Blessing in Disguise (48 page)

“Ben, what’s wrong?”

Get
him
to say it, she thought. That way, she wouldn’t end up the bad guy.

“Nothing,” he said, rolling onto his back.

Nola sat up and looked down at him. “Don’t give me that. You’ve been like this for the past couple of weeks. Happy as a clam one minute, and the next acting like somebody the ayatollah put a death threat on. What’s going on?”

But she knew, didn’t she? Ben, underneath his charm and cool demeanor, was scared. Playing daddy to an instant family—
Just add man and stir
—was clearly not his scene. She thought of last week, Ben taking them all to that movie, and halfway through Dani whining that she was tired and wanted to go home. Ben had looked so annoyed—as if he were just barely restraining himself from snapping at Dani—that Nola had wanted to snap at
him:
Man, if you can’t stand the heat, then get the hell out of the kitchen.

The girls
—
they’ve picked up on it, too. Or maybe they’ve known all along what it took me this long to figure out
—
that you don’t seem to give a shit about them. Unless it’s just kids in general you don’t like.

Either way, she couldn’t risk having Ben turn out to be another Marcus, who only called when the spirit moved him—about as often as he remembered his own daughters’ birthdays.

“I was just thinking,” Ben spoke, addressing the ceiling.

“Of what?”

“Of how much easier all this would have been if you’d listened to me in the first place.”

“You mean if I’d gotten rid of the letters? Flushed them down the toilet? Thrown them onto a bonfire? Ben, they’re important. And not just to me.”

“What about
me?”
He spoke quietly, but his voice had a nasty edge to it. “Where do I figure into your grand scheme of things?”

“I don’t know, Ben,” she said quietly. “Why don’t
you
tell me?”

What if I did tell her the truth?
Ben thought.
That I’m not the nice guy I pretend to be?

But that wouldn’t be the whole truth, he knew. More than Nola’s relinquishing those letters to Grace—which had pissed him off at the time, but which had now faded a bit—what was bugging the shit out of him was the idea that he might actually be in love with her. And if he didn’t get it off his chest, he was going to explode.

“Christ, Nola,
don’t you get it?”
His eyes glittered in the half-darkness. “That’s how this whole thing started. Us, you and me. I was
using
you. I was hoping you’d turn those letters over to me, so I could play the hero with Cadogan. ...”

Ben’s heart was thudding. What was he saying? What had he
done?
At the same time, he half-hoped she’d use this as an excuse to dump him. Because God knew
he
didn’t have the guts to end it. He was in deep ... and getting deeper every day.

“But then a funny thing happened on the way to the forum,” Ben went on, all at once unable to bear her thinking badly of him. “I started to ... care.” He couldn’t bring himself to use the word “love”—it just wasn’t in his vocabulary. “Jesus, it’s the last thing I wanted. A wife, kids, ready-made family. Father Knows Shit. Not for me.
Damnit.”
He punched his fist into the pillow beside him.

Nola felt a coldness creep through her. She shivered, and drew the sheets and blankets about her, knowing that they wouldn’t make her warm. She knew she should feel angry at him for using her, trying to trick her, but for some reason what she felt now was ... sorry.

For him, Ben, the lost little boy she’d been drawn to from the very start. What she wanted to do was hold him, comfort him. Maybe she
had
loved him ... for a little while.

But now it was over. Really over. Ben’s confession was merely the last stop on a train going nowhere she wanted to be.

“Maybe you’re
in
love with me ... but that’s not the same as loving.” She spoke as gently as she could. “Mostly what we do when we’re together is ...
this.”
She swept her arm over the rumpled bedcovers.

“Are you saying that’s all it ever was for you? Sex?” His voice rose, becoming petulant.

A warning bell went off inside her. Marcus, too, when they argued, would twist everything she said.

“Don’t you see?” Nola felt a great weariness overtake her. “I’ve got two little girls. They’re upstairs with Florene right now, where they’ve been spending far too much time lately. Ben, I have a family to look after. Work I haven’t been doing because I’ve been too busy with you. I can’t put either my job or my girls on hold for you.”

“Who asked you to? I could move in with you—or we could get a place together.” Ben couldn’t believe the words that were tumbling out of him. Where were they coming from?

Part of him wanted to snatch them back ... and start working on forgetting that he’d ever met Nola. She was too much her own woman, too much in control. And right now, damnit, that control seemed to be over
him.

“Ben, stop this,” Nola said sharply. “You don’t mean it.”

“I’ve never been more serious about anything.” The desperation in his voice was almost frightening to her.

“I’m getting dressed now,” she said, moving to the edge of the mattress. “And then I think it’d be a good idea if you went home.”

She started to get up, but he grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her—almost
yanking
her—onto her back.

“Ben, what are you ...”

Staring down at her, his face hard and twisted, he demanded, “What are you saying, Nola?”

“I’m saying that it’s time for you to go home.”

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll talk about this in a day or two, when we’ve both had a chance to think about it.”

“Damnit, Nola, I spill my guts, and all you can say is, We’ll talk about it?”

“Ben. You’re reading all kinds of things into this that aren’t there. And anyway, the plain fact is, you hardly know me. We’ve known each other—what?—a whole three weeks?”

“So what? I’m not saying we should get married. And wouldn’t it be easier if we were living together?”

“In some ways, maybe. But—”

“Just give me an answer—yes or no. Is that so hard, Nola?”

“Yes, it
is
hard.”

“Why?
Why
does it have to be?”

“Because you’re pushing me and I don’t like that.”

Panic seemed to split his face into two, one half a thwarted child stunned with disappointment, the other a bully demanding his way.

Suddenly his full weight was on her, pressing down, his mouth smashing against hers until she could hardly breathe.

“Ben ... no,
no,
not like this,” she gasped.

Nola couldn’t believe what was happening. Ben holding her down, forcing her legs apart with his knee. It was almost as if he were ...
raping
her. ...

Can’t be. He wouldn’t do that to me.

But his fingers were now being shoved up inside her, and she wanted to pummel him, scratch him,
hurt
him.

“Stop it!” she cried, twisting beneath him, scrabbling to get some leverage against his chest to push him off her.

But he was too strong for her ... and rough, so rough. Almost as if he’d become someone else, a stranger shoving her legs apart as he thrust himself into her. She could feel his fingernails, the sharp little corners where he’d clipped them, raking at her skin. She tried to help him, just to stop the pain ... but he pushed her hand away and growled, “Goddamnit, goddamnit, Nola,” while he bucked against her, driving her spine into the mattress, sweat from his face dripping onto her clenched eyelids.

“Get
...
off ... me.”

Nola had been feeling shocked, scared ... but now she was livid, a white-hot torrent of anger. How
dare
he!

She heard him cry out, and, with a final quivering heave she felt all the way down to her tailbone, he slackened his terrifying grip. Then, in a single fluid motion, he was rolling off her and off the edge of the mattress. She watched the pale triangle of his back dip and surface among the shadows as he rooted in the semidarkness for his pants, and pulled them on.

Nola, shivering, her teeth clenched to keep them from chattering, crawled to the edge of the bed and clambered to her feet, scooping up one of the black patent-leather pumps that lay toppled on the floor. She stood with her legs wide apart—they were quivering so hard it was the only way she could keep her balance. But when Ben turned to face her, his expression not only unrepentant but actually
aggrieved,
as if
he
were the injured party, she felt suddenly galvanized by fury.

“What the
hell
was that all about?”

“I thought you liked it rough.”

Even as he said it, Ben felt like a gangster in a B movie, mouthing lines that had nothing to do with him. Christ, had he really done that to her? Was he any better than that shit Roger Young?

Now he’d destroyed any chance he’d had of reaching her.
Why
had he done it?

You’re scared, Ben-o, that’s why. What if she had taken you up on your offer? Then you’d be stuck. ...

“That was
rape,”
she spat. “Jesus God Almighty, these days they teach
college
girls about what just happened here so they won’t ever let it happen to them.”

“Oh, come on, Nola, you’re not exactly a kid.”

Nola hurled her shoe at him, missing him by inches. She heard a thud as the lamp on the nightstand hit the floor, and then the awful sound of the old glass cracking. Seeing her treasured Handel lying in jagged shards on the floor, she felt a wrenching in her gut, as if inside her something had been broken as well.

“You
bastard!”
She grabbed her blouse, which was draped over the end of the bed, and tugged it on, her fingers twitching and sliding over the silky fabric as she struggled to push the buttons through the buttonholes. “I can’t
believe
I let myself get sucked into this. I’ve spent half my life trying to get away from men like you.”

“That’s why I get stuck paying for the sins of your ex-husband?”

Nola pictured the red handle of an emergency brake, which she was now forcing down. “Get out,” she said between gritted teeth.

“Nola, wait, I didn’t mean ...” He extended a hand, as if in apology.

“Get
out.”
She walked around the bed and picked up the old lamp base, which felt cold and heavy in her hand. She wanted to cry, but she was too furious—at herself, mostly, for having allowed herself to become infatuated with this man. “I’m giving you thirty seconds to get dressed and get your ass out that door. Or I’m calling the cops.”

He lifted his tormented face to her, his mouth twisted, making him look like a gargoyle. “And have me arrested? Go ahead, Nola. Think what a great story it’d make.”

She shuddered, thinking of the times she’d reveled in his hands on her body, of her opening herself to him, greedy.

“Time’s up,” she told him. She felt oddly depleted. The anger had gone, leaving only a bone-deep weariness. Even after what he’d done, the things he’d said, there was a part of her that felt sorry for Ben.

“Don’t worry, I’m out of here,” Ben told her. “There’s just one thing. ...” His jacket over his shoulder, he turned, his eyes glittering with unshed tears. “I know you probably won’t believe this, but I really meant what I said before. That stuff about us living together. And about ...” He stopped.

“You loving me?” she finished, even though she couldn’t recall his ever actually saying those words. In a voice rich with irony, she added, “Yeah, I know.”

The call came two days later, while she was mulling over Ronnie Chang’s rough sketches for the Schulman house. An acre of prime East Hampton beachfront for which he’d drawn what looked to be little more than a collection of cubes, like a Mondrian abstract. Ronnie liked to think of himself as the next I. M. Pei, but this wasn’t the Louvre pyramid or the Hancock Tower. People were going to have to
live
in the place. ...

“Nola, could I see you in my office?”

Maguire’s voice on her intercom propelled her off her high stool. And then she was weaving her way between the work stations in which her colleagues sat hunched over their drafting boards.

In his office—a cheerful zigzag of postmodernist chairs, tables, bookcases—her boss greeted her warmly, but there was a look of guarded enthusiasm on his thin, anxious face.

“I just got word,” he told her. “The Truscott committee has chosen your”—he caught himself—
“our
design. ...”

Nola felt a rush of happiness like a great wind blowing through her ... blowing her clean, making her shine. Had she heard right?

Maguire’s next words turned her to ice.

“But there’s a snag. They have a funding problem. So ... until they can come up with another million or so, we’re on hold.”

“What do they mean? How long will it take?”

She realized she was shaking. Since the night before last, that ugly scene with Ben, she’d been strung out, jittery, jumping every time someone called her name.

“Until all this publicity dies down, for one thing.” The smile he’d been wearing when she walked in now dropped from his face. “After that, who knows? Once the committee gets wind of you working here ...” His voice trailed off.

Was she being fired? Was that why he’d called her in here?

Nola wrapped her arms around her chest, as if she might somehow contain her shivering, and the mad thumping of her heart.

“But don’t they already know?” She remembered that reporter the other day, trying to trip her up.

“If they do, nobody has said anything to me about it.”

“Then what you’re saying is, it’s only a matter of time.”

“Nola, we’re not talking about the sleepy directors of some insurance company. You’re up against Cordelia Truscott. Can you imagine her reaction when she finds out you’re even remotely associated with this project?”

Nola wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. She couldn’t fault him for overreacting, either. Even when he’d learned that she was Eugene Truscott’s daughter—she’d told him the day before it came out in the newspapers—his reply had been an oddly wry but supportive, “I won’t say I should have known ... but in some ways I’m not surprised. You have that mark on you, Nola. You’ll go far. Partly because you’re not afraid to be different.”