Page 31 of Home to Me

Sitting next to her was Ben Stevens, looking fully put together and awake. Sure, he’d probably been up for hours.

Could this day get any worse?

With one look at his expression, which she took to be smug, she heard herself saying, “Don’t. Say. Anything.”

--- ~ ---

Lauren didn’t have anything to worry about. Ben couldn’t have formed a thought to save his life.

He’d been waiting out in the car in front of Lauren's beautiful ranch-style home for almost twenty minutes. He was expecting to hear any number of excuses as to why she couldn’t make it out on time. Maybe she would breezily explain that she had an important conference call. Maybe she would pass the blame off to someone else, say that her itinerary was wrong or confusing. Or maybe she wouldn't address it at all in true diva style. This industry did seem to bring out the worst in people—and some of the very worst were those whose star was just beginning to rise. It tended to go to your head.

But what Ben never expected to hear from her was a simple and sincere apology, and to the driver no less. He’d been around women, and actors for that matter, for long enough now to know how to spot a performance, and Lauren wasn’t putting one on. No, she genuinely felt bad for the delay she had caused.

He’d been all ready to give her some smart-ass comment, to tease her about holding them up, but the words died on his lips. When she removed her jacket and sat beside him, he noticed how she was dressed: hair down, falling past her shoulders, not a stitch of makeup on her beautiful face, jeans that hugged her in all the right places, and a white V-neck T-shirt sans bra.

The air left his lungs and he had to mentally command himself to take in a breath. The back seat suddenly felt small and he was beginning to sweat.

Lauren Harrison was a beautiful woman when she was dressed to the nines, every hair in place, makeup perfectly applied.

But this Lauren Harrison—no makeup, hair sexily flowing around her face, in jeans and a T-shirt—this Lauren Harrison was his wet dream come to life.

He uncomfortably shifted in his jeans, which were becoming tighter by the second.

He couldn't get over how much softer and more approachable Lauren looked. He reached his hand up to wipe his chin, afraid he was drooling.

After what seemed like an eternity to Ben, Lauren finally turned to him, an apologetic expression on her face.

“Ben, I'm so sorry for holding us up. I fell asleep unintentionally last night. I can promise you this is not how I normally operate, and it won't happen again.”

Ben smiled, liking this new, down-to-earth, real version of Lauren. “Hey, one thing you will learn in this business is that you've got to roll with things. No harm done.”

Lauren laughed ruefully. “Roll with things? I doubt that's a lesson I'll ever be able to learn!”

Ben could tell she was serious, but truthfully, all he could really think about was how adorable she was. Oh, and sexy… very sexy.

--- ~ ---

Lauren was relieved that, despite her uncharacteristic tardiness in meeting the town car this morning, she and Ben were still delivered to the Reno-Tahoe airport in plenty of time to make their flight.

As they disembarked from the car, Ben said, "Do you have any luggage to check?"

Lauren looked at him disbelievingly, as if he’d just grown two heads. "What am I, an amateur?" she smirked.

He smiled at her sassy reply, which had been her intent, and Lauren was more gratified at this success than she wanted to let herself believe.

When the two of them were seated at the gate, Lauren decided to see if continuing in that sassy vein could tease an additional smile from him, so she turned to look at him and said in a light tone, "The thing that I was really surprised about by this flight was that we're seated in coach. I thought that big stars always flew first class, if not in a private jet."

However, rather than just inspiring a simple smile from Ben, it actually spurred him on to action.

"Well," he said, turning on his charming smile to full strength, "let's just see what we can do about that, shall we?"

Before she could even respond, he was up and headed over to talk to the gate attendant, a fresh and bright-looking young woman. It wasn’t very long until he had her laughing and even blushing, and Lauren was hardly surprised when he walked back over about five minutes later, holding two new boarding passes.

"She upgraded us," he announced proudly.

"Um, I think she was mainly interested in upgrading you," Lauren said with a sly smile.

Ben shrugged but didn’t deny it. "Be that as it may," he said, unfazed, "mission accomplished."

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