It registered that his voice sounded more gravelly than usual, as if she had just woken him up. She probably had, since he was living half a world away, in Miami.
A sudden image of Ben sprawled in bed, of his bronzed shoulders and broad chest a stark contrast to white sheets, made the breath hitch in her throat. She cleared her throat, which felt suddenly tight. “Nothing that you can help with.”
“Are you sure? Babe, you sound…odd.”
Babe.
He had only called her that once before, while they had been in bed. He certainly had no right to call her that now! And she was injured. She shouldn’t be lingering on the phone talking with him. What she needed was an ambulance. Suddenly the weird desire to keep Ben with his dark velvet voice on the line was gone and she was back. “You’re in Miami, I’m in New Zealand. There’s no way you can help me.” She hurriedly added, “Not that I need help from you with anything.”
Her jaw tightened at the fact that she had almost let him know that she was, actually, in need of help, a situation that was unthinkable, since she would rather crawl through the scrub and up the bank with her injured back and sprained wrist than accept any help Ben Sabin might care to offer.
“It’s been nice talking to you,” she said smoothly, “but I didn’t mean to call you. Igloos will be melting in the Arctic and polar bears sunning themselves in Central Park before it happens again. It was a misdial.”
With a stab of her thumb—this time deadly accurate—she terminated the call.
She scrolled through her contacts and succeeded in contacting Luisa Messena. With her mom and help on the way, she tried to relax. But the instant she didn’t have anything to do, all she could think about was Ben. Embarrassed heat flooded her that she had actually rung him, which was at the top of her list of things not to do.
On top of that, the fact that he’d somehow gotten hold of her number and had never bothered to contact her made her mad, which was not good, because it meant she was obviously still harboring sneaky feelings for him.
While she was at home convalescing, her mother, who had figured out that she was struggling with lack of closure around her “relationship” with Ben, had suggested she have counseling and had recommended a therapist. Sophie hadn’t thought she would like the process, but she had taken to it like a duck to water, because the therapy had put the power back in her hands.
What she had felt for Ben was past tense and controllable. She did not have to feel disempowered by what he did or did not do. She was free and empowered to make her own choices.
A distant flash of lightning jerked her back to the present, and to Nick’s party, where, once again, she had managed to utterly embarrass herself.
The breeze lifted, blowing loose strands of hair around her cheeks. She was on the point of leaving and returning to the room Nick had reserved for her at the resort when a sense of premonition tingled down her spine. Ben. Her breath hitched in her throat, and for a crazy moment she wondered if she was experiencing one of Francesca’s feelings.
When she turned, he was there. The terrace lights glanced off the clean cut of his cheekbones, emphasizing the intriguing shadows beneath and highlighting the solid line of his jaw. He shrugged out of his jacket, which had water stains down the lapels, and tossed it over the wrought iron railing. The white shirt he was wearing was wet all down the front and plastered across his chest, making him seem even broader and more muscular than she remembered.
He dragged long fingers through his damp hair and wiped moisture from his chin. His gaze connected with hers. “I guess I deserved that.”
Sophie tried not to notice the way Ben’s skin glowed bronze through the wet shirt. She remembered the pretty blonde.
Stomach tight, she glanced past Ben’s shoulder. There were a few people strolling around the terrace, but none of them looked remotely like the girl with whom Ben had been dancing. “Shouldn’t you be looking after your date?”
He dragged at his tie, which she was gratified to see was also soaked. “I don’t have a date. That was Ellie, the daughter of my business manager. And before you ask, my business manager is also female, but fifty-something and happily married.”
Though Sophie wanted to stay angry and distant and cold, relief flooded her. A little desperately she reminded herself that Ben was still a rat, just not a big enough rat to bring a date to a party at which he knew she would be present.
“What makes you think I need to know anything about the women in your life?” She cleared her throat, which felt tight. “You’re free to date who you want, just as I am.”
Ben’s gaze zeroed in on her mouth as if he had picked up on the extra huskiness of her voice, the one sign she couldn’t control when she was upset. It was a reminder that he knew her too well.
Normally, when it came to men, it was easy for Sophie to keep them at a safe distance. But Ben had, literally, become part of the family for eighteen months, turning up for Sunday lunches, sharing celebrations and spending hours sailing with Nick. He had even been invited to family weddings and christenings, all of which, she now realized, had slowly worn away her defenses and changed the way she had thought about him.
She had begun to think of him as possible husband material.
He leaned back against the terrace railing, arms folded across his chest. “According to social media and the tabloids, you haven’t exactly been lonely.”
She stiffened at his clear reference to the guy she had flaunted in front of the paparazzi as her new man just days after Ben had walked out on her. Since then, she had kept up a steady stream of handsome escorts—most of them Francesca’s friendly exes—just to hammer home that she did not miss Ben in the least.
“So, who’s the lucky guy tonight?” Ben’s gaze narrowed. “He looks familiar.”
Probably because Ben had seen him when he was dating Francesca. Warmth flooded Sophie’s cheeks. For a heart-pounding moment she tried to remember the name of her date. “Oh, you mean, uh—Tobias.”
Ben’s expression seemed to sharpen even further. “Tobias Hunt, of Hunt Security?”
Offhand she could not remember Tobias’s surname; he could be from the royal line of Kadir for all she knew. She had met him for only the third time this evening, and all she had was a phone number and a first name, both of which Francesca had supplied. “We’ve only just started dating,” she said smoothly.
Technically, this was a first date, even as she instinctively knew it would also be the last, because Tobias, despite his masculine presence and good looks, was an oddly lackluster companion.
“So, not serious yet?”
“Not so far.” She met his gaze squarely. “Tobias and I are just good friends. Not that it’s any of your business.”
For a disorienting moment Ben’s gaze burned into hers. “It used to be my business.”
Sophie’s heart pounded in her chest. In a moment of clarity she realized that Ben was suffering from the same kneejerk reaction that had affected her when she had seen him dancing with the young blonde; he was jealous. If he was jealous, that meant that he did still feel something for her, something real enough that it had lasted through a year of separation. She even had the sense that he was on the brink of saying that he was sorry he had walked out on her and that he wanted her back. Then his expression seemed to harden and he broke their eye contact.
She thought grimly that he was regretting the momentary lapse. And suddenly her rage was back, which was a relief, even if she was beginning to feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “As I recall, we didn’t exactly date. We slept together one night, then you disappeared.”