Page 90 of Reckless
I felt my body lock before I’d fully registered why.
“Kelly?”She turned and smiled, clearly recognized him.
The guy’s face opened with it.“I thought was you.”
My hand tightened around my glass.
Beside me, Charlie made a low sound.
Kelly laughed lightly.“Ben.Hi.”
Ben.
Of course his name was Ben.
He leaned in for a quick one-arm hug like he’d done it before.Kelly let him.Her hand touched his side briefly in the sort of absent, socially intimate way that told me this was not a man she’d met once at a gas station and forgotten.
The movement hit low and ugly in my body before I could stop it.
“Everybody, this is Ben Carter,” Kelly said, turning back toward us.“He does some of the staging work for one of the brokerages I’ve been shadowing.”
A man with an actual place in her life that had nothing to do with me or my family or any arrangement.
I disliked him immediately.
Ben nodded at the group, then looked back at Kelly.“You never answered my text about that coffee place.”
Kelly’s mouth pulled into a rueful line.“I know.I’ve been busy.”
The pause before busy was microscopic.I hated how much I noticed it anyway.
Charlie looked from Ben to me and then down into his drink with all the glee of a man who knew better and planned to sin anyway.I said nothing.
Ben smiled at Kelly.“Still.I’m glad I caught you.”
His attention stayed on her a little too long.
Kelly said, “This is everyone.”
Ben nodded again, more fully this time.Then his gaze landed on me.
I held it.
“Ben,” Kelly said, and now there was the slightest change in her tone, something more deliberate.“This is Xerses.”
Ben looked between us once, then back at Kelly with the faintest spark of understanding.His smile did not disappear.If anything, it sharpened.
“Right,” he said.“I’ve heard.”
“Heard what, exactly.”
“Enough.”Ben smiled without losing any of his composure.“Kelly talks about the family she’s been spending time with.”
“Does she.”
“In passing.”
Kelly was watching both of us now.
