Page 67 of Rebellious Hearts

“Oh, no,” I groaned.

“What is it?” Ben asked. He looked concerned.

I looked at him. “Chocolate is my weakness,” I said gravely.

He blinked at me for a moment, and then he laughed and squeezed my hand.

“Noted, sweetheart.”

My cheeks flushed, both from the wine and from the way he responded.

The torte was exactly what I feared—layers of rich chocolate cake with a creamy hazelnut filling, chocolate ganache for a glaze, and toasted hazelnuts on top.

There was no way I would be able to say no to that.

“More wine?” Richie offered.

“Oh, no,” I said, a piece of torte already in my mouth. “I’ve had enough.”

“Then some coffee will do the trick,” Richie said, and the staff poured each of us a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

The smell reached my nose, and it complemented the torte in my mouth.

I glanced at Ben before I could catch myself, gauging his reaction to the coffee. He was a coffee lover, I’d realized, and he had a very refined palate when it came to how he wanted his coffee and what worked with what.

He was just short of being a coffee sommelier.

Was that even a thing?

I wasn’t sure, but Ben’s love for coffee, for something so small and seemingly insignificant made him seem sohuman. And that wasn’t how the Blackwoods were ever portrayed. They were money-making machines.

But this muscular, tattooed Adonis of a machine next to me had a heart.

“Oh, this is good coffee, Richard,” Ben said approvingly, and I smiled before I sipped the coffee, too.

I couldn’t lie—it wasreallygood. I didn’t know as much about coffee as Ben did, but I knew what I tasted.

I groaned with delight, and Ben glanced at me, amused.

“Well, I think this about sums it up for me,” Richie said.

I glanced at him. I had another bite of torte in my mouth, so I just frowned at him instead of talking with my mouth full.

“I think the two of you are perfect together, and I’m convinced that the project isn’t just about money, the way I thought atfirst. I know that you’ll be spearheading this project with the kind of compassion I was looking for, and my darling Martha would have loved you and loved what you stand for.” He looked emotional. “I’ll be more than happy to invest in your project. I’m fully on board. You just let me know what to sign and when, and I’ll be there.”

“That’s great news,” Ben said with a broad grin—his business mask slipping back into place—and he shook Richie’s hand with vigor. “I just know this project is going to be really successful. What do you think, babe?”

He looked at me, and my stomach twisted when he called me babe.

“It’s going to be great,” I said with a smile, but the job opportunity Elena had talked about suddenly flashed in my mind.

If I decided to take it, then I wouldn’t be around to see what the team accomplished with Harborview and how they would fix things up for the people who lived here. But that didn’t matter.

What mattered was that we’d succeeded, and the people would get the rejuvenation they deserved. And I deserved to have something great, too. I deserved to be able to grow, and there was no more room for growth for me in Blackwood Inc.

I glanced at Ben and tried to imagine us going back and not being able to see that face again.

Don’t think about it, I scolded myself.