Everyone draws in a deep breath and holds it. It’s Ben who makes the first move, and it’s a smart one.
“Dalton, I know the chef here. Have you met him?” His rises from the table.
Dalton stands. “No, but will you introduce me?”
They’re halfway to the kitchen before Penny or I say a word.
“I know it wasn’t easy for you, Kylie,” Penny says gently.
I want to say something equally nice and supportive, but I feel prickly and frustrated. “You had Dad. He loved every single thing you did. It was completely unconditional as far as you were concerned. You drew some scribbly picture, and he couldn’t get to the fridge fast enough to put it up. He didn’t know how to talk to me, and the feeling was mutual. I wanted to be as close to Mom, but anything short of a Picasso in her house went straight in the trash.”
“I remember.” Penny twirls her glass of wine in her hand. “Dad was no picnic either. My pictures might have been on the fridge, but there was no food in it. We had to scrape by every week.”
“Mom would have helped if you asked.” This is a sticking point with every member of the family. Pride. The stubborn kind that blocks progress on all fronts.
Penny lets out a jaded laugh, and I already know her point before she makes it. Worse than that, I know she’s right. “The only solution Mom ever offered me was to come live with her. You think Dad had trouble talking to you? Mom had no trouble letting me know what she thought of me. I wish she’d struggled more with it. Living with her would have come with rules I couldn’t have put up with. But the most important one was disowning Dad, cutting any loyalty I had to him. That was the price of her love.”
“Yes, it was.” I never really saw it that way before. “This whole time we’ve been beating each other up for picking Mom over Dad or vice versa. It wasn’t really our choice. They made us choose.”
“Even Dad. He couldn’t meet her halfway—not even for me.” Penny nods, looking defeated. “I thought you saw me the same way Mom did.”
“I thought you looked at me the way Dad did.” My heart is tight with anxiety as we peel the layers of pain back. “We were both wrong.”
“Make me a promise, Kylie.” Penny reaches her hand out and touches mine gently. “It might take us a lifetime to figure out what to do with Mom and Dad, but we don’t need to work that hard on us. My friend Millie said something to me the other day that made perfect sense.”
“Millie is always good for advice. Delicious cakes and advice.” I lean in and grin, hopeful Penny and I can have the long overdue bond we’ve been missing.
“People who grow up without hardship don’t learn how to persevere. Perfect parents mean siblings never need to have each other’s back. We’ve spent a lot of years making alliances with flawed parents. I say we stop letting that be a wedge between us. We choose each other.” She squeezes my arm affectionately, and I feel a sense of pride. That’s my little sister being all wise and supportive. “Then together we figure our parents out.”
“Sounds like a deal.” I look around, wondering if the men are ever coming back. “I’m glad you found Dalton.”
“We’re as different as you and I are, but it doesn’t matter. We’re a team. No matter what.”
“No matter what.” I’ve always taken care of Penny. Looking out for her has been a priority. But it’s mostly been done behind the scenes. That pesky family pride always gets in the way. Now it’s time to let her in a little. We’re neighbors. We’re sisters and finally friends.
The idea that people in Bachelor Tower might still be out to hurt her or Dalton makes my stomach churn. I can’t imagine my life without her in it. I don’t care what it takes—I will protect her.
As though they were waiting around the corner to see us both smiling, Dalton and Ben return.
“You two are chicken,” Penny teases. “The first sign of conflict and you head for the hills. How do you get through work like that?”
Dalton chuckles and plants a kiss on her cheek. “At work we don’t have two sisters with whom we have vested interests.”
“You both have vested interests?” Penny asks, winking playfully at me. “It sounds like this is getting serious.”
Ben chimes in before I can make an argument for the fact that it’s not. “Kylie is a very serious woman. She knows what she wants, and she doesn’t stop until she gets it. What can I do? She set her sights on me.” He flexes his muscles and smiles with that big grin of his.
I know he’s kidding, trying to get a rise out of me. I could fake some righteous indignation but everyone would see right through it. Instead I raise my glass and make a toast. “To our first double date. If you people don’t drive me absolutely mad, maybe we’ll do this again some time.”
We clink our glasses and Ben waits to take a sip. “Challenge accepted.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kylie
My eyes flutter open and I stretch one of those long Sunday morning stretches that encompasses the length of my bed. But it’s not Sunday. And this is not my bed.
Fuck. I’m in his bed.
What is wrong with me? I said no. I meant no. How do I keep ending up here? I cut myself some slack for the night after the double date. That was understandably an emotional evening for me.
I don’t have an excuse for why I followed him right into his apartment a few days later after we worked out together at the building gym. One minute I was saying goodnight and agreeing to see him on Sunday, the next I’m tearing off his clothes and rolling around his living room floor with him.
“Do you have time for a shower?” Ben asks as he rolls toward me and kisses my shoulder gently. “I have some calls to make but nothing early this morning.”
“I have meetings this morning. I have time for a normal shower but not what you’re thinking.” I playfully slap his chest. “I can’t be an hour late to work again.”
The look he gives me almost makes me waver. No. That’s how I missed an international call last week. I can’t let him become more important to me than my goals.
He hugs me to him. “What are you working on this week?”
I wrap a possessive leg around him and breathe him in. “I’m negotiating with a new manufacturing facility. Their technology will cut our costs by five percent on some of our leading products. If you can believe it, the main facility is in the United States.”
“A public relations win, and a win for the bottom line.” Ben grins as though he’s proud. “You’re good.”
When we’re like this, it doesn’t feel wrong to be with him. I pictured our relationship feeling like a spider’s web, a trap that would hold me in place. I’d struggle against it while watching everything else fall apart. So far, business is doing even better, and I feel better when I’m with him than when I’m not.
I even like talking business with him. Ben is brilliant. We connect in a way I never thought I would with anyone.
“See you after work tonight? Dinner?” he asks. He doesn’t assume. I like that.
I told him we wouldn’t be an everyday thing. I promised myself we’d contain it to the weekends. But it’s just dinner. I have to eat, right? “My last meeting is at five thirty tonight.”
He gives me a long, lazy kiss that makes me want that shower he suggested, then he slaps my ass. “Get going if you don’t want to be late.”
I wag a finger at him. “Watch it, buddy. I slap back.”
“Promises. Promises.”
He gives me that lopsided grin that makes me melt. I never tell him that because he’s already convinced it’s irresistible. Confirming it would only feed his already enlarged ego.
“I’ll meet you by your office. It’s going to be beautiful tonight; we can walk somewhere.” He stretches, and I’m temporarily mesmerized by the way his muscles flex and relax. I didn’t think computer nerds came in beach-ready bodies, but he has proven me wrong. “I’ll start the coffee.” He plops back on the bed. “Oh wait, I don’t have to. I have an app for that
now.” He reaches for his phone and types something in.
I shake my head and head for the shower. It’s not until I’m reaching for the blow dryer that I realize how comfortable I am in his apartment. There’s a part of me that’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far it hasn’t.
I head to the kitchen and freeze when I see a small square gift box on the counter. “What’s this?” I ask in a squeaky voice. It can’t be. It would be too soon to . . .
“What do you think?” He hands me the box and a steaming cup of coffee just the way I like it.
I hold it without opening it. “Ben, I really can’t—I’m not ready to—”
“Open it. It’s just a little thank you.”
Okay, now I’m confused. “For?” I shake the box. It rattles. Rings don’t rattle, do they?
The dimple in his cheek becomes more pronounced. “For being my muse. I told you I was between projects, and I was.”
“Okay.”
“Part of my process is to take downtime and wait for something to inspire me.”
“And I did that?”
“You did, and that’s why I have a proposal for you.” He leans in and gives me a kiss so sweet I almost drop the box. When he steps back I lift it to my face with a shaking hand. I don’t want it to be jewelry, but . . .
I unwrap the box and surprise myself by being disappointed. “A zip drive?” I look at the small USB storage stick as though staring long enough will morph it into something else. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a program I developed with you in mind. I want you to beta test it with me.”
“A program?”
“It’s called List to Leisure.”
I clutch the USB tightly in my hand and feel prickly heat crawl up my back. No, it’s not a ring, but in a way it’s even better. He’s not showering me with flowers, trying to impress me with trinkets I could buy for myself. He’s inviting me to be a part of him that most men are usually aggressively protective of. “What does it do?”
“I started thinking what some people need more than anything is a break. A breather. A slowdown. But they don’t get the endorphins they need from that. It’s not the high, the reward, they usually crave.”
“Like us at yoga?”
“Right.” Ben takes the drive and flips open his laptop. I miss it in my hand already. I know it’s silly, but I didn’t want to let it go. “The programming is very basic now. I’ll jazz up the interface if you like it.”
“List to Leisure,” I repeat, trying to sort out exactly what this might entail.
“You schedule your downtime. The program tracks your daily schedule and lets you know when the most impactful moments of rest or leisure should be inserted. You can choose from activities it suggests or plug in your own. If meditation isn’t your thing, you could put zip lining in. Coloring. A quick mindless video game. There are loads of things in there to do.”
“And then what?”
“There’s a goal metric and reward system. The more often you work in self-care and downtime the more points you earn. You can even compete with friends. It turns the breaks you should be taking into a task you can accomplish. And remember this doesn’t take away from your daily schedule, it works around it.”
“And what do I get if I win?” I give a sexy smile as though he has the only reward I want.
“You get to cross it off the list. It becomes a task.” He shows me the screen with the exaggerated slashing motion needed to remove something from the list. “It sounds counterintuitive to schedule fun, rest, or downtime. But you get your fix when you finish a task. When you accomplish something you feel amazing. These become things to tackle, and in doing so you also reap the benefits of the task itself.”
“That’s . . .” I hesitate as I think it over. “That’s really brilliant, Ben. I know about a hundred businesspeople who could use an app like this.” An idea comes to me. “Have you considered partnering with businesses for incentives from them? People who choose massages as a way to relax could earn points toward a free one from a participating vendor.”
“I love it,” he says and kisses me again. “Genius. I usually sell off the app before it gets to that stage, but I like where you’d take it.”
My phone starts to beep as it always does this time of morning. Meeting reminders, text messages from Tabby reminding me of various commitments. Ben reluctantly steps back. I’m glad because I was about to turn off my phone and crawl back into bed with him.
Being with him feels better than anything at work. I shake that feeling off.
He leans a hip against the kitchen counter. “I’ll meet you by your office after your last meeting.”
I pocket the USB. “Thank you, Ben. I love your gift.” The words come out awkwardly. Too close to I love you. Too intimate for my normal guarded stance.
“Good.” He hands me a travel mug, and I pour coffee into it. “Don’t feel like you need to get me something in return. I mean I do love Lamborghinis, exotic vacations, and backstage passes to concerts. But really, no pressure.”
We laugh as I close the door behind me and lose myself in the haze of infatuation. It’s quiet in this bubble. It’s peaceful, filled with hope and images of a future I never pictured for myself.
The bubble doesn’t just pop, it explodes as I round the corner and see him. Luther Green is huddled with a group of other Bachelor Tower tenants grumbling in hushed tones. This is the guy who’s screwing with Dalton at work. I’m almost positive of it. Previously Dalton had threatened him into backing off, but this guy is festering. He’s looking for leverage. Lately whenever I hear a rumor, it leads back to this steaming pile of garbage.
“You get lost?” he asks, making note that I’m on the wrong floor. He doesn’t realize how prepared I am for a man like him.
“There were reports of a foul smell in the building. I thought I’d do my neighborly duty and check it out. I’ll be able to let everyone know I found the source.” A few men snicker because they can’t help themselves.
“You don’t seem to be using your apartment much these days.” A few of the guys jab elbows at each other as though they’d just scored a point.
“The same could be said for you and your brain.”
“I can’t figure out if you’re cocky or just stupid.” He eyes me with a venomous look, and I let out a breathy laugh.
“See, and it only took me a second to figure out which one you are.”
I walk away before he can respond, but I can hear him swearing as the elevator doors close behind me.
The hair on the back of my neck is standing up. I can wait for him to come for me, or I can take him down before then. To survive, it’s better to be first and fierce.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ben
The city is alive as people pour out of their offices and spill into cabs or move in tiny herds down the sidewalk. It’s moments like this I’m grateful for the flexibility my career affords me. I can think, design, create, almost anywhere. Men in their too tight neckties and women in their uncomfortable shoes walk by looking defeated. That’s not for me.
But what’s coming my way, that is all for me.
“Were you waiting long?” Kylie asks as she casually slips her arm in mine.
“No, but if I was you’re worth it.”
She smiles and brushes her lips over mine. “You give even a bad day a good ending.”
“Tough day?”
“No more than usual. Just some things I’m working through.”
“Want to talk about it?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet.”
“Hungry?”
“Starving,” she says with a smile as the prospect of food excites her. “I did take a couple small breaks thanks to your gift.”
“Really?”
“It was brilliant. The suggestions were good. Easy to do and there was some serious instant gratification of crossing stuff off that list. The idea is solid.”
“You’ll give me so
me feedback while I continue to develop it?”
“Sure. I was thinking you could add a feature that makes it wearable. Not a watch. Those are overdone. But if it can measure biometrics too, people will love that. Or have it build off what a phone can already do. I know programs like that already exist, but with the right AI software, yours could stand out.”
Kylie gets it. It’s not about intelligence. I’ve been out with very smart women before. But Kylie speaks my language. We move in tandem through conversations, neither of us falling behind or jumping ahead. The ideas flow. We debate. We challenge. Kylie is the first women I’ve been with who makes me feel like more of myself. A Ben 2.0.
“That’s a great idea.” I’m just about to launch into a few other enhancements I’ve been kicking around when a loud voice interrupts.
“Kylie, I’m on my way to your office.” A woman in a gray power suit and a tight bun that looks like it’s yanking at her face cuts me off.
“Mom?”
“We need to talk. What’s this business about you arguing with the other tenants at the Tower?”
“What are you doing here, Mom?”
“Didn’t I just make that clear? I’m asking you a question.”
“You could have called.”
“Who is this?” She takes notice of me and dissects my appearance with the expression of someone who has just noticed a stray dog lingering around.
“I’m Ben,” I say.
“He’s my neighbor.”
Her mother’s nose wrinkles. “Kylie, you know better than to—”
“Can we do this later please?” Kylie asks, and I see a very new look of unease on her face. Something clearly reserved for exchanges with her mother.
“I don’t have time later.” Her mother purses her lips and eyes us again.
“Mother, I will call you tonight. We’re on our way to dinner.”
“Would you like to join us?” I can imagine few people I’d have less fun dining with, but if this is Kylie’s mother I’m curious.
“It’s six p.m.,” she says, looking at us like we’ve just broken out of prison. “You’re going back to the office after, aren’t you?”