Chapter 9

9

Lauren sat straight up in bed, her head filled with an odd buzzing. What was that sound? Why was it bothering her in the middle of the night?

After a few moments, her fuzzy head cleared enough to realize that the sound was the text message notification on her phone. She pulled her phone off of the nightstand and, through blurry eyes, saw that it was a text from the driver saying that he was out front, ready to pick her up.

Lauren was momentarily confused, but when she glanced down, she saw that she was dressed only in a towel.

"Oh shit!"

Suddenly she had a crystal-clear memory of lying down after she took a shower last night. Damn. Why had she done that? She just thought she was going to close her eyes for a few minutes—which was, of course, always the kiss of death. She'd been exhausted from both the meeting and the wardrobe fitting, which had taken several hours.

After all of that, she'd had her real job to deal with. She'd tied up all of the loose ends at the office, seeing as she was going to be out of town for a few days.

She hadn't gotten home until well past midnight. Her plan had been to shower, pack, and then catch a few hours of sleep before the car came to pick her up for the airport.

Well, at least she'd gotten through the shower part of it. The rest had been completely derailed.

She quickly texted the driver back, letting him know that she would be right out.

Lauren began running around the room like a crazy person, grabbing anything and everything she thought she might need, and tossing it pell-mell into her rolling suitcase. Her wardrobe, thank God, was taken care of by production, so if worst came to worst, she could literally wear sweats every moment that she wasn't on set.

For Lauren that really would be the worst thing.

Her mind was racing and she found it hard to concentrate on these simple tasks that she must now accomplish because of the near panic that was crowding her brain. She tried to calm down and tell herself to simply concentrate on one task at a time, because rushing around with no rhyme or reason was not going to get her packed and out the door any quicker.

She still felt the shakes from being awoken so unexpectedly. She had a pervasive sense of dread that came from running late, and—insult to injury—she wasn't able to prepare her travel list because she had planned on doing that immediately after showering.

On top of all that, she felt guilt and embarrassment over the fact that it was only her first day and, like the big diva personality she never wanted to be, she was already making the car service wait for her. She hated that.

Wasn't this the exact kind of behavior she had berated Ben about? She sighed as she tossed a pair of shoes into her garment bag. She felt so out of control.

After hastily packing a few more garments, she pulled on a pair of jeans and the white V-neck T-shirt she'd worn on Saturday while lounging around the house. It obviously wasn't the traveling outfit she would've chosen, but it was what happened to be lying across the arm of her reading chair in the bedroom.

Lastly, she ran into the bathroom to pack her toiletries, gave her teeth a quick brush, and ran a comb through her sleep-matted hair.

On the way out of her bedroom, she grabbed her purse and her luggage, including her carry-on with her laptop and some paperwork she needed to go over. With a sense of accomplishment and relief, she pulled on her winter coat and stepped out of the door.

As she approached the car, the driver met her halfway to her front door and relieved her of the larger bag.

She felt horrible for causing him to wait, and she apologized profusely, explaining that she overslept.

She felt somewhat better when, in the face of her apology, he honestly looked like he couldn't have cared less. Right, she thought. He is probably being paid by the hour. Why would he care whether he spends it driving me or waiting for me? Still, she couldn't shake the sense of guilt, the sense that she'd disrespected his time.

He opened the back door for her and she quickly removed her coat before slipping into the back seat. Looking up at him she thanked him as he closed the door. Movement caught her attention and she turned in her seat.

Great , she thought sarcastically. Of course . It was the perfect end to a perfect morning.

Sitting next to her was Ben Stevens, looking fully put together and awake. Sure, he'd probably been up for hours.

Could this day get any worse?

With one look at his expression, which she took to be smug, she heard herself saying, "Don't. Say. Anything."

--- ~ ---

Lauren didn't have anything to worry about. Ben couldn't have formed a thought to save his life.

He'd been waiting out in the car in front of Lauren's beautiful ranch-style home for almost twenty minutes. He was expecting to hear any number of excuses as to why she couldn't make it out on time. Maybe she would breezily explain that she had an important conference call. Maybe she would pass the blame off to someone else, say that her itinerary was wrong or confusing. Or maybe she wouldn't address it at all in true diva style. This industry did seem to bring out the worst in people—and some of the very worst were those whose star was just beginning to rise. It tended to go to your head.

But what Ben never expected to hear from her was a simple and sincere apology, and to the driver no less. He'd been around women, and actors for that matter, for long enough now to know how to spot a performance, and Lauren wasn't putting one on. No, she genuinely felt bad for the delay she had caused.

He'd been all ready to give her some smart-ass comment, to tease her about holding them up, but the words died on his lips. When she removed her jacket and sat beside him, he noticed how she was dressed: hair down, falling past her shoulders, not a stitch of makeup on her beautiful face, jeans that hugged her in all the right places, and a white V-neck T-shirt sans bra.

The air left his lungs and he had to mentally command himself to take in a breath. The back seat suddenly felt small and he was beginning to sweat.

Lauren Harrison was a beautiful woman when she was dressed to the nines, every hair in place, makeup perfectly applied.

But this Lauren Harrison—no makeup, hair sexily flowing around her face, in jeans and a T-shirt—this Lauren Harrison was his wet dream come to life.

He uncomfortably shifted in his jeans, which were becoming tighter by the second.

He couldn't get over how much softer and more approachable Lauren looked. He reached his hand up to wipe his chin, afraid he was drooling.

After what seemed like an eternity to Ben, Lauren finally turned to him, an apologetic expression on her face.

"Ben, I'm so sorry for holding us up. I fell asleep unintentionally last night. I can promise you this is not how I normally operate, and it won't happen again."

Ben smiled, liking this new, down-to-earth, real version of Lauren. "Hey, one thing you will learn in this business is that you've got to roll with things. No harm done."

Lauren laughed ruefully. "Roll with things? I doubt that's a lesson I'll ever be able to learn!"

Ben could tell she was serious, but truthfully, all he could really think about was how adorable she was. Oh, and sexy … very sexy.

--- ~ ---

Lauren was relieved that, despite her uncharacteristic tardiness in meeting the town car this morning, she and Ben were still delivered to the Reno-Tahoe airport in plenty of time to make their flight.

As they disembarked from the car, Ben said, "Do you have any luggage to check?"

Lauren looked at him disbelievingly, as if he'd just grown two heads. "What am I, an amateur?" she smirked.

He smiled at her sassy reply, which had been her intent, and Lauren was more gratified at this success than she wanted to let herself believe.

When the two of them were seated at the gate, Lauren decided to see if continuing in that sassy vein could tease an additional smile from him, so she turned to look at him and said in a light tone, "The thing that I was really surprised about by this flight was that we're seated in coach. I thought that big stars always flew first class, if not in a private jet."

However, rather than just inspiring a simple smile from Ben, it actually spurred him on to action.

"Well," he said, turning on his charming smile to full strength, "let's just see what we can do about that, shall we?"

Before she could even respond, he was up and headed over to talk to the gate attendant, a fresh and bright-looking young woman. It wasn't very long until he had her laughing and even blushing, and Lauren was hardly surprised when he walked back over about five minutes later, holding two new boarding passes.

"She upgraded us," he announced proudly.

"Um, I think she was mainly interested in upgrading you," Lauren said with a sly smile.

Ben shrugged but didn't deny it. "Be that as it may," he said, unfazed, "mission accomplished."

He handed her the upgraded boarding pass with a flourish, much the way she imagined a teenager might hand over a hard-fought-for stuffed animal he'd won for his ladylove at the county fair.

As it turned out, they had the first-class compartment almost entirely to themselves. The only other passenger was seated in the row ahead of them and across the aisle, so once they were all settled into their plush, leather seats, all trace of the man was actually obscured from view.

It felt to Lauren as if they had their own private little compartment within the airplane. She squirmed uncomfortably at the intimacy of that notion, but in a far corner of her brain, she recognized that it felt right to her as well.

After their flight had been underway for about ten minutes, Ben turned to Lauren with a sly, conspiratorial glint in his eye. He leaned in close to her and said in a low, seductive tone, "You know what I really like to do when I'm on long flights like this and I have first class almost all to myself?"

Lauren felt her throat catch but resisted the urge to clear it. She didn't want him to know how much the nearness of him, the sexy rasp in his voice, and the feeling of his hot breath on her ear affected her. She willed her tone to be even as she said, "What might that be?"

He leaned back, smiling, and in a brisk, teasing tone, said, "Look over the script and the specs of the house I'm about to shoot."

Lauren's brain was so scrambled by the rush of heat that had just thundered through it that it took her a moment to process what he'd said and the implications. When she did, her cheeks burned with embarrassment, having fallen for his little gag. But instead of showing him that he'd gotten to her, she made herself laugh it off, and about ten seconds into the chuckle, she realized that she really did find it funny.

Still, though. That didn't mean she was going to let him get away with it. She needed to turn the tables.

"Too bad," she said lightly as she pulled out her laptop. "I usually like to give blow jobs."

Although she kept her eyes determinedly straight in front of her as she said this, she managed to see out of her peripheral vision what his reaction was to this bold statement. She saw a definite spark of surprise in his eyes, which quickly darkened to what she thought (hoped?) was lust.

He grinned, although a bit uncertainly, perhaps wondering how much of the comment was a joke and how much was a serious proposition. Hedging his bets, he matched her light tone as he said, "Never too busy for that though."

She smiled serenely. "Lost your chance," she teased.

Ben was silent then, not answering, and Lauren was quickly distracted from their charged exchange as she became absorbed in reading and answering her email correspondence on her laptop. A few moments later, she noticed that Ben had pulled his own laptop out of his briefcase and opened up the electronic info packet they'd been given on the house they were heading out to host.

The flight proceeded smoothly and uneventfully for a short while until, without warning, the plane began to shake and roil. Lauren looked up at the first bump, eyes wide. At the next bump in the air, her hand involuntarily clutched Ben's arm. She looked at him, desperation no doubt written on her face.

"I don't do well with turbulence," she said a little tremulously.

She realized that he could've taken the opportunity to continue to tease her, but he didn't. Rather, he spoke in a low, comforting tone.

"Don't worry," he said. "In this job, I have to make flights in these smaller planes all the time. It gets a little rough every once in a while, but we're always okay." He smiled at her reassuringly. "I promise we'll be fine," he soothed.

Even though there was usually nothing that could make Lauren feel better when a flight wasn't going smoothly, she found that something about Ben's manner and tone actually did make her believe him deep down inside.

However, as the plane continued to dip and shake, she found that, although she did have faith in Ben's comforting words, they didn't have the power to take away her fear entirely. So when the captain's voice came over the loudspeaker and announced that, due to the bad weather patch, they weren't going to make it all the way to Aspen but instead were going to have to make an unscheduled landing in Grand Junction, Lauren was the only passenger on the plane who didn't groan. On the contrary, she couldn't have been more relieved.

When the wheels touched down, she felt the tension inside of her unwind, and she whispered, "Oh, thank God." The breath, she didn't even realize she had been holding, escaped from her in a powerful sigh of relief.

Her fists also involuntarily loosened as relief flooded through her, and it was only then that she realized that during the entire storm, she'd never let go of Ben's arm.