this to happen,” she said.
“Neither did I.”
“I was going to cut you off for the next five years.”
He sat up; was silent. Pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
“Ben tell me—what are you doing here?”
“What does it look like? I’m working construction.”
“Why did you leave me that letter and disappear? When are you coming home?”
Ben sucked in a breath and got to his feet, six foot two of naked, sweaty sex-god. His abs were like steel; his biceps as big around as her thighs. He pulled up his boxers and jeans without a word.
Marina sat up, pulled down her skirt and narrowed her eyes on him. Surely, his body language wasn’t telling her what she thought it was? “Ben? You are coming home?”
He sighed wearily. “It’s all in the letter, querida. What else do you want me to say?”
She began to shake. “You can’t mean that stuff.”
He folded his arms across his naked torso and raised his stubborn chin. “I mean every word of that stuff, as you call it. I will not get married until I can take care of my wife. And right now I don’t have two cents to rub together.”
“Ben, this doesn’t make sense. We love each other. I have millions of dollars—you don’t need to have those two cents! I don’t need to be taken care of. What’s mine is yours, baby, you know that… I didn’t even ask you to sign a prenup. I wouldn’t!”
His voice emerged deadly calm and quiet. “I am not a parasite. I will not live off of my wife.”
“Ben, be reasonable. If our situations were reversed, I would take help from my fiancé when I needed it!”
He held up a hand. “No.”
“Marriage is about love, not finances. It’s about being there for each other—”
“Marina, this discussion is over. I will not take your money. I will not take your charity.”
“Then call it a loan, if you have to! Just don’t leave me, don’t hurt me like this, please, Ben. I love you…” She began to cry again, to her shame.
“Come here, mi corazón.” He pulled her up off the floor and gathered her into his arms. “Shh. Shh, Marina. Te amo, never doubt that. I love you. But I will not let you make me less of a man.”
“I’m not doing any such thing!”
“Not intentionally, mi vida.”
“Not at all! Please, don’t be so pigheaded, so stupid—”
He pushed her away but held her by the shoulders. His eyes went dark and cold and his tone hardened. “Don’t you ever call my integrity stupid. You’re lucky I’m not some vividor who will move in on you and wallow in your money, use you, rob you blind.”
She stared at him through still-streaming eyes. “Oh, I’m lucky, am I? Because I’ve had the good fortune to fall in love with a man who puts his pride ahead of everything else? A man who is such a coward that he leaves me in a letter—”
“Goddamn it, Marina! I couldn’t face you, and that’s the truth. I didn’t want to see you cry. Beg. Debase yourself—”
She gasped. Then she drew back her hand and slapped him, hard. Right across his arrogant, prideful, stubborn, macho cheek.
Ben stared at her.
“How dare you?” she asked, her voice shaking. “You call this debasement? Me, trying to talk sense into you and salvage what we have together? God doesn’t bless two people with our kind of love very often, Benjamin Delgado! And you—you want to throw it away because of money. Well, that’s sad. In fact, it’s tragic.”
“I told you that this discussion is over!” He roared the words this time, his eyes blazing.
She stamped her foot. “No, it’s not. It’s not over until I, at least, get one hell of an apology from you, Ben. You want to live a lonely life with your pride, then that’s your choice. But I deserved better than to be told you can’t afford me. I deserved a face-to-face conversation.”
Marina straightened the rest of her clothes while Ben turned away, apparently too angry to speak.
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it, you jerk? And how could you have slept with me just now when you knew you hadn’t changed your mind? You don’t think that debased me? Hell, I should charge you! What am I worth? Let’s call it five hundred bucks. I’ll take it in cash from you, right now.”
He swung around, face white, and took a step toward her. “Marina!”
She held out her hand, palm up. “C’mon. Give it to me,” she said in scathing tones.
“Stop it.”
“Oh, that’s right. How could I forget? You can’t afford me.”
She threw open the door and clattered down the trailer steps. Her face burned; her whole body burned. She ran to her car, threw open the door, fumbled her keys into the ignition and shot back down the dirt road.
In her rearview mirror, she could see Ben, still standing in the trailer’s doorway, looking stricken.
“OOOH-EEEEE, she’s one stacked little spitfire. You get some action, amigo?”
Ben stopped in his tracks and turned the full force of his glare on the pendejo lounging against a sawhorse on site. “Do not make the mistake of disrespecting my fiancée, chivo de mierda. Do you understand me?”
The guy dropped his cigarette butt in the dirt and stepped on it. “Okay, okay, man. Chill out.”
Ben stalked by him and swung himself back onto the big slab. As he approached the crew he was working with, silence fell, which told him he was the topic of their conversation, too. It didn’t improve his temper.
Why the hell had Marina come here? To torment him? To upset them both? To make a spectacle out of herself?
He thought he’d made his position crystal clear. He found nothing unreasonable about it. To marry her now would make him a gigolo. He was goddamned if he’d move into her fancy house, drive one of her spare luxury cars and be given an allowance like a ten-year-old. He’d sooner shoot himself.
It’s not a question of loving her, it’s a question of having balls. I’m a man, not a mistress! Why can’t she understand that?
Why did it make him a bad person that he had principles? That he refused to take advantage of her? Perhaps some people would consider his scruples ridiculous, but they weren’t to him.
It already bothered him greatly when she bought him clothes, and he’d refused to accept the Testarossa
