Lia’s eyes sparked. ‘No? That just shows how much you don’t know about me, doesn’t it?’
Ben shrugged a shoulder. ‘I hardly know you, Lia, but I know you’re more than just corporate wife material. He would have stifled you to death.’ It surprised him that he did know this. And it made him wonder what on earth kind of marriage of convenience he had in mind, if not corporate.
He noticed then how she’d gone still. ‘That’s some leap to make when you hardly know me...’
Ben grimaced. ‘I owe you an apology. I was wrong about you. You’re not a princess, Lia. If you were you’d have been screaming and begging to get back to civilisation hours ago, and yet you’ve been perfectly happy here all day, looking after yourself. Esmé told me you made your lunch and cleaned up after yourself.’
She responded with a touch of wry defensiveness. ‘Making lunch and cleaning up hardly merits special congratulations. I’ve still had a more privileged upbringing than most people ever see in their lifetimes.’
‘But you’re not spoilt. Far from it.’
For a long time she said nothing, biting her lip. And then, finally, ‘No, not as you might have imagined at first. It’s been just my father and I since my parents divorced. I became his hostess from a young age and...and I think he overcompensated to make up for the separation. But I was never really comfortable with lavish gifts or things like that. Once he was happy, I was happy.’
Ben absorbed this nugget, acknowledging uncomfortably that he’d misjudged her again. He’d known Louis Ford was divorced, but not the particulars. He asked, ‘Where’s your mother now?’
Lia shrugged minutely and her face was carefully expressionless. Ben recognised it because he used that defence mechanism himself when someone asked too many questions about his past.
‘I think she’s in a Swiss château with husband number four. It’s hard to pin Estella down. I don’t see her often. When I was a teenager she would summon me periodically to whatever luxurious resort she was residing in at the time, usually when she was between husbands and in need of distraction.’
Ben felt a surge of irritation at this faceless woman, but he said lightly, ‘She sounds charming.’
Lia blinked at Ben and then put down her cup and stood up abruptly, taking him by surprise. He’d not even noticed that they’d got into a personal discussion, and he usually did his utmost to avoid straying into such territory with women.
He stood up too, just as she said, ‘It’s been a long day. I think I’ll go to bed.’
‘Of course.’ His gaze tracked her as she turned to leave the room, and then he made a split-second decision and said, ‘I thought that perhaps tomorrow I could give you a tour of Salvador. It’s a stunning city, and I’d like to make it up to you for leaving you to your own devices today.’
She stopped, and the lines of her body were tense. For a moment Ben had a premonition that she was going to turn around and say enough was enough, that she wanted to go home tomorrow... And in all conscience he realised that he couldn’t really say no if she wanted to. Even as everything in him rejected the thought.
But she turned quickly and just said, ‘Okay—fine.’
And then she was disappearing from view and Ben let out a long breath, more relieved by that small concession than anything he could recall in a long time.
* * *
As soon as Lia made it back to her room she closed the door and leant back against it, breathing deeply to calm her racing heart. What the hell had just happened down there? She’d been moments away from curling up on the couch and spilling her entire guts to Benjamin Carter, as if he was some kind of confidant she could trust.
It had only been when he’d responded to what she’d revealed about her mother, and she’d had the distinct impression that he was angry on her behalf, that she’d snapped back to reality. First of all, she never spoke about her mother to anyone—the old wound of rejection still smarted, and she usually avoided being drawn into any discussion about it. Usually.
And what about telling him that she wasn’t interested in dating? And letting him provoke her into talking about her failed engagement?
Lia groaned and kicked off her shoes, walking over to the French doors that led out to the balcony.
The air was still deliciously warm and balmy, caressing her bare skin. She couldn’t see anything in the inky darkness but she could hear the gentle lap of waves against the shore and it soothed her jittery nerves a little, and her sense of exposure.
She thought of his apologising for calling her a princess, and his observation that she was more than corporate wife material, and something inside her felt weak. And yet hadn’t she almost settled for that? Because after yet another stroke, her concern for her father’s health had been so great that she’d given in to his plea that she give Simon Barnes—the nice but dull solicitor—a chance.
When she’d started dating him and they’d had a frank discussion he’d admitted that he’d pursued her to get into her father’s good graces, thus potentially securing a job on his legal team. Simon had then assured her that he would not stand in the way of her ambitions, and so—foolishly, maybe—Lia had seen a way to keep her father happy, and also to forge a life for herself within a marriage that wouldn’t confine her.
After all, she’d never entertained romantic notions of a happy-ever-after marriage—not after witnessing her own parents’ disastrous marriage and her father’s subsequent heartbreak. Lia had vowed from an early age never to be so destroyed by giving someone else that control over her.
But then her chest grew tight when she recalled that oh, so vivid image of her fiancé’s head buried between his secretary’s legs, and the humiliation washed over her again. It hadn’t been his infidelity that had hurt her—after all, they hadn’t been in love—it had been the stark knowledge of the fact that she hadn’t been able to rouse that passion in him.
Lia curled her hands around the balcony railings as if that would centre her again. The truth was that as much as she wished she could find it easy to dismiss Benjamin Carter...she couldn’t.
Something about this place, about him, was making her loosen up. Dangerously so. She’d all but accused him of being boorish and she had outright accused him of being crass. But this beautiful house didn’t belong to a crass man, and a boorish man didn’t climb up to hammer slates into a roof with his housekeeper’s husband. And, an overly arrogant man who had made no bones about the fact that he wanted to take her to bed wouldn’t exercise such restraint that he’d actually let her go to bed. Alone.
Lia hadn’t mistaken the heat in his eyes... It was one of the reasons, apart from her over-sharing, that she’d practically run from the room.
She had to remind herself that the man was a consummate playboy; he knew exactly what he was doing. He was like a big jungle cat playing with a tiny helpless mouse—letting it believe that it could get away when all he had to do was bring down a big paw and that would be that. Game over.
She’d been here less than twenty-four hours and the man was already playing her like a fiddle. Lia was very tempted to go back downstairs and demand that he take her home immediately.
Funnily enough, she suspected that if she insisted he would let her go. But, perversely, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, or let him suspect for a second that she was perturbed by all that she’d revealed to him. One more day in his company... She could keep her mouth zipped and keep him at a distance. She could. She had to.
* * *
Lia sat beside Ben in the open-top Jeep as they drove down the main route to Salvador from his villa. Her dark hair was pulled back into a practical ponytail and the warm breeze made it look like skeins of silk behind her head. He was finding it hard to maintain