Page 16 of My Heart Still Beats
I have no reason to fear Ben Black. He’s the brother of my best friend’s fiancé. I’m certainly safer with him than I am with a strange cabdriver or Uber driver, aren’t I?
“How?” I ask. “Do you have a car here?”
“I just need to call my driver. He’ll pick us up here, and I can see you home.”
“A driver?”
“He’s paid very well by my company. He has top security clearance. I assure you that you’ll be safe.”
I look down, nibbling on my lower lip. He knows what’s bothering me, all right. Ihatethat everyone knows.
I may as well be wearing a scarlet letter like Hester Prynne. Except I haven’t committed adultery. No. And it would be a string of letters, not just one.
Tessa Logan was drugged and date raped. Tessa Logan almost died.
“Please,” he says again. “Let me do this for you. Let me do this for Skye and Braden.”
I swallow. Nod. “All right.”
He smiles at me then, and I see kindness in his brown eyes. The old Tessa would’ve found him extremely good-looking. The old Tessadidfind him extremely good-looking. I’ve seen him on television, all over the internet, in magazines.
The old Tessa would be doing a lot more than just noticing his looks. She’d be flirting up a storm.
But that Tessa doesn’t exist anymore. In her place is a shell. The shadow inhabiting my body.
Ben takes out his phone and taps on it. “Sherlock will be here in just a minute.”
“Your driver’s name is Sherlock?”
“Sherlock Gatsby,” he says.
I can’t keep my jaw from dropping. “Someone really named their kid Sherlock Gatsby?”
He cracks a grin. “Stranger things have happened.”
Can’t argue with that. “Thank you,” I say. “For, you know. Your kindness.”
“No thanks needed. I will always help a lady who needs it.”
His words and his strong-yet-gentle voice—not to mention his rich, low timbre—almost send a shudder through me.
Almost.
The old Tessa would be making the most of this evening. She would’ve had a margarita—maybe two. She would’ve talked to Ben about his likes and dislikes, and she would’ve found a way to innocently slide her fingers over his arm, lean in, and whisper something suggestive into his ear.
Now?
The thought of doing those things threatens to send me reeling.
Already I feel the tingling in my fingers once more.
I draw in a deep breath and stave off the impending panic.
All I need to do is get into a car. Get in a car with a driver who has passed the best security clearance there is with this man who, though I don’t know him, can be trusted because his brother is marrying my best friend.
Ben returns from the bathroom, checking his phone. “He’s here.”
He takes care not to touch me as he leads me out of the bar. His car—a black BMW—is parked outside on the street. Sherlock, a tall man with brown hair mostly hidden under his chauffeur’s hat, gets out, comes over to the sidewalk, opens the back door, and offers his hand to me.
