An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,56

the words bottled up inside her mouth.

“I have something for you. Something I think you should see. Do you trust me?”

Trust him. The mighty Ben Tyler. If nothing else, of course, she trusted him.

“Okay, what is it?”

“It’s not here. I have to take you there. Will you come with me?”

She could say no. She could say she was tired. She could say any other bitchy thought that came to her mind and let go of this night and let go of this man forever.

Instead she nodded.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEY GOT IN THE CAR without speaking a word. Every once in a while Ben looked over at her, but her gaze was firmly fixed out the passenger window. It was getting close to eight o’clock and the sun was starting to go down, but they would still have enough light and plenty of time for her to see it.

It. What was it? It wasn’t a gift, or even something he’d planned to bequeath. Because it wasn’t something he had before he thought about giving it to Anna. He’d seen it after being diagnosed and bought it for her. At the time it seemed perfectly logical that she should have it.

In hindsight, given everything that had happened tonight, he wasn’t so sure it was the best idea to show it to her. Yet he felt as though he was losing ground, as though there was quicksand beneath his feet and he needed her to know that she’d been more important to him during those years together than she realized.

He had no idea how she was going to react to it though. Given her mood tonight she might think this was about the scariest gesture a man had ever made on behalf of a woman. But he owed it to her to show her.

He hadn’t seen her?

It’s what she said to him and it seemed almost comical. Especially after years of forcing himself not to see her. Years of telling himself her hair was too red, her freckles were too prominent, her smile was too big. Years of thinking how completely inappropriate in every way she was for him romantically. Years of putting her in the messy pile of life. A place he stayed very far away from.

And she thought he’d been completely indifferent to her except for a pair of snug yoga pants one night.

He could tell her the truth, he supposed. The truth he’d hidden from himself for so long. The truth he’d only recently let surface and openly acknowledged.

The truth that he’d wanted her all the time they had been working together. So much so that it required effort to convince himself how much he didn’t want her. So much so that it got harder and harder to fall back on his rule never to get involved with an employee.

He’d wanted her before that night and he wanted her now. But she seemed like she was desperately trying to pull away from him, while he was desperately trying to hold on to her. She’d shown up to his place with an agenda and it had nothing to do with giving them a chance at a relationship.

“So how long is it going to take to get there?”

“Not long.” They weren’t far from his home. Their destination was a couple of blocks away. He hit his turn signal and drove up the small hill of a street that ended in a cul-de-sac.

Five houses lined the circle with large yards stretching out front and equally large yards in the rear if he recalled correctly. They were newly built, but each one was a custom-designed home so that they weren’t cookie cutter in appearance yet still blended together in a way that suggested this was a single neighborhood.

He’d met two of the other home owners when he’d visited with the real estate agent. There was a middle-aged couple with grown children, one who still lived at home, and a young couple who had two children under the age of five. He, of course, had had no way of knowing then that having young children around would be a good thing.

“What is this?”

Ben didn’t answer her. He parked in one of the driveways and got out, circling the car to open the door for her. The sun was setting but, as he’d predicted, there was enough light to show what he wanted her to see.

Anna stared at the darkened house not understanding.

“You bought a new house?”

His tongue felt thick in his mouth. What had been such a