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Lia became aware that people were walking through the foyer and trying desperately not to look as if they were eavesdropping.
Ben obviously realised the same and cursed. ‘We can’t have this conversation here.’
He’d taken her by the arm and was walking towards a set of lifts before Lia could respond. She started to try to pull free. ‘I think we’ve said all we need to say,’ she hissed. ‘You need to leave me and my father alone—you’re not going to get what you want.’
But in spite of her words and efforts she was in the lift with him now, and he was pressing a button and they were ascending.
He let her go once they were moving and said grimly, ‘You’re not leaving until you hear what I have to say.’
Lia glared at him, struck temporarily mute as she was bombarded with memories of what had happened in a lift before. Mutual combustion. As if he were remembering the same thing Ben’s eyes darkened, and his gaze dropped to her breasts under her silk shirt before lazily coming back up again. Lia could feel damp heat bloom between her legs, mere seconds after meeting the man again. She wanted to scream at the control he still had over her body.
But now the doors were opening and she could see they were on the top floor. Ben all but pulled her out of the lift and marched her down a long corridor with glass cube offices either side. People tried frantically to look uninterested as they passed by. Lia debated screaming, but then imagined Ben putting his mouth on hers to keep her quiet...
He took her to an office at the end—the largest one—with wraparound views of London and the dark brown Thames snaking through the iconic buildings on either side. It was impressive.
But not as impressive as the man who shut the door behind him and planted himself in front of it, his powerful body blocking her exit. Damn him.
Lia backed away. ‘What the hell do you want, Mr Carter? I don’t have time for this.’
He smiled mirthlessly as he leant back against the door, hands in his trouser pockets. ‘I see we’ve gone back to Mr Carter.’
Lia folded her arms, feeling vulnerable in this enclosed space, even if it was all windows. ‘Well, what did you expect?’
A look of something like self-recrimination passed over Ben’s face, and then he pushed off the door and went to stand at the window, looking out. His back was broad, and Lia couldn’t help remembering that day in Bahia, when he’d been working on the roof of the villa, laughing and joking with Esmé’s husband.
She scowled. That man had never existed.
Ben spoke then, cutting through her acid recriminations. ‘I was once told by a colleague that my buildings had more heart than me, and he was right. I believed that buildings weren’t fallible and that my structures would keep standing even if I fell. They’re not weakened by emotions and human frailty, or greed and corruption. Except...that’s not true.’
Feeling a little disorientated, Lia said, ‘What do you mean?’
After a long moment Ben turned around to face her. There was something bleak in his eyes. ‘I was wrong to believe that my redemption lay in the structures I created and built.’
Lia shook her head, resisting the desire to understand him. ‘I really couldn’t care less about what you think of your buildings.’
Ben cursed softly a
nd ran a hand through his hair, leaving it mussed up. He pinpointed her with that blue gaze.
‘I’m trying to tell you...’ He stopped. And then he spoke more forcibly. ‘I did come to see your father to talk about the business, and to ask for your hand in marriage.’
Lia felt pain lance her. ‘I know. Which is why—’
‘But not in the way you think.’
She stopped talking and something started beating inside her. Butterflies again. Or her heart. Or something more dangerous...hope. Damn hope. It would survive a nuclear apocalypse.
‘What, then?’
Ben’s gaze seemed to be burning all the way into her. ‘I came to tell him that I want to marry his daughter because... I love her.’ He waited a beat, as if to let her absorb that, and then he said, watching her carefully, ‘But I told him that she wouldn’t believe me after what I did to her and so I had to somehow prove it to her. And the only way I knew how to do that was by asking your father to take me over. I want to prove to you that you’re more important to me than everything I’ve built up, because it all means nothing without you.’
Lia wasn’t sure if she was still standing. She struggled to understand, shaking her head faintly, ‘But...you let me leave. And you’ve been dating...that woman.’
Ben grimaced. ‘I was too proud to admit that you’d got to me on an emotional level. My life was never about emotions—it was about building structures that affirmed my place in the world. Rooting my security in something solid. I was in denial, determined to put you out of my mind and get on with my life.’
A rueful look flashed across his face then. ‘I was also terrified... Suddenly nothing felt relevant or important any more. I felt as if I was going mad. I’d only ever trusted myself, and yet I couldn’t trust my own instincts any more because every instinct was telling me to come back to you, to admit that my priorities had changed...completely. And nothing happened with that woman. She bored me to tears, and she wasn’t you.’
Lia felt breathless, as if a huge fist was squeezing around her heart. The pressure was enormous. ‘Even if I believed what you say about handing everything over to my father...even if I was to agree to marry you...ultimately you’d have everything anyway—you’d still have achieved what you wanted.’
