Stripping the Billionaire Read online

  He’d led to years of conflict between the two families. He’d led to heartbreak for everyone involved.

  And Ben had loved his brother.

  He still did.

  “Oh, God, Ben,” Mandy said, stroking his beard, his face. She must have sensed some of what he was feeling. “What happened?”

  He wanted to tell her the truth. He knew it was wrong not to—that they’d gotten close enough now that he owed her the truth.

  But he just couldn’t tell her.

  “It was a car accident,” he said, telling her that much of the truth. The accident had been international news for too long, and he couldn’t risk telling her any of the details. “He just ran off the road one night. No one to blame. Just one of those things.”

  “I’m so sorry. I know what that feels like. When people are taken away so senselessly, with no one at all to blame.”

  He knew she understood. He knew she’d experienced it too. So, even in the midst of his half-lie, he took comfort from her presence, her sweetness, her soft body holding his.

  He’d never thought he could have comfort like this.

  He knew he didn’t deserve it.

  ***

  Mandy was groggy when Ben got up before dawn the next morning and gave her a quick kiss before he left the room.

  It was too early to get up, so she snuggled back into bed, thinking about him, thinking about how what she’d thought she wanted might not be what she really needed after all.

  Ben wasn’t the kind of guy she’d always liked. He was a mess in a number of ways, and he wouldn’t make her life easier. He wasn’t ready to settle down. He didn’t have the lifestyle she’d expected in a husband. He didn’t even have it in him to sweep her off her feet romantically.

  But maybe that was okay.

  She felt like she’d really connected with him over the last few weeks, and it had come to a head that night.

  Maybe she could put aside her expectations. Maybe he could be the kind of man she needed. Maybe she could be really happy with him.

  She tried to imagine herself in a life with him, and it wasn’t as hard as she would have thought. They’d always been inexplicably good together. They brought out better parts of each other.

  She wouldn’t mind seeing his grumpy face over coffee every morning—even with that horrible beard.

  So she’d resolved to herself to really give it a chance by the time she got up and took a shower.

  It was too early to know anything yet, but she wasn’t going to close the door on it.

  Ben was too good a man to set aside just because he didn’t fit her pre-conceived mold.

  So she was feeling a jittery kind of excitement as she came downstairs, dressed for manual labor in shorts and a fitted t-shirt. She’d braided her hair to keep it out of her way.

  Mrs. Damon was drinking coffee and reading the paper in the “morning room” when Mandy came in with her own mug.

  “Where’s Ben?” she asked. His bedroom door had been opened, so she knew he was already up.

  “He went to the store early to get some supplies.”

  “Okay. It looks like it’s going to be a nice day.” Instead sitting down, Mandy went over to look out the window. She felt too jittery to sit down and relax.

  She wanted to see Ben. She wanted to know what he was thinking, whether he thought what happened last night might continue.

  “It’s supposed to be sweltering this afternoon,” Mrs. Damon said. “But it always is at this time of year in Savannah.”

  “Oh, well. We’ll still be able to get a lot of work done.” To distract herself from thoughts of Ben, Mandy stepped over to a corner shelf on which were displayed a number of pictures.

  Most of them were of Ben and a boy who must have been his brother.

  Ben had been an adorable little boy—with the brightest smile she’d ever seen.

  A lot must have happened to him to banish that brightness from his nature.

  The pull of sympathy deepened as she scanned the rest of the pictures. One of them was face down, so she righted it so she could see.

  That one was the two boys with their mother and another man. Ben had said he’d never known his father, so this couldn’t be him.

  Maybe it was a boyfriend Mrs. Damon had in the past. Maybe it was another relative who died since.

  He was a plain, non-descript man in sunglasses who looked around Mrs. Damon’s age. Mandy ignored him and focused on the boys.

  “How much older was Ben’s brother?” she asked.

  Mrs. Damon glanced up, looking startled. “Oh. Three years older. Michael.”

  A sadness overtook her face, and Mandy felt bad for bringing the topic up.

  “Ben told me about the accident. I’m really sorry.”

  Mrs. Damon looked surprised again. More surprised than ever. But she recovered quickly and said, “He told you? I’m so glad. He needs to talk about it, but he never has been able to. It was such a tragedy. I don’t know why Michael would have been so foolish as to drive drunk. And those poor little girls.”

  Mandy froze, speechless, bewildered.

  Something was wrong here. Ben hadn’t said his brother was drunk. He hadn’t mentioned any girls.

  He’d said there was no one to blame. Just one of those things.

  It only took a minute for Mandy to realize what had happened.

  He had lied to her. To her. When she’d genuinely believed they’d connected deeply.

  The only thing she expected from other people was honesty, and Ben hadn’t been willing to give her even that.

  It hurt so much she didn’t trust herself to speak. She murmured something about more coffee and left the room.

  She got a new cup of coffee and stood in the kitchen, staring at the pot.

  She didn’t know why Ben would have lied to her, except that he hadn’t wanted to talk to her about something that went so deep. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that must be the explanation.

  The lie was the way to hold back. From her. She’d been utterly open, vulnerable with him, but he hadn’t done the same for her.

  It still hurt so much she had to breathe deeply to control her emotions.

  She couldn’t believe Ben had lied, when she would have supported him no matter what he’d told her—as long as it was the truth. He knew that about her, but apparently he didn’t believe it.

  She was working herself up to quite an emotional state when a piece of cool logic sliced through her dismay.

  She suddenly knew what had happened.

  He shouldn’t have lied. Of course not. But she also shouldn’t have assumed that they were suddenly in an authentic, meaningful relationship.

  She’d done what she always did—pour herself emotionally into a relationship that couldn’t hold up to it. She’d known who and what Ben was when she slept with him last night, and she should have known that having sex didn’t change people.

  She needed a man who was ready for a serious relationship—for marriage and family—and Ben simply wasn’t there.

  One day, she would learn to be smarter. Until then, she would just act smarter.

  No use to be angry, to act like she had reason for him to act differently, to open his soul, when they’d never been anything more than neighbors. So what if he’d told her a little lie. It wasn’t the betrayal it felt like.

  She could be mature about this. Sex, after all, was just sex.

  With this resolution, and just a little shaky, she went back into the breakfast room with her coffee. And, when Ben returned fifteen minutes later, she was able to give him a mostly normal smile.

  “I guess y’all will want to get an early start,” Mrs. Damon said, getting up from her chair and leaving the paper on the table. “I’ve got some errands this morning, and then I’m having lunch with the girls.”

  Mandy didn’t know who “the girls” were, but Ben just nodded as if he understood. She could feel him giving her sidelong glances, as if he were checking
her expression, so she made sure to keep her face natural.

  When they were alone in the room, he came over to sit beside her near the window.

  He didn’t say anything, so she gave a little shrug and managed to say casually, “I guess now we talk and figure out what happened last night.”

  Ben nodded and reached out to lay his hand over hers. “How are you feeling about it?”

  She really wished he would tell her how he felt first. She couldn’t tell anything from his sober eyes and his beard-covered face. “I’m okay. I mean, it was good. I think I…I needed it.”

  “I did too.”

  She released a breath. “We both needed it. But I’m not expecting hearts and flowers from you now. I mean, I know you’re…we’re not in that place.”

  “Mandy, the last thing I want to happen is to get in the way of our friendship. You’re too important to me for anything to get in the way of what we have. So please tell me if you feel awkward, or like everything has changed, or like we can’t be what we were before.”

  She smiled at him. At least it was settled. She understood what had happened and what wasn’t going to happen now. She could live with it. She’d been happy with their relationship yesterday, and one night didn’t have to change that. “You’re important to me too, Ben. I think we’re going to be fine. We both needed it. But it doesn’t have to change things.”

  She felt something relax in his body, and she knew she’d said what he’d wanted her to say.

  She did feel a little crushed, but she’d been silly to hope for something else.

  Ben wasn’t what she was looking for anyway. He would complicate her ideas about her future to the point of unfeasibility. This was better. She could be who she was—want what she’d always want—and still stay Ben’s friend.

  If it was the best sex she’d ever had, well, she was sure it wasn’t the best sex she’d ever have in the future.

  Five

  Mandy spent the next three hours stripping wallpaper in the front parlor.

  It was slow going, since she was trying to be careful to not damage the historic plaster walls underneath. Some sections of wallpaper came off pretty easily, but others took hard work to just clear a square inch—even with the hand steamer she was using.

  She didn’t mind. She wasn’t opposed to manual labor, and the physical effort helped to clear her mind of the emotional confusion she was feeling.

  Ben was getting estimates from electricians and other workman, so he wasn’t around. It was just as well.

  As she steamed and scraped, steamed and scraped, steamed and scraped, she made herself purge him from her mind.

  She’d been perfectly happy just a couple of days ago with having him as nothing more than a friend. She could get back there again, if she didn’t get hung up on silly expectations and disappointments.

  It was after eleven when Ben appeared in the room.

  “Damn, Cupcake,” he said, staring at her work. She’d finished one of the small walls and most of the wall with the windows. “You shouldn’t be doing this all by yourself.”

  She wiped the sweat from her forehead with her forearm. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a crazy amount of work. We should just get someone in to do it.”

  “It’s fine,” she said with a smile. “I don’t mind. I’ve got nothing else to be doing now, since I can’t start decorating until all this is done.”

  He frowned and said dubiously, “Okay. But take a break this afternoon. I have to go downtown and try to rustle up a permit. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “That sounds like even less fun than stripping wallpaper.” She grinned at him again, pleased that her voice and expression seemed natural, like she wasn’t troubled in any way by what had happened last night. “I’ll rest when I need it. Nothing to worry about.”

  He still didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t argue. She was relieved when she saw him leave the house.

  She stopped for a quick lunch, but then she got to work again. She was determined to strip this room by the end of the day. It had become a mission now, and she wasn’t going to let it go.

  By four o’clock, she was about to drop, and she still had half a wall left. Her shoulders ached, and her head was spinning, and her clothes were soaked with perspiration.

  She was on the floor, scraping away near the baseboard, when a voice surprised her.

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  She jumped at Ben’s voice and turned to blink over at him.

  “What the hell, Cupcake?” He came over with a glower on his face and lowered himself onto his knees beside her. “I told you to take a break this afternoon.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You are not fine.” He was studying her hot, red face and sweaty body. “You’ve been doing this all day long, and I told you that you didn’t have to.”

  “I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to. I don’t mind it.”

  “Well, I didn’t bring you here with me so you could kill yourself with manual labor.”

  “Then why did you bring me here?”

  She never would have asked that question had she not been so exhausted. But her mind wasn’t thinking clearly enough, and those were the words that came out.

  Ben’s face changed. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t even know.”

  She was definitely too tired because her words caught in her throat. “I can go back, if there’s nothing here you want me to do.”

  He groaned and leaned against the wall, pulling her against him.

  She tried to pull away. “I’m all gross and sweaty, Ben.”

  “What the hell do I care about that? I feel pretty gross too. That humidity is like hell.”

  Unable to pull out of his arm, she slumped against him, feeling better than she had since she’d gotten her coffee that morning. “I don’t think you feel gross.”

  He chuckled and tightened his arm. “Much appreciated.” After a pause, he asked in a different tone, “Are you upset about last night?”

  She cleared her throat and straightened up so she could look him in the eye. “Not really. I understand. I mean, we’re not really couple-material, so it makes sense that it was just the one-time thing because we were both kind of needy.”

  He nodded slowly. “If you’re sure. Because the thing I’m not going to be able to stand is if this gets in the way of our friendship. I know you have tons of friends and can probably do without a grouch like me. But I don’t have a lot of friends. I can’t afford to lose you.”

  “You’re not going to lose me, Ben.” She was touched by his seriousness and reached over to stroke a hand down his beard. “I just got it in my head that I needed to finish stripping this room today, and I can be kind of stubborn, once something gets into my head.”

  His expression changed back, and he laughed softly again. “That is something I know. Let me help you with the rest of this wall, and we can finish it up pretty quickly.”

  Relieved and feeling a lot better, Mandy handed him the scraper.

  So he used the runner to poke holes, she steamed, and he scraped.

  Together, they finished stripping the rest of the wall in another hour, and Mandy felt pleased and victorious—like she’d conquered a mountain—at the end of it.

  ***

  By the time Ben sat down to dinner with his mother and Mandy, he was convinced he’d done the right thing.

  He hadn’t felt like it was the right thing that morning—it had been painful and wrenching, despite the fact that he knew it needed to be done.

  But the conversation with Mandy in the parlor had confirmed that they could stay friends, without his dragging all his issues into the relationship.

  They’d showered after they finished the wallpaper. He’d put on a pair of trousers and a non-sloganed shirt, and Mandy wore a casual sundress that made her look soft, pretty, feminine.

  As his eyes lingered on her smiling face during the shrimp and grits his mother had prepared—one of her fa
vorite recipes—Ben had to remind himself that Mandy was just a friend.

  Just a friend.

  Just a friend.

  She and his mother chatted about the house, the neighborhood, and Savannah. He noticed his mom was careful about avoiding any mention of their family, something he appreciated.

  Mandy was laughing as his mother told her about some of the neighbors.

  “Oh, and there’s Mildred Beaufort. She’s at the other end of the block. She’s Old South all the way and very proud of her lineage. Every time I talk to her, she’s bemoaning the fact that her granddaughters can’t find ‘suitable husbands,’” His mother drawled out the last two words in an exaggerated Southern accent.

  “The youngest is just like seventeen, isn’t she?” Ben asked. He turned to Mandy. “Kelly. You met her the other day, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. You dated the older daughter then.”

  Ben shot a glance at Mandy’s face, but she didn’t look uncomfortable or sly—just pleasantly teasing.

  He thought it wouldn’t have been completely unreasonable for her to be a little jealous, but she clearly wasn’t.

  “Oh, my goodness, Benjamin,” his mother said. “You better be careful, or she’ll be coming to me to arrange a marriage between you and Deanna. Not that she’s not a very nice, pretty girl.”

  “Would she really want her to marry Ben, though? I think Ben is great, of course, but he’s not really Southern gentleman material.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’d plan to give him a good polish. She’s given up on a man with the right Southern lineage. The Beauforts have lineage enough. The family’s been dwindling for years, though, so what she really wants is a man who can bring the family a lot of—”

  She broke off suddenly when Ben reached his leg out to gently press against her shoe. He’d been getting nervous about the direction of the conversation, a suspicion that was confirmed when she was about to talk about how much money the Damons had.

  His mother gave him a startled look that quickly turned apologetic.

  “A lot of what?” Mandy asked, clearly curious and having no idea of the undercurrents.