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I tried not to grimace at how crass it was. “Look, Axel… I want you to keep yourself under control, okay? Keep those hands on your coffee.” My voice was shaking too much for him to ever believe I was in control of this situation.
“Hey, no worries. I’m going to use my eyes on your tits, not my hands.”
“Um.” I kept my fingers moving quickly down the front of my shirt, releasing each button in turn. Giving myself the time I needed to really accept that I was not going to get out of this.
I had no words. My fingers kept moving, to the bottom of my shirt, then I pulled it off, and Axel took a sharp sip of his coffee.
I couldn’t work out how to take the last step. “Come on,” Axel said, “get on with it,” and I reached behind me to disengage my bra and let it drop.
I had wanted to stand there proudly and look him in the eyes, but my own eyes were wandering as much as his were fixed exactly where you would expect them to be fixed. I moved halfway to folding my arms, then realised I couldn’t, didn’t want to when it would just make me more aware of what I was doing. How much I was showing him.
My eyes were drawn by the gleam of the coffee mug as Axel brought it to his face for a long draw. Just his eyes were visible over the line of its rim, the shine in them still frustratingly rational.
“I was right,” he said.
“Oh were you, now.”
“Yes.” He set the mug aside and licked his lips in a way that sent a shudder through my entire body. “Reality, in this case, is far better than any fake thing my mind or the minds of anyone else online could come up with.”
Digging into him a little was all I could do, of course. “I wonder when the last time was you took a chance on reality.”
His grin was unbothered. “You’ve got me, it was a while.”
I was feeling a little cold as evening set in, and trying hard not to think about what that state would be doing to me. “Why now?”
“Not entirely sure,” he admitted. “But you’re at least a half-good opponent. That makes a difference.”
“Half-good?” I had to laugh at that, even with the resulting boob-jiggling catastrophe. “I think I deserve a little more credit than that. I stood up to you with all your money and influence until I was damn ready to do otherwise, and you’d better not forget it.”
Axel pouted to blow a puff of air up at a lick of hair falling across his forehead. “That isn’t as meaningful as you think. Even someone with all my money and influence, whatever you think that is, ends up being vulnerable to a woman who has the right amount of self-confidence.”
I could feel the atmosphere between us changing in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature, and I sensed I had to do something about it before I was seriously in danger. “I’ll have to take your word for it,” I told him.
“Yes… I suppose you’re not really at that point in your own career yet.”
“Career?” I couldn’t help but be provoked by his wording. “Is this an insight into how you see women, Mr. Bennett?” The way he bit his lip at that was the closest I’d come to a victory all day.
“It’s not an insight into me, it’s an insight into women. The ones with brains behind them, at least.”
He seemed to be complimenting me, but in an insulting way. “And do you often try to nullify smart women before they get you?”
“It’s usually a better idea to stay out of their way,” Axel said.
“Ah, but you’ll never find a wife that way.” I didn’t really understand what made me say it. Maybe the fake intimacy of the situation we were in.
Axel let out a surprised laugh. “She won’t be one of those women, Aileen.”
“Really? You’ve thought about this enough to know?”
“I don’t need to set aside time to think about it, Aileen, I didn’t put up a vision board of magazine models or something if that’s what you’re insinuating. Being who I am, it’s just something I’ve come to understand is the truth. I’m not going to marry a woman who is my equal, but of course I’ll marry someone.”
“The ditzy society heiress.”
“Those can be more trouble than they’re worth too. And they tend to not be as ditzy as you’d expect; they’ve been raised since the cradle to think about managing their fortune in the long-term. I’ll probably settle for someone with more moderate wealth, who is happy to accept from the start that I’m the one running the show. Not a really poor girl who doesn’t know what’s what in the rest of the world, who thinks being rescued by a moneyed prince is a normal thing to expect… someone who has enough already to know that having me come into her life is a damn windfall she’d better not waste.”
He couldn’t have described a girl more opposite to me if he’d been trying. “How about love, Mr. Bennett? Is love allowed to come into it?”
“Definitely not,” said Axel. The Mr. Bennett trick seemed to be losing its efficacy. Maybe it was just the chilling effect of talking about love in the same sentence. “Loving a woman is a good way to get yourself out-maneuvered. But I’m determined I’m going to like my wife a lot, and if she keeps her head down and lives up to her end of the bargain, there will be no limits to what I give her.”
