Page 4 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
Ben’s boyish face has matured into hard edges and stubbled growth on a chiseled jaw. His tall, lanky frame transformed by lean, muscled biceps and shoulders, apparent by the way his long-sleeved shirt perfectly hugs his body. The hair is still the exact same, though; light brown with strands of gold that catch the light, tousled by restless fingertips and grown out just long enough to suggest he needs an appointment for a haircut.
God, he looks good.
It’s only when my gaze drifts to Ben’s full lower lip that I realize he’s speaking. He’s telling Calvin that we grew up together in Hudson Springs. “Old family friends,” he says as I twist back around and flash my practiced smile at Calvin. I have no other option here. I’m not about to cause an awkward scene and lose any chance of ever getting another opportunity like this. So I’llgrin and bear it. Even if I’m dying on the inside. Even if my forced,No Worries!smile makes my cheeks ache.
“If no introductions are necessary then—” Calvin stands, buttoning his suit jacket with one hand in that precise way wealthy men always do. “Mona, you’re free to go. In fact, take the rest of the day off. You’ve got packing to do. Benjamin, if you’ll stick around, Shirley has the contract ready for you to sign.”
I stand at my dismissal, eyes again colliding with Ben’s as I pass by him on my way to the door. He regards me with a slight wince, as if in apology, and moves to take the seat I vacated. I wonder what’s going through his head right now. This situation must be as awkward for him as it is for me. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe for it to be awkward for him, I would’ve needed to matter to him in the first place.
“Mona, I almost forgot…” Calvin’s voice forces me to turn back just as I’ve almost escaped.
I grin politely, prepared to accept another obligatoryHappy birthday.
“Could you arrange a little office party for Shirley’s birthday next month?” He speaks in hushed tones, though I’m certain the woman in the next room over couldn’t care less about eavesdropping on our conversation. “Doesn’t need to be anything extravagant. And no need to worry about it until you get back, of course.”
“Right. Of course.” My cheeks heat from the embarrassment of thinking Calvin would recognizemybirthday, or maybe it’s the intensity of Ben’s gaze blistering my face like a sunburn.
Spinning in my black leather pumps, I flee Calvin’s office so fast that I don’t know if the smoke trailing behind me is from my high heels or Shirley’s cigarettes.
Back on the thirty-sixth floor—an oddly comforting home now—I don’t make it to my own cubicle. Instead, I collapse into a cheap plastic chair in the cubicle next door belonging to Jacklyn, my best friend and roommate ever since we interned atAround the Globetogether, and sputter through what took place on the floor above us.
“Wait,” she says when I finish. “YourBen is the photographer Benjamin Carter? As in half-a-million-followers-on-Instagram Benjamin Carter?” Her wide, cobalt eyes blink several times in rapid succession. “How have you never told me this?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
Yes, I do. It’s because I wanted to avoid the expression staring back at me now. And because the Ben I knew—teenage Ben with faded jeans and worn-out T-shirts and a customary flannel button-up tied at his waist—is an entirely different person from the photographer upstairs.
“It didn’t seem important.”
“Yeah, okay,” she scoffs. “So, what are you gonna do?”
WhatamI going to do? Part of me wants to rush back upstairs and tell Calvin I’ve changed my mind, but I don’t have the nerve. I suppose I could lie like a coward, call Shirley up later and tell her I broke my ankle, too.Just like Suki! What are the odds?But I know I’m not going to do that, either.
“I’m going to Iceland,” I sigh. “With Ben.”
“Wow.” Jacklyn slowly shakes her head, tosses her wavy auburn hair. “Traveling across the ocean to spend ten long days with your ex. I don’t think I could do it.”
“You wouldn’t know. You have no such ex to speak of.” It’s not an insult. Jacklyn chooses to remain blissfully unattached despitea myriad of worshippers falling at her feet. “Besides, it was a long time ago.”
“Still. Hypothetically speaking, ifIhad to travel to another country with a guy who did to me what Ben did to you, I’m not sure we’d both make it back. I imagine there are plenty ofaccidentsthat could happen in Iceland.”
A genuine smile tugs at my cheeks for the first time today. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be professional yet distant. We’re two colleagues and nothing more.”
Jacklyn’s expression remains dubious, but she has the good manners to let it go. “Speaking of distant, you spending your birthday at your parents’ house with the fam?”
“Of course. It’s tradition.” But at the mention of tonight’s birthday dinner, dread rises in my stomach. Okay, I shouldn’t use the termdread. That makes me feel guilty. It’s more like the intense desire to stay curled on the sofa in the Brooklyn apartment I share with Jacklyn and eat strawberry ice cream straight from the carton. (Although I’d never commit such atrocities; I’m a firm believer in bowls. It’s just nice to think about sometimes.)
“Come with me?” I beg. “Pleeeeeeease?”
“Can’t. As much as I’d love to see Mason’s gorgeous face—”
My nose scrunches in disgust.
Jacklyn has no problem hooking up with a different person (or persons) each night of the week and then casually discarding them the very next day. She’ll tell anyone willing to listen that commitment of any type shouldn’t be entered into until one is at least forty. Because why would anyone want to miss out on all the fantastic sex they could be having with beautiful strangers? That philosophy is all well and good, and I’m certainly not one to judgeanyone’s lifestyle. However, when Jacklyn and my brother Mason are in the same room, their underlying sexual tension permeates the atmosphere, and I don’t want any knowledge of that situation.
“—I have to finish my article on my weekend in Providence.”
It’s then, as Jacklyn shuffles a stack of oldAround the Globeeditions on her desk, that I realize how inconsiderate I’ve been.
