She took a breath. Here came the hard part.
"And I have to apologize to you. I was dumping all of my emotional bullshit on you, and it wasn't fair. You didn't deserve any of that. Not one word of it."
The room was quiet except for the hum of the air conditioning unit under the window. Silence. What was he thinking?
Ben's posture shifted. The rigid line of his shoulders softened, and he tilted his head slightly, studying her face.
"You're not mad at me anymore?" he asked.
Kelly shook her head, more tears pricking the back of her eyes. She’d hurt him, and that’s the least thing she’d wanted to do.
“No. I think I was just mad at my family, but you were the safe one to get angry with."
She set her purse down on the desk, not needing the armor any longer.
"If I get mad at my family, they tell me that I'm being too emotional and that I need to calm down and make sense. They tell me there's nothing to be upset about, and if anyone should be upset, it's them. It's been that way my entire life. I get angry, and they flip it around until suddenly I'm the one apologizing for having feelings in the first place."
She met his eyes. He was still watching her with that steady, patient attention that had drawn her to him from the beginning.
"You just happened to be the next person I talked to. A safe person. After my dad, after Celia. I was full of all this anger that had nowhere to go, and you were standing right there. And the thing about you, Ben, is that I knew you wouldn't flip it around on me. I knew you wouldn't tell me I was crazy or overreacting. Which is exactly why I felt safe enough to unload on you."
She almost laughed at the twisted logic of it. The person she trusted most was the person she'd treated the worst.
"I feel safe with you," she said. "And I used that against you tonight. That's on me, and I am so sorry. You didn’t deserve that. Any of that.”
The words hung in the air between them. Kelly waited, her heart beating too fast, her hands finally still at her sides. She'd said what she came to say. The rest was up to him.
Ben sat down on the edge of the bed, and Kelly took that as permission to move further into the room. She pulled out the desk chair and sat, crossing her legs at the ankle like she was at ajob interview rather than in a hotel room trying to save whatever this was between them.
The distance between the bed and the desk wasn’t far, but it might as well have been an ocean. Close enough to talk without raising their voices. Far enough to maintain the pretense that this was a civilized conversation between two adults and not two people who had been tangled together on couch cushions less than twenty-four hours ago.
"I'm glad you came," Ben said. His voice was quiet, and there was no edge to it. No residual anger, no bitterness. Just Ben, being Ben. "But give me a heads up next time. Before you go nuclear."
Kelly slowly blew out a breath of relief. She hadn't realized how tightly she'd been holding herself until the tension released. The relief was so immediate and so physical that she almost slumped forward in the chair.
"Deal," she said. "Fair warning before detonation. Got it."
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. Not quite a smile, but close. Progress.
Maybe she had a shot at fixing all of this.
"Seriously," Kelly said. "You're a good guy."
And that was when his expression changed. Not anger, not hurt. Something closer to concern, and it was directed squarely at her.
"This," he said, pointing between them. "This is what I'm worried about, sweetheart. I'm not a hero on a white horse. I'm just a regular guy who eats too many Cheetos and watches bad television when I'm bored. I have a temper. I get impatient. And I'm a workaholic. You haven't seen those sides of me because we've been doing this thing together, but I'm far from perfect. Please don't put me up on some pedestal because I'm destined to fall."
She hadn't expected that. She'd expected him to accept the compliment, maybe deflect with a joke. Instead, he was actively trying to lower her expectations, which was possibly the most attractive thing a man had ever done in her presence.
Her family had always insisted on maintaining appearances. The Bateman household ran on the principle that if you pretended everything was fine, it became fine in some magical way. Problems weren't discussed. Flaws weren't acknowledged. Weaknesses were buried under layers of denial and deflection until they calcified into something permanent and toxic.
And here was Ben Reilly, voluntarily listing his shortcomings like items on a grocery receipt.
"I think I can handle Cheetos and bad TV," she said.
"Other women have said the same and then bailed." He rubbed the back of his neck. "According to the last one, I'm a self-centered pain in the ass."
Kelly raised an eyebrow. "Are you?"
