***
We spent most of the day visiting wineries, tasting the varietals and answering polite questions about what we did for a living. I learned to hate the little condescending smile people gave me when I said I was an actress, but had to answer "not yet" when they asked me if I'd been in anything they'd recognize.
But the wine was good, and after a few visits I stopped caring so much if they judged me. We almost ate lunch at a bistro attached to one of the vineyards, but an assortment of olives and overly fancy cheeses wasn't particularly appealing. We went down the road in search of heartier fare, finally stumbling across a diner in the middle of a gravel lot.
"Have you ever eaten in a trailer before?" I asked him, as we approached the rickety screen door.
"Of course," he said. "You haven't lived until you've eaten in a diner with aluminum walls."
The food was deliciously greasy and satisfying, and I marveled at how Ben managed to eat a bacon cheeseburger without getting even a single stain on his gorgeous suit vest.
I kept bumping his foot under the table by accident, and eventually it become on purpose. After lunch, we took a canoe around one of the smaller lakes, gliding around the water until sunset. Of course we had dinner reservations at one of the fanciest places on the waterfront, but it didn't quite live up to the greasy spoon.
I felt fuzzy-headed and strangely exhausted by the time we got back to the cabin.
"Why don't you head off to bed?" Ben suggested, rubbing my neck lightly. "I've got a little bit of work to go over. I'll be up soon."
I took his advice, wondering what on earth could be so important that he'd let me go to bed alone.
***
When I woke up, the room was completely dark. At first, my arm reached out to feel for Ben beside me. He was still absent, so I reached for my phone and squinted at the time.
It was almost three in the morning. Way too late for a woman on a supposedly romantic getaway with her supposed fiancé to be sleeping alone.
What could possibly be so important? Of course this was all for show, but at least I was taking the opportunity to really go on vacation. I supposed Ben didn't have that luxury, but something told me he'd probably passed out on the living room sofa with his face in some extremely boring spreadsheets.
I should rescue him. I owed him that, at least.
Padding down the stairs, I soon heard the slow, steady sound of his breathing that indicated I was at least partially right. The papers were spread out on the coffee table, along with an assortment of beer bottles and candy wrappers, and he was sprawled across the cushions just as I'd suspected. Smiling, I knelt down to shake him gently awake.
He blinked sleepily at me, then scrunched his face up and yawned.
"You're gonna have a hell of a crick in your neck," I murmured. "Come to bed. Nothing you're looking at here is more important than getting some decent sleep."
"Sleep?" He was a little more awake now, but his voice still sounded rough and lazy. Warmth spread through my chest. "You're trying to lure me back to bed with the promise of sleep? You're gonna have to do better than that."
I laughed, grabbing his hands and pulling him to his feet as he stood. "Right now, what you need is sleep. We'll get to the other stuff later, when you're well-rested enough to enjoy it."
He mumbled a protest, raking his hands through his hair and stumbling his way up the stairs. "And you're not coming?" he groused, pausing halfway up. "How is that fair?"
"I'm just going to clean up your mess and turn off the lights," I called after him. "Go to sleep, Mr. Chase."
After I'd picked up the garbage, I paused to look at the papers. They didn't seem to be in any particular order, and one of them had already wrinkled slightly when it picked up condensation from a beer bottle.
I didn't mean to snoop. I was done snooping. But he'd left it out in the open, and I couldn't help but notice some of the words.
They had something to do with clinical trials. That wasn't surprising, but there was something that gave me pause. I certainly didn't understand enough about clinical trials to grasp all of the intricacies of it, but there were some words I recognized: Huntington's disease. I was certainly no expert, but I knew it was a serious degenerative disorder.
I also knew enough from the references to previous trials that Chase Pharmaceuticals must have been pouring a lot of money into this research. As I paged through the report, I tried to understand why. It was devastating, but as far as I knew, pretty rare. I wouldn't have expected a profit-focused business to put so much into it.
Unless, of course, there was a personal connection.
Once again, I was struck by how little I really knew about Ben. If this was a passion project of his, he must have known someone with the disease. I knew that both of his parents had passed away, but I didn't know how.
And Huntington's was genetic. If one of his parents had it, there was a fifty percent chance he had it too.
My mind was racing. It was all speculation, and wild speculation at that. But the fact that he was keeping it so quiet... I'd Googled Chase Pharmaceuticals before and found no mention of it. This wasn't corporate altruism. It was personal. He didn't want anyone to know, because he wasn't doing it for publicity.
Suddenly, I felt a rush of guilt. I shoved the papers into the briefcase and went back upstairs, fighting to put the paperwork out of my mind.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jenna
The next morning, he wanted to go to the beach.
Well, first, he wanted to give me something that he called a good girl spanking. I didn't know what that meant, but I had to admit I liked the sound of it.
"It's just a little gentler," he told me. "I won't say it doesn't hurt, but it doesn't sting. You get a nice warm-up first, and then, when you're good and ready, whatever reward you choose."
"I have to choose just one?" I pouted.
He grinned. "Don't be greedy."
I managed to put aside the memories of what I'd discovered last night, letting it fade so that it seemed like nothing more than a bad dream.
In the end, the little noises I made as he "warmed me up" proved to be too much to resist, and he let me have my reward a little early. Taking me hard and fast, bent over the bathroom counter, he smacked my bottom with every other thrust, groaning at the way I clenched tight inside with every impact. When he gripped my hair by the roots and pulled my head up, making me meet his eyes in the mirror, I came so hard I saw stars.
After that, I shouldn't have been embarrassed by the way he looked at me in my bikini. Maybe embarrassed wasn't the right word, but I was a little afraid we'd get carried away in public if he didn't stop.