I poked at my food, but could hardly taste it. The room was tense, but not like before - it wasn't the pleasant kind of tension that seemed like it would end with explosive pleasure, but rather the kind that might end with a chair going through one of those gorgeous windows.
The irony of the situation didn't escape my notice. Everyone in the office, by Ben's estimation, now thought we were basking in some not-so-furtive afterglow, when in reality, I wanted to tear my hair out from frustration.
That was it. I couldn't let this happen again. As much fun as it might've been in the moment, if it wasn't going to go any further, I had to put a stop to it.
No more funny business.
"I should probably go," I said, quietly, after moving the food around for what felt like ages.
Ben nodded, tersely. "I'll call you tomorrow."
No more funny business. And that was final.
***
I sat with my phone in my hand for a long time.
I had to tell my parents. The longer I put it off, the harder it was going to be. Before I hit the button, I took a series of deep breaths, rehearsing my story over and over again in my head. It felt so wrong, doing this, but I kept reminding myself it was for the greater good. My parents wanted me to be successful, and this was how I was going to accomplish it.
The conversation was full of awkward pauses, long silences, and confused questions. They sounded hurt, particularly my mother, but not as much as I'd feared. I realized that I was still hearkening back to those days when I was still the center of their world.
Not that I wasn't, now. But it was different. On some level, they could accept that I'd moved on, that there were important parts of my life that they hadn't been privy to.
"Are you sure, honey?" my mom kept saying, with concern in her voice. "I mean, how well do you really know this man?"
I had to keep reassuring her with lies, telling her how well I'd gotten to know him - the real him, and how much he appreciated being with someone who didn't care about his money. How kind and considerate he was, how smart, how successful.
While most parents would have been thrilled to hear that their daughter was seeing a billionaire, I could tell that wasn't a selling point for mine. They were thinking of the people they'd known, the people we'd both known. They thought they already knew him. And despite how hard I tried to convince them they were wrong, I knew they weren't.
Not really. Ben might be charming, he might seem different, but he wasn't. He lived in a bubble. Hell, I'd seen it firsthand. He snapped his fingers, and whatever he wanted just appeared. Who else in the city could get a lunch order that fast? And how? It didn't even seem humanly possible, but to him, anything less was unacceptable.
So it wasn't really his fault. You'd have to be some kind of saint to avoid getting caught up in that lifestyle. After all, he was born into it. So he had no perspective - of course he didn't. He could hardly be expected to. But that didn't make it any less irritating.
My parents didn't want to get off the phone, but I finally managed to pry myself away with a lie about how busy I was. Really, I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. Ben obviously didn't want to be around me, and that was definitely for the best. As much my brain flew into wild fantasies of showing up at his house, preferably wearing something skimpy under a long coat...
Okay, so maybe "busy" was a lie. But I was definitely in need a freezing cold shower.
Chapter Sixteen
Ben
It wasn't the first time I jerked off in my private bathroom, but it was the first time I really felt guilty about it.
I never should have let things go so far. But she was intoxicating, standing so close, talking about what we'd theoretically look like if we'd just had sex. How was I supposed to pretend like I didn't want her?
So, after she was gone, I took matters into my own hands. It was a bittersweet relief. Was it going to be like this for our entire marriage? I was pretty sure I wouldn't survive. Or at least, not without doing some serious damage to myself.
I'd already decided it was too risky to keep seeing other people while we were married. Discretion could be bought, to an extent, but so could information. Daria and her bloodsucking lawyer would leave no stone unturned. I wasn't going to end up like Eliot Spitzer.
But of course, that meant two years of celibacy. I hadn't actually thought about that, and now I was cursing my own blissful state of denial. It would be one thing if Jenna wasn't so fucking sexy. It would be yet another thing if she didn't obviously want to get into my pants. But with those two things combined, I didn't know how long I could hold out.
I'd practically dared her to kiss my neck. For God's sake. Why was I so desperate for her to touch me? Why did I think I'd be able to stop there, and get away unscathed? She certainly had no willpower. If my phone hadn't gone off, that little game of chicken would've ended with her ass on the bathroom counter and her legs wrapped around my waist. The only way she could possibly get sexier was if she was screaming my name.
Get a grip, Chase.
I laughed at myself, the way you laugh when you hit that spot on your elbow too hard. The way you laugh when a massage therapist digs into that spot next to your shoulder blade where you carry the weight of the world. The way you laugh when you just got the wind knocked out of you.
It wasn't funny. Not at all. Especially not because I couldn't stop picturing her raised eyebrow, her sardonic smile, if only she were still here. If she could read my thoughts.
Get a grip? Looks like you just did, Mr. Chase.
Oh, this was bad.
***
I gave myself a few days to get some distance. The concept of a "cooldown period" was something that had eluded me with Daria, so I had high hopes that it would help me behave more like a human being this time. No one at the office asked me about Jenna, but I did get a lot of knowing looks. Some of the interns seemed more nervous than usual.
"Why is everyone so jumpy, Carol?" I asked her, when I stopped to drop off some inter-office mail.
She gave me a long-suffering look. "She's an unknown factor, Mr. Chase. There's nothing more frightening than an unknown factor."
If only she knew.
"Well, throw them a pizza party or something, will you? It's making me nervous just to look at them."
Carol looked at me over her glasses. "A pizza party, Mr. Chase?"
I hesitated, halfway back to my office. "What, do people not like pizza anymore?"
"These are MBA students, Mr. Chase. Not a church youth group. Of course they like pizza, but they're not going to like the implication. They want to be treated like adults."
"Fine," I said, irritated. "An Adderall party, then. Whatever it's going to take to convince them it's business as usual. They're making me nervous just looking at them."