Breaking All the Rules (25 page)

              As soon as she clamored into the back of the car, Victor looked at her with concern. She cut him off before he could speak. Her words came out in a cry.

              “Take me to Benson. I need him. Please.”

              Victor didn’t ask questions. He returned to his stoic self with a curt nod. In record time, they pulled in front of Ward Industries. Mia didn’t thank her driver or even speak. She rushed out of the car and through the building. There were few stragglers left in the building. It was a Friday night at six pm, after all. She was thankful the building was relatively empty because she looked like a mad woman.

              Thomas wasn’t waiting for her on Benson’s floor. She hadn’t been there after hours, and briefly thought of how eerie the floor was void of all life. Except, of course, for the bright light seeping through the glass walls of Benson’s large office. Breathlessly, she burst into the room.

              He looked up from his screen with a startled expression. Mia stood panting with a tear stained face, her bottom lip quivering as if she were to burst into another round of cries at any moment. His eyes darted back down to the screen where a video conference was taking place. Benson held up a finger to Mia and cleared his throat, drawing attention back to him.

              “Gentleman; I think we have assessed the situation quite well. The investments are solid, but if you insist on having your company’s legal team look over the documents I will gladly fax them over Monday morning.”

              He quickly ended the conference and tossed the headset he was wearing on the desk, motioning Mia over to him in a swift motion. She flung herself around his neck, resting on his lap, and broke into a string of little cries as he asked what had happened. His grip was tight on her and his jaw was tight. He had never seen Mia this way, and it felt like a bullet was tearing through him.

              “My brother was outside my apartment,” She explained through sobs.

              Benson saw red, “
What?
Did he hurt you?”

              She shook her head, “No, he didn’t touch me. He pulled some strings to find out where I lived, and then showed up to try to convince me to go see my mom. He said he waited outside my place for two days.”

              Mia had never given him a reason not to like her brother. Until that moment. They had shared a very traumatic childhood together. Without the support from each other, Mia said she wasn’t sure they would have made it. He had never hurt her, and she’d never given any indication that they had anything but a strong relationship until she left. But a decade with little communication made them strangers, and Benson didn’t trust
his
Mia around her brother. Especially if he broke the law and stalked her apartment.

              Benson loosened his grip on her so he could stroke her head, “Calm down, precious. I need you to tell me what happened.”

              He held her while she cried and told him exactly what had occurred from the moment she stepped off the elevator. When he thought the story was over, she nuzzled into his chest and told him she missed her dad and that he’d be upset she was such a bad sister.

              “Don’t let him convince you that you weren’t a good sister, Mia.”

              “You don’t understand, Benson. Maybe I was a good sister, but I’m not anymore. I knew leaving mom meant I was leaving him too, but I didn’t care. I told myself he was old enough to fight for himself, but I never called to check up on him. I spent three years hating my mother so much that I refused to dial the number. When I finally did, I actually had hoped my mom and step-dad were dead. How terrible is that?”

              Benson grabbed her face and forced her to look at him. With puffy eyes and a snotty nose, she looked like a mess. It didn’t matter to him. He’d kiss her even if she was covered in manure.

              “You lived through something terrible that forced you to grow up way sooner than you should have, but precious, you were still just eighteen. You did what you could. If I got away, I would have been too afraid to look back, too. It doesn’t make you a bad sister or a bad person. It makes you a survivor.”

              Mia looked at him in awe, muttering, “I don’t know what I did to get you. Thank you, Benson. Thank you for making everything better.”

              The corners of his mouth curved with pride, “I would do anything for you, precious.”

              She sniffled, “That’s a little scary.”

              Benson wore a full smile now and he chuckled, “If that’s how you want to look at it. Why don’t we head home? I’ll call in an order a La Bocca, and we can watch that
Sixteen Candles
movie you’ve been telling me about.”

              In a daze, Mia pinched his cheek. Hard. When he yelped and looked at her with a raised brow, she smiled and shook her head, “I wanted to make sure you were real. Now I’ve just got to convince myself you’re not an alien.”

              “Precious, I’ll show you just how human I am tonight,” He growled into her ear, his tongue darting across her earlobe.

              She shivered, “And that’s all the confirmation I need. You’re still Benson.”

              “Damn right I am.”

              Once in the comfort of the Bentley, Benson placed a call to La Bocca. The restaurant didn’t serve lasagna, but Mia requested it, and he wasn’t going to tell her no. They drove around for a half hour until the dish was prepared. Victor didn’t object when Mia clamored to the front and plugged her phone into the USB port so one of her playlists could drift through the vehicle. She rested her head in Benson’s lap and closed her eyes, singing softly and out of tune to the songs.

              They picked up their large pan of fresh lasagna and bundle of breadsticks and headed back to the penthouse. Benson carried the bagged food in one hand and wheeled her suitcase with the other. As soon as they were inside the apartment, Mia stripped out of her clothes. Not caring about the mess she left behind her, she strutted naked throughout the rooms before disappearing into the bedroom. Benson nearly cut his finger off at the sight of her curvaceous bottom swaying without regard.

              She appeared a few moments later wearing a fresh pair of blue lounge pants and one of Benson’s Columbia shirts. She had twisted her hair into a knot on the top of her head and scrubbed the makeup off her face. It was how Benson liked her most. She was sexy in her expensive designer lingerie. She was a bombshell in her pencil skirts and blouses. Naked? She made him lose his mind. But wearing sweatpants and a fresh face, she made him feel at home.

              Benson set the plates with large portioned pieces of lasagna and a few breadsticks on the coffee table. Mia was searching for the movie on a streaming service when he left to change out of his stiff suit. When he reappeared wearing a pair of black basketball shorts, he found her staring at an envelope in her hands.

              “What’s that?” Benson frowned as he slid next to her, making sure he placed a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re looking at it like it’s a plague victim.”

              “Eddie gave it to me.”

              He wanted to snatch it out of her hands, “You can’t open it. What if there’s poison or something in there?”

              “My policeman brother is going to give me an enveloped laced with Anthrax. Right,” She snorted.

              “He broke rules to get to you,” Benson reminded her. “Should I open it?”

              She shook her head and fumbled to unfold the envelope. She peeked inside and sucked in a hard rush of air before grabbing the contents and haphazardly tossing the empty envelope aside. In her hands she held a tiny stack of photos.

              “When I left I couldn’t take any pictures with me,” Mia’s voice was shaky.

              She leaned into Benson and flipped through the pictures, telling him the story behind each one. There were only a few, but he was overwhelmed with the opportunity to have such an intimate look into her past. He always thought of her childhood as a dark blanket of terror and hate. The pictures proved him wrong.

There was one of a young and adorable Mia with pigtails sitting next to her father, Eddie on the other side. The three wore goofy smiles and held melted ice cream cones. Another was from the Christmas before her father passed away. She was holding up a portable CD player and a stack of heavy metal albums were in front of her. With a laugh, she told Benson they were her dad’s favorite bands and even though her mom hated the idea of her listening to the music, she let her anyway because her father was so persistent.

Benson had always wondered what her parents looked like. It was obvious Mia looked more like the mother. Though she had her father’s silky black hair, her unique beauty mocked her mother’s. Staring at the faded family photo in his hands, he saw overly large green eyes and a mess of curly brown hair framing a curling smile that mimicked the ones Mia gave him. Strong male arms were wrapped around the curvaceous body, and her father’s head rested on her shoulder.

“You look like your mom,” Benson offered, passing the last photo in the small stack back to her.

She shook her head while she accepted it, “The last time I saw my mom she weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, the bags under her eyes were so deep they looked like bruises… or they were bruises… and her lips were bleeding from biting them so much. Maybe I look like that,” She glanced at the stack resting on the coffee table. “But I don’t look like my mother.”

Benson winced, “I’m sorry, Mia. I didn’t mean…”

He wasn’t sure what he meant. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do other than to hold her and listen, and even then he wasn’t sure he was doing too good of a job.

“Maybe Anthrax would have been better,” She joked, a lopsided smile hanging off her face.

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly, “Thank you for sharing those with me. I know it’s hard for you to talk about it. I sure as hell don’t want to know about the things that bastard did to you, but you seem better after you talk about it.”

“Those pictures were a low blow to try to get me to come home. I’ve been gone long enough to forget about all those memories. Why did he have to do that, Benson?” Her voice hitched as she tried not to cry.

“I’ll make him regret coming around,” Benson growled.

Mia’s fingers dug into his hand, “No. Don’t. I just want to forget he showed up. I want to forget how much he looks like our dad. I want to forget how he said my name. And I want to forget about these pictures. We should probably eat our lasagna before it gets cold.”

“I don’t care about the lasagna, precious, I care about you.”

She forked the pasta, her eyes closing when she took a bite. The last thing she ate was a muffin at LuLu’s hours ago. Even if the food wasn’t toe curling, she probably would’ve reacted the same way. She took a few more bites before pressing the play button on the remote by her side.
Sixteen Candles
had barely begun before Benson started talking again. His voice was terse.

“I hate when you do this.”

Mia fought the urge to roll her eyes, “Do what?”

“Stiffen up and pretend like nothing happened. You get snappy and push me away.”

“I’ve dealt with this on my own for a long time. I don’t need someone to hold me when I cry.”

“I
want
to hold you.”

“Are you sure you’re not an alien? Because two weeks ago Benson Ward would have laughed at the idea of a woman living with him, let alone crying on his shoulder about her daddy issues.”

“And that!” He bit out through his teeth. “Fuck, I hate when you do that. Stop pretending like the fact that I care about you is some ludicrous notion. Did you ever stop to think that maybe you changed me?”

Mia’s stomach churned. She wasn’t hungry any more. She wasn’t even sure if the food she’d shoveled into her mouth moments ago was going to stay down. She clamored to get to her feet, but Benson grabbed onto her arm tightly.

“Where are you going?” He asked gruffly.

“I want to lie down,” She glanced down at him and sighed. “I need you to hold me, now, Benson. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t have to say any more. He stood and swooped her up in his arms, carrying her to the bedroom. They spooned, linking their bodies together. Benson’s hand slipped under her shirt to find a patch of bare skin to hold. Instead of shaking with silent tears, her breath steadied and she lulled into sleep.

Once he was sure she was sleeping, he slid from behind her. It was barely past nine. He wasn’t tired in the slightest, and even if he was, he sure as hell couldn’t sleep after the evening they had just had. He’d grind out a few miles on the treadmill, pushing himself to exhaustion until he was forced to pass out.

“Don’t leave me.”

Her voice was dreamy, wrapping around him like silk and pulling him back towards the bed. Mia had sat up and pulled her shirt off. A guttural grunt lodged itself deep in Benson’s throat at the sight of her curvy breasts and milk skin. When she crooked a finger at him, the noise made its way out of his mouth and he sprang across the room.

Hovering over her, their eyes caught and a thousand unsaid words were understood. That night when they made love, it was different than it had been before. Each thrust and tender kiss was laced with vulnerability. Benson and Mia were marked, their souls woven together in an intricate pattern that told a story of possession and love.