Eyes grainy from too little sleep, Ben got off his return flight from New York to Miami and strode through the arrivals lounge. Even though he knew he should be checking his emails to make sure there were no changes to his scheduled meetings, he found himself flicking through the news feed on his phone.
A headline from a tabloid stopped him in his tracks. “Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Who? Sophie Messena Chooses Atraeus.”
On some level he was aware of people flowing around him, the annoyed glance of a businessman as his bag caught the edge of Ben’s briefcase. He tapped the link. A photograph of Sophie Messena in a clinch with John Atraeus filled the screen and the bustling noise of the airport dropped away.
He scrolled down. Apparently, Sophie and Atraeus had spent the night at Atraeus’s hotel suite. The lovebirds had ordered room service so they could stay in. Weirdly—because there had been no champagne—a bucket of ice had been delivered along with the food.
Sound and movement seemed to rush back at him, twice as loud and more garish than before. Little more than twenty-four hours since he had gotten out of Sophie Messena’s bed, and she was already with someone else. And not just anyone else. Sophie had been clear on the fact that she wanted in on the retail deal on Sail Fish Key, and John Atraeus was the only one who had the power to open that door for her.
Taking a deep breath, Ben unclenched his jaw. Grimly he wondered what had happened to the cool logic that had underpinned almost every decision he had ever made about his relationship with Sophie, except on two notable occasions when they had ended up in bed.
His attention was drawn back to the photo, particularly the expression on Sophie’s face, which the photographer had zeroed in on. Her head was tilted back, the pure line of her throat exposed, her gaze intense. She looked as if she was about to kiss Atraeus, as if she couldn’t get enough of him.
Fiery tension gripped him. He had no problem identifying what he was feeling. He was jealous. Crazily, burningly jealous.
He didn’t like the fact that she had found someone else. He liked it even less that that person was Atraeus, because in his mind Ben had claimed her. A year ago, to be precise.
And he couldn’t forget that a year ago, she had found a new someone else within a week. If he hadn’t been thousands of miles away, and committed to the complicated process of picking up the reins of his uncle’s sprawling business empire, he would have gotten the next flight back to New Zealand.
Instead, he’d had to content himself with doing some homework on the guy, and the next time he was back in New Zealand, he had made it his business to track Xavier Tate down.
A grin relieved some of Ben’s tension. After a few pointed questions, Tate had caved. Apparently, Sophie had picked him up at a club and cut a deal. She would introduce him to her brother Gabriel, who ran the family bank. In exchange, Tate had done what he was told. He had escorted Sophie for a week and made it look like he was her new boyfriend. Tate had sworn up and down that he hadn’t touched Sophie, that she had been crystal clear on the fact that if he so much as tried to kiss her, the deal was off.
Ben had let him live.
Ben had also concluded that the dates and the media hype, so soon after he had left, had been Sophie’s way of covering up the fact that he had hurt her.
That was one of the reasons he had wanted to see her again. A part of him had always wondered if he had been wrong about her, that somewhere in the midst of the addictive, fiery attraction, there had been a glimmer of true emotion.
The other reason was that he hadn’t been able to forget her, period.
Ben stared at the photo of Sophie and Atraeus, then with an abrupt movement he closed the page. Until that moment he hadn’t understood how fiercely possessive he was of Sophie.
As he made his way toward the exit, he brooded over his obsession with Sophie, the edgy tension that gripped him every time he thought about her, the knee-jerk desire, not just to claim her, but to take her, first from Hunt and now from Atraeus. And all of this, despite knowing from hard, personal experience that, at a foundational level, their relationship wouldn’t work because money lay at the center of it.
He registered that, in a weird way, his own hardline, alpha personality was working against him in this. At some instinctive level, from the first moment he had seen her, he had been fixated. He had chosen Sophie, and it seemed he couldn’t simply unchoose her. He had spent the past year trying to neutralize what he could only describe as a fatal attraction.
Two days ago, all it had taken was one glance across a room to know that he hadn’t succeeded. Jaw tight, he decided he needed to form a strategy to once and for all nix the attraction.
Now that he was irrevocably linked with Sophie through the business deal with Nick, she would be on the periphery of his life for some time. He needed to find a cure, a way to unchoose Sophie.
Although how he was going to achieve that he didn’t know.
He was about to drop his phone into his pocket when it buzzed.
He noted the number and reluctantly answered the call, which was from one of his business partners.
The conversation was short and to the point. Malcolm Holt would be at the investors’ lunch on Sail Fish Key as arranged, only he was bringing his daughter, Buffy, with him. Apparently, Buffy was very much looking forward to seeing him again.
Ben hung up and stared bleakly out the terminal window. He couldn’t help reflecting that life had been a whole lot simpler when he had been a financial nobody working for Nick Messena. Now, in the space of two days, he had given in to the temptation to make a second, steamy mistake with Sophie Messena—a woman who hadn’t wanted him until he had become a billionaire—and discovered that forgetting her wasn’t so easy after all. At the other end of the spectrum he had Buffy Holt, an extremely wealthy young woman he had only ever dated because of his connection with Mathew Holt. Buffy had made no bones about the fact that she had chosen him and wasn’t willing to take no for an answer.
Telling her no wouldn’t have been a problem if her father was willing to be reasonable about Ben’s disinterest. Unfortunately, Holt, an oil and real estate billionaire who had underwritten a major chunk of the Sail Fish Key project, had a reputation for being difficult. He had made no bones about the fact that he wanted his daughter to have everything she wanted, including Ben.
As much as Ben hated to admit it, there was only one way out. He needed a date for tomorrow. It was short notice, so he checked with Hannah. Unfortunately, her daughter, Ellie, had flown out that morning so no dice there. He thought about asking Nick if one of his staff might do it, but discounted the idea. Holt knew Nick and had stayed at his hotels. Chances were he might recognize one of the women. In any case, he would sniff a fake a mile off. Ben needed someone who was confident in the kind of rarified social strata in which Holt moved, someone who could believably be his date and whose very presence would shut down both Holt and his daughter.
Sliding his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose, Ben walked out into the compressed heat of another steamy Miami day. He found the keys to the Jeep, unlocked it and placed his overnight case on the rear seat. He walked around to the driver-side door, tossed his briefcase onto the passenger seat, waited a few seconds to let the hot air out of the vehicle, then climbed behind the wheel. Adjusting the air-conditioning, he drove out of the overnight parking lot and accelerated into traffic.
The article about Sophie and Atraeus came back to haunt him as he drove. He stopped for a red light, his fingers tightening on the wheel. The problem was, a part of him couldn’t believe that Sophie had jumped beds so fast.
Added to that, he knew what the reporter who wrote the article about Sophie and Atraeus was like. If Sally Parker ever stumbled over the truth, it would be a bona fide miracle.
Ben accelerated through the intersection but, seconds later, he did something he almost never did: he changed his mind.
Instead of taking an exit for the east side of town, he headed for Sophie’s office, which was downtown, located directly above her newest boutique.
Minutes later he pulled into a parking space. The address was upmarket but nothing like the rarified, high-end luxury of an Atraeus Mall. Although, he guessed, after sleeping with Atraeus, Sophie’s ability to access premium retail space would no longer be a problem.
He stepped into the air-conditioned building, checked the list of businesses and headed for the second floor. Within minutes he found Sophie’s office. His jaw tightened as he took in the sleek neutral space with its luxe linen couch and spare designer coffee table, the avant-garde art. His gaze was drawn to a silver sconce on the wall that had an antique, faintly battered look. From its very simplicity, it looked like it could have once belonged in an ancient villa, maybe even one of the crumbling monasteries on Medinos.
Nick had once told him that Sophie had a passion for Medinian objects, to the point that she regularly spent time poking around in secondhand shops, and brought pieces back from family holidays on the island, sometimes even forcing him to take the overflow from her luggage.
The fact that he remembered Sophie was sentimental about the Mediterranean island from which the Messena family had originally come was unsettling. It signaled that he was thinking about her too much, that he was sliding back into the old obsessive behavior he had sworn off.
He checked his watch. The reception desk was vacant, probably because it was lunchtime. Not prepared to give up, he found an open door.
Francesca pushed to her feet, her expression wary. “If you’re looking for Sophie, she’s out.”
And just like that, he knew he had made a mistake coming to Sophie’s office in the hopes of finding out she hadn’t actually slept with John Atraeus. “With Atraeus.”
A sharp clatter was followed by a muffled, distinctly unladylike word.
Francesca retrieved the cell phone she had just dropped, her expression oddly pale as she checked the screen. “John, uh—” she flushed and shook her head “—went back to New York. Sophie’s in Miami, somewhere.”
Ben frowned at the cell in her hand. “Is it broken?”
Francesca’s gaze clashed with his. “It’s not the phone that’s broken. That’s got a shockproof case.”
Ben had the sudden conviction the conversation was operating on two levels. “So, you haven’t seen Sophie?”
Francesca set the phone down on the desk. “She isn’t exactly keeping me in the loop at the moment. I haven’t seen her since Saturday night.”
Which was unusual. From everything Nick had told him, as well as Ben’s own experience of the twins, normally they were so close they were practically a double act. “So it is true. Sophie and Atraeus are together.”
Francesca’s brows jerked together. “If Sophie spent the night with him, then, yeah, you can pretty much guarantee they’re together.”
The confirmation sent tension spiraling through Ben. It was jealousy, stark and primitive. The very fact that he was jealous meant that he was no longer in danger of sliding back into obsessive behavior when it came to Sophie Messena: he was already there.
“Is there something wrong?”
His gaze snapped back to Francesca’s. “What could possibly be wrong?”
“For a moment you looked...weird.”
Like he wanted to catch a flight to New York and tell Atraeus, point-blank, to leave Sophie Messena alone?
Francesca’s phone made a pinging sound as if a text had just come in. She stared at it as if it was a bomb about to explode, checked the text, then put the phone down, all the color, once again, gone from face. “If this is to do with business you can leave a message for Sophie. Although I thought it was Atraeus who was handling the retail from now on.”
“I don’t need to leave a message.” He had what he had come for: verification that Sophie and Atraeus were a couple.
Half an hour later, Ben turned into the driveway of what had been his uncle Wallace’s beach house—or rather mansion—and which was now his home base. The driveway had been repaired and the grounds restored to their original elegance but the old house still needed work. Given Wallace’s wealth the place should have been pristine but following his “great disappointment” Wallace had become something of an eccentric. Despite his business savvy, his personal life had collapsed around him when his wife Solange had run off with a lover. The divorce settlement had meant Wallace’s first real estate company had had to be sold, leaving him with a large house, which Solange hadn’t wanted, and just enough cash to start again. Feeling broken and betrayed, Wallace had sworn off women, taken some crazy risks with real estate that had paid off massively and had managed to die a rich, lonely old man.
It was not a fate that Ben intended to share, despite the fact that it looked like he was headed in the same direction.
Extracting his overnight bad and briefcase from the Jeep, he walked inside, flicking lights on as he went. His footsteps echoed, owing to the fact that Ben had given away most of Wallace’s dated furniture to charity and the place was in the throes of renovations. Consequently, most of the downstairs rooms were freshly painted but empty. In a month or so the flooring should be finished, and the new furnishings would go in. The emptiness hadn’t bothered him too much until now because he had been doing so much travelling, but he was looking forward to having a real home once again. Tossing the cases down on a couch, he opened French doors and walked out onto a patio that had spectacular ocean views. He stared across an expanse of lawn at the wild stretch of beach and the crashing waves and was instantly spun back two-and-a-half years to Dolphin Bay, New Zealand, and the first time he had seen Sophie Messena.
Nick had thrown a barbecue for him down on the beach to welcome him to the firm. Sophie had arrived partway through, dressed in white jeans and a neutral shirt, her dark hair coiled in a loose knot. Compared to the other women at the party, who were mostly dressed in bright, skimpy dresses, she had seemed low-key and sophisticated. One assessing glance from her dark eyes, and he had known things were going to get complicated.
The conversation with Francesca that afternoon replayed itself in his mind.
When he had met Sophie for the first time, he had also met Francesca. They had looked strikingly alike, except for the way they dressed and wore their hair. Francesca had looked bright and cheerful in a jungle-print dress, her hair loose. He had felt an instant hot punch of attraction for Sophie and absolutely nothing for Francesca, except a basic recognition that she was beautiful, pleasant and, for want of a better word, nice.
That hadn’t changed. As gorgeous as Francesca was, he didn’t react to her at all. She could have been his sister.
Intellectually, he knew the difference was all to do with personality. Something about Sophie got to him. Whatever it was, Francesca did not possess it.
Ever since Ben had walked away from Sophie a year ago, he had steered clear of dating anyone who looked remotely like Sophie. Clearly, that tactic hadn’t worked. Now it occurred to Ben that desensitization—spending time with someone who looked a lot like Sophie—could be the key to “unchoosing” Sophie.
In which case, Francesca could be the ideal date he needed for tomorrow. She was gorgeous, available, wealthy in her own right, and she would handle both Buffy and Malcolm Holt with ease.
He found his cell phone, looked up the number and made the call. Francesca picked up. She was in the middle of a meeting, but to his surprise, agreed to meet him for a drink, even naming the place.
With grim satisfaction, Ben terminated the call. If he could convince Francesca to be his date at the Sail Fish Key lunch, with any luck he would be killing two birds with one stone.
He would be free. Free of the pressure to date Buffy Holt, and free of his obsession with Sophie Messena.
Sophie finally made it home to her apartment at around two in the afternoon, following an interview with a prospective store manager for a new property she was opening in Fort Lauderdale.
John had left on an early flight, which had been something of a relief. As nice as he was, she had found out fairly quickly that they did not have much in common apart from a possible business connection.
The sudden ringing of her landline was startling, mostly because almost no one had her number. People rang her cell. It was Francesca, and she sounded oddly breathless.
“Can you meet at Alfresco at six?”
Sophie frowned. Francesca’s apartment was a few streets north of hers. Alfresco was a restaurant and bar situated about halfway between their apartments, so it was easy for them both to reach on foot. “What’s the rush?”
“I thought we could have dinner. And, by the way, Ben...uh...called in at the office looking for you today.”
Sophie’s fingers tightened on the receiver. Suddenly her heart was pounding so hard she could barely breathe. Thoughts cascaded through her mind, including the crazy conviction that, despite everything that had happened, Ben did want her. That, somehow, she had gotten things totally wrong and he hadn’t actually walked out on her.
She didn’t know what could possibly have happened, but maybe there had been some kind of emergency, and now she had ruined things utterly because he would think she had slept with John.
But if there had been an emergency, why hadn’t Ben tried to call her or leave a message? He had her number; he could call her any time he wanted.
Her heart rate flattened out. No, she hadn’t gotten it wrong. Ben had not been able to leave her suite fast enough. And the bunch of red roses that had arrived with no note had underlined that fact.
“I don’t get it,” she said coolly. “Why would he do that?”
“Maybe because you spent the night with him,” Francesca said crisply. “When I told him you weren’t in, he left.”
Sophie tensed. “How did you know I spent the night with Ben?”
There was a small silence. “I saw you kissing him at Nick’s launch party, out on the terrace, then you disappeared. It was an easy bet that you spent the night together.”
Heat warmed Sophie’s cheeks. She vaguely recalled that there had been a few people on the terrace, but there had been no one close, and she and Ben had been at one end and in the shadows. She had thought they had been reasonably private and discreet. “Why didn’t you say anything to me about it?”
There was an awkward silence. “Did you really expect me to? The scene near the dance floor was pretty public. And there were a dozen or so people out on the terrace when you kissed Ben, including that gossip reporter Sally Parker. When I walked outside looking for you, it seemed clear that you’d gone after Ben to get him back.”
Another wave of embarrassed heat flared through Sophie. She felt like crawling away to hide in a very small, very dark corner, because Francesca was absolutely right. Sophie had been trying to reclaim Ben. “Does Nick know?”
“He knows about the kiss and, like everyone else on the planet, he knows you spent the night with Atraeus.”
It registered that Francesca sounded a little strange, her voice flat and cool, almost as if she was angry. Sophie frowned. “What’s wrong? You seem upset—”
“I’m fine! Why would anything possibly be wrong with me? I’m the happy one who always floats along on the surface and who never has dramas or gets hurt or ditched.”
Okay, so Francesca was definitely angry about something. Probably that, after all of the advice and counseling she had given Sophie—and after Sophie had vowed and declared that she was finished with Ben—Sophie had turned around and slept with him again. She rubbed at her temples, which had tightened with a niggling stress headache. “Look, maybe we should forget the restaurant. We’re both tired. I haven’t had much sleep, and I need a shower—”
“Nick also wants to come along. He’s stuck with clients until five thirty, so he’s suggested six o’clock at Alfresco.”
Even though she had been braced for it, Sophie’s stomach tightened. Of all her brothers, Nick was probably the most opinionated and stubborn. Usually it didn’t matter, but this time her private life had gotten entangled with Nick’s business. The potential was there for him to think she had slept with both of his new business partners, and that he wouldn’t take lightly.
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he knows you slept with Ben.”
Relief made Sophie feel suddenly weak. She sat down on a chair, her mind racing. She loved her family to pieces, but her brothers—especially Nick—tended to be medieval in their thought processes. When it came to their sisters and sex, if they’d had their way, she and Francesca would have died virgins.
It was way too late for that scenario, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be upset. Calling Luisa Messena had been a way of short-circuiting the storm, but it was a fact that if Nick thought she had slept with Ben again, let alone John, it wouldn’t be long before he was knocking on her door demanding an explanation. It would take a major event to distract him.
When she’d impulsively decided to stay with John, she hadn’t thought about Francesca’s possible reaction, or Nick’s. All she’d wanted to do was get past the horrible feeling of being ditched by Ben for the second time, of somehow being lacking in the qualities that attracted a mate, of being essentially unlovable. And to make sure Ben understood that he was forgotten.
Now it looked like Francesca thought she’d spent nights with both Ben and Atraeus. And who knew what Nick thought. “Look, it’s not what it seems. I admit, I wanted to get back at Ben, and spending the night with John seemed the perfect solution. He’s tall, dark and handsome and the media love him, so from that point of view he seemed perfect. Plus, he was obviously in need of some TLC—”
“He suggested you spend the night with him?”
The niggle at Sophie’s temples sharpened. “Not exactly. I admit I had to twist his arm, but in the end it was win-win for us both. Especially since—”
“Spare me the details.” There was a tense silence. “Does Mom know?”
Sophie frowned again. No doubt about it, Francesca thought she had a thing for John, otherwise why ask the Mom question? It was an unwritten rule that all of the Messena siblings only ever told Luisa Messena about a date when it was someone who was a possible husband or wife. So far she had only ever told her mother about one guy: Ben, and look how that had worked out.
Suddenly, she was over the inquisition and Francesca’s complete lack of support for her when usually she was a reliable shoulder to cry on. And completely over the idea that she was unpopular and couldn’t sustain a love life. “Mom’s cool with it,” she bit out. “As a matter of fact, I called her from the hotel.”
“I guess if Mom’s happy,” Francesca said flatly, “then I should be happy for you.”
“You don’t need to be happy for me! John and I aren’t in a relationship. He’s likable enough but he’s a bit like that guy I dated the other night, what’s his name...?” Sophie’s brows jerked together. “Tobias. Not really my type. I didn’t even mean to spend the night with John, but that reporter Sally Parker was in the hotel foyer and I was in a state of shock because—” She stopped; suddenly her chest was banded so tight she could barely breathe. “Ben walked out on me,” she muttered huskily. “Again.”
There was a brief, vibrating silence. “I thought you were over him! You said you wouldn’t have anything more to do with Ben.”
Ridiculous tears burned her lids at the concern in Francesca’s voice. Until that moment the conversation had been stilted and tense, almost as if they had fallen out, which was crazy. “I was stupid enough to change my mind.”
“Then you spent the night with John Atraeus.”
“Like I told you, that was just a convenient arrangement. We were just helping each other out—”
“Well, just so you know, Ben’s asked me out on a date. And I’m thinking of saying yes!”
The sudden dial tone indicated Francesca had hung up.
Shock reverberated through Sophie. Replacing the phone in its cradle, she stared bleakly at the wall for long seconds. Francesca was now dating Ben? In what world could that happen?
Francesca had only ever tolerated Ben because of Sophie. Even then, she couldn’t count the number of times Francesca had told her to forget about Ben because she had a feeling about him, because he was a bad risk. Because of all the men Sophie had dated, Francesca liked him the least.
Snatching up the phone again, she called Francesca, but it was busy. Frustrated, she terminated the call, found her cell and called Francesca on that. The call went through to voice mail.
Placing her cell on the coffee table, she began to pace. She wondered whom Francesca was calling? Ben?
An odd sense of disorientation gripped her. She felt like her whole world had been tipped upside down and shaken. Every cell in her body rebelled at the idea of Francesca and Ben together. It just didn’t compute.
She found herself staring at an oil painting Francesca had painted and given to her as a gift. It was a large vivid abstract, with slashes of red, orange and bright turquoise that somehow fitted perfectly with Sophie’s minimalistic decor and, through some kind of curious alchemy, made everything work.
The contrast of the vibrant painting with Sophie’s restrained decor seemed to sum up their relationship. Francesca was creative, Sophie was more about numbers and organization, but they complemented each other. Beyond family, they were best friends.
And they did not date each other’s boyfriends.
Or at least they hadn’t until Francesca had undergone a Jekyll and Hyde transformation.
Sophie hadn’t wanted to go out again, but now wild horses wouldn’t keep her from that restaurant. Out of sheer habit, because she was the one who usually took care of details like booking restaurant tables, she called Alfresco. Six o’clock was a busy time, because a lot of people called in there after work. If she didn’t book, they would end up having to wait for a table.
A waitress Sophie knew quite well answered. When Sophie made the reservation, Alice checked the computer and came back to her. “No need, Francesca booked the table, but for five, not six. Do you want to change the time? Because if so, I’ll have to call her to confirm—”
“No, five is fine. Thanks!” Sophie hung up. Her stomach felt tight and her head was thumping. She paced a few steps and found herself staring at her reflection in a mirror. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes dark, and there was a pulse beating along the side of her jaw, which only happened when she was ultrastressed.
There was only one reason for Francesca to be at Alfresco a whole hour earlier than she had arranged with Sophie and Nick. She was meeting someone else. And that someone else had to be Ben.
Francesca had said on the phone that she was thinking of saying yes to Ben, which meant that she hadn’t agreed to date him yet. Meeting him secretly at Alfresco could only mean she had decided to go ahead with the date, because if she was saying no all she needed to do was phone or text.
Sophie checked her watch. Her stomach tightened. It was almost five now. For the space of a few seconds she couldn’t decide what to do next, which was so infuriatingly not her. Then a weird kind of calmness took over. She could be wrong. Maybe Francesca wasn’t meeting, or dating, Ben.
And maybe pigs could fly. Either way, she needed to know.
Adrenaline pumping, she dragged the pins from her hair, strode into her bedroom and quickly changed into cotton jeans and a white camisole top. She checked her reflection in the mirror and frowned. If she was surveilling the restaurant, it followed that she didn’t want to be seen, so it made sense to avoid wearing her signature white.
She quickly changed into a pair of olive green linen pants that had been a mistake purchase, and a taupe shirt that also happened to have matching blocks of olive on it. It struck her that together the pants and shirt looked uncannily like camouflage, but she didn’t have time to change again. Besides, the whole point was to blend in and not be seen.
She brushed her hair out so that it swung loosely around her shoulders then found a ball cap in a neutral color and dragged it down over her brow, tweaking the bill so it shaded the top half of her face. She put on sunglasses and grinned. Her own mother wouldn’t recognize her. Checking her watch and muttering beneath her breath because now she was late, she slipped on casual sandals, grabbed her handbag and headed for the door.
Dealing with Nick wasn’t going to be easy; he was difficult on a good day but she could manage him. It was the possibility of Francesca making a play for Ben, meeting him behind her back, that was making her see red.
That would happen over her dead body.
Sophie may have made a mistake with Ben twice, but he was her mistake and no one else’s.