Page 75 of Snowbound in Her Boss's Bed

CHAPTER TWELVE

BENJAMINLAYBESIDEMIRI, listening to her deep, even breathing.

His room was dark still, no sun yet to backlight the snow outside, the sheets entangled around them.

Though he could not see it, he knew that outside the storm continued. By this point he had come to recognize the sound of it, like constantly listening to a muffled ocean inside a shell.

It did not matter that the storm continued, though.

Whether it did or did not was irrelevant to everything that came after. He’d finally realized that, somewhere between her having her way with him on the couch all of those nights ago and waking now, fully alert in the darkness beside her.

He could not let her go.

It was utterly ludicrous and ridiculous that they both acted like it was even possible—or necessary.

They were modern adults, neither of them indentured to the foundation or under any obligation to let it dictate their personal lives.

In this day and age, it was incredibly rare to meet someone who it was possible to work alongside, laugh with and reveal deep fears to, and in Miri, he had found all three. He had risked being vulnerable with her, made himself vulnerable to her derision and mockery, and instead she had chased away the shadows in his heart with her heat—as powerful as the light of any fire.

It wasn’t the kind of thing any sane man would walk away from—one didn’t give another the power to break them and then just go their separate ways—especially not because of a set of rules that had never been intended to apply to him.

What he had discovered with Miri—honesty, openness, passion and safety—was far bigger and more valuable than even the foundation.

Only a fool would pretend otherwise, and he was no fool.

He was one of the most powerful men in the world.

At his side, Miri stirred.

“Quiet down, over there,” she murmured, her voice as sleepy and soft as her body in the shadowed room. “You’re thinking so loud, it’s waking me up.”

“I don’t want to end things when the storm ends,” he said. He had a reputation for being blunt.

Beside him, she sat up.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, though he knew she knew.

Just like himself, he’d caught her looking out the window, eyebrows drawn together in a frown, multiple times over the past few days and he knew it was because she was afraid to see signs of its end.

He couldn’t be the only one feeling that.

“There’s no reason we can’t continue to see each other after the storm passes,” he said.

She shook her head, and he felt the reverberation of it through the bed they shared.

“No, we can’t. The foundation...my job. We can’t. I could get fired,” she said, sounding tired now whereas she’d sounded sleepy but alert only moments before.

“No one needs to know,” he insisted.

She scoffed. “Just like with the last events director, huh? No. No. We both know it’s a no. Someone would find out. They always do, and you’re famous. I told you, Benjamin. I can’t afford to lose my job. I don’t want the storm to end any more than you do, but you should know better than to ask me that.”

He resented the censure in her voice, even if it was deserved.

She admitted to feeling the same; she couldn’t in the same breath speak to him like a child.

“What I’m asking is not out of line, Miri. We’re two adults with something good going between them. I’m asking you to give that a chance because I like you.”

“But do you respect me, Benjamin? Because right now it doesn’t seem like you do. I told you, I need this job.”

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