Page 40 of Home to Me

It wasn't that she didn't like him. She realized now that she did, quite a lot, and that’s exactly what scared her. Things with Ben were moving too fast. She couldn't let herself develop feelings for him. There was no guarantee that the show was going to go forward, after all. As far as she knew, they were going to see each other for the very last time in two weeks. What kind of condition would her heart be in the day after he left if she let herself fall head over heels for this guy?

She studied him surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye. I mean, look at him, she told herself miserably. He's ridiculously handsome, chiseled in a Greek god sort of way. He's on a television show, and he lives in LA, where he's probably surrounded by starlets—the guy's gotta be a player.

She figured she was probably just his latest weekend conquest, except that this particular 'weekend' happened to last several weeks.

Do not, Lauren, she cautioned herself. Do not get caught up in his web of charm.

When she was growing up, her dad, who was a ‘businessman’ was also a charmer. To this day, Lauren didn’t know what his ‘business’ was. Only that he was always out of town because of it and always working an angle. In both his personal and professional life. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d watched women fall all over themselves around her too-good-looking-for-his-own-good father. Then she watched as he’d chew them up and spit them out.

Her mother had never seemed to notice or care. She was more interested in what was at the bottom of a bottle. She confronted her mother once about her father’s behavior when she was a teenager, and she would never forget the dead look in her mother’s eyes as she said, “I’m a forty-year-old ex-model. I have no work skills, and no other man would want me now.”

It still made Lauren sick to her stomach when she thought about it. Lauren promised herself that day that she would never be that woman. She would never depend on a man. Never.

Lauren sighed and settled back in the seat, pulling out her laptop so she could work for the rest of the drive back to Hope Falls.

Yes, she realized, their little out-of-town jaunt had been the equivalent of a vacation—a vacation from herself—and now it was time to come back home and settle into her normal routine.

She had a long list of things to take care of, and she figured it would be best for the both of them if, rather than having some big blowout or confrontation where they talk about the state of their non-relationship, she would, instead, simply use non-verbal cues to put some subtle distance between them.

She decided that would be less hurtful all the way around.

As she tried to concentrate on her work, she could feel Ben’s eyes on her. When she looked up, she saw Ben smiling at her sweetly and she had to remind herself not to cave. Be strong, she told herself. No matter what sexy words come after that sexy smile, be strong. Remember what you have to do here.

Ben reached over and brushed her blonde hair away from her face—or rather, since Lauren always had every single strand of her hair perfectly in place at all times, it was more like his fingertips traced the line of where her hair swept back from her forehead into a perfect chignon.

Nevertheless, the tingles it sent skittering across her scalp and down her spine made it very difficult to hold her resolve. Her eyes immediately flew back to her computer screen.

"Penny for your thoughts, beautiful," he said softly.

Without even looking up from her laptop, she said in a clipped tone, "Just working."

Ben's hand froze at the nape of her neck, and she realized that he was taking note of her chilly demeanor. Apparently deciding to move on as if nothing had changed, he said in a flirty tone, "So, you happy to be home, gorgeous?"

Again, not looking up or making eye contact with him, she said distractedly, "Mmmm...yeah. Lots of work."

Ben sighed.

She felt horrible doing this to him but again reminded herself that, in the long run, it would be much less painful for everyone.

Evidently determined that he wasn't going to give up without a fight, he gave it one last try. "So, I got asked to host a charity event in Hope Falls this weekend. The Hometown Heroes Ball, I think?"

At this, Lauren couldn't stop herself from looking up, her eyes widening.

"That's this weekend?" she said in surprise.

His face had a puzzled expression. "Um, let me check my schedule," he said, pulling out his phone. He paged through a few screens on his calendar and said, "Yep. This weekend, Hometown Heroes Ball, Hope Falls. Next weekend, children's wing dedication at Grace Memorial in Sacramento. Following weekend, bachelor auction, San Francisco."

Lauren crinkled her forehead. "You have a charity event every weekend?"

Ben laughed and said, "Oh, the first season of the show? Absolutely. I had more than one every weekend. But now I have it written into my contract that I have one weekend per month off completely. And any weekend I am working, I get either Saturday or Sunday to myself. No working all week and then working all weekend as well."

Lauren leaned back in the seat, flabbergasted. "How on earth do you manage to show houses?" she asked. "Weekends are my busiest time. They are for any real estate agent."

Ben laughed again, shaking his head. "Oh, Lauren. You're about to enter a world of everybody wanting to be close to you. You're never going to have to prospect for clients again. People are going to come to you, wanting to use you simply because they've seen you on the show, and either they trust you based on what they've seen there or they feel like, by using you as their agent, they're actually purchasing up a little bit of your time. Paying, if you will, to become a small part of a famous person's life. Believe me, you are never going to have to worry about showing another house yourself ever again."

Lauren was rendered nearly speechless. "You mean, you don't actually conduct showings and close deals yourself?"

"Oh, I absolutely handle the final negotiations. I wouldn't trust anyone else to do that. However, most of the legwork is done by two people I have working in my office. Two amazing people I would trust with my life. I mean, I kind of do, in a way, by trusting them with my business."

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