Wild for Him

Chapter Nine

AS Ben stood off to the side and kept an eye on Christine up at the podium during her presentation, he instinctively knew that something was wrong. She'd explained how nervous she was about public speaking, but she wasn't showing the typical signs of anxiety. Rather, she seemed increasingly out of sorts and confused, as if she couldn't think clearly even though she had an outline right in front of her.

He watched her take another drink of her water, emptying the glass of the clear liquid, and then to finish her spiel on the silent auction. Her breathing grew labored, and a frown furrowed her brow as she stared out at the crowd with a dazed look on her face. Abruptly, she finished her speech and headed down the platform away from him.

He called out her name, but she didn't seem to hear him.

"Son of a bitch," Ben bit out furiously and moved fast, but as the thick crowd around him started to separate and head in different directions, men and women inadvertently cut him off in his attempt to get to Christine. It was like swimming upstream through a sea of mud, and it was all he could do not to push and shove his way through the mass of people getting in his way.

Ben's gaze never left Christine as a man he realized was Craig ushered her toward the exit. He swore again, and once they disappeared through the double doors and Ben could no longer see them, a swift kick of adrenaline surged through his entire body. As he ran out of the ballroom, he resisted the urge to grab the semiautomatic he'd holstered beneath his jacket, because he knew that would cause a huge scene and chaos, and until he saw an actual threat he had to keep his weapon secured.

He burst through the main doors of the hotel that led outside, and he immediately caught sight of Craig guiding a wobbling-on-her-high-heels Christine along a path leading around to the far side of the building-where it was dark and very secluded.

Ben reached Craig before the other man had a chance to realize he was even nearby. He stepped in front of him and Christine, bringing them both to a stop. Craig looked startled by his sudden appearance, while Christine appeared bewildered and confused.

Instantly, Ben gently took Christine's arm and pulled her away from Craig. Once he had her safely by his side, the fury that had been building within Ben exploded in a blast of outrage. "Stay the fuck away from her, Crosby!"

"What the hell, man!" Craig retorted just as angrily. "She was obviously dizzy and sick, and I was just taking her to the courtyard right over there so she could sit down and get some fresh air!" He waved toward an area sectioned off by plants and trees, with benches to sit on.

Ben clenched his jaw. While Craig's story was completely plausible and most likely true, Ben wasn't about to back down from his stance. "Stay away from her," he said, enunciating each word.

Craig narrowed his gaze. "I don't know who the hell you think you are, but I'm getting damn tired of your continual harassment."

Before Ben could respond with a scathing remark, Christine fell against his chest, and he caught her around the waist to help keep her upright. She looked up at him, her eyes glassy and a semblance of a smile on her lips.

"Ben," she sighed, drawing out his name on a slur of sound.

It was as though she was drunk, yet Ben knew for a fact that she'd only had one cocktail, and that had been before dinner. The only other explanation for her uncharacteristic behavior was that she'd been drugged somehow. Had someone put something in her food or her soda at their table? And what about the water at the podium? It could have easily been tampered with before she'd arrived to make her speech.

Ben was beginning to suspect the latter, and he automatically glared at Craig. "What did you do to her?"

Craig visibly bristled. "I didn't do a damn thing to her, and I don't appreciate your accusations!"

He didn't give a shit what Craig did or didn't like. But ultimately, Ben didn't have proof of anything, let alone that Crosby was responsible for Christine's current state. Or Leanne, who was easily Ben's second suspect.

However, with over two hundred people attending the charity event, there was no way to nail any one person. Not only were there supporters of Nathan Delacroix at the party, but undoubtedly there were others who might hold a grudge against the man for his political views. Someone angry enough to issue threats against Delacroix to drop out of the race for governor, and bold enough to slip something to Christine to let Nathan know just how serious they were about his daughter's safety.

The possibility made Ben feel physically ill.

"Ben!" a deep male voice called out.

Ben glanced toward the hotel entrance to see Matthew Carlton, the man that he and Christine had met through Scott Wilde just before her speech. The other man was striding toward the three of them, his expression speculative.

"I noticed that Christine wasn't doing so well up at the podium," Matthew said as he came up to them. "Is she okay?"

She was still leaning heavily against Ben, her face buried in the crook of his neck. "I don't know," he admitted.

Christine shivered against him and burrowed closer, her arms sliding around his waist beneath his jacket. "It's cold and you're so warm," she whispered languidly.

Matthew pushed his hands into his pants pockets, his concerned gaze still on Christine. "Would you like me to take a look at her and make sure she's all right?"

Nothing about this situation felt good, but remembering that Matthew Carlton was some kind of doctor, not to mention a friend of Scott's, Ben chose to trust the other man. "That would be great. Let's get her back inside so she can sit down."

They started back toward the hotel entrance, and when Craig followed, Ben shot him a dark look. "I'll handle this," he said, leaving no doubt in Crosby's mind that he needed to get lost. "And like I said before, stay away from her."

Craig gave him a smug glance. "We'll see what Christine says about that."

Ben's temper spiked to an all-time high. If he didn't have his hands full trying to support Christine as they entered the hotel lobby, he would have beat the shit out of the self-righteous bastard right then and there.

Being a somewhat smart man, Craig didn't push the issue any further, and while Ben and Matthew led Christine toward a vacant group of couches and chairs set up in the lobby. Crosby veered toward the ballroom to return to the charity gala.

After gently maneuvering Christine so that she was sitting in the center of the couch, Ben removed his tuxedo jacket and settled it over Christine's bare shoulders. He knelt in front of her while Matthew sat to her right on the couch and immediately grabbed her wrist to check her pulse and heart rate. Christine's head fell forward drowsily, and Ben lifted her chin to try to keep her awake.

"Open your eyes and look at me, sweetheart," he cajoled in a low, soothing voice.

He watched her struggle to lift her lashes, and when she finally managed the feat and saw him, she smiled slow and sweet. "Ben." she murmured on a wisp of breath. "I'm soooo tired and sleepy."

He cupped her face in his hands. "I know you are, honey, but I need you to stay awake, okay?"

She licked her lips and tried to nod. "Mmmm-hmmm."

While Ben proceeded to talk to Christine to keep her alert, Matthew continued his examination. He looked into her eyes and checked her pupils and vision, then went on to monitor her breathing. He even pressed his ear to her chest so he could listen to the rhythm of her heartbeat. Matthew asked how much she'd had to drink, if she was on any type of medication, or had recently taken any kind of drugs.

The last question Ben couldn't answer, and when Matthew repeated the inquiry to Christine, she responded with an indignant, but sluggish, "I don't do drugs!"

Christine's spirited reply despite her lethargic condition almost made Ben smile. Instead, he glanced back at Matthew and decided to level with him on the situation.

"Look, I've been hired by Christine's father as her bodyguard, and I'd really prefer not to have to take her to the ER and have her exposed to the public for hours there, if it can be helped."

Ben could just imagine the field day reporters would have with that kind of story. Undoubtedly, someone in Lambert's camp would turn it into some kind of drug scandal against Nathan's daughter, and ultimately, smear Delacroix's great reputation and his campaign.

"I don't have any proof, but judging by what happened up at the podium, and Christine's behavior now, I think someone slipped her something," Ben said, giving Matthew his gut feeling on what might have transpired. "I've never seen her act like this before."

Matthew checked her pulse rate again. "From what I see, she does exhibit many of the symptoms of ingesting Rohypnol," he said, referring to the street drug roofie. "Her motor skills are definitely impaired, and she's responding as if she's had a lot more to drink than she did. The good thing is, she only consumed one cocktail hours ago, so that does reduce the effects of the drug."

Ben nodded, grateful for that much, at least. "What do I need to do?"

"Take her home and watch her throughout the night to make sure there isn't any change in her breathing or any extreme drop in her pulse rate," Matthew instructed. "Her reaction is something she's just going to have to sleep off, and most likely she won't remember any of this in the morning."

Anxious to get her out of the hotel and safe at home, Ben stood, fished a ticket stub from his pants' pocket and glanced back at Matthew. "Would you mind getting our car from valet while I carry Christine out of here? I don't think she can walk or stand very well on her own and I don't want to risk her falling."

"Absolutely. I'm glad to help." Matthew took the stub and headed out of the lobby to the circular drive in front of the hotel to retrieve their vehicle.

Ten minutes later, Ben had Christine secured in the passenger seat of her Lexus, with the seat reclined so she could sleep on the drive home. He shut the door, then turned back to the good doctor, who withdrew a business card from his wallet and handed it to Ben.

"These are my emergency numbers where I can be reached twenty-four/seven," Matthew said. "Call me if you have any questions or need anything at all."

"Thanks, man." Ben shook Matthew's hand, thankful to have the backup if he needed it. "I appreciate it."

GETTING Christine inside the house and carrying her to the guest bedroom where he was staying was easy. Getting her out of her long, elegant dress when she was as limp as a wet noodle was going to be a bit more tricky. He laid her down on one side of the double bed, and she woke up long enough to reach for him, her hands sliding along the front of his dress shirt as she tried to unfasten the buttons with clumsy, fumbling fingers.

Her blue eyes were glassy, her lips oh-so-tempting as she murmured in a seductively drowsy voice, "Come 'ere… I want you."

A pained smile touched his lips. "I know you do, sweetheart. You've already made that very clear. Numerous times." Knowing one of the effects of Rohypnol was a lack of inhibition, he grasped her slender wrists and gently pulled her hands away from his shirt. "But first things first. Let's get you out of this dress."

"Yeah," she sighed as she looked up at him with a soft, come-hither look in her eyes. "Let's get naked."

Her head fell back against the pillow, and in the next instant she was asleep again, which would make his next task of stripping off her dress so much easier. Because of the one-shoulder design of her gown, the zipper was located beneath her arm and he pulled the tab all the way down to her hip. Slipping the material off her shoulder, he dragged the dress down her lithe body and off, leaving her scantily clad in a strapless bra, skimpy black lace panties, and a pair of black, sexy designer heels.

Those were the first to go. Then, keeping his gaze on her face, he unhooked her bra and added it to the gown he'd draped over the chair next to the bed. Thankfully, she remained unconscious, even when he pulled one of his T-shirts over her head, pushed her arms through the sleeves, then yanked the soft cotton material down to her thighs. Once she was sufficiently covered, he put her beneath the blankets, then took off his holster and stripped off his own formal attire.

Wearing just a pair of boxer briefs, he turned off the lights, slid into bed beside her, and pulled her close to his side with his fingers pressing gently against the pulse in her neck so he could monitor the beat of her heart.

He'd made the decision to bring her to the guest bedroom because it was less personal and intimate than crawling into her feminine bed, but as she snuggled up to him and her soft body curled so sweet and trusting against his, he realized that it didn't matter where the two of them slept tonight. His awareness of her was so acute, so undeniable, that they could have been in an igloo in the North Pole and his body still would have been as hot as a furnace.

Before that swift kick of lust could settle in his groin and keep him hard for the entire night, he rerouted his thoughts to something less arousing. Like the phone call Ben needed to make to Christine's father in the morning to let him know what had happened.

That definitely dissolved any last, lingering bit of desire. He didn't relish informing Nathan that someone had tried to drug his daughter at the gala, especially under his watch. He'd been hired specifically to protect Christine, yet someone had still been able to get to her in a way that he'd never anticipated. The results could have been far more tragic if he hadn't been around, but that notion did little to soothe his conscience.

Instead, it brought up haunting memories of his fiancée, Kim, and the brutal, unexpected way she, and most of her unit, had been murdered by a roadside bomb in Iraq-and how he'd been unable to keep her safe during a mission that had gone so horribly wrong.

Now, he lived with the guilt, the remorse, the vivid images of how he'd held her lifeless body in his arms and wished that it had been he who had died, instead of her.

A familiar lump formed in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut to block the painful recollections. He'd failed to keep Kim safe, but he wasn't going to make that same mistake with Christine.

CHRISTINE cuddled closer to the hard, warm body next to hers. Still caught somewhere between sleep and sublime awareness, she grasped at the nebulous images and feelings floating through her mind, embracing the decadent sensations that could only be a wonderfully sensual dream. She breathed in the scent of earthy male, and her flattened palm skimmed over ridges of hot skin sprinkled with a trail of course hair that led to an elastic barrier.

Undeterred, and wanting to see where this delicious fantasy led, she boldly slipped her hand beneath the waistband. Finding what she sought, she smiled and released a little hum of approval as she wrapped her fingers around an impressive erection. She squeezed the hard shaft, then stroked the hot, silky length of flesh in a tight fist-from the thick base all the way up to a broad, swollen head, which seeped with a slick moisture.

A deep groan rumbled beneath her ear, which was pressed against a warm, solid chest, the sound so vivid and real she felt her stomach curl with an answering need. Her breasts swelled, her nipples tightened, and between her thighs she throbbed for release. She turned more fully toward the temptation beckoning to her, aching for a deeper contact, to feel all that pulsing flesh filling her full.

Instead, strong fingers pulled her hand away from the erection she still held in her grasp, and she moaned in protest. This was not how her fantasy was supposed to end.

"Christine, sweetheart, wake up."

The deep, masculine voice and a gentle shake penetrated the fog that seemed to surround her. Forcing her eyes open, she blinked a few times, trying to clear not only her vision, but also the haze clouding her mind. It was as if she was dealing with a hangover, and after that one time in college when she'd woken up ill from a night of drinking too much alcohol at a sorority party, she'd never overindulged again.

Feeling confused and disoriented, she lifted her head and glanced down at the man lying half-naked beside her. Daylight streamed through the slats in the wooden blinds covering the windows, providing more than enough illumination to see Ben staring at her with dark eyes that were hot with the same desire burning through her. The stubble on his jaw told her that it was most likely morning, yet she had no idea where they were or what had happened.

"Ben," she said, her voice raspy and just as bewildered as she felt.

A lazy smile curved his lips. "Morning," he murmured. He brushed away stray strands of hair that had fallen against her cheek as his gaze searched her face with concern. "How are you doing?"

With a frown, she glanced around, recognizing the guest bedroom where Ben had been sleeping for the past week. She was wearing one of his T-shirts, and her hair was falling in a disheveled mess from where it had been pinned atop her head. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten here in his bed, and if they'd enjoyed any in-between-the-sheets kind of activity she had no recollection of that, either.

She supposed there was only one way to find out. "Did we sleep together?"

"Sleep was all we did in this bed," he said as he continued to watch her. "Well, actually, you slept and I kept a close eye on you all night long."

She sat up and pressed a hand to her cool forehead. "I don't understand," she whispered, trying to recall something, anything, that led to her waking up beside Ben.

He turned onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. "What, exactly, do you remember about last night?" he asked.

Last night… She struggled to grasp some kind of flashback to give her a clue, but all she could come up with was odd, disjointed images that didn't make a whole lot of sense and only made her more frustrated. She caught sight of her black beaded gown draped over the chair beside the bed, and that, thankfully, helped to jog her memory.

"We went to the charity event together," she said, meeting Ben's gaze once again as events starting meshing into a cohesive thought. "I remember the cocktail party, and our dinner, and meeting your friends. I even remember getting up on stage to make my presentation for the silent auction and being nervous about speaking in front of everyone…" And shortly thereafter that's when everything had gone fuzzy and vague and then completely nonexistent in her mind.

Those were the missing pieces of the puzzle she needed to fill in. "What happened? Did I pass out?"

Ben shook his head. "Not at first, no." Then he went on to explain everything that had happened, along with his suspicions that she'd been drugged at some point-either at the dinner table, or her water at the podium.

She listened as he told her about Craig's part in last night's escapade and how he'd been quick to take her outside for some fresh air. While Ben's loathing toward Craig was a tangible thing, Ben had no proof that Craig was responsible for what had happened.

"Wow," she said once Ben finished telling her everything, right up to the point where he'd taken off her dress and tucked her into bed-and spent the entire night watching over her, making sure she didn't have any kind of adverse reaction to whatever she'd been slipped.

"I can't believe all that happened," she said with an incredulous shake of her head, then winced when a dull pain jabbed at her temples.

Once the discomfort subsided, she smiled at Ben and reached out to trail the tips of her fingers along the rough stubble on his jaw. "I do have to say that my first thought when I woke up this morning was that you and I had finally done the deed, and I would have been pretty upset if we had sex and I had no recollection of any of it. Because when that does happen, I want to remember every single detail of the experience."

Chuckling, he slid from the bed, grabbed a pair of worn jeans, and pulled them on over the boxer briefs that molded to all those yummy, masculine parts of him. "Why don't you go and take a nice long, hot shower to clear your head? I need to call your father and let him know what happened, then I'll make you something to eat."

"Okay," she said with a nod of her head. "I should check in with Madison and make sure that the auction did well, despite my quick exit."

"Actually, Madison called your cell phone when I was driving you home last night, and I answered the call and let her know what happened." he told her. "She promised that she would handle everything for you, and she'd call you today to see how you were doing."

That said, he started for the door, but she stopped him before he could leave. "Ben?"

He turned back around. "Yeah?"

She was momentarily distracted by his bare chest and somehow managed to lift her gaze back to his. "Thank you for taking care of me last night and keeping me safe."

He gave her a slight, imperceptible nod. "That's my job," he said, then disappeared from her view.

Yes, she knew she was a job to him, an assignment he took very seriously, and she understood and respected his position as her bodyguard. But it was her own myriad of emotions that she wasn't sure she had a complete handle on. When it came to Ben, there was a wealth of want, need, and desire most definitely. Affection and caring was right up there, too. But it was the deeper, unexpected feelings wrapping around her heart that made her realize that she was falling for Ben in ways she'd never, ever, anticipated.

And she wasn't altogether sure what she was going to do about her growing feelings for him, especially when her life was finally her own and everything she'd wanted it to be.

Or so she thought.

FRESH from her shower and dressed in a comfortable sweat outfit for a lazy, restful Sunday at home, Christine walked into the kitchen to find Ben standing at the stove cooking up something that smelled so good it made her stomach grumble hungrily.

She came up beside him as he sprinkled grated cheese on what looked like an omelette sautéing in a pan. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Nope." He wiped his hands on a terry towel, then dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. "I made a fresh pot of coffee if you want a cup, and I'll be done with your breakfast in just a few minutes."

"Thank you." Pouring the hot brew into a mug, she added creamer and a spoonful of sugar, and stirred.

He cast her a quick look as he transferred the delicious-looking omelette to a plate and started in on another. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay." She took a sip of her coffee and let the warm liquid make its way down to her empty stomach. "That shower definitely helped to clear the cobwebs in my head, but I hate the fact that part of my memory of last night is gone."

He added fresh sliced mushrooms and chopped ham to the eggs, then started buttering the toast that had just popped up in the toaster. "Trust me, you're not missing anything worth remembering. Now go sit down so I can feed you."

Smiling, she obeyed his order and took a seat at the table, while he set a plate of fragrant food in front of her. "Wow, this is impressive," she said, taking in the fluffy omelette he'd made for her. "For a bachelor, that is."

He returned to the stove to finish his own breakfast. "Hey. I might love pizza, but I can't live on that alone," he said with one of his sexy grins. "You had all the ingredients for an omelette, so I took advantage."

Suddenly ravenous, she dug into her eggs, which were absolutely delicious with the mushrooms, ham, and cheese. "Where did you learn to make such a light, fluffy omelette? In the military?" she teased.

"No." With his own plate and coffee in hand, he joined her at the table. "This is a gourmet meal compared to what I ate for breakfast while serving in Iraq."

"Which was?" she asked curiously.

"MRE rations, a protein bar, or mushy scrambled eggs," he said, then ate a big bite of his omelette. "Learning to cook something decent to eat came from a lot of years of being on my own."

The comment was said ambiguously, but it made Christine think about how this man lived his life-alone, in a sparsely furnished apartment, and without any family to call his own. "You were on your own long before joining the military, weren't you?"

He'd just taken a bite of his toast, and he glanced up at her, his gaze suddenly dark and shadowed. "What makes you say that?" he asked gruffly.

Judging by his guarded reaction, she knew she was tiptoeing into personal territory he considered off-limits, but there was so much about this man she wanted to know and understand, and she didn't let his brusque demeanor dissuade her, as it had when she'd been at his apartment a week ago.

"I'm just going off of the conversation we had at your place when you mentioned that your father had passed away a few years ago, and that you had no idea where your mother was… nor did you care to know." She took a drink of her coffee, watching as a muscle in his clenched jaw twitched. "What was your childhood like, Ben?"

"It's not something I want to discuss," he said succinctly.

She rolled her eyes, unwilling to let the subject go. "Come on, Ben. We all have a past of some sort. You should know by now that I'm not one to judge, especially considering my own less-than-ideal childhood with a mother who was so intent on molding me into this perfectly demure lady and obedient wife to some man she approved of."

"At least you had a mother around." The barest hint of a smile made an appearance, lightening the moment between them. "Even if she was overbearing and controlling."

"That's putting things mildly and you know it," she said, and playfully pointed her fork at him. "My mother pretty much had my entire life planned out for me, including being a politician's wife. But you already know all that so stop trying to change the subject. We're talking about your mother, not mine."

"It's a long, depressing story that'll probably put you to sleep." He shrugged and continued eating his omelette.

"Luckily I had plenty of rest last night and we have the entire day ahead of us," she countered easily. "Time is not an issue."

He sighed, and surprisingly he didn't attempt to evade the topic any longer. "Honestly, I haven't thought about my mother and what happened with her in a very long time, and I'm not sure where to start."

"The beginning is always a good place," she said, trying to keep things light. "How did your parents meet?"

"They both lived in Perry, a small town in West Virginia. My father, Neil, was twenty at the time and worked in a local coal mine along with my grandpa, which is pretty much what all the men in that town did for a living and to support their families. It wasn't a glamorous life by any stretch of the imagination."

"I'm sure it was very hard, dangerous work," she said, going off what she'd heard on the news over the years about coal mines and the hazards of working in one. "But it's still a respectable job."

"My father and grandpa thought so," he said and smiled fondly, telling her that he'd at least had good memories of those two men who'd been a part of his life. "From what I've heard through town gossip, my mother is the one who pursued my father, and she was eighteen when she got pregnant with me as a way out of her own abusive family life. Of course my father married her, not only because it was the right thing to do, but apparently he truly did love her, too."

Finished with his breakfast, he pushed his empty plate aside. "After I was born, my mother started pushing my father for them to move to the city where he could get a better paying job. She hated living in a small town and the little two bedroom house my father bought, which was all he could afford with what he made. She wanted to live in Charleston, but my father refused to move. He'd been born and raised in Perry and coal mining was all he knew."

Standing, she collected their dishes and carried them to the sink. "And that's where your father's parents lived, too, right?"

"Actually, my grandmother, who was a wonderful woman, passed away when I was about five, and a few years after that my grandpa died from black lung disease. So, really, there was nothing familywise tying my father to that town, but he was a simple man who didn't need or want anything more than what he had."

Picking up the carafe of hot coffee, she headed back to the table and refilled his mug with the steaming brew. "Sounds like you take after your father."

"I suppose I do," he said with an easygoing smile.

She returned the coffeepot to the counter and remained there, leaning against the kitchen cabinets across from where Ben was sitting. "So, what happened?" she asked, knowing there was so much more to the story.

"By the time I was ten, it was obvious that my parents' marriage was strained." He absently traced a finger along the rim of his coffee cup. "Over the years, my mother's anger and bitterness toward my father increased, and she even grew to resent me, as well."

"What?" she exclaimed incredulously, unable to believe that a mother could blame a child for her unhappiness. "You were just a little boy!"

"One who kept her tied to a man and town that she no longer wanted to be a part of," he said matter-of-factly.

Christine's jaw dropped open. "She told you that?"

"Not directly, no." He hesitated for a moment, then meeting her gaze from across the room, he continued, "I was in bed one night when my mother and father were fighting in the living room. She didn't bother to keep her voice down, and after informing my father that she was filing for a divorce, she went on to tell him that she was tired of being a small-town wife, that she wanted something more exciting than being married to a coal miner and being a PTA mother. By the next morning, she'd packed up her things and she was gone. She didn't even wake me up to say good-bye, and I haven't seen or heard from her since, and I don't care if I ever do."

His tone was so blasé, as if he were relaying someone else's past and not his own horrible memories of a mother who'd turned her back on him without a second thought. But it was the raw pain she detected in the depths of his eyes that told another tale, about a young boy who most likely believed his own mother didn't love him enough to stay, or even fight to take him when she left town.

A lump formed in her throat and it felt as if her own heart were being torn in two. She closed the distance between them, and because he was sitting she didn't hesitate to straddle his lap, her only thought to get as close to him as possible, to let him know that someone cared for the hurt and confused little boy he'd been, and even the man he'd grown to be.

Their position was intimate, but was meant to be more comforting than sexual. She framed his face in her hands, his skin still rough with morning stubble. "I'm so sorry, Ben," she whispered, the ache in her voice real.

Instead of pushing her away or refusing the tenderness she was offering, he placed his hands on her hips, his gaze searching hers. "What for?" he murmured.

"For you and the little boy inside who endured a mother's cruel words and abandonment." She swallowed hard, her anger toward a woman she'd never met a palpable thing. "What kind of mother does that to her only child?"

"A selfish one," he said, meaning it, the harsh tone of his voice leaving no doubt about how he felt toward the woman who'd been his mother for only ten years of his life. "My father couldn't live up to her expectations, and I was more of a nuisance than anything else, so she bailed. The unfortunate part was that my father never stopped loving her, and in order to forget the pain of her walking out on us, he turned to the bottle."

Gently removing her hands from his face, Ben placed her palms on his chest and exhaled a deep breath. "My father was a good, decent man, but my mother completely destroyed him because he wasn't able to give her the kind of life she insisted on. After high school, I took a job in the coal mines, too, but when my father passed away a year later, I decided that there was nothing left for me in the small town of Perry, and I joined the Marines."

And his time in the military, she knew, was a whole other story rife with more pain and heartache. "You've done well with your life," she said, focusing on what he'd accomplished. "Your father would have been proud."

"Thanks." He gingerly eased her off his lap, and she straightened as he stood up, too, obviously ready to put an end to the personal conversation that had dredged up a whole lot of deeply buried and painful emotions for him.

Picking up his coffee mug, he carried it to the sink, then turned around to face her, his expression all serious business. "By the way, I did speak to your father while you were in the shower to let him know what, exactly, happened at the charity event, and he let me know that he received another threat today to drop out of the election, which also made reference to last night's drugging incident with you."

"He better not give in to those ultimatums," she said adamantly. As a family, they'd been in similar situations with his political career, and this campaign for governor was too important for her father to drop out over someone's blackmail attempt.

Ben leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. "He's going forward with the election, but he's definitely concerned about your safety, first and foremost, and we both decided that until the election is over you need to keep a low profile."

She didn't like the way that sounded. "Don't tell me that I have to stay cooped up in this house for the next week and a half. I know I had a close call this time, but I have a business to run and I'm not about to give this jerk the satisfaction of thinking he's scared me off."

Ben chuckled. "Yeah, your father said you'd react just like that, so we came to a compromise. No more public appearances until after the election, and that includes hanging out at Envy with your friends."

She lifted a brow, not at all surprised that he'd made Envy off-limits, which made her wonder if that was due more to the night club's crowded atmosphere, or Craig's presence there. "Whose decision was that?" she asked with a tip of her head. "Yours or my father's?"

"It was a mutual decision."

His expression gave nothing away, but she suspected that Ben was immensely pleased that she'd be keeping her distance from Craig. And honestly, she was fine with that. "I don't have anything scheduled until my birthday party at Envy, but that's after the election. So, until then, I'll keep things low-key."

"Perfect." He nodded his head in satisfaction and pushed away from the counter. "You've had a rough night, so you really should rest and take it easy today. As for me, I have some reports and paperwork to get done."

She recognized his comment as an excuse for him to put some distance between them. She wasn't sure if it was because of their intense conversation about his mother, or something else. But she understood his need to be alone, to think about everything he'd just shared, and for the rest of the day she'd give him the space that he seemed to need.

But come tonight, he was all hers.