Page 78 of Snowbound in Her Boss's Bed

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

STANDINGATTHEWINDOW, the curtains open, Miri pressed the intercom buzzer in her room as soon as she saw the first sliver of blue sky.

Benjamin wasn’t the only one who could call his assistant.

Miri just hoped it worked out like she wanted it to.

It was a huge relief to hear the woman’s voice crackle through the wall speaker—even if the crackle had more to do with the woman speaking than the intercom her words traveled through. “What can I do for you, Ms. Howard?” she asked.

Rubbing her palms against her thighs, clad again in the skirt she’d worn to meet Benjamin for the first time, she said, “I noticed the sky had cleared and was wondering if it would be possible to return to LA today?”

“I’ll have to check with the pilot,” she said, disappearing for a long few minutes while Miri continued to watch the sunrise.

She had not returned to bed upon leaving Benjamin’s room.

There was no point; she couldn’t sleep.

Not with their conversation fresh in her mind.

She supposed she should have been flattered that he wanted her to be his mistress.

He was a world-famous sexy billionaire who had changed the world and who was she?

She was a woman who was not going to act like a fool because a man was good in bed.

Maybe he wasn’t even good in bed. She had no comparison—because he had been the first man, unlike every other man she’d ever met, to make her feel safe enough to let her guard down.

Her heart squeezed in her chest with a steady, painfully rhythmic beat.

He was asking her to put her fate in his hands, for no other reason than he wanted her.

The universals of womanhood transcended even those of faith, and she knew how much store could be set in what a man wanted in any given moment.

Or what anyone wanted of her in any given moment.

Whether it was her former fiancé’s want of her as a mother of his children, her family’s want of her to celebrate their way, or Benjamin’s want of her to be his mistress.

Wasn’t it all the same thing?

In none of those cases had she been wanted as a partner and cocreator. In their own ways, each of them had made that clear.

But she didn’t have to wait around at the whim of anyone’s capricious wants. She owed herself as full a life as she’d challenged Benjamin to live. She deserved a family, and shared traditions, and commitment.

And she would go out and get them.

Even if it wasn’t with Benjamin.

The knot in her chest threatened to stop her heart from beating altogether.

Excruciating as it was, she didn’t know if she didn’t just want to let it.

She let out a strained gasp at the sound of Benjamin’s assistant coming back to the intercom. “Pilot says there’s not enough runway to fly you home yet, but he could probably get you to the airport in the chopper.”

A helicopter.

Of course, it would have to be a helicopter, and then a commercial flight after that, at best.

Commercial flight at best?Where did such a thought come from?

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