Page 34 of Beauty and the Nerd

“I love you and only want what’s best for you, which means right now, us getting out of here for a bit,” Ben said moving them back into the bedroom.

“If you’re not too sore after dinner, then we’ll see how the moonlight looks, but until then, I want to spend time with you.

If you want to wear a bikini the entire time, I won’t argue. ”

Emma laughed before slipping into one of the new ones that Emerson gave her, topping it with a beach outfit and her sandals, then headed out with him for some sunshine.

They walked around the resort, settling in for a late lunch, then walked along the beach together.

The sweat from his arm around her didn’t bother her at all, not after how close they’d gotten this morning.

It felt perfect, but later that evening after dinner, perfect wasn’t even the word to describe the incredibleness of their night.

She couldn’t keep the smile off her lips in the morning, not even when Ben had to give her a kiss to head to the conference with Lyle, leaving her with Emerson.

“Do I take it that you’re now a non?” Emerson teased her as they went to go do some shopping.

“Yeah…Ben wanted it to be special, so he’d been holding me off for the last month or so.

He had an amazing night planned for us with dinner and a flower bath and everything happening under the moonlight but I kind of rushed him along after breakfast yesterday.

I brought that blue flower lace set and put it on, went out to tease him, and he didn’t disappoint at all.

Far from it,” she admitted, a little flush in her cheeks remembering it all.

“Good, that’s how it should be. Not the whole making it perfect thing—the being right, feeling it part.

I always shied away from men before Lyle because it didn’t feel right but with him, I knew probably before he did that he was my future.

He thought I was playing with him at first, looking at him like a moneymaker to give me a fancy lifestyle because he was already making incredible deals at the company where he was working in Chicago.

We had a fight one night while we were out because I wanted to go to a steakhouse instead of a really cheap raman shop he liked.

We were in a cab, and I told the driver to take me to a different address, which happened to be a mansion, and happened to be mine.

My parents died when I was three in a car accident along with my grandparents, and I was raised by my mother’s sister, who detested everything to do with wealth.

“My mom truly loved my dad, you can see that in the photos of them together, so him having money wasn’t why she was with him, although my aunt swore she was just a gold-digger.

So, since she despised wealth, I grew up poor even though I had millions in a trust fund and a mansion that I should have been raised in.

My aunt refused to live there with me, so until I was eighteen and finished with school, I was stuck with her.

That night though, I tossed cash to the cab driver that would cover wherever Lyle wanted to go and got out, was halfway up the stairs when Lyle barged through the front door wanting to know who I was meeting,” Emerson added, and Emma’s jaw dropped a bit in shock.

“He thought you were going to another man’s house?” she asked.

“Yeah, at least until he saw the photos of my parents on the wall because I looked a lot like my mom. He groveled when he realized that I didn’t need his money, admitted that he’d been a bit insecure wondering why someone like me would want him, and we thankfully worked it out.

Everyone thinks it was all his money that started Satin Touch, but it was really the money from my trust that he helped me invest that was behind it.

I also gave him the seed money for Cortland Finance.

My maiden name was Bolland and Lyle named it Cortland for both of us. ”

“And you don’t care that people assume he bought Satin Touch for you?” Emma asked as they slipped into a store with gorgeous semi-formal dresses in the front window.

“The only opinion that mattered to me was Lyle’s.

We’re both private people and it really doesn’t matter whose money started anything.

Satin Touch wouldn’t be where it is if it was just money that was running it, same thing with Cortland—even if their whole thing is money stuff.

If they didn’t make money, there’s no way we’d be able to sustain them all these years later, and certainly Cortland wouldn’t be continuing to grow every year if they weren’t making the right investment choices.

We know the truth and that’s plenty for us.

Yes, others still give me questioning looks when they see Lyle come over and kiss me, but we’re used to it now, so we just laugh it off. ”

“That’s one of the reasons Ben and I didn’t immediately come out with our relationship.

I knew how the other girls would react, especially the others on the squad.

Yes, Ben had a horrendous haircut, but honestly other than that he didn’t look that much different than most of the guys in our school that weren’t jocks.

He was lankier than most of them, but they all wore a mixture of t-shirts, graphic and plain ones, and baggy khakis, or jeans, or shorts or sweatpants even.

It was mainly the glasses combined with the long hair and everyone knowing he was smart that had them all picking on him, calling him a nerd all the time.

“When we spent time together that summer before senior year, it just felt natural to me. I figured I’d just met a really good friend at first, someone that would see beyond the stereotype of being a cheerleader to tell there was more to me than just a pretty popular girl.

We stayed up all night talking one night and he was getting ready.

He’d soaked his hair with water from the sink to slick it back because it was sticking up all over the place, and as he started shaving I realized I was reacting to him in ways I’d never reacted to any of the guys I dated, and most of them were jocks so they were more in line with what social media promoted as ‘hot’ than Ben was.

It took me until the start of school to really admit that I was attracted to him, wanted to date him, and thankfully he felt the same.

We were secretly dating the entire semester,” she added surprising Emerson she could tell as her jaw dropped, little laughs coming from her that made Emma nod.

“I went to Homecoming with Carter to keep my relationship with Ben quiet, but I left halfway through the dance and met up with Ben, spent the rest of it making out with him. I just knew if we came out, not only would they question our time spent together when he was supposed to be working for the tutor center, but the rest of the girls in our group would say all kinds of nasty crap about me and us and I didn’t want to deal with that.

It wasn’t until everything that happened with Carter and the accident that I realized none of that mattered anymore.

They could say whatever they wanted, I wasn’t going to hide what I felt for Ben any longer.

Add in getting a second concussion and the fact that it could have been so much worse, and the only thing that really mattered to me, was being happy, living my life for me, which really meant being with Ben, being authentic and that meant not hiding how real our relationship actually was. ”

“I know people questioned us because I was only twenty-one when Lyle and I got married, but if you honestly know who you’re meant to be with, age doesn’t matter.

Some people date for years and then end up divorced after a year, while some people date for months and spend their entire lives together.

It’s up to the two people to make the relationship work, and I can see that you and Ben have already done that.

It was different for me knowing I was ready for more with Lyle.

I didn’t have a serious event or trauma that kept me from moving forward in that way, and I’m so glad that you’ve managed to work through it.

That you let Ben be there with you for it and now, you can move into this next phase that is so sweet.

And I think he’d love this dress on you,” Emerson added taking a gorgeous seafoam green dress off the rack.

It had a closed halter neck on it that tied in the back.

The top was covered with lace while the skirt was a chiffon dream, and she couldn’t resist trying it on.

“You look amazing. You have to let me get it for you,” Emerson said, and after a little more pleading, she finally gave in, knowing the dress was perfect for another dressy dinner with him even if it they didn’t manage to get around to it here.