He wasn’t a chickenshit, though. He’d do his penance today, get past it. Get back to what he knew how to be. Marcie would finish her internship and head to Milan, because that’s where she belonged. It should be clear to her after last night. Everything fucking the way it fucking should be.
As he came into the conference room ten minutes later, he bit back an oath. He was hoping Janet would be set up to transcribe, a buffer to anything too personal, but it was just Peter all by his lonesome. He was in his usual relaxed sprawl, but with an expression that said he was going to give him shit about ditching his tail. Hell, Ben needed coffee before he did this.
He dropped the folder on the table, gave Peter an even, don’t-fuck-with-me look, and turned right into Lucas’ fist.
For all that he razzed Lucas about being a pussy-cyclist, the guy had a hammer of a right punch. It practically lifted him off his feet, knocked him back onto the conference table. He deserved it, but he wasn’t going down defenseless. As he rolled and came back to his feet, ready to counter, Peter was already there, dragging him back while Jon and Matt did the honors with Lucas.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Lucas snarled. “I swear to God, I’m going to put my foot so far up your ass you choke on it.”
“She wasn’t supposed to come to the club. She was supposed to be bluffing.” Where the hell had that knee-jerk, dumbass response come from? Damn, he needed coffee.
When Lucas’ blue eyes turned into ice frost from the Antarctic, Matt and Jon let him go. “For that, you get a free one,” Matt decided.
Peter had let him go as well, but Ben was still seeing stars. Lucas got in another face punch and a gut shot before Matt and Jon pulled him back again. Ben was fervently glad he’d already puked up most of last night’s intake in the hotel room. If he threw up on the boardroom carpet, Janet would make him clean every fiber with a toothbrush.
“You’re pinning the blame on her for what you dished out? A twenty-three-year-old inexperienced sub who showed up where you didn’t expect her to be? Let me go,” Lucas told Matt and Jon. “I’m going to fucking rip his head off.”
“He’s our lawyer,” Jon reminded him. “He can’t get you off a murder rap if he’s the victim.”
“She may be inexperienced, but she’s a sub, deep as they come,” Ben said, surging against Peter’s iron grip. “Friday, it was going to be me, or whoever she grabbed at the club. They were ten deep for that feeding trough. No one outside this fucking room is going to touch her, goddamn it. Not while I’m breathing.”
He came to a full stop with that shouted declaration, feeling the shock of it reverberate off the walls and through his bones, settling into his gut. All heads turned toward him, four sets of eyes assessing, measuring. No. He wasn’t that kind of Master. He wasn’t possessive. He fucked women, let them go. Until last night. When he couldn’t bear to see another Master’s hands on what every blood cell in his body roared was his. Noah had been different, a sub under his command, a different tool, like the cane or rawhide.
He’d told Peter he needed to work it out, but he hadn’t. He’d chosen alcohol and fists instead. Now he’d just blurted it out, bald as a naked newborn.
He struggled to be reasonable, calm. Sort of. “I told her I was mentoring her,” he said. “Just her mentor.”
The words sounded hollow, absurd. Weak. With a sudden weary sigh, he folded into a chair, nursing his aching temples and now his busted jaw. Lucas might have broken it. That’d be great, a lawyer with his mouth wired shut. The world would celebrate.
“What the hell is this?” Lucas demanded. “Spill it, Ben. Give me a reason to hit you again.”
“Lucas.” Matt put a quelling hand on the man’s shoulder. “Ben. Tell us what’s going on.”
“I want her,” Ben mumbled, so quietly that he didn’t think they’d heard. Until he raised his gaze to Lucas’ frozen features. “I want her,” he repeated more strongly. “I didn’t want to, but she wouldn’t give up, and she got to me. It’s all fucked up.”
“Don’t put this on her.”
“I’m not.” Ben leaped back to his feet, but Peter was there, steadying him. “Damn it, she’s been nothing but what she should be. Beautiful, generous, full of life. It crept up on me. I thought if I scared her off…she’d be okay. I…It went too far. I just wanted her to find someone better for her.”
“The problem is, she wants you just as much, Ben,” Jon observed. “It was a damn fool thing to do.”
“She woke up screaming Friday night,” Lucas said. He was quieter now, but the harshness was still around his mouth, anger in his eyes. “A nightmare about when Jeremy’s friend attacked her. She hasn’t had one of those in years. Cass slept in her room.”
Goddamn it. Yeah, they should let Lucas go. In fact, they should all beat him to a bloody pulp and then toss him out the window to hit the asphalt below. A hundred broken bones wouldn’t hit him as hard as those few words.
“Fuck.” Ben sat back down in the chair, wouldn’t let himself look down, no matter how hard it was to meet Lucas’ eyes. “I’m sorry, Lucas. You’re right. It was unforgivable.”
The CFO’s face remained unreadable for several moments, then his jaw eased a fraction. “You’re right. It is fucked up. But I’m not the one you owe an apology.”
“If she’s the one,” Jon said quietly, “you can’t push her away, Ben. You know that. Why are you trying so hard?”
Ben couldn’t answer that. He just looked out the window. He didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to
