Using My Friend's Cast-offs to Become Successful novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Take Him Too

At a client lunch Camryn offers Benedict away like a coat, and he answers coldly; in the elevator he pins Susie's wrist.

The trucking client lunch was at a private room above the harbor.

Benedict had told me to sit at his right and say nothing unless I was sure.

I was sure about the fuel line, so I said it in the first ten minutes.

The trucking owner went quiet, then went red, then laughed and called me "the sharpest thing Amesbury has hired in years."

I drank my water and tried not to look pleased.

Then the door opened, and Camryn came in with her mother's driver behind her.

She wore a cream suit that had to be new.

"Sorry I'm late," she said brightly, to the whole table.

"I'm not here for business. I'm just dropping off Susie's bag. She left it at the dorm."

She held up a canvas tote.

It was mine.

She had gone into my room.

"Camryn," Benedict said. "This is a client meeting."

"I know. Hi. Camryn Ellingwood."

She walked straight to my chair and put the tote in my lap, smiling down at me.

"You're doing so well," she said. "I'm so proud. Honestly, I told the girls, Susie's going to be a little CEO."

The owner glanced between us, uncertain.

"You two know each other?"

"Susie's my best friend," Camryn said. "I give her everything I don't need."

She turned her smile on Benedict.

"Including him, if she wants."

The room stopped.

A server stood frozen with a bread basket.

"Camryn," Benedict said again, very quietly.

"What? It's true." Her voice rose and sweetened.

"Susie, I told you. Benedict is a cast-off too. Sorry, darling, you know it."

"We broke it off. I said take him, he's yours."

She laughed, and then she looked around the table for someone to laugh with her.

Nobody did.

The owner put down his fork.

My own face felt like stone.

I looked at Benedict.

He had not moved.

He sat with one hand flat on the tablecloth, and his grey eyes were on Camryn.

"Let me be sure I have this right," he said. "You're offering me to her."

"Well, yes."

"As a gift."

"As a favor. She's got nothing."

"Camryn," he said, and every word was level.

"I broke our engagement five weeks ago. You asked me not to tell anyone."

"I agreed because I thought it would spare you."

She went white under her blush.

"I'm not going to correct the record in front of the owner," he said.

"But if you call me a cast-off in a room I've paid for, I will."

Camryn's mouth opened.

"I think," Benedict said, "that you should go."

She stared at him.

Then at me.

Then at the owner, who was suddenly very busy with his napkin.

"You're all being so dramatic," she said, and her voice cracked at the end.

She walked out with her chin high.

The door shut.

The owner cleared his throat.

"Well," he said. "I have a daughter in college."

Benedict nodded once, his jaw tightening.

"I apologize," he said. "That will not happen again."

"Oh, I don't know," the owner said, and, God help him, he winked at me. "I came for the numbers. This is a bonus."

The lunch ended in an hour.

The trucking account was signed before dessert.

Afterwards the others filed out and I stayed in the room with my tote bag, my pulse still running.

Benedict was at the window with his back to me.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have told you before you walked into that."

"Told me what? That you ended it?"

"Yes."

"You don't owe me that."

"I think I do."

I walked up beside him.

The harbor was grey and flat under a low sky, and a ferry was crawling across it.

"She said she dumped you," I said. "To everyone. For five weeks."

"I know."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"She was twenty-one," he said. "And her mother had been very kind to my father at the end."

He looked at me.

"I'd have let it go forever. Then she called you a leftover."

His voice dropped on the last word.

I held very still.

Neither of us spoke for a long time.

We took the elevator down because the stairs were locked, and the car was small, with mirrored walls and a brass rail.

I stood with my back against the rail so there was a foot of air between us.

The doors closed.

The numbers started to fall.

"Susie," Benedict said.

"Yes?"

"I need you to know I did not hire you because of her."

"I know."

"I hired you because you caught my fuel line in your first hour."

"Okay."

"And I have been unable to think about anything else for three days."

I laughed, short and shaky.

"The fuel line?"

"No."

The elevator hummed.

I didn't mean to look at his mouth, but I looked.

He saw me do it.

He stepped forward, closing the foot between us, and took my wrist in his hand.

He lifted it slowly and pressed it against the mirror beside my head.

His fingers were warm.

His thumb sat over my pulse, and I knew he could feel it racing.

"Susie," he said again, in a voice I had not heard from him before, rough and low.

My name had never sounded like that.

The elevator stopped on the ground floor.

The doors began to open.

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