An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,45

worry him at all that Anna never replied.

* * *

ANNA LISTENED TO the sound of his even breathing and wondered if she slipped the pillow out from under her head carefully and started beating him repeatedly with it if she could make those soft, even sounds go away.

It wasn’t fair. He was relaxed and on the verge of snoring and she was staring at the wall, still exhausted but completely unable to sleep.

Had she ever only slept with someone? She didn’t think so. There was sex. There was dozing after sex. There was leaving quietly after sex. There was pulling away from Ben and making sure he was covered with a blanket and then going to her own room after sex.

There had never been any sleeping. Lying in someone’s arms. Trusting herself completely in his care. Being vulnerable enough to let go with another person in this very simple way.

Wow, it was harder than she’d thought.

He’d been her boss. They had worked together. She’d spent six years thinking she was in love with him. But lying in this bed with him, listening to his even breathing, feeling his chest move up and down seemed way too...real.

What if she snored? How completely mortifying it would be if he knew that. How...personal. There was no hope for it. If she tried to sneak out, she would wake him up. He was too sensitive to movement and sound not to know she was escaping...leaving.

As tired as he was, he needed the sleep. It was important for his total recovery. So she would simply lie next to him and wait until he stirred. Then after he left, she could collapse into bed...alone...and feel free to sleep for as long as she wanted.

But, man, was she tired now. Her eyes were so heavy. She imagined there was nothing wrong with closing them. Certainly, she could doze for a bit. Dozing wasn’t exactly like sleeping because some part of her mind would still be alert to her surroundings. Dozing would allow her to rest without completely abandoning control to hard-core sleep.

Eyes closed, warm in his partial embrace, she fought against losing consciousness. She wouldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep.

She fought it for as long as she could but eventually junior took over and demanded control of her body for a time.

And so she slept. With Ben.

Totally weird.

CHAPTER TEN

MARK LOOKED AT the birth certificate and frowned. So far nothing. He’d done only the most preliminary checking on the names. He’d run down all the obvious leads he was sure Anna had already tried. He always felt when you were after information a checklist approach was very helpful. Sometimes the process of taking something off the list as not viable was almost as important as finding information that was.

Typically, when you could cancel out all the obvious options, what you were left with was the answer. Only he was nowhere close to that with Anna’s parents.

What had that felt like? he wondered. The moment when she realized that not only had her parents abandoned her, but they had gone one step beyond that and had given her no road map back to them.

At least Sophie knew who her parents were. It probably hadn’t occurred to his daughter that she should be grateful she knew her mother loved her and didn’t want to leave her. Even though her father had had nothing to do with her other than cards and gifts for the past almost fourteen years, she was way better off than Anna had ever been.

Maybe he could get Anna to talk to her. Explain that Mark wasn’t the lowest form of humanity known to man.

She doesn’t want to have anything to do with you.

How could that possibly be? She didn’t even know him enough to not like him. At least he deserved a chance, didn’t he?

Mark groaned in the empty office, putting his face in his hands and wondering where the hell it all went wrong. A soft cough had him looking up.

Leave it to Ben to find him at his worst.

“Can I come in?”

He was standing politely just outside Mark’s office door. Mark imagined he looked clueless, because it was exactly how he felt. It wasn’t a sensation he was necessarily familiar with.

“Sure.”

Ben walked in and took a seat. “I’m here to take Anna to her doctor’s appointment.”

“She’s not back from her errands yet.”

“So I see.”

Right. The man was, like, Sherlock Holmes observant. He would have deduced that Anna wasn’t here based on her vacant desk. Mark