The Billionaire's Ballet: A Contemporary Billionaire Friends to Lovers Romance (Friends with Benefits) (4 page)

Bennett.

Serious as always.

I drew Jezebelle up short. Bennett also halted his racehorse.

We ended up side by side, facing opposite directions. Like the night I left, Bennett’s gaze slid down my body, taking in the red tank top and jeans.

“You left behind the suit,” he said.

“So did you.”

He glanced down at his riding outfit. No cowboy look here. All water-wicking advanced outdoor wear. It fit him like a second skin.

He was muscled and way more buff than I would have pegged a businessman like him to be. He must take his workouts as seriously as he did the company.

“Not very Texas of you,” I said.

He shrugged. “I don’t wear togas in Rome either.”

I had nothing to say to that. Jezebelle nickered and pranced, feeling anxious so close to the stallion. I drew up the reins and patted her neck.

Bennett shifted his horse over a little. “It looks like New York agreed with you.” His eyes slid over me again.

My body zinged with a tremor that moved from stirrups to reins. I tried not to stare at his thighs bulging on either side of the horse. “Thank you.”

“You here for long?” he asked.

“About a month.”

His eyebrows lifted, and I remembered that same surprised expression from the last night before I left town. My face burned remembering my pronouncement about my love for Quinn. And Bennett’s response that his brother wasn’t who I thought he was.

“That’s a nice visit,” he said. “Did you take a leave from your troupe?”

“We have a break between seasons,” I said.

Bennett sat back on his saddle. He seemed pleased that I was staying. My brain couldn’t comprehend why. He had been only marginally tolerant of my friendship with Quinn when we were kids.

The racehorse danced a few steps, annoyed with the stillness. But Bennett persisted. “You sure surprised everyone, showing up like you did.”

Now it felt like he was stalling. He wanted to keep talking to me? We had about as much in common as a duke and a parlor maid.

“I’m hoping no one will tip off my mom.” I tilted my head. “Can I count on your discretion?”

A slow smile spread across his face. “Scout’s honor.”

I laughed. “You were never a Boy Scout. I was here, you know!”

His grin revealed a dimple I’d never seen on his cheek. “You were.” Then his expression sobered. His voice was completely serious as he said, “You were here all along.”

The change in tone was unsettling. Jezebelle felt my discomfort and lifted her nose, fighting the tightly held reins. I stroked her long neck. “Well, thank you for keeping the secret,” I said. “I’m going to keep my ride short to make sure I don’t miss her.”

Our eyes clashed again and the moment lengthened. I was about to break the intensity when we heard the unmistakable thunder of a running horse coming up the trail.

“What the hell?” Bennett said with a curse. He nudged his horse forward and motioned me to follow him into the brush. We were on a curve and whoever was hightailing it along the narrow trail would run us right over if we didn’t get out of the way.

The horses shifted with unease as the sound grew louder. Bennett had to duck to avoid getting entangled with a low branch overhead. “If it’s one of the trainers, I’ll have their head on a platter,” he said.

Sitting under the tree on horses, waiting on the arrival of some mad rider, made me feel like we were in a knights-of-the-round-table movie. “This is crazy,” I whispered to Bennett.

He laughed quietly. “I feel like Robin Hood.”

I watched him hunkered down over his horse. This was sort of fun. With Bennett. Who would have guessed that?

The ground thudded as the rider got closer. I half expected to see a man in black armor by the time the bushes began to quiver.

But when the horse came around the curve, it was someone we both knew quite well.

Quinn.

He was going so fast that when he saw us, he couldn’t stop immediately. He drew up on the reins with a “Whooooa!” but was well past us by the time he got his horse to stop.

“I should have guessed,” Bennett said under his breath. He eased forward, ducking under the branch.

What was Quinn doing out here?

I followed Bennett back out onto the trail. It wasn’t wide enough for two to ride, so I halted behind him.

Quinn circled back around. His expression showed his displeasure at seeing his brother. “What are you doing out here?” he asked. “Don’t you have some memos to dictate?”

“I always take a trail ride on Tuesdays,” Bennett said evenly.

“With Juliet?”

“Now, that doesn’t seem possible since she only just arrived an hour ago.” Bennett’s voice remained calm and smooth.

Jezebelle seemed unnerved by the tension between the brothers. I had to pay attention to keep her calm, patting her and pulling the reins. “The trail seems a little crowded,” I said. “I’m going to head back.”

Both brothers said, “WAIT!” at the same time.

I took a few steps back with Jezebelle. “Are you two okay?”

Quinn forced his horse forward, nudging Bennett’s aside. His stallion snorted with annoyance.

“Juliet,” Quinn said. “I came out here to find you. Sawyer said you’d headed out on the trail.”

My heart sped up. “You came tearing out here like a bat out of hell to find me?”

Bennett’s horse snorted again as if he didn’t buy it either. Quinn nudged his horse closer to me. “Yes. I couldn’t leave it like it was. I wanted to talk to you. We used to ride together all the time.”

The sound coming from Bennett’s direction wasn’t his horse this time. “I’ll be on my way,” he said. His eyes met mine. “Be careful out here.” He looked right at his brother. “Mesquite trees have thorns.”

He pushed past Quinn and eased around Jezebelle to head back toward the stable. When he was clear of us, he pushed the racehorse into a run.

“Glad we got that unpleasantness behind us,” Quinn said. “I had no idea he still rode.”

I glanced down at his tennis gear. His bare knees were already red from rubbing against the horse. “You must have decided to saddle up at the last minute.”

He frowned down at his legs. “Probably not my smartest move. But I couldn’t wait.”

My throat felt thick. Quinn was that desperate to get to me?

“Don’t you have your tennis pro coming?” I asked.

“Adams can get her settled,” Quinn said. “I hated how we left things.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant. From the driveway? Or our friendship? Or that last night I was here, when he took off with the blond girl?

I didn’t have the courage to ask.

“Let’s ride,” Quinn said. “Slowly, so I can go easy on my knees.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, but I backed up so he could turn around on the trail.

“It’s worth it,” he said with a lazy grin.

He led us through the brush and out into the wide open field that had once been used for growing hay. Now it was wild and weedy with tall thin grass, burnt on the ends from the blistering summer sun.

“I remember the days we used to come out here,” Quinn said. “Things were so damn easy then.”

I turned my face to the sunshine. Despite the tension of a few minutes ago, everything about this moment was perfect. The smell of dirt and grass. Birds caw-cawing and the beat of their wings. The soft whinnies of the horses.

“Now that’s a picture,” Quinn said. He watched me from the middle of the field.

“What is?”

“You. A glorious bit of wild color in a sea of grass,” he said. “Soaking up all this beauty.”

His eyes on me made everything hum. I was acutely aware of the saddle beneath me, my knees locked against the horse.

I nudged Jezebelle forward. The two horses walked amicably together, side by side. A rabbit ran out ahead, pausing every few feet as if checking to see if we followed. With each step, a cluster of grasshoppers leaped out of our way.

I had forgotten this.

It was all so mixed up. My childhood. Nature. Getting away. And Quinn. Was he here as my friend again?

He wasn’t looking at me as a friend. His eyes were hot, his glance falling on key parts of my body.

I could barely stand the tension. “Remember that time we decided to have a campout here in this field?” I asked. “We thought we’d be able to sneak the horses out.”

Quinn laughed, and the moment eased. “There was more security on that barn than Fort Knox,” he said. “When we tried going through the break room window, we set off the alarm and the cops came out.”

“Your dad was so mad,” I said.

“We didn’t get to ride.”

I adjusted my reins. “We did manage to have our night under the stars a little later, though,” I said.

“Did we?” Quinn looked at me quizzically.

My joy dropped a notch as I realized he didn’t remember. It had been an emotional night for me. I was fourteen and just starting to figure out what all these feelings I had meant. Quinn had just come back from a party, seventeen and starting to rebel against his strict father.

I knew he was outside. I often lay on the top of the wall, watching the various Claremonts drive in and out of the six-car garage. Quinn had a little black Porsche. Mom had gone to bed hours before, and I waited for Quinn to come home. He’d already started to pull away, running off with his older friends. He only made time for me when he was stuck at home for one punishment or another. But that time mattered.

He was late getting in, and he and his father had a big argument. When the garage closed, his father made a big show of changing the code on the bay with the Porsche so Quinn couldn’t get his car back out.

I waited. I knew Quinn, and when he was upset, he couldn’t stay inside the walls. So when he angrily evaded the house and went out onto the patio, I raced to the stables.

When he came out the back gate, I was sitting on a stack of hay bales.

“What are you doing up so late?” he asked.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said.

“Well, come on,” he said. “I could use some company.”

The horses were as inaccessible as they always were back when his dad was alive, so we’d walked the trail that night, guided only by the light of the moon. When we got to this field, we dropped into the grass. Quinn stared into the sky, and I had watched him. I could barely contain the intensity of emotion I felt for him.

We didn’t talk or anything, just lay out there under the stars in silence. He fell asleep finally, and I dared, that one time only, to inch close to him until my head touched his shoulder. He’d shifted and pulled me in.

But he didn’t remember that now.

And I couldn’t forget.

I got off Jezebelle and walked, holding her reins. Quinn dismounted and followed my lead. After a while he said, “Hey, let’s walk with just us.”

We tied the horses to a tree and took off back across the field. The grass was up to my knees and I held out my hand to allow the tips to tickle my palm.

“How was New York?” he asked.

I wanted to lash out, tell him he didn’t know because he never answered my emails. Those first few months were hell, and lonely, and painful and hard. I had no one. The dancers were hard to get to know. And the few girls I was friends with back home had moved on to college or settled into jobs. A friend dancing in New York wasn’t someone they could talk to.

But I couldn’t say all that. I settled on something easy.

“Being a dancer is hard work,” I said. “But the city is exciting. A big change from here.”

I closed my hand around one of the blades of grass and tore it away. I held it to my nose, smelling the sharp scent of it, like a mown lawn. There were no lawns in Manhattan, not the places I went.

Quinn also plucked some grass and sniffed. “Is this supposed to do something?” he asked.

“I don’t smell grass a lot,” I said. “If you want to sit on some, you have to go to Central Park. Most of the other parks are all concrete.”

“Sounds dismal,” he said. “Although the times I’ve been there, parks weren’t high on the agenda.”

“So you’ve been?” I asked. I squashed the disappointment that he hadn’t let me know. “I could have gotten you tickets.”

I could picture him in the clubs and pricey restaurants. Staying in suites at the tippy top of hotels in Times Square.

“Just once or twice,” he said. He stopped and reached for my arm. “If I had known, I would have flown up every weekend.”

I flushed with anger. “Known what? That I wasn’t a kid anymore?”

Quinn drew me against him. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed my head against his shoulder.

I wanted to be angry, but the feel of him against me was so right. I’d longed for it since I was a girl.

And now the moment had come.

I wondered wildly if he would kiss me. If we’d keep going and undress in the field. I pictured Quinn’s body over mine in the grass and the need for him bolted through me so hard that I shuddered in his arms.

“I know,” he said. “I was terrible. I was a rotten friend.”

Friend.

Of course.

Friends. We were friends.

I pulled away. “It’s all right,” I said. I couldn’t look at him, but headed toward my horse. “I’m sure you were busy.”

My boots crushed the grass.
 

Quinn hurried to catch up. “You okay, Jules?”

“Fine,” I said, scrambling for a safe topic until I could get to Jezebelle and go. “Are you working at your father’s company?”

“It’s mine and Bennett’s company now. Mostly Bennett’s. He bought out all our sisters’ shares. I’ve kept mine, mainly just to piss him off.”

I couldn’t look at him, just kept trudging toward the trees. “So you’re working there?”

“Something like that. Juliet. Wait.” His voice was plaintive.

I stopped. But I couldn’t turn around. I was still struggling to contain all the things I was feeling. Need. Disappointment. Anticipation. Hope.

His hand touched my shoulder.

Maybe now it would happen. He’d turn me around. We’d kiss. He’d see that I’d always loved him. He’d know.

But if he didn’t feel it too, what then? How would I go on another month here?

“Will you look at me?” he asked.

The days piled up ahead of me. I was here to see my mother. Quinn would do his tennis lessons. I remembered his hand on my arm when he thought I was her. He had plans. Whatever was going on between us wasn’t part of that plan.