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“I owe him everything,” he corrected fiercely, sounding affronted.
“You don’t have to pay that debt for the rest of your life, Ben. Gramps wouldn’t have wanted, or expected, that from you. You’re taking care of his company. That’s enough.”
“It’s not enough,” he said with a brief shake of his head. “But that’s beside the point. My reasons for doing this, for wanting you close, are complicated. For now, why don’t you forget about my motivations and put your own needs first? You want a reliable base from where to restart your business. I can provide that for you.”
“I could go home.” His mouth thinned at her words and she was startled to recognize that he did not like it at all when she referred to any other place but here as her home.
“Back to Beckett’s Retreat, you mean?” Ben was the only one who ever called the house in Constantia by that name. Her grandfather had named it such way back in the seventies. He’d named all his properties. It had been a thing back then. Lilah had always found it ridiculously pretentious and thankfully Gramps had fallen out of the habit of using those names. But Ben had called it that since his very first day with them.
“Yes. Home,” she replied and that set off the tic in his jaw.
“You could,” he said. “But do you want to?”
Sometimes he was too astute for his own good. She worried her upper lip with her teeth before shaking her head.
“No. Not right now. It’s too soon.”
His face softened. “I agree. Gretchen has been asking me when we intended to come around and supervise the packing up of his personal belongings and I’m not…” His face contorted with grief and he shook his head. “I don’t think either of us are ready for that yet.”
“No.”
They had a moment of mutual, silent reflection, before Lilah exhaled gustily.
“Okay, I’ll stay.” She wasn’t caving in. She wasn’t. She was merely going back to her original plan. That was all. “But only because it’s convenient, and because I don’t want people prying into our personal business so soon after Gramps’s death. I’d rather be left alone than forced to answer interminable, nosy questions about our marriage when this time should be about remembering Gramps.”
“Agreed.”
TWENTY
You’re playing with fire, cupcake
The following Monday, Lilah was sitting at her desk, staring out at the gloomy sky, elbow on her desk and chin propped in her palm. It was a week since she and Ben had made this living and working arrangement, and it was actually going surprisingly well. Ben had returned to work the previous Tuesday and she rarely shared this office space with him. The first time they’d actually worked together in this room had been the Saturday past.
Lilah and her assistant Kirby—who currently worked remotely—had been updating her social media accounts and Ben had brought some paperwork home from the office. They’d spent a surprisingly companionable few hours absorbed in their tasks. Each getting the other a drink or snack whenever they left the office for the refreshments.
Their sleeping situation wasn’t too bad either. It was kind of like having a very hot, platonic roommate. One who occasionally crawled into bed with you to hold you and comfort you when you cried in your sleep.
That had happened three times over the course of the week. Which was an improvement on the first week after Gramps’s death when she couldn’t go a few hours without dissolving into tears at night. It was creating a disturbing intimacy between them. Every time he got into bed with her, they fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms, and she woke up in the mornings pressed up against him, butt nestled against his insistent hard-on. Neither of them ever acknowledged that morning erection, but it was hard to resist grinding up against it. Especially when she awoke—as she had this morning—with his huge palm cupped over one of her small breasts and her stone hard nipple scorching a hole through the fabric of her silky cami top.
Her phone pinged and she glanced down at the screen and then smiled.
Her Horti Hoes chat group.
Lilah’s eyes misted as she stared at the text and contemplated her response.
Lilah gnawed on her lower lip. She needed to get out. She hadn’t seen anyone but Ben and Trudy in the last week. Blake was out of town, but they spoke regularly.
Staring out at the gunmetal gray clouds, which threatened heavy rain soon, Lilah found herself suddenly quite keen to see her friends. To discuss future gardening projects with them—there was one in particular that had been flirting at the edges of her mind since Gramps’s death. She would love to pick their brains about it.
There were a few back and forth suggestions. Until they finally settled on Wednesday night at a popular eatery in Observatory.
