Dinner For Two

I got home from work that evening, and the billionaire himself was waiting at my doorstep.

I thought he was done with me for good. I thought if I wanted to contact him again, I had to go through his lawyer.

However, we both thought wrong. Our passion and desire for one another wouldn’t let either of us stay away. The lure was too strong, and the lust was too addicting.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought your lawyer would be taking my calls from now on.”

He ignored me, took my keys and bag from my hand, and opened my front door as if he lived there. I followed him inside and locked us in, while he held on tight to the silent treatment.

I hated being ignored. I hated it being so quiet when there was so much to say. Yet Bentley made the game fun. It was interesting and intense. Sexy and tempting. But it was a game I didn’t want to play all night.

“Are you gonna say anything?” I asked. “If not, you can leave. I’ll get ready for bed so that I can get an early start on my investigation.”

“I’m cooking dinner,” he said, ignoring my snooty attitude. “Hopefully you have something worth eating in here. After that, you and I can sit down and have a real conversation about this investigation of yours. Because I'm tired of being the center of it. You’re wasting all this time on me when you could be spending it finding out who’s actually behind this.”

My heart throbbed for him more and more. He was so stern it made me feel sixteen again. Like I was being scolded by my father for doing something he told me not to do a thousand times.

I didn’t even know how to respond to him. It was a good thing he didn’t wait around for me to reply, and my phone rang before I had the chance to think of something smart to say.

Otherwise, I might have dug myself into a deeper hole.

“Mrs. Smith,” I answered. “Hi, how are you?”

“I’m taking it day by day,” she said. “I wanted to call and give you the funeral information. The morgue has finally finished doing what needed to be done so that we can move forward with this.”

I sat down on the couch and kicked off my shoes while Bentley banged around pots and pans in my tiny little kitchen. Mrs. Smith’s tone was saddening and made me lose my appetite, but I was happy she called.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll make sure I'm there, front row. And if you need anything from me in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”

“Have you gotten any closer to finding out who hurt my daughter?” she asked. “The suspense kills me every day. I can’t even go into her room without crying or pass by her plants without feeling like I failed as a mother. If I could find out who did this myself, I would, and I would make them pay.”

I watched Bentley as he moved around my kitchen. There were no signs of guilt or stress on his shoulders. He didn’t glance behind him to see if I was side-eyeing him or giving him suspicious looks. He was completely comfortable. To me, that said he was either a total sociopath, or my thoughts about him were entirely wrong.

“I’m working on it, Mrs. Smith. Whoever did this, you can be sure will be brought to justice. No matter how long it takes.”

“I believe you, honey.” She let out a soft laugh that sounded broken before she continued on. “That guy who owns the club, Bentley Thomas, everyone’s pointing their fingers at him because of who his family is. But I don't think it’s him. And I'm not just saying that because he covered the funeral expenses and gave me and my husband a settlement. There’s just something genuine about him. He was so sweet and kind when he came to pay us a visit, I couldn't even be angry with him like I wanted to be.”

Before I knew it, a sigh of relief fell from my lips.

I was happy to hear Mrs. Smith’s opinion about Bentley at a time when I questioned my own. It made me feel better and not so crazy for considering that he was innocent. I also felt a lot safer about him being in my house.

“I feel the same way,” I said softly. “In the beginning, I was one hundred percent sure it was him. But now, I’m leaning toward someone else. And I promise you, the minute I get more proof, you’ll be the first person I let know.”

We ended our call, and I went into the kitchen to open a bottle of wine. Bentley was still silently doing his thing, chopping up vegetables and sautéing garlic.

He found two steaks in the fridge that I had planned on cooking at some point in my life. I’m glad he got to them first, before they rotted.

“Is this okay for you?” I asked, pouring us both a glass of wine. “Or are your taste buds too rich for this stuff?”

He took the bottle from my hand and read the label. When he finished, he looked me directly in the eyes and shook his head. After that, he took his glass of wine, pressed it to his lips, took a gulp, and said, “I come from drinking malt liquor and hooch. My taste buds can handle this.”

He went back to the stove, and I took a seat at my table, savoring the aroma of goodness in the air.

It took a while before I spoke again. I wanted to apologize for blaming him and not hearing him out, but it was hard to say. Something inside of me still had doubts, but the more steam that filled the air and the more wine I drank, the more my doubts faded.

I kept going back to what Mrs. Smith said about him—that he was a genuine man.

I saw it with my own two eyes. I heard it with my own ears and felt it with my own lips. But after being betrayed so much in my life, I was afraid to let go.

“Can I trust you?” My question fell randomly. “Because if I let my guard down and you turn out to be everything this city says you are, I swear to God I will have the cops on your trail so quick you won’t even see it coming.”

“I’m not worried about the cops. Or you.” He spoke without even turning around. “To prove to you that I have nothing to do with any of this, I hired a team of my own to investigate. And when the truth comes out to prove that I’m innocent, you can make the decision whether to trust me or not.”