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  He positioned Sara in the center of the suite, noticing some of the women looked more eager to make her acquaintance than his. “Well, Sara, are you ready for the true ranch experience?”

  “Born ready,” she replied blandly, and he dropped the blindfold.

  Chapter Three

  Sara was a master at controlling her expressions and even her emotions when need be. You couldn’t sit beside one of the ten richest men in America, staring down the CEOs of multi-billion-dollar corporations and have a weak stomach. Even so, it was hard not to react to the sight before her. Ben had brought her to a brothel. A flipping brothel!

  The women around the room were lovely, and she knew Nevada was one of the few states where this sort of thing was legal. She should have known the party boy would try something like this. She didn’t think for a minute that this was meant for Kyle. No, this was totally for her. Ben was fucking with her. And she was ready to fuck him back…so to speak.

  She raised a haughty brow and turned to Ben. “I thought you said it was a dude ranch.”

  “Well, yeah. Dudes love it here.” His expression was that of an arsonist who’d just lit the fuse on a bomb and was waiting to witness the blast. Disappointing him was going to be so much fun.

  “How’s the privacy and security?” she asked, pure business.

  “U-uh…” he stammered, “it’s pretty solid.”

  “And can you guarantee that Kyle won’t be photographed?” Kyle wouldn’t get within a hundred miles of this place. First off, he was head over heels in love with Rayna. Second, he’d confided in Sara that he’d had enough shallow flings to last a lifetime. They held no allure for him anymore.

  “No… This would be totally on the down low,” Ben answered. His cheeks were splotched with pink, color riding low on his jaw and dappling his neck.

  Sara walked around the room, picking up different sex toys, turning them on to examine how they worked. Her cheeks flushed when she got to the massive dildo that couldn’t possibly fit into any of these women’s orifices.

  “And I’m assuming all of these are sterilized?” she asked. Either way, she was sanitizing the crap out of her hands when they got back in the car.

  “Well, no, ma’am,” answered a woman with dyed red hair and a mouth that was more liner than lips. “Everything here today is unused, straight out of the box and included in your package. We can wrap them up for you when you’re ready to go.”

  Sara regarded a particularly lovely vibrator and hummed in approval loud enough for Ben to hear. Truth be told, she had some experience with toys. That was the only way she could orgasm. But some of these items she’d never even seen before…and that one. Woo. That’d keep a girl company on a lonely night.

  “Maybe just this one,” Sara answered, slipping the light-up, multi-function rabbit gadget into her purse. “Ben? Seeing anything you might want to take to go?”

  He cleared his throat. “Nah. I’m good.”

  “Okay. It’s your money.” She set the last of the toys down and joined Ben in the center of the room. “So what did you have planned today for the ranch experience?”

  “Well…”

  Seeing his confusion only spurred her on. She let her eyes turn slightly seductive and heavy-lidded, but the pebbling of her nipples under her shirt was totally involuntary—just one of the embarrassing side-effects of being close to Ben when the possibility of sex was even a blip on the horizon. “How long do we have them?”

  “W-who?”

  Sara almost snorted. “The women. I mean, do we have to share, or are we taking turns? Is this by the hour or do we have all night?”

  Ben swallowed and then swallowed again, as though he couldn’t speak, but that bulge in his pants was getting more and more pronounced. His forehead glistened with perspiration. He shifted, bringing his hand down to adjust himself, though by the look in his eyes, Sara doubted he was even conscious he’d done so.

  You have messed with the wrong woman, Benjamin Swayne.

  “Y-you want to take turns? With the hookers? I thought you just wanted to see what Kyle was going to be doing?”

  The heavy-breasted woman closest to them seemed to take offense to the term hooker, and gave them a pronounced eye-roll. Sara was starting to sweat herself, because she could swear the brunette with her legs splayed over the chaise lounge was giving her the eye. And it wasn’t the evil eye, or mal de ojo, her grandmother had warned her about. No, this was the mesmerizing gaze of the she-wolf before she ate the baby bird.

  Oh, Ben was gonna get it for this ruse. That asshole was gonna get it!

  “No,” Sara answered. “You said I was going to get the full ranch experience, just like Kyle.” Then she turned to the women, pretending they were just a bunch of interns she was guiding through orientation. That was the only way she could get through this. “So…who’s first?”

  Ben’s mouth fell open when Sara turned to the hookers and asked for a volunteer to go first. Was she out of her friggin’ mind? What kind of woman had she become in the years since they’d been together? Maybe she’d dumped the professor because she wasn’t into men anymore, or maybe the prick wasn’t adventurous enough for the new Sara.

  On one hand, seeing her here, handling those toys and going all slinky, had Ben’s cock harder than it had ever been in his life. Like, if-this-thing-doesn’t-go-down-in-four-hours-call-the-doctor hard. On the other hand, some flirty brunette—with nothing but a piece of dental floss between her ass cheeks—raised her hand and was heading straight for Sara. His Sara.

  Ben stepped in front of her to intercept the advance, his palms facing out. “No, we’re okay. Thanks. We’re just doing the visual tour for today. Party planning.” Then he spun to look down at Sara, his chest almost colliding with hers. “Ready to go?”

  “We just got here,” she complained, but the brunette was pouting and raking her gaze over Sara in a way that made Ben want to do a Dukes-of-Hazard slide over the hood of the Ferrari and burn rubber out of there.

  Ben grasped Sara’s hand and practically dragged her to the mantel over the fireplace where a nice collection of toys was displayed. He swept five or six items into his hands and shot a look at her purse. Sara obediently pulled open the flap of her oversized travel bag, and Ben dumped the toys inside. “Here you go,” he barked. “Free samples for the lady. Now let’s go.”

  Sara glanced over her shoulder at the women as Ben pulled her toward the door. “I’m sorry. He’s shy. Maybe next time.” She waved a sad goodbye, outwardly perturbed at having to leave so soon, but on the inside—victory! Take that, Benjamin Swayne.

  She adjusted the seat of the Ferrari and pulled onto the road, spewing a cloud of dust in her wake. “Now are you going to tell me what you really have planned?”

  Ben raised his sunglasses above his eyes to glare at her. “What do you mean what I really have planned? You saw it. I just didn’t know you’d turned into such a freak since I last knew you. Holy shit, Sara. Kyle would kill me if I let any of those women within an inch of you.”

  She’d known Ben since she was a teen, so she figured he meant “knew” in the biblical sense. Like the smart woman she was, she didn’t allow her mind to wander to the last time they’d “known” each other. It was a bittersweet memory she had no business indulging in. Ben had his flaws—like being a deceitful philanderer—but being a bad lover wasn’t one of them. He was the kind of lover a woman never forgot, the type of man she’d compare to every guy who came after and find them lacking.

  “That brothel was just the distraction. I’m on to you, Benjamin. If you intend to get Kyle laid, you’re not going to do it at a place where they have to keep records of their customers and file taxes. I want to know what the real plan is.”

  “My plan is for you to drive us to the airport so I can stick you on the next flight back to New York. Beyond that, I’ve got nothing.”

  She squinted into the sun and ran a hand over her ponytail, trying to get the flyaway strands out of her eyes. “If
you want me out of your life, all you have to do is show me what you really have planned.”

  He shook his head, then reclined back into the seat. “No way. I’m sick of you judging me and thinking I’m a total idiot.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “Good question. Why are you here?”

  Her hands tightened on the wheel. “I’m not leaving until you show me.”

  “And I’m not going to, so give it a rest. You want to make better use of your time? Why don’t you tell me what you would do for Kyle’s party? Why don’t you get on the hot seat, little miss perfect? You probably have something spectacular already planned, right?” At the word spectacular, he waved his hands in a grand arch, his tone dripping bitterness.

  “I haven’t been able to plan anything spectacular. I was going along with you!”

  Ben’s lips thinned and he leaned his head back on the headrest. He was quiet for a long time, then he muttered, “It’s in Montana.”

  “What?”

  “My family’s hunting lodge in Montana. That’s where I was going to take him and a few of his closest friends.”

  Sara turned the Ferrari and headed in the direction of the airport. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  His head craned in her direction, his seatbelt pulling tight across his muscled chest. “What the hell do you mean ‘let’s go’? The lodge isn’t even open this time of year. We only have two caretakers there right now.”

  “Oh, poor Ben. How will you survive the wilds of Montana with a staff of two? How will you eat? Who’ll turn down your bed at night?”

  He snickered and shook his head. “You know, I don’t remember you doing a lot of camping and hiking growing up. Maybe it would serve you right to visit Montana for a few days.”

  She shrugged. She couldn’t say she relished the thought of being trapped in the mountains with Ben, but plans of a wildlife retreat beat brothels any day. Unless Ben was tricking her again, maybe Kyle’s party wouldn’t be so bad after all. “Who doesn’t want to visit Montana?”

  Ben glared at his phone after hitting end on the call, as though it was his phone’s fault that his jet was receiving scheduled maintenance. Unlike the Ashford family with their small fleet of jets, Ben was only one man and didn’t see the need to keep more than one plane at his disposal. Granted, it was a sweet ride, but now it looked like he was going to have to give Sara some unwelcome news.

  He pushed open the door of the vegan café and found her sitting at the small booth where he’d left her. Of course, she was so busy typing on her tablet that she barely noticed he’d returned. Ben sat across from her, vowing they’d stop for some real food just as soon as they got back on the road.

  He took a drink of his watery cola and cleared his throat. Sara looked up at him, her eyebrows arched. “Yes?”

  “Two things. The first is that my jet has a small maintenance issue and the component they need to complete the repair will be another couple of days.”

  “Okay. We can fly commercial, or I can talk to Kyle about using one of the Ashford jets. I don’t think he would have a problem with that.”

  Ben frowned. “I only take my plane these days. Sorry.” She had to know why, and he hated looking weak in her eyes. He rushed on before he could register pity in her gaze. “But there’s a bigger problem anyhow. The caretakers of the lodge, Mr. and Mrs. Longstun, are on vacation visiting their grandkids in Boise. The house and grounds are completely locked down. I don’t even have an extra key to get in.”

  Her exotic eyes narrowed. “How many other excuses do you have? If you’re really so serious about wanting to exclude me, then just say it straight out.”

  Ben gripped his glass so hard the ice quivered. He set it down so he didn’t end up with shards in his palm. “That’s not what I’m trying to do, Sara.” You beautiful, infuriating pain in the ass. “I’m just telling you the situation.”

  She stared at him for a long while, and it hurt to see her assessing him, as though wondering if she could believe a word he said. He should be over this, above caring what she thought, but apparently he wasn’t.

  “Then we drive,” she told him.

  “Are you serious? You heard me say everything we need is in Boise, right?” But instead of answering him, she was busy pounding away at her tablet again. “You know what—”

  “Sixteen hours,” she interjected. “Nine and a half hours from Las Vegas to Boise. We get a hotel room in Boise—I mean rooms—pick up the keys in the morning, and then we get back on the road and arrive in Madison, Montana, seven hours later. It’ll be fine.”

  “It’ll be fine? You haven’t spoken to me in eight years, and now you’re suggesting we take a two-day road trip together? I don’t think so.”

  Sara picked up a carrot stick and crunched it between her teeth. “Talk about who’s changed,” she said smugly. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Ben? Don’t you know how to have fun anymore?”

  Oh, fuck that. She wanted to throw down the challenge. It was thrown. “You got it, Sara. But I have a condition of my own. I drive half the miles.”

  She shook her head. “No way. You’re not driving me.”

  Her anger and fear speared him through the heart. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  She lowered her voice and leaned closer, at least affording him the respect of not making a public scene. “Your drunk driving almost killed one of your own best friends, Ben. I’m sorry, but I can’t take that chance. I don’t know you anymore, and you can’t ask me to trust that you’ve quit the bottle. From what I’ve seen in the magazines, it looks like you haven’t.”

  He was shaking now, his fingers trembling as he dragged one hand through his hair. “You could have taken my calls. You could have been there for me. Then you’d understand what a fool you’re making of yourself. You were faithless to me in every sense of the word.”

  She blinked, and he could swear her hard brown eyes were glistening with unshed tears. “Faithless is the perfect word. How long did you wait to shack up with that whore after you left me? Was I still on bed rest when you met her, or was she part of the great European escape?”

  His hands and teeth clenched. This was what he’d been waiting for all these years? This was what came of the two of them talking about the past? How could he tell Sara the truth when she’d chosen another man over him?

  His hand stilled when he realized he’d been spinning that damn ring on his pinkie. Why couldn’t he just take it off? Why couldn’t he just put the broken things behind him and for once try to be happy without Sara Castillo?

  He pushed up from the table. “I’m done here. I don’t give a shit if you get in that car or not, but in ten minutes’ time, I’m leaving for Boise.”

  Sara sat at the table, feeling sick. She wanted to lie on the café floor, pound her fists against the tile and weep. Benjamin Swayne had been her everything. She’d been young and stupid and they’d made the worst mistake, but she had loved him as she’d never loved another. And that part of her heart that he’d owned had died when she’d seen in the paper the news of his accident and the photos of the drunken, scantily clad model clinging to his chest.

  Sara had been recovering from the early miscarriage of their child—a child that no one in the world knew about except Ben, her, and the doctor—and Ben had taken off on a month-long trip to France where he’d spent his days getting plastered, sleeping with anything with a short skirt, and nearly paralyzing his friend.

  The news had just about killed her. She’d told Ben she was fine shortly after the miscarriage, but after recovering from the blood loss from her hemorrhaging, the weeks after his betrayal—when she hadn’t been able to eat or get out of bed—had almost ended her.

  So what if she’d lied about an engagement and paraded a college friend on her arm when Ben had finally returned? She doubted it could hurt a man who clearly didn’t have a heart to begin with. It wasn’t as though his whispered promises had meant anything. No, when all was said and done, sh
e was just another stupid girl who’d fallen for Benjamin Swayne’s charm.

  Never again, her mind whispered. And she knew that was true. Never again would she love so deeply and endure that devastation. She couldn’t. Not with a heart that was too damaged now to experience those softer emotions. And Ben had the nerve to mock her broken engagements? She wasn’t proud that she hadn’t been able to attach and move on with another man. At least she was smart enough to get out before making yet another life-altering mistake.

  Sara jumped when her cell phone belted Kyle’s ringtone. She glanced at the time. If Ben was true to his word, she had six minutes left to decide if she was going with him or not. “Hello?”

  Kyle launched straight into his favorite song. “Sara, Sara, bo-bara—”

  “Kyle, you’d better not be at work right—”

  “—banana-fana fo-fara, fee-fi-mo-mara—Sara!”

  She chuckled in spite of the hollowed-out space in her chest. Even smiling hurt. “You know, our coworkers are never going to respect me if they hear you singing me that song.”

  It wasn’t always a good thing that Kyle and Sara had grown up so close, especially not when it came to work. Her relationship with his sister Carolyn wasn’t as tight, since Carolyn had been raised by her mother, and Sara felt a little guilty that in some ways, she was probably closer to Kyle than Carolyn was.

  “The sound of your griping must mean that you and Ben haven’t killed each other yet.” She heard him talking to someone in the background. By the happy sound of his voice, it must have been Rayna. “Well, Sara’s alive,” he presumably told Rayna. “But it might not be a good sign that I can’t hear Ben. Ben!” he yelled into the phone. “Tap out a signal or something if she has you bound and gagged.”