I looked into his eyes before I rolled up on my toes and kissed him.

Ben kissed me back.

Then I had to let him go so he could get in his SUV. As he was doing that, starting up and pulling out, I made my way back to the sidewalk in front of my apartment.

I stood there and waved as he pulled away.

And I kept standing there, though not waving, until I couldn’t see his truck anymore.

Only then did I repeat in a whisper, “This sucks,” and walked into my empty apartment.

***

The next day, I swiftly made my way to my office, got there, closed the door behind me, sat behind my desk, and snatched up my cell.

I found him easily. He was all over my Recents.

I hit Go and put the phone to my ear.

“Cara,” Ben answered.

“Guess what?” I asked.

“Tell me,” he ordered.

“Well, I have a bunch of travel coming up the next three weeks. But after that, I just talked with my boss, and he said he couldn’t see why I could occasionally work from my place in Brownsburg but couldn’t work from your house in Chicago.”

“No shit?” Ben asked.

“No shit,” I answered.

“Excellent, baby,” he said, deep, easy, and happy.

I clicked on my computer, bringing up my schedule, talking into the phone, “Looks like…” I paused, doing a scan. “I could drive up Friday night after I get back from Atlanta, just under three weeks from today. And I can stay…” I clicked, scanned, and told him, “at least until the next Thursday. I have a meeting in the office on Friday, but I can ask if they can conference call me in. That’ll give us a whole week.” When I finished, my voice had pitched higher with excitement.

“When do you get back from Atlanta?” Ben asked.

“Flight lands at 7:45.”

“At night?”

“Yep.”

“Drive up on Saturday,” Ben commanded.

I sat back in my chair and blinked. “Why?”

“You land at 7:45, you aren’t on the road until well after eight at least, and you’re a woman alone on the road at night until late.”

“I can hack it.”

“Bet you can, but you aren’t.”

“Benny.”

“Frankie,” he said low and in a tone I’d never heard from him.

Hearing it then, I stared unseeing out the window that made up the wall of my office and listened closely as Ben kept going.

“You give me attitude over shit like this, I’m not gonna think it’s your normal cute. I’m gonna find it frustrating. Because straight up, this means somethin’ to me. You can take care of yourself, but there are assholes out there who, wouldn’t matter how good you were at it, they’d be better at doin’ the shit they do. You gotta stop to hit a bathroom. You get a flat tire. Whatever. You’re vulnerable, even though you think you got your shit tight. The freaks come out at night, Frankie, and no freak is gonna get to my baby. I wanna see you as soon as I can see you, but I’d rather it not be after I’ve worried for hours that you’ll get to me in one piece. So come in the morning, yeah?”

After he quit speaking, I sat frozen in my seat.

Night after night, hell, day after day, growing up from age twelve to when I got the hell out, I could be anywhere with anyone doing anything and neither of my parents cared. My sisters didn’t care. My brother didn’t care.

As for me, I was the big sis, got in my siblings’ faces and kept track of them. I knew where they were all the time, and sometimes, I even went out to check they weren’t lying to me (they often lied to me, which meant, when I’d find them, I had to go bat-shit crazy in front of their friends—so they quit lying to me).

But no one worried about where I was. No one worried about how I got there. No one worried about me getting there safe.

I loved him for it, but Vinnie knew I could handle myself. He knew the kind of woman I was and the one I was aiming at being. He could be macho and protective, but mostly, he let me be me. He didn’t even try it, probably because he didn’t want me to go bat-shit crazy.

Benny didn’t care if I went bat-shit crazy.

Benny wanted me to be safe and get to him healthy. Benny cared where I was, where I was going, and how I got there.

Right then, experiencing that for the first time in my thirty-four years of life, my throat felt scratchy and my eyes felt prickly, and I had to put everything into keeping it together so I wouldn’t start crying at work.

“Frankie,” Ben said softly when I didn’t say anything. “Don’t be pissed, baby.”

“Hush, Benny,” I whispered, my voice croaky. “I’m figuring out one of my ‘I don’t knows.’”

He grew silent.

I closed my eyes and pulled in a deep breath.

After giving me time, Ben prompted, “You gonna share that with me?”

I opened my eyes. “Yeah, honey, but I’m at work and things are kind of crazy. Huge schedule and I’m everywhere the next three weeks. And it’s one of those things that I wanna share with you when I have you with me. But I will say it’s good, you bein’ the first person in my life who gives a shit that I get where I’m goin’ and do it safe.”

He grew silent again, but this time, the silence was loaded. Loaded with warmth. Loaded with goodness. All of this beating into me after pinging off cell phone towers over hundreds of miles.

When his silence lasted, I called, “Benny?”

“Hush, baby, I’m tryin’ to figure out if I’m more happy that I gave you that or more pissed that you’d never had it.”

“Well, I’m happy,” I told him.

“Good,” he replied quietly.

I pulled in a deep breath to keep my emotions under control while Ben kept speaking.

“Now is one of those times when a day away from you seems way too fuckin’ long, and before that, a day away from you was way too fuckin’ long. Three weeks is gonna kill,” he told me.

“I’m a phone call away, honey.”

“Yeah, and that sucks, ’cause that phone call won’t hit you at the market and end with you askin’ me what I want for dinner.”

“You work through dinner,” I pointed out.

He had a smile in his voice when he returned, “Shut up, Frankie.”

I had a smile in mine when I said, “I gotta get back to work, honey.”

“Right. Talk to you later.”

“Absolutely. ’Bye, Ben.”

“’Bye, baby.”

We disconnected and I gave myself the pleasure of feeling the goodness of all of that, including coming to my epiphany. The goodness of the last part wasn’t coming to understand I’d never had anyone who gave that kind of shit about me. It was coming to that understanding when I had someone who did.

That goodness ended when my attention was taken by Travis Berger walking into the Director of Research and Development’s office.

Travis was the Executive Vice President of Operations. I liked him. He was driven and aggressive and built like a pit bull. But he’d also taken me out to lunch on my first day at work, took his time to get to know me, told me in a way that felt genuine they were happy to have me on their team, and shared how brave he thought I was about the whole kidnapping/getting shot thing. In other words, generally folding me in the arms of Wyler Pharmaceuticals.

But now he looked ticked as in ticked.

I couldn’t say I knew him very well. He was around but I was not, and he was five steps above me—me as Manager of Eastern Sales, reporting to the Assistant Director of US Sales, who reported to the Director of Sales who, in turn, reported to the Assistant VP of Sales and Marketing, who reported to the Vice President, who reported to Travis Berger.

I did know he was young. I’d never known a man in his position at his age. Our company was massive and multinational, employees numbering in the thousands, and he was in his late forties.

I did know that when I wasn’t on the road, I burned the night oil when I started because I had a lot to do, a lot to learn, and a lot to prove, and I never went home when he wasn’t sitting at his desk behind his own (much wider) wall of glass.

He was not always affable. From what I could tell, that just wasn’t his nature. But he seemed one of those quiet, watchful types who didn’t miss a trick, controlled his emotions, and would have no problem telling you that you’d fucked up, but he’d do it quietly.

So him looking ticked surprised me.

My phone ringing in my hand took me out of those thoughts, and the name of my Chicago rep on my screen put me into less reflective ones and more annoyed ones.

But I made the big bucks; I had to take the shit along with it.

So I didn’t have time to think about how much I was falling in love with the process of falling in love with Benny Bianchi. I didn’t think about what it might mean that the Executive Vice President of our company was walking around ticked.

I took the call.

***

“Hey, baby.”

“Things got crazy, traffic primarily, not to mention a rental car agent who was way too freaking chatty to a woman who needed to catch a plane, and now the marshal on my flight is eyeing me like he’s gonna tackle me and force me to put my phone in flight mode. So it sucks, but I got on this plane by the seat of my pants and I gotta say ‘hey’ and ‘later.’ I’ll call you when I land,” I said to Benny after his greeting.

Over the past three weeks, this had become our gig. He worked when I was not working. I worked when he was. This meant brief snatches of conversation when I had time at work and phone calls on weekends, if we were lucky.

But Ben knew my travel schedule because he demanded to know it.

Of course, thus ensued me explaining to him that if he had email, I could easily email my schedule to him rather than reciting it over the phone while he wrote it down. He replied that he didn’t get to hear my voice through an email so he’d take the cramp in his hand so he could listen to me talk.

I quit giving him shit after that.

Now Benny expected me to phone when I boarded before takeoff and phone again when I landed. He didn’t mind me phoning again when I got home or to my hotel, but he didn’t have the schedule memorized to that point or his phone on him so he could take my call, even if he was making a pie. Which he always did when he knew I was hitting a flight and when he knew when the wheels would hit land.

I loved this.

I loved it because I loved connecting with Benny any way I could. I loved it because Benny wanted it. I loved it because when he demanded it, I knew he was demanding it because I’d opened the floodgates to him doing something like that when I told him I was glad he gave a shit that I was safe. I loved it that he had been holding it back to spring on me when we were more solid, and doing that with a mind to the woman he knew me to be.

Last, I loved the fact that I was falling in love from (mostly) afar with Benny Bianchi.

I was doing it so fast, from my previous experience after Ben took me home from the hospital, I knew if it wasn’t from afar, it would happen a lot quicker.

Maybe instantly.

“You’ve spotted the marshal?” Ben asked, taking me from my thoughts.

“Yep. He’s hot.” I felt unhappy vibes from Ben over the phone, which made me smile but they also made me say, “You’re hotter, obviously.”

“A save, but not a good one.”

“Whatever,” I muttered.

“Call me when you get home,” he ordered.

“You got it, capo.”

“And call me before you leave in the morning.”

“You’re on my speed dial.”

“And bring that nightie, the purple one with the pink at the tits. I’m feeling nostalgic.”

That order caused a lovely ripple and me to hiss into my phone, “Ben, don’t turn me on when I’m fifteen minutes away from thirty thousand feet.”

He didn’t miss a beat as he replied, “First chance we got, vacation, plane ride, mile-high club.”

God!

Benny.

“Are you listening to me?” I snapped.

His voice was nothing but sweet when he whispered, “Get home safe, Frankie.”

I huffed out a breath, not enjoying his increasingly utilized tactic of quelling my attitude by bringing out all the awesomeness of Benny. Even so, I had not yet figured out recourse other than to have my attitude quelled.

Falling in love with Benny was knocking me off my game.

Whatever.

“I will, honey,” I told him. “And I’ll call.”

“Right. Later, cara.”

“Later, Benny.”

He disconnected.

I eyed the hot guy, who perhaps only in my fertile imagination was the air marshal, and put my phone into flight mode.