Without another word, he left Sonja by the blackjack table and marched out of the casino, quickening his stride when he entered the lobby and found it empty. One of the clerks at the front desk discreetly nodded toward the glass doors at the lobby’s entrance.
Ben stepped outside just in time to see Maggie stalking towards the golf cart parked in front of the building. She looked so achingly beautiful in that green dress, so goddamn sexy in those strappy heels, that he had to restrain himself from pulling her into his arms. She wasn’t crying, but the look of ice she gave him when she noticed his presence clearly said ‘back off’.
“Maggie…” he began timidly.
She bunched the hem of her dress with her hands so it wouldn’t drag on the cement on her way to the waiting cart. “Don’t bother. It’s not your fault she spoke the truth.”
He almost keeled over backwards. “What? You think what she said was the tru—”
He quit talking when he saw her flop onto the back of the golf cart and signal the driver. Chest tight with anger, he pushed forward and leaped into the cart before it sped off.
He shifted so that he faced Maggie and forced himself to take a calming breath, but it didn’t ease the tension constricting his jaw.
“There wasn’t an ounce of truth to what Sonja said,” he snapped, stunned that Maggie would even suggest such a thing.
“Maybe not. But it is something I’ve been wondering myself. What are you doing with me, Ben? You’re a big movie star, I’m a waitress. You’ve got ten million dollars in your bank account, I’m lucky to see a hundred in mine. You know Brazilian supermodels and bling rappers, I spend my days with poor and abused kids.”
She let out a strangled sigh and scrunched up the material of her dress with one hand. “This isn’t me, Ben. This dress. Being pampered in a spa. Throwing away money at casinos. It’s not me, and you don’t seem to get that.”
“I don’t seem to get it?” he echoed, growing angry. “Why would I? From the day we met I’ve been trying to impress you! Since nothing else seemed to work, I thought whisking you away to a tropical resort might.”
“Why would you want to impress me?” Her voice came out strained. “I…I don’t get what you want from me, Ben.”
He could see her pulse thudding in her throat, could hear the ragged breaths exiting her mouth, and a thread of confusion stitched his insides. She’d just raised the one question he’d been avoiding for days.
What did he want from her?
Sex would’ve been the answer a week ago.
More sex would’ve been the answer last night.
Yet, if he were honest with himself, he’d admit that it had always been about more than sex. He’d liked Maggie from the moment he met her. Liked her sass, her confidence, her complete disinterest in his celebrity. He liked that she wasn’t scared to tell him off, and he especially liked how she made him work. For her body, her trust, her time.
Women constantly threw themselves at his feet, but not Maggie. She knew who she was and what she wanted, and she wasn’t afraid to say it. That’s probably what he liked most of all.
“I want to be with you.” He raked his fingers through his hair, frazzled. “I’m with you because I like you. Because you’re…real. Don’t you get it? I’m surrounded by plastic people. Fake, shallow people who think they know me, who pretend they care about knowing me. Do you realize you’re the first person other than a reporter who actually wanted to know where I grew up?”
She didn’t answer.
“Hell, even my own agent doesn’t bother to dig deeper.” His mouth twisted in a bitter frown. “He hasn’t once asked for details about my recent inheritance. He just assumes—like the rest of the world—that I fucked Gretchen Goodrich.”
“And you expected something different?” Her voice sounded cool. “You’ve got a reputation for sleeping around, it’s not so shocking that people believe you went to bed with a married woman.”
Something inside him hardened. “And what about you, Maggie? Do you believe that line of bull?”
“I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know you, Ben, outside of the biblical sense, anyway.”
His nostrils flared at her dismissive tone. “And in the entire week we’ve spent together, you didn’t get a sense of who I am, that I might be a decent guy?”
She tilted her head and shot him a look full of distress and far too much wisdom for her age. “Very few people are decent, Ben. In the end, the only person you can count on is yourself. Sex, relationships, even love, they’re not tangible, they disappear in the blink of an eye.”
“So what, you avoid it all for fear that it might disappear?” He shook his head. “Is that why you hide behind your job and your volunteer work and school, because those are the only things you can count on?”