Office Affair (10 page)

Sheesh, the man didn’t beat around the bush. He drove straight to the heart of the matter. “Why is it so important you know?”

“Because I was once like that. Driven by the same determination that pushes you.” He hesitated. “It cost me the woman I loved.”

His confession took her by surprise, and her gaze shot to his face. “Sienna left you because you were dedicated to your work?”

“Sienna left me because I dedicated my life to my job instead of my fiancée.”

Wow. Okay. She hadn’t known that. “You’re worried I’ll dedicate my life to my work instead of my fiancé? Newsflash, I don’t have a fiancé.” Although once she’d come close. Once. A long time ago.

“Yeah, and have you stopped to wonder why?”

“I don’t need to wonder why. I don’t want a fiancé. I want to succeed in business.” Or perhaps it was more a case of she
needed
to succeed.

“You have succeeded, Mel. You’re brilliant at what you do. I’ve never seen anyone better. But does your job keep you warm at night? Does it give you someone to go home to? To keep you company?”

She didn’t like his questions. Not one bit. They hit a nerve somewhere deep inside and threw her off balance. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

“Enlighten me.”

“You’re transferring your issues onto me. Making your problems mine. They’re not. We’re different, you and I. Have different reasons for doing things. I don’t have a Sienna in my life because I don’t want one.” She had wanted one, once upon a time.

“Then tell me what you do want. No, wait. I know what you want. Tell me why it’s so important for you to succeed.”

Some things were too personal too talk about. Too hard. “It’s none of your business.”

“You made it my business when you seduced me. When you drew lines around the boundaries of our relationship. When you told me you wanted me for some things but not others. I’m only human. I can’t see those boundaries as clearly as you can. If you want me to respect your wishes and your needs, help me see them clearly. Give me a reason to keep my distance.”

She so didn’t want to go here. So didn’t want to talk about this. But she guessed she owed Ben a little insight into the way her mind worked. She wasn’t that cold and callous that she could fuck him and then refuse to speak to him. Was she?

“Okay. If it’s so important, I’ll try to explain.” But she needed to do it in terms he could understand. “Tell me something first, though. Tell me how you felt when you realized you’d lost Sienna for good, when you realized she was never coming back.”

Ben’s jaw tightened. “Why? It has no bearing on your reasons for working so hard.”

Ah-ha. So she wasn’t the only one who struggled to discuss the real, personal issues. The ones that cut deep. “Maybe not, but it’ll help you understand what motivates me.”

“Fine.” Ben dropped his gaze to the table, but not before Melissa saw a wealth of pain in his eyes. “I was gutted. Felt like a train had ridden over me, every wheel of every carriage leaving its lasting mark.”

The hollowness in his voice broke her heart. “Did…did you try convince her otherwise? Convince her not to go?”

“I changed my life trying to convince her,” he ground out. “Cut down my work hours by a quarter, changed my work contract. I gave up the very thing that had chased her away in the first place—my complete and utter dedication to my job. But I was too late. My efforts failed. Miserably.”

“I’m sorry, Ben. So very sorry for your pain.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that, but it doesn’t mean I can’t sense how deeply you’re hurting.” Dredging up his pain wasn’t her intention, but his answer provided the common link Melissa had sought. The common bond that would help Ben understand what drove her to be the best. “You see, I understand failure. All too well. I’ve failed too. A few times. And it’s…” She hesitated, chewed her bottom lip, wondered how much to say. “It’s destroyed me. Destroyed my life. Broken me and left me with nothing.” Wow. Okay. She hadn’t expected to say that much. Not even close.

“Go on,” Ben urged.

“It’s, uh, I… It’s the fear of ever falling so far or so hard again that makes me so desperate to succeed. That’s why I have to achieve every goal I set for myself. That’s why I can’t let anything interfere with those goals. It’s why I’m determined to be the best I can be at whatever I undertake.”

Ben’s gaze was on her, intense, probing. “It’s hard to imagine you’ve ever botched anything. From where I’m sitting you look nothing like a failure. Nothing at all.”

“I’m glad that’s how you see me. I want everyone to see me like that. I never want anyone to know just how badly I’ve screwed up in my past.” Dear God. What was she saying, spouting her mouth off like this?

She’d just confessed something about herself to Ben she’d never told another living soul. Not her mother or father or even any of her sisters.

“What happened, Mel? What hurt so bad it’s turned you into the woman you are today?”

Melissa took a deep breath and forced back the words that popped into her mouth. The truth. Some things were just too hard to talk about, and she’d already divulged way too much information.

He gave her a sheepish grin. “Okay. That was a tough question. Too tough. Let’s start with an easier one. You said you’ve failed a few times. What’s the least important failure? The one that hasn’t changed your life, but you’re still keenly aware of?”

Melissa took her time, studying her hands as she helped herself to a few more spoons of yogurt.

Ah. Right there. A perfect example for Ben.

She held up a hand to him. “There you go.”

Ben stared at her, perplexed. “Your hand?”

“No, my fingernails. Look at them.”

Ben looked and still remained perplexed.

“I’m a nail-biter. Have been since I was three years old.”

“Uh. Okay.” He sounded uncertain. “So what?”

“My mother did everything in her power to stop me from biting them. Everything. Sent me to school with Band-Aids on every finger, put some foul-tasting polish on my nails, punished me every time she found a finger in my mouth. Even tried a star chart system, rewarding me if I went a week without biting.” She stared at her fingers. “I never did get a single reward out of that chart.”

“So you’re unsuccessful because you bite your nails?” He looked at her as if she were crazy.

“My mother would say so.”

“Would you?”

“I’d like longer nails. Prettier nails.” But on the scale of all she wished she could achieve, beautiful nails were not high up there. She chuckled at his baffled face. “You asked for my least-important failure. I’m showing you.”

“And I appreciate that confidence. Thank you.”

“You think I’m mad.”

“Nope. Not at all. We all have things we wish we could change about ourselves but never get around to doing.”

Melissa sighed. “I had a ton of things like that growing up.”

“Like what?”

She looked at him warily.

“The unimportant ones, Mel. The ones you don’t mind talking about.”

She thought about it for a while. “Well, I was a terrible netball player. Always wished I was better, but I just never quite made the team, no matter how many times I tried.”

“So you tried, knowing you were no good?”

She nodded.

“That must have taken a lot of courage.”

“Some, I guess. Or just sheer stupidity. But after being knocked back continually, I stopped trying.”

“We all would,” Ben said.

“I guess.” She breathed deeply. “I was a God-awful dancer too. Never could make it up on my toes, much to the despair of my ballet teacher.”

“Did you enjoy ballet?”

“Hated it, with a passion. But my mother was a dancer, and all three of my sisters too, and I didn’t want to disappoint them.” With that disclosure, Ben knew more about her family and her past than anyone else at work did. How on earth had she admitted so much about herself to him?

“Did you disappoint them?”

“My mother, maybe. My sisters never cared whether I danced or not.”

“I have a confession to make,” Ben told her then. He lowered his voice, as though afraid anyone would hear them through the closed door. “I was never much of a dancer either. Never once made it up on my toes.”

“Did you try?” Melissa asked, startled by the thought Ben may have done ballet.

“Er, hell, no. Why would anyone try something they hated?”

She looked at him, felt her lips twitch again. “Touché, Mr. Cowley. Point made.” She tilted her head to the side, watched him. “But I didn’t hate debating. I loved that. Disappointed my school horribly, though, when I agreed with the opposition. They kicked me off the team.”

Ben snorted. “You didn’t.”

“I most definitely did.”

“Okay, then, that I concede is a failure.” Not that he looked horrified by it. Not in the least.

But then Melissa didn’t want him horrified. She just wanted him to gain some understanding as to why it was so important she work so hard now. Work so hard to the exclusion of everything else in her life.

“There were more, Ben. Other, more significant failures that I can’t speak about. But that’s why I’m so determined now. I’ve failed once too often in my life. It’s ruined me. I don’t ever want it to happen again.”

Ben regarded her with serious eyes. “We can’t all be good at everything.”

“You’re right. We can’t. But there are some things we have to achieve. Some things that define where we go from that point on. And if we don’t achieve them, life changes in ways we never expected or never wanted.” And that was as much as she would tell him.

Ben must have picked up her resistance to carry this conversation any further. He regarded her in silence for a long while. “I hope that one day you’ll trust me enough to tell me about the failure that changed your life.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps one day.” She left it at that, noncommittal one way or the other.

He pushed a paper plate towards her. “You haven’t eaten enough. Try this.”

Melissa stared longingly at the treat in front of her. Sweet pastry wrapped around decadent caramel and smothered in milk chocolate. A billion or so delicious calories just waiting to be eaten. Begging to be eaten. With a will of iron, she refrained from grabbing it and shoving it into her mouth.

“It’s a caramel kiss,” Ben said. “My weakness. I have to have one a day. At least.”

“I know what it is,” Melissa answered demurely, feeling anything but. The only thing that tempted her more than the dessert was the man sitting opposite her. “But I can’t eat that.”

Ben raised a teasing eyebrow. “Another allergy?”

“No, dummy. Another kilo heading straight to my hips.”

He
tsk
ed. “Trust me on this. You have no problem with your weight. None whatsoever.”

“Hah. Tell my mother that.” The woman had been on her back since she was ten, harping on at her about her too-large behind and her overly rounded hips. Melissa’s obsessive need to run every morning did not stem from a love of the exercise. Although now she found if she didn’t run every morning, she didn’t have as much energy as usual. Truth was, the runs had become kind of addictive.

“I’m telling
you
. A caramel kiss is not going to do you any harm. Eat it.” His voice brooked no argument.

She gazed longingly at the treat.

“Okay, I’ll give you a choice. One way or another you get a kiss this lunchtime. Either take a bite of the dessert, or I’m going to plant my lips on that luscious mouth of yours and kiss you. With tongue. Lots of tongue. In broad daylight, while the entire company is at work.” He shrugged. “I know which one I’d prefer, but as I said, the choice is yours.”

Melissa couldn’t help it. She licked her lips.

Ben growled low in his throat. “Choose. Now.”

She grabbed the caramel kiss and took a bite. Sensational sweetness burst in her mouth, making her moan out loud. God, that tasted good.

“Lucky pastry,” Ben muttered. His eyes were black as night. Desire glowed from them.

Melissa chewed and swallowed, then held the kiss out. “Help yourself.”

Ben did not take his gaze off her mouth. “I intend to. Tonight. I intend to help myself to every last inch of you.”

She looked pointedly at her watch and grinned in triumph. “Twenty minutes without a mention of sex. That’s fifteen more minutes than I gave you credit for.”

His smile was hungry. Predatory. “Give me those fifteen minutes tonight and then see what you can give me credit for.”

For once Melissa did not bother to adopt her stern, professional demeanor. “And if I don’t restrict you to fifteen minutes?”

Ben studied her for a long, charged moment. The air between them seemed to vibrate, awareness and lust growing quickly. “Then hopefully I can gain a lot more credit in your eyes.”

She smiled at him. If he gained any more credit in her eyes, she’d have to put him on a pedestal. “I’m looking forward to you trying.”

He smiled back. “Not as much as I am, sweetness.”