The Job Offer (20 page)

"I'm sure I will."

"Well, I must say, you certainly
worked fast."  The sound of someone entering the room startled them both.  They
looked at the door and saw Chelsea walk in, close the door, and lean a shoulder
against the wood surface.  Ben sighed angrily.

"Would you mind leaving Chelsea?  We
are a little busy right now."  Ben turned around and stepped in front of Anne
to block Chelsea seeing her.  Anne looked down at herself and saw that her
shirt was still up around her waist.  She quickly pushed it back down to cover
herself then stepped out from behind Ben.

"I'll say you are.  But then she is
good at getting what she wants.  Isn't that right, Dr. Conner?"  Chelsea
sneered at Anne then looked innocently at Ben and spoke sweetly to him.  "I
just want to protect you, Ben."

"Chelsea, leave now.  Go back to
the party and your parents.  You've had too much to drink."

Anne looked at her closely.  The other
woman's face was red and she swayed a little where she stood as if her world
was swirling around her.  Her words were also slightly slurred.  She clearly
had been drinking too much alcohol.

"Not until you know the truth, Ben."
 Chelsea’s sweet tone turned to ice when she looked at Anne.  "I did a
little checking up on you, Jane.  Did you know that the little slut was only
using you, Ben?"  She looked innocently at Ben again.

"That's enough, Chelsea.  No more. 
I’ve had enough of your actions and your language."  Ben's voice became
dangerously cold, and Anne could feel the anger radiate from him.  He reached
over and took Anne's hand and pulled her to the door.  "Come on,
Anne."

"Oh, you're not leaving, yet.  Not
until I tell you what I found out."  Chelsea's voice became sing song, and
she turned so that her full weight was against the door barring their exit.  "You
see, Ben, your little fiancée there was only using you to get a job.  Isn't
that right, Dr. Conner?  But then she never was your fiancée."

"What are you talking about?"  He
looked back at Anne.  "What is she talking about?"

"I don't know."  Anne was
genuinely perplexed why Chelsea would think that Anne was using Ben to get a
job with Stanford Enterprises.  Anne had never even told him that she was
interviewing in Seattle.  She was planning on telling him tonight.  How did
Chelsea know?  Then Anne remembered the dropped fax.

"Oh, come on, you little
whore."

"That's enough, Chelsea.  I’m
warning you to stop with the insults."  Ben’s voice became menacing with
his anger.  But Chelsea did not stop.  Her voice became angry when she
continued.

"She sold yourself to you, Ben, so
that she could get a job at Stanford Enterprises.  You see, Ben, she just
wanted you for a job, Baby.  Isn't that right, Dr. Jane Conner?  There's nothing
like screwing the boss to get ahead in life."  Chelsea laughed drunkenly.  Anne
gasped in surprise.  What was Chelsea talking about?  "There's nothing
like screwing the great Benjamin Stanford the Third.  You should have asked for
more money, Jane.  He's loaded."

"That's enough, Chelsea.  Get out
of the way before I move you myself."  Ben glared at Chelsea.  The look in
his face and the tone of his voice finally sank in and were enough to convince
her to move out of the way.

"Ok, Ben."  Chelsea moved away
from the door and allowed them to leave.  But she made sure to give Anne a smug
look before Anne left the room.  The look said "I win!"  Anne began
to understand that Chelsea’s performance was just part of her plan to get Ben
back.  Ben could not be
the
Benjamin Stanford III.  Instead of going
back to the reception as Anne thought they might do, Ben gripped her hand
tightly and forced her to walk beside him over to the elevator in the lobby.

He did not say anything on the way to
his suite.  Anne was too stunned, too lost in her own feelings of confusion at
learning that he was Benjamin Stanford to comprehend just how angry he really
was.  He opened the door to the sitting room and escorted her inside.  Once
they were both in the room, he walked over to the balcony door and looked out
for several minutes at the darkening sky.  She stood motionless in the center
of the room lost in her numbness not feeling the heaviness of his mood. 
Finally, she began to thaw, and noticed that Ben had been standing silently for
some time looking outside.  The quiet became excruciating and she wanted to say
something.  She just did not know what to say.

"Is what she said true?"  His
voice reached her through the lifting fog of her mind and pulled her the rest
of the way out of her reverie.  His voice was calm, deep.  She did not think
that it was a good sign that he was calm.  He should be angry.  His voice
should be heightened with his temper.  She did not know this calm side of him
and was not sure what to expect from him next.

"What part?"  He laughed
mirthlessly at her question.  No, it definitely was not a good sign.

"Let's start with the easy part
first.  Are you Dr. Jane Conner?"

"Yes, but the other things she said
are not true, Ben."

"What a fool I am," he said to
himself.  Anne became alarmed by what he said and quickly crossed over to him,
putting her hand on his arm.  She was about ready to say something when he
shook off her hand and walked away from her.  His voice became deathly cold.  "You
know, Anne, or maybe I should call you Jane.  You know, Jane.  All I can think
about right now is that you said this morning that you weren't who I thought
you were."  He did not look at her.

"That's not what I meant, Ben,” she
said calmly even though she wanted to scream.  "Please look at me.  I did
not know who you were, and what we have between us was never about a job?"
 She could hear the tears in her voice.  "Please believe me."

"Believe you?"  His voice became
even icier, if that was possible, and Anne knew just how angry he really was.  He
believed Chelsea’s story!  She could feel her own anger rise at his unfounded
belief that she had used him.  "Why should I believe you?  Let's look at
the facts, shall we?  You are Dr. Jane Conner who interviewed for a job with my
company earlier this week against a strong field of candidates, I might add.  You
conveniently decide to visit your family at the same time that you knew that I
was planning to be here.  Then on the second day at the inn, you arrange it
that we must pretend that we are engaged and sharing a room.  Of course this is
only after you already asked me to go kayaking with you.  Was your mother in on
it, too?  How convenient.  You came on to me from the first moment we ran into
each other and, even though you maintained that you did not sleep around, you
fell into bed pretty quickly with me."

She gasped when he said that last part
and turned around.  He might as well have just slapped her.  It could not hurt
as much as his words did.  Her heart plummeted, and she struggled to stifle her
rising emotions.  "Do I have this right, so far?"  His voice became
louder with each of his points.  That’s it!  She was angry and extremely hurt. 
She could not answer him, and she could not turn around.  But she could see his
reflection in the glass of the balcony door, and he stood where he was before,
glaring at her back.  Finally she found the words to speak again.

"Ben, those were all coincidences.  I
did not know who you were.  I thought that you were Ben Carlson."  The feeling
of dread increased in her chest and she blinked back sudden tears.  Crying
right now would not help, either.  She knew that he would not believe they were
sincere.

"And I'm supposed to believe that?  Your
parents knew who I was."  Her breath caught in surprise at that bit of
news.  She did not know.  Why didn’t they tell her?  "So what were you
going to do tonight?  Were you going to tell me who you really were and fake
innocence?  Or were you just going to wait until I saw you at work then spring
it on me all of a sudden?  Were you going to tell me tonight that you loved me
so that I would believe your story?"

"No, Ben.  I didn't know who you
were.  I swear."  Her voice came out quietly, but at least it was calm and
did not reveal the turmoil of her emotions.  The look on his face told her that
he did not believe a word she said, and she realized that fighting further would
be useless.  She wasn’t who he thought, and he wasn't who she thought he was
either.  The fight left her when she accepted that he would never believe her
capable of these things if he truly did care about her.  This was just a
vacation romance to him, nothing more, so why fight?  Her vision became blurred,
and she blinked back her tears.

The weight in her chest was almost
unbearable.  She was more upset about his not caring for her than she was at
finding out who he really was.  She had to get through this evening before he
saw that she loved him and was destroyed by his rejection.  She would get
through it, she told herself.  Straightening her spine, she blinked a few more
times then turned around and faced him.  "You don't believe me.  I'm sorry
for the confusion, Ben, but this, all of this, was not what you think."  His
expression remained the same.  "Forget about the contract, Ben.  I won't hold
you to it.  I don’t want to come and work for you, now."

Her softly spoken words finally got him
to change his expression; only, this time to a sneer.

"Nice try, Jane.  We have a
contract, and if I cancel it now that we've had sex, you'll find yourself a
lawyer and sue.  It would get nasty.  Then we would have to settle out of
court, probably for a few million, making you a rich woman.  It would be almost
worth it to pay you off.  But I refuse to give you the satisfaction.  No, I'm
afraid that we are stuck with each other for at least the trial period.  Just
stay away from me, and I'll stay away from you.  Now get your things and get
out of my room.  I'm going back to the party."  He moved to the door and
looked at her one more time.  When she said nothing, he walked out.

As soon as the door closed, the pain in
Anne's chest overwhelmed her.  She could no longer stand and sat down on the
floor, leaning her back against the balcony door.  The tears began silently
spilling over her lashes and running down her cheeks.  She hiccupped and it
turned into a sob that rocked through her until she was sobbing openly.  She
wrapped her arms around her legs and pressed her forehead against her knees,
her body shaking with each sob.  It seemed like hours that she cried, but it
was only minutes before she went in search of a tissue to blow her nose.  Then
she took the necklace off and set it by his laptop before going into the
bedroom to pick up every one of her things.  She looked around to make sure
that she left no trace of herself behind and opened the balcony door to go down
the fire escape.  She did not know how she made it to her parent's house
without crying again because as soon as the front door closed, the tears began
again and lasted for most of the night.

Ben woke up the next morning with a
raging hangover.  The one and only time he had a hangover in college, he swore
to never drink to excess again.  But last night he returned to the party and
went up to the open bar first thing.  He stayed there for the rest of the party
hoping the alcohol would help him forget.  But no amount of alcohol was able to
drown out the pain in his chest or his feelings of betrayal.  His behavior
worried his parents who asked him several times where Anne was.  He avoided their
questions until they stopped asking.

Now with the cold light of day smacking
him in the face, he looked over at Anne's empty place in the bed.  His anger
was gone, and all he felt was emptiness and regret.  He had accused her of some
awful things the night before, and now he knew that he had acted like a fool
believing the crazy story his mind had strung together to explain all of the
coincidences.  That hurt more than anything.  She was none of those things he
accused her of being.  It was all just a big misunderstanding that he played a
major role in perpetuating.  If he had only told her his last name, then all of
this would have been avoided.

But he wanted her and had wanted her
even when they were teenagers.  She was such a big part of his life even though
they only saw each other for a few weeks every year.  For years after he graduated
college he would come to the island hoping that he would run into her, but she never
came when he was here.  Then when she was suddenly at the inn on Monday, he
knew he had to have her.  But, looking back, if she had known who he was, then
she would have kept her friendly distance.  In honesty, that was not what he
wanted.

The fact that he jumped on his crazy
story as if it was the truth shamed him now.  What a fool he was to let
Chelsea’s poison get to him.  But he had been so afraid to lose Anne, so afraid
that she would reject his love that he tried to protect himself in the worst way
possible.  He projected his own fear of her rejection of his love into a stupid
theory until he drove her away.  Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy.  When he
realized that he did it because he loved her, had loved her for years, and had just
been afraid of being hurt, he switched to drinking because of his own
stupidity.  She would never forgive him for what he said, and he could not just
showed up drunk at her parents' door and apologize.

If nothing else, he owed her an
apology.  He would have to find her this morning, apologize, and hope that she
would forgive him.  Then somehow he would have to find a way to work with her
for the next year while he loved her knowing that she could never love him for
what he did, for what he said.  His mind played over their time together the
last few days.  Did she love him?  Was that what she was trying to tell him
yesterday morning before they were interrupted by his mother?  He needed to
find her and set things right today.