Фиона Бранд – Twin Scandals (страница 7)
Sophie took a deep breath and tried to stay calm, which was difficult because her mind was going a million miles an hour. Usually she was guarded, logical: smart. She did not let emotion carry her away. She did not try to
But this was different. They were on a darkened terrace, with the perfumed night pressing in around them. Heated awareness pulsed through her as she grappled with the dangerous knowledge that Ben still wanted her.
It wasn’t love, not even close.
But it was a start.
If Elena had worked with Nick—who, let’s face it, had been an extremely unpromising boyfriend—Sophie could work with Ben. In that moment a world of possibilities opened up and a year of wallowing in victimhood was gone. She was back to her normal ultraorganized, controlling self with a project to manage, and that project was Ben Sabin.
She closed the distance between them. “Let’s not worry about the commitment issue right now,” she said smoothly, her palms gliding over his shoulders.
A jolt of pure sensual awareness hit Ben with all the force of a freight train. But, as Sophie wound her arms around his neck, he also couldn’t help noticing the odd expression on her face, as if she was assessing him for a position in one of her successful luxury fashion stores. As if he was an employee with hidden potential she was determined to unlock.
Keeping a tight leash on his control, he stared down into a face that had fascinated him from the moment he had first seen Sophie two-and-a-half years ago. He had just taken the job as construction manager with Nick. With liquid dark eyes, cheekbones to die for, a firm chin and a distractingly husky voice, Sophie Messena was drop-dead gorgeous in anyone’s language.
He was also aware that it was not just how Sophie looked that attracted him, because she had an identical twin who looked and sounded exactly the same. And he didn’t feel a thing for Francesca.
When he was near Sophie, something happened. It was like being plugged into an electrical outlet; every cell in his body tightened and all brain function stopped. She could have a bag over her head and he would still recognize her.
“I thought you didn’t want this,” he ground out, “that you weren’t a glass half-empty girl.”
And it was a fact that, with Sophie, half a glass was all he could afford to offer. As mesmerizingly attractive as she was, she was exactly the kind of pampered, spoiled rich girl on the hunt for a wealthy husband or a trophy affair he usually went out of his way to avoid.
Six years ago when he had established his first construction business, he had done the one thing he had promised himself he would never do, after being caught up in the messy breakup of his parents’ marriage: he had fallen for a rich man’s daughter. Even knowing the pitfalls, he had worked to attain her and to hold her. Then, when a financial crash had almost bankrupted him, Melissa had walked the same day. She had handed him back his engagement ring and smoothly told him that she could never marry someone poor. To rub salt in the wound, within the week she had moved in with an extremely wealthy and older business competitor.
Since then Ben had worked hard to rebuild his finances, climbing corporate ladders as he managed construction for other firms. In that time his experiences with women had done nothing to change his mind. He knew how it worked; money married money.
Sophie, who had been born with a diamond-encrusted spoon in her mouth, wouldn’t have looked at him twice if he hadn’t been successful. And the stakes had recently gotten a whole lot higher. When he had started working for Nick Messena, there had been an eighteen-month period during which Sophie had kept a cool distance despite the attraction that had sizzled between them.
A year ago, he had inherited a multibillion-dollar construction and real estate business and Sophie Messena had slept with him. He had to consider that her main focus wasn’t him, personally, but his inheritance.
It didn’t feel that way right now, though. She lifted up on her toes and fitted herself against him as if their last passionate encounter had been just hours ago and the past year of separation hadn’t happened. Close enough that there was no way she could miss exactly how much he still wanted her.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Sophie murmured, a husky catch to her voice.
Ben’s body tightened on a powerful surge of desire. Maybe he could have kept his perspective, he thought grimly, if he hadn’t seen her on Tobias Hunt’s arm. Something fierce and primal had risen up inside him. And it had only grown worse when he learned who Tobias was. Ben’s cool, controlled plan to seduce Sophie Messena in order to put to rest the fatal attraction he had so far failed to shake had crashed and burned.
If Hunt had been one of the normal run of men Sophie had been dating—soft, manicured men who took orders and drove desks—Ben could have maintained his aloofness. However, there was nothing ordinary or even remotely domesticated about Hunt despite the fact that he had spent several months working for Gabriel Messena, presumably to gain experience with playing the financial market. Aside from being the scion of an international manufacturing conglomerate, which, among other things specialized in high-tech military equipment, Hunt was ex-military.
Even though Ben was aware that he was being seduced, his hands, of their own volition, settled at her hips, pulling her closer still. There was his problem, he thought. This encounter with Sophie was following a familiar, conflicted pattern. He couldn’t resist her, and he couldn’t trust her.
But damned if he’d stand tamely aside and let Hunt move in on her.
Sophie’s gaze was oddly considering, giving him the inescapable feeling that he was being evaluated in some way. She brushed her lips against his, sending a rush of heat through him that tightened every muscle in his body.
“About that glass,” she said huskily. “Half a glass will do for now.”
Francesca stepped out onto the terrace and stopped dead. Sophie was kissing Ben Sabin, and it was not just a casual peck.
For long seconds she was frozen in place, not knowing what to do. Usually, Sophie was extremely careful with men. She almost never let any of the men she dated so much as kiss her. Francesca knew for a fact that Sophie had not slept with anyone until Ben. She also understood why Sophie was so picky.
Ever since their father had been killed in a car accident with his alleged mistress, Sophie had been fragile about relationships. Maybe that was because Sophie had always had an unusual character. She tended to be black-and-white in her thinking. When it came to trust it was all or nothing. Added to that, she had been Daddy’s girl, then the father she had adored had tipped her world upside down by betraying her twice. The first time by dying, the second by apparently having a mistress, which Sophie had viewed as an utter betrayal of the entire family.
Consequently, when it came to relationships, she practically interviewed a potential date before she committed. Then she micromanaged the “relationships” because she hated anything unscripted or creative happening.
The droves of men who fell for her didn’t understand what they were letting themselves in for. It was like watching an assembly line, with no hope that any of them would make the grade.
Until Ben.
A little anxiously Francesca skulked in the shadows of a large potted ficus, trying to stay out of sight. She was glaringly aware that with her platinum-blond hair, it was terminally difficult to hide because she practically glowed in the dark. She tucked herself more firmly behind the plant, ignoring the discomfort as a branch scraped her jaw and caught in her hair. Her stomach tightened as one kiss morphed into a second, then a third.
Seconds later, Sophie took Ben’s hand and led him down the steps into the garden. Francesca had to steel herself against rushing after Sophie. The only thing that stopped her was that Sophie seemed to be taking the lead and not Ben She frowned, tossing up whether or not to call Sophie and try to talk some sense into her. Although, given the way they had kissed, she didn’t hold out much hope!
A faint sound made Francesca straighten with a start. She almost died on the spot when she realized that the person who had busted her for spying on Sophie was the guy she’d had a crush on for the past couple of years, John Atraeus. She attempted to shuffle out from behind the tree but a strand of hair had caught on a branch of the ficus.
She pulled on the strand, which stayed stubbornly tangled.
“Wait. Let me do that.” John stepped close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body, smell the tantalizing scent of his gorgeous cologne. His jaw brushed her forehead, sending a hot zing of awareness through her as he worked on the silky strand, which was so blond it still startled her.
“All done.” His gaze met hers for a long moment, then he frowned. “Damn. What have you done to your jaw?”