I phoned the front desk and asked them to give me a wakeup call at nine, but I wasn’t so sure the sound of the phone ringing from the other side of the room would even wake him. So I decided to set the alarm on his cellphone, too. Only I had to get it out his pocket first.

Crouching down, I examined his face, making sure he was still in a deep sleep. Bennett really was one damn handsome man—his complexion had a natural, sun-kissed color even in his drunken stupor, and I knew that if his eyes were to open, they’d be shockingly green against his skin. And what man had lips that full and pink? Of course, unlike me, he slept graciously. His lips were slightly open, showing a hint of his perfect white teeth, while mine would be leaking drool into a puddle on the floor. It almost wasn’t fair how good looking he was.

But I had a flight to catch, and so did he. So I couldn’t waste any more time admiring him. I needed to try to slip his phone out of his pocket to set an alarm.

Except…

When I went to reach into his pants pocket, my eyes snagged on a significant bulge a little to the left. Oh my God. Bennett had a hard-on in his sleep.

Wow. That’s...a good size.

I might’ve stared at it for a minute or two.

I might’ve taken another minute to close my eyes and imagine what it might feel like in my hands if I unzipped his pants and reached inside.

I might’ve wondered if he would even know if I opened that zipper.

Or if he woke up while my hands were wrapped around that bulge, what he would do.

This man is really making me lose my mind.

I shook my head and snapped myself out of my insanity. I needed to get on the road and set this damn phone alarm.

My hand shook as I reached into his pocket. With every move I made, I kept checking his face to make sure he wasn’t waking up. Ever so slowly, I inched his cell free.

When it was out, I exhaled, realizing I’d been holding my breath. My hands were still shaky as I woke up his phone. I hadn’t thought about the possibility of a password—most people had one. But when I pressed the on button, no keypad came up. Instead, it booted directly to his home screen, and an unexpected picture of an adorable little boy. He was probably no older than ten or eleven, with shaggy, light brown hair and the biggest, toothy smile. He wore shorts and yellow plastic rain boots, and he stood on a rock in the middle of a stream, holding up a giant fish.

I looked at the photo and then to the sleeping man next to me. Could Bennett have a child? He’d never mentioned one, and he’d said his longest relationship was less than six months—not that you need to be in a relationship. But it seemed like something that would have come up in our conversations by now. I looked between Bennett and the photo a few more times. There wasn’t any resemblance that I saw.

I might’ve guessed he’d have a few dirty pictures of women on his phone, but not a sweet little boy as his background. The man was truly a complete enigma.

Luckily, while staring down at the boy, I caught the time on Bennett’s phone.

Crap.

I needed to get out of here. I quickly set an alarm for two hours from now and went into his settings to turn the volume all the way up and make sure his phone would vibrate at the same time. Then I laid it on the floor, right beside his ear. If that didn’t wake him, nothing would.

I got up and grabbed my luggage, giving the room one last look for anything I might’ve forgotten. Then I navigated around the sleeping man and gently opened the hotel room door. He still hadn’t budged.

I stole one final look at the bulge in his pants.

Well, Bennett Fox, this has been interesting, to say the least. I can’t wait to see how much of it you remember in the office tomorrow.

Chapter 19

* * *

Annalise

At eight a.m., I’d already been in the office for hours.

On my flight home yesterday, I’d typed up a summary of the information I took away from the Star meetings and sent an email to three staff members—two from Wren and one from Foster Burnett—asking them to read over my notes and meet for a brainstorming session first thing this morning.

When I’d gotten to the office at five a.m., Bennett’s door had been shut, although the light was on. After catching up on emails for an hour, I went to get coffee and noticed his door was open and the light was now off. I figured he’d done what he often did—arrived at the office early, did some work, and then went for his morning run after a few hours. We hadn’t had any contact since I’d left him passed out in my hotel room yesterday morning, and even though my curiosity about how he’d handle what had happened was eating at me, I had no time to waste today.

Just as my meeting began, Bennett strolled past the bullpen. He took a step back, catching sight of us inside. His hair was wet, and he held a large Starbucks coffee in his hand.

“What’s going on in here?”

“We’re just getting started on the Star Studios pitch,” I said.

His eyes inventoried the people in the room, and I thought he might be about to question why I’d picked people to work on the campaign with me without discussing it with him first. But instead, when our eyes met, he merely offered a curt nod before walking away.

Me and my handpicked team worked the rest of the morning together. I’d had a dozen loose concepts for Star in mind before we started, and we narrowed my list down to two ideas and then expanded on them, as well as adding two more that the session came up with. Our plan was to spend a little time on our own, each running with all four of the concepts, and see which popped when we met again in a few days.

On my way back to my office, I stopped off at Bennett’s. He had his head down, sketching something.

“Did you make your flight?” I asked.

He leaned back in his chair and tossed his pencil onto his desk. “I did. Luckily I had the wherewithal to set an alarm, I guess.”

Ummm... No, you didn’t.

He continued. “I don’t really remember much about the night after we finished dinner. Did I pass out on your floor after walking you to your room or something?”

“You don’t remember knocking on my door?”

“Apparently not.” His brows furrowed. “Why did I knock?”

“To apologize for the way you acted at dinner.” And tell me why you acted the way you did.

“I don’t usually have more than one or two hard-liquor drinks. I’m more of a beer person.” He grinned. “Hope you didn’t try to take advantage of me.”

Disappointment hit me. He doesn’t remember. I’d known there was a good chance the entire night would be a blackout for him, but I hadn’t expected to feel hurt that he didn’t remember the things he’d said.

But of course, it was better this way. “You got confused which room was yours and passed out when I went to put a sweater on and show you to your room.”

I felt my face start to heat from my lie. Shit.

“Gotta run. Talk to you later.” I abruptly walked away and went to hide in my office with the door locked before he could notice.

Later in the afternoon, I spent some time tweaking Bennett’s Bianchi Winery campaign. The copy he’d written needed work to reflect that the winery was family owned and not part of a large corporate conglomerate—something Matteo took great pride in. Other than that, I changed a few colors on the labels for the new line of rosé that Mom wanted brightened up and replaced the proposed late-night radio air buys with evening slots.

I had plans to hit the gym on my way home tonight—to avoid running into Andrew in the morning—so I cleaned up my desk at a reasonable hour and packed files to work on for the Star Studios campaign afterward. I grabbed the revised Bianchi art and copy to drop off at Bennett’s office as I passed on my way out. Only my hands were full, and right before getting to his door, a few of the papers from the top of the pile fell. I bent to pick them up and overheard Bennett talking.

“I’m not angry. This is just my face ever since Annalise arrived.”

We’d had our share of arguments and name calling, but that was between us, and it’d felt more like a game of cat and mouse—not truly insulting, even when we were flinging insults at each other. But him talking shit about me to someone else felt worse than if he’d said that same thing to my face, for some reason.

“She seems nice enough to me,” a man’s voice said. I thought it could’ve been Jim Falcon. “Smart, too.”

That made me feel a little bit better.

“Sort of a shame you had to meet the way you did, in competition for the same job and all. If you’d met at a bar, I think the two of you would have hit it off.”

“She’s not my type,” Bennett snapped.

Yesterday, I was beautiful. Today, I wasn’t his type. I wanted to be annoyed, but instead all I felt was hurt.

“Yeah. Guess you’re right. Smart, nice, and beautiful…what man would want that shit?”

Thanks, Jim!