cost. If she remembered that napkin correctly—seven drunkenly scrawled tasks, a silly list with increasingly complicated undertakings Ben must complete before she’d be willing to sleep with him—no way would he get much further than number four or five. And he’d definitely stop before he got to seven. She’d bet their friendship on it.
In fact, that was exactly what she was doing.
He grinned.
With a grunt of irritation, she pulled the jewelry box from out of the mountain of pepper inside her purse and shoved it at his chest. “And you’re taking this stupid thing back. I don’t want it.”
He just continued beaming down at her, unruffled at the assault. “You picked it up off the table. I knew you would.”
She tried to ignore the way Ben’s chest felt where it rested solidly under her fingertips, the heat of him drawing her in. Although he almost always wore a suit and tie, his deceptively uptight businesslike appearance could never hide his latent strength. She knew the strength was there, lurking under the surface, but she’d always made it a point to ignore it. The occasional hug or air kiss, that one time last year she’d missed a friend’s funeral and sobbed in his arms for a good two hours—those were all the intimacies she allowed herself.
“I could see the hostess eyeing it from the front of the restaurant. Did you really want me to leave several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry on the table to try and prove my point? Here—take it, will you?”
“Nope. That’s for you. You can put it in the hotel safe if the burden of carrying it is too much. Of course, you could also just open it and see what’s inside. How do you know it’s worth thousands of dollars? Maybe it’s a breath mint.”
