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“I’m right where I’m supposed to be.” He pulled his shoulders back and pushed his sleeves further up his arms, punctuating his statement with a terse nod of his head.
“Why do you let Darren push you around like he does? If you’re where you’re supposed to be, and you obviously plan to stay there, why do you put up with him?”
He shrugged. “He’s my boss now.”
“But he shouldn’t be. You deserved that promotion over him.”
She watched the rise of his broad chest on his inhale, his eyes dancing all around as he slowly blew the breath out.
“You know,” she began. “Darren would run you over with his car to get ahead. And then he’d kick it in reverse to back over you just because he could. No one else there appreciates all the extra time you put in to mentor new hires, the way you clean up others’ mistakes, and how you stick up for people Darren berates for the tiniest issues. Why do you stick around?”
Ben sat back from the table, his posture slipping from the rigidity of moments ago. “I’m not qualified to go anywhere else. I know it. Darren knows it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Mia, I didn’t go to any fancy school. I barely graduated from my community college. After Mom died, I didn’t really have much else in my life. So, I worked. Hard. And I studied this job inside and out. And I put every ounce of energy I had into that chance I’d been given to claw my way to something she would have been proud of. Where I am now.”
“Your mom would have been proud of you if you’d stayed at the bottom. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. But what else did I have in life? It probably wasn’t healthy, but letting work consume me was one way of keeping the grief from doing so.”
The memory of all those unreturned calls and texts after Mrs. Wilson died flooded Mia’s mind. Her chest ached the same as it had years ago, when she sat alone in her dorm room thinking about how Ben was hurting. When she’d wanted to come home to grieve with him, but it’d been finals week. And her brother assured her he’d take care of Ben. Which probably made more sense since she and Ben hadn’t talked in years.
The whir of her printer brought her back to the present.
Ben cleared his throat. “So, I’m content here. Leaving isn’t worth it. Not worth the risk.” Seriously? She’d once watched Ben and her brother jump from the roof of Mrs. Wilson’s shed, using a bedsheet as wings. Since when was leaving a job for something better a risk he wasn’t willing to take?
“I’m living the dream, as they say.” Mirth mixed with his weak laugh, and Mia knew right away he was lying to her. And to himself. It hurt her to see the shell of a man he once was, beaten down and consumed by a job he hated. Although, who was she to offer advice? Hadn’t the job done the same to her? And it wasn’t like she was setting a good example by staying there.
Ben wiped his face with the napkin and picked up the remnants of the meal, the ending punctuation mark of a conversation that was apparently over.
“What do you say we put the last of this presentation together now?”
“Sounds good, boss.”
Chapter Four
“Let’s get this party started,” Mrs. Durris shouted as she stood behind a table filled with various charcuterie boards. The tinkling sound of a nearby piano filled the restaurant, its music having a Zen-like effect on Mia. After the day she’d had, she’d take all the Zen she could. Throw in a glass of wine too.
After her long night with Ben, and the longest chat they’d had that wasn’t business-related, she had trouble sleeping. Which lead to a long day, made longer by the fact she hadn’t seen Ben at all at work. It was possible he’d been in meetings most of the day and their paths never crossed. But it felt all too familiar to when he’d ghosted her all those years ago.
A server handed out glasses of champagne for a toast to the retiree and told everyone to enjoy their meal.
Meal? That was bad news for Mia as she looked at the board of fancy Lunchables. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Whoever said a bowl of oatmeal was filling needed to listen to her stomach’s protest right now. It had been ticked off since ten this morning.
She took a sip of champagne just large enough to wet her lips, not wanting to get drunk off one drink on an empty stomach. Most people at the firm still treated her like the intern she’d been … four years ago. Getting tipsy wasn’t the way to gain any points in the sophistication department. Nor was the way she wobbled on her high heels like Bambi taking his first steps, but there was nothing she could do about her still stiff ankle or poor shoe choices now.
Another thing not to do? Stare at her boss from across the restaurant. In her defense, he’d been looking at her first—that was how this all started. Plus, looking at him made her happy—although probably not the happiness Hannah was referring to in her speech the other day.
As Ben talked to Darren, his eyes coasted over his boss’s head and found her. But who could blame him? She wouldn’t have wanted to look at Darren, either. If the roles were reversed, she’d probably stare at Ben.
When Darren moved from in front of him, she changed her answer … she would definitely stare at Ben.
Any other thoughts died on her tongue when she took him in. He’d ditched his tie and unfastened the top button of his shirt, the small sliver of exposed skin drawing her eye in for reasons she couldn’t decipher. An inch of neck flesh shouldn’t have made her breathing speed up like it had. Besides, she’d seen him shirtless more times than she could count when they were teens. And he always looked pretty good.
Jeez. She needed to stop it. The man was wearing a shirt now. Only, as she looked at said shirt, stretching tightly across his chest, she couldn’t stop thinking about what he probably looked like now. She doubted the buttons of his shirts back then would have struggled to do their job. Not like they were now, as they teased her by keeping whatever he was hiding underneath a secret.
She looked away, but there was nothing in the restaurant that could hold her interest the way Ben’s wardrobe had. So, she settled for the next best thing … watching the bubbles in her champagne glass.
