Model Behaviour

“You can’t really expect me to sit around babysitting you until then.”

“Oh, but I do. There are five other requirements on the list I need you to witness. I’m sorry, Livvie, love, but you’ve forced my hand. By this time tomorrow night, I’ll have satisfied all your obligations.”

“Don’t say it.”

“And then it’ll be your turn to satisfy mine.”

Chapter Two (#uefcc4e46-8125-5802-881a-069cc9c30bfd)

“If you think the silent treatment is going to work on me, I’m afraid you’re headed for disappointment.” Ben sat next to Livvie in the back of the cab, the warm length of his thigh pressed against hers in what she could have sworn was an intentional act of defiance. “The things I have planned for us don’t require much in the way of talking.”

She crossed her arms and scooted two inches to the right. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a response—not even to tell him how much she hated him right now. He was ruining everything.

“This also makes it easier for me to say what I want without interruption. I can’t decide whether I should start by telling you all the things I love about you, or if I should jump right into seduction. Do you have a preference?”

She felt his searing gaze land on her profile, and although she didn’t say so out loud, she prayed for the second one. At least with generic sexual overtures, she stood a chance against him. Withstanding overly aggressive male advances was something of her specialty.

“Since I still have to complete five more of your herculean tasks before the seduction portion of events takes place, I guess I’ll start with the compliments. Do you know what it was about you that first struck me? And before you start guessing, it wasn’t your sweet disposition.”

She snorted, immediately regretting it when a satisfied grin moved crookedly across his face.

“I remember it like it was yesterday.” He adopted a falsely poetic air. “I saw you at that Beck concert, rocking out in leather pants as if you hadn’t a care in the world, and was determined to introduce myself. I almost did, but my friend Mike told me not to bother. ‘That’s the infamous Olivia Winston,’ he said. ‘She hates pretty little rich boys. She’ll devour you before you get past hello.’”

“What are you talking about? We didn’t meet at a Beck concert.” This had to be the worst attempt at sweet talk she’d ever heard. He didn’t even have the right woman. “We met when we sat next to each other at some political fund-raising dinner that dragged on for four hours. We were bored out of our skulls. Our friendship was forged on mutual misery.”

He flashed a cocky smile. Dammit. She was supposed to be ignoring him.

“That’s where you’re wrong, love. The dinner might have been the first time we met, but I knew who you were well before that. Do you have any idea how much I had to slip one of the waiters to get him to move my place card next to yours that night? No. I won’t tell you. It’ll only make you vain.”

All her resolutions to ignore him fled as the taxi came to a stop in front of the Montluxe Hotel, with its impressive stone facade and glinting windows. He wasn’t happy to just step on her origami-night illusions—he was destroying them, ripping them to shreds and casting them to the wind. “Liar. You didn’t do that.”

“I did. You think they make it a habit to put the two youngest, best-looking people at those shindigs next to each other? Of course not. We were there to charm dried-up millionaires into opening their wallets for the next election, not make googly-eyes at each other over the dessert course.”

“I beg your pardon. I didn’t make a single googly-eye at you.”

“I know.” He reached into his back pocket to extract his wallet, then handed a large bill over to the driver with the request he keep the change. “And that was the first thing about you that struck me.”

He exited the cab in one smooth movement, not bothering to open her door or check to make sure she was following. The action wasn’t rude so much as it was telling, announcing his certainty that she would accompany him without question. It was yet another example of the way he saw the universe and his place in it. Right at the center.

And she would follow him—that was the worst thing. Ben knew exactly how to get the results he wanted from his audience, and she wasn’t immune to his hold on the strings. He’d done the unthinkable and wedged the idea of romance between them, and she wouldn’t be able to relax until he took it back out again.

She took her place next to him on the sidewalk, prepared for battle, but he didn’t turn to acknowledge her. At least, not physically. He remained gazing up at the hotel’s facade, almost as though he’d never seen one before.

“Do you remember that time you called me from Tokyo because you couldn’t sleep, when all the neon lights of the city were driving you crazy, and you didn’t know how to make it stop?”

She paused, uncertain whether to answer or not. Answering would only be playing into this game of his, but she did remember that night. She’d been feeling homesick at the time—not for a place, since the concept of home had never really existed for her, but for the comforts of a friendly voice and an understanding ear. For his friendly voice and his understanding ear.

“Of course I remember,” she said irritably. “We played Twenty Questions for hours, only you kept picking the same object over and over again. It was so annoying.”

He laughed. “After the fifth or sixth time, I figured you’d start catching on.”

She frowned. She had caught on, but that was the way Ben played the game. He lulled a girl into a false sense of security and then yanked, turning everything upside down.

Obviously.

“It wasn’t even a very good object, if I remember correctly. A butterfly or something.”

“It was a monarch butterfly,” he corrected her, and dropped the subject as quickly as he’d picked it up. He gestured up at the hotel. “I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty of getting us a room. My apartment is undergoing a few repairs, so I thought we’d be more comfortable here. I know how much you love this place.”

She did love the Montluxe, but that was hardly the point here. The point was, well, rather pointed.

Hotels had beds. And privacy. And room service. And beds.

“Wait a minute—doesn’t a reservation at the Montluxe have to be booked months in advance?” she asked, another realization hitting her with a start. The nerve of this man. “You planned this attack far enough in advance to get a reservation? Or is this just a standing order with you? ‘Hold my room at the Montluxe in case a lady friend needs some extra convincing’?”

“Which one do you think?” He winked and handed her a small satchel he’d extracted from the trunk of the cab. “I also took the liberty of packing you an overnight bag. I think you’ll like what’s in there. I know I do.”

“It’s full of lingerie, isn’t it?” She shook the bag, a clanking rattle making her rethink her stance. “Oh, God. It’s either that or sex toys. All I can say is this bag better not be full of butt plugs. You won’t like what I plan to do with them.”

There was his gaze again, dark and intense and not supposed to be there at all.

“How would you know?” he asked, and whisked past her through the revolving glass doors.

* * *

“You’re sleeping on the couch.” Livvie barely registered the sprawling, open-floored layout of the penthouse suite as she followed Ben inside. This might be one of her favorite hotel rooms in the city, ideal for romance and all its perks, but she wasn’t about to be swayed. If nice linens and marble floors were all it took to get her to open her legs, she’d be enjoying a vastly different profession right now. “And I’ll give you until eight thirty-four tomorrow evening, but not a minute more. I don’t have time to play your games forever, and I doubt you do, either. You’ve never gone this long without work before.”

“It’s a deal.” He shut the door, the electronic latch sealing them to their fate. “I probably won’t need the whole twenty-four hours anyway.”

She threw up her hands. There was cocky, and then there was Benjamin Meyers. Bravado wrapped in balls and dipped in titanium for good measure. She didn’t know why she even tried. “You’re lucky I’m here at all, you jerk. I could have just as easily walked away.”

“I know,” he said. “But you didn’t.”

She refused to be the first to look away, even when the heavy note of meaning in his voice pulled her into a panic. There was no way his confidence went any deeper than the surface, all part of this ploy of his to win at any cost. If she remembered that napkin correctly—seven drunkenly scrawled tasks, a silly list with increasingly complicated undertakings Ben must complete before she’d be willing to sleep with him—no way would he get much further than number four or five. And he’d definitely stop before he got to seven. She’d bet their friendship on it.

In fact, that was exactly what she was doing.

He grinned.

With a grunt of irritation, she pulled the jewelry box from out of the mountain of pepper inside her purse and shoved it at his chest. “And you’re taking this stupid thing back. I don’t want it.”

He just continued beaming down at her, unruffled at the assault. “You picked it up off the table. I knew you would.”

She tried to ignore the way Ben’s chest felt where it rested solidly under her fingertips, the heat of him drawing her in. Although he almost always wore a suit and tie, his deceptively uptight businesslike appearance could never hide his latent strength. She knew the strength was there, lurking under the surface, but she’d always made it a point to ignore it. The occasional hug or air kiss, that one time last year she’d missed a friend’s funeral and sobbed in his arms for a good two hours—those were all the intimacies she allowed herself.

“I could see the hostess eyeing it from the front of the restaurant. Did you really want me to leave several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry on the table to try and prove my point? Here—take it, will you?”

“Nope. That’s for you. You can put it in the hotel safe if the burden of carrying it is too much. Of course, you could also just open it and see what’s inside. How do you know it’s worth thousands of dollars? Maybe it’s a breath mint.”