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My back sagged against the brick beside him, hard edges digging into my skin despite the layers of clothing. “Well, I wouldn’t mind clocking Edmond over the head with a bottle of Henley 101, but other than that—I think I have more questions than ever before.”
“Ah.” He crossed his slim arms. “Then let me keep you company as you ponder them.”
With my head against the brick, I turned to him. “Apparently Shep is the gatekeeper to my getting anywhere at this company, and he hates me.”
Ben nodded without looking at me, like this wasn’t news at all.
“You said Shep likes you?” I asked.
“We’re close.”
“How exactly did you manage that?”
His dangerous smile took shape. “He helped me out of a tough spot a while back. We bonded. Plus, I’m loyal to his son, who he loves.”
My shoulders drooped. “I’m loyal to his son. That has to count for something.”
“I think it’s rather a mark against you, if I’m being honest.”
Puzzled, I studied his sharp, handsome profile.
His dark eyes flicked toward me, taking in my expression, my disillusionment. “How about a thought experiment?”
I nodded, curious. “Alright.”
“Imagine for a moment you’re born with ten golden coins. You’re taught very young that these golden coins are the entirety of your worth as a person, that people without coins will envy them and do anything to take your coins from you, and if they succeed, then you’re worthless. Say you live your life, hoarding your coins, and one day, you meet a person you grow to love beyond measure. You marry her. You have a son with her, and he becomes your greatest treasure. You promise him your golden coins because that’s all you have of any worth in this world, and you want him to have all that you are.”
Wondering where it was going, I twisted toward him, the brick digging into my shoulder and catching strands of my hair.
“Now, say that son grows older. He gains new interests and beliefs, and cultivates an inexplicable attraction to a girl—a girl with no coins of her own. She has a sweet face and mesmerizing eyes, and your son looks at her with a yearning you recognize because you’ve felt it yourself, when you look at your wife.”
Inside my veins, my blood turned electric. His words were proof that I hadn’t imagined that look in Cam’s eyes, that others saw it too.
“But you can’t trust this girl because you don’t know if she wants your son or wants his coins. You’ve been taught, after all, that those without will do anything to take your coins, and you put all other variables out of your mind. You can only conclude that this girl will take from your son and give nothing back. So, what do you do?”
An ache traveled up my throat, strangling any words I might have used to answer. Pressure built behind my eyes.
Bennett’s melodic voice continued, “You do what you think is best to protect your son. You place insulting ideas into his vulnerable mind and find obstacles to separate him from this girl. You tie up his coins in unfair stipulations that ensure he won’t touch them if he doesn’t marry with your approval. You teach him that while your love is free, its trappings are not. And you watch as your son rejects the girl to please you, then sigh in relief when he is free of her forever.”
He smiled a sad sort of smile. “Your son goes off and makes a name for himself. His success is no surprise—he’s exceptional, after all—but you wonder why he never brings a girl home to meet you. You’re further disturbed when he grows obsessed with a project in your distillery, emerging at the end with a delicious product he named after her.”
Undeterred by the cold, my skin turned hot, and a tear splashed down my cheek. I wanted so badly to believe him, but who was I to Camden Shepherd? A girl he crushed on once? No, Bennett could only be speculating. No matter how much I wished otherwise, there was never anything deep enough between Cam and me to make these words true. I opened my mouth to say so, but Bennett continued:
“Years later, you take a trip and return to find that, in your absence, your son has brought the girl back, closer than ever. He’s given her a position of import and situated her within his cohort. He brings her coffee and partakes in intimate conversations punctuated by her bourbon. He tries to deceive you by rejecting her ideas and maintaining a cold professionalism near her, but he’s your son, and he loves as you do—without limit—so you know if you can’t remove this girl from his sights, it’s only a matter of time before he falls from a height he won’t survive. And then you’re back where you started, fearing for both your son’s coins and his heart.”
Suddenly, it was all far too real. I brushed the tear from my face. “I don’t want his coins, Bennett.”
His head tilted, eyes dark and luminous.
My throat closed, and I wanted to cry in earnest. Didn’t they see they’d bred an entire relationship into a few heated glances and a single kiss? If Camden found out this was what people thought of us, surely he’d push me away. Fire me. The urge to explain it away—deny, deny, deny—grew fiery in my blood.
Bennett shrugged before I found my voice, as if none of it mattered. “Then it’s all a moot point. Shep doesn’t need to fear you’ll take something you don’t want, and you don’t need the good opinion of a man you care nothing about. What Cam wants, what Shep wants, these hurdles impeding you from doing your job the way you want—none of it matters until you decide what you want. In the end, it all comes back to you. What do you want?”
Breathless, I tried to wrap my head around this. It couldn’t be true, could it? All my fantasies attracted me because they were mere daydreams. Unobtainable. Cam might as well have been a prince of England for how impossible a relationship with him was. The sheer difference in our stations was insurmountable, even in these modern times.
I simply wasn’t good enough for Cam Shepherd.
But, Lord, did I want to be.
