The Australian Affairs Collection. Margaret Way
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‘Oh,’ she said, and fairly beamed over at him, her smile lighting up her face in a way which went beyond beauty.
It was a force of nature, that smile. He felt it deep down in his gut. Very deep down.
His flesh leapt and he thought, Uh-oh. This is not what I need right now.
And then he thought…why not? He’d finished with Amber. What was to stop him from exploring this attraction further?
Ben almost laughed. Because this wasn’t just attraction he was suddenly feeling down south of the border. This was lust, an emotion he was not unfamiliar with. But this time it felt stronger. Much stronger.
Impossible to ignore.
Impossible not to pursue.
Though not too seriously. He’d be going back to America soon. All he could fit in was a short fling.
His conscience pricked him. Jess didn’t come across as the kind of girl who indulged in short flings. Though, maybe he was wrong. Maybe she’d be only too willing to go along with whatever he wanted. After all, he was the son of a billionaire, wasn’t he? That made him super-attractive to women. On top of that, she already thought him very beautiful.
‘You’d honestly listen to what I have to say about Fab Fashions?’ she asked him eagerly.
‘I’d be mad not to,’ he replied, since this would give him a viable excuse to spend more time with her whilst he was in Australia. ‘You’re obviously a clever girl, Jess, with lots of smarts.’
‘I’m not all that smart,’ she said with delightful self-deprecation.
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘Look, there’s smart and there’s smart. School smart, I wasn’t. But I’ve always been good with my hands.’
Ben wished she hadn’t said that, his eyes drifting over to where her hands were wrapped around the steering wheel. Hell, but he wanted those hands wrapped around him. Caressing him, stroking him, teasing him, whilst she did delicious things with her mouth. Such thoughts sent hot blood roaring through his veins, giving him an instant and quite painful erection.
Ben gritted his teeth as he tried to will his aroused body back into line. He was not a man who liked tipping out of control, even sexually. Especially sexually. Ben liked to be the boss in the bedroom, or wherever it was he chose to have sex. He enjoyed having total control of the action, along with his partner, which meant he had to have total control over himself, something which he’d practised and perfected over the years.
‘Is that why you became a mechanic?’ he asked, pleased with how normal he sounded despite his wayward flesh continuing to defy him.
Her shrug showed surprising indifference to her choice of career. ‘Before Dad started up his hire car business, he owned a garage. Not up here. Down in Sydney. Anyway, all my brothers became mechanics and I just followed suit.’
‘So when did you move up to the Central Coast?’
‘A good few years back now,’ she replied. ‘I’d just finished my apprenticeship. I know I had my twenty-first birthday party up here so I must have been nineteen or twenty. I’m not sure of the exact year. Why?’
‘Just making conversation, Jess,’ he said, searching his mind for more safe topics. He could not believe that he still had an erection. ‘You’re not using your GPS, I see. So I guess you know the way to Mudgee.’
‘It’s pretty straightforward. We stay on the motorway till we reach the New England Highway, heading for Brisbane. But we turn off onto the Golden Highway just before Singleton. Then we don’t get off that road till the turn-off to Mudgee. Easy peasy.’
‘You sound like you’ve been this way a dozen times before.’
‘I’ve driven to Brisbane via the New England Highway once or twice but I’ve never been along the Golden Highway before. Or to Mudgee, for that matter. I checked it up last night on the Internet.’
‘I’ve never been this way before either,’ he admitted.
Her glance carried curiosity. ‘You’ve never been to your best friend’s place before?’
‘Yes, of course I have. Several times. But you take a different route when you’re driving from Sydney.’
‘Oh yes, of course. I didn’t think of that. You said you went to boarding school in Sydney, is that right?’
‘Yes. Kings College. It’s near Parramatta. Do you know it?’
A MOMENTARY FLASH of pique had Jess’s hands tightening around the steering wheel. Just because she’d said she wasn’t school smart didn’t mean she was ignorant. Of course she knew of Kings College. It was one of the best private schools in Sydney. Despite it being located in the western suburbs, it was a far cry from the humble high school she’d gone to only a few miles away.
‘Yes. I know it,’ she said, thinking how way out of her league this man was. ‘It’s a very good school.’
‘That’s where I met Andy.’
‘Your best friend?’
‘Yes. We went on to study law together at Sydney Uni as well.’
Oh, Lord. Now he’d studied law at Sydney University, another prestigious establishment. Jess knew what it took to get into law. Which showed Ben was very school smart. But then, she’d guessed that already.
What next? she wondered. He probably wintered in the ski fields of Austria every year. And took his girlfriend to Paris for romantic weekends.
This last thought gave her a real jolt. Jess hadn’t thought of Ben as having a girlfriend, which was very stupid of her. Of course he must have, a man like him. Not a wife, though. When she’d asked him for a contact name and number yesterday he hadn’t mentioned a wife.
A fiancée was still on the cards, however.
‘And now your best friend is getting married,’ she said, trying to make her voice cool and conversational, not like she was dying of curiosity. ‘Are you married, Ben?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Engaged?’
‘No.’
She’d gone too far now to stop. ‘You must have a girlfriend back home.’
‘Not any more. I did have a girlfriend. But, like yours, that relationship has now gone by the board.’
‘She dumped you?’ Jess said with total disbelief in her voice.
‘Not exactly…’
‘Sorry. I’m prying again.’
‘I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘I enjoy talking to you. Actually, I’m the one who decided to call it quits. I just haven’t had the opportunity to tell Amber yet. I only decided last night.’
Amber, Jess thought with a curl of her top lip. A typical name for the type of girl he would date. She sounded beautiful. And rich. Jess hated her, till she remembered Ben was breaking up with her. Since that was the case, she could afford to be less bitchy. But she was still curious.
‘What went wrong?’
‘She wanted marriage and I didn’t.’
‘I see,’ she said. What was it with men these days that they shied away from commitment?
When Jess found herself surrendering to a sinking feeling, she decided a change of subject was called for. She thought of returning to the problems with Fab Fashions but for some strange reason her enthusiasm