Love Me Sweet (Love Me book 1)

Chapter 30

Lia had fallen asleep on the couch after lunch, and when she awoke the pain in her cheek and eye was intense. She stumbled to the kitchen and found some pain meds to take, and she felt like crying as she moved back to lay on the couch. She had no clue where Ben was because he hadn't said he was leaving.

She turned on a movie in hopes that it would distract her and take her mind off the pain, and with Huck snoring next to her, she had just started to drift off again when the back door opened. She managed to lift herself up and look towards the door.

"Nooo!" she wailed and at the sound of her scream, Huck lifted up his head and looked towards the door. He didn't like what he saw any better than Lia had, and he jumped up and started to bark and growl, putting himself in front of Lia.

When Ben called his name in a sharp reprimand, he stopped barking but was still giving little growls as Ben moved across the kitchen towards them.

"Why?" Lia wailed again, tears streaming down her face. She knew she was overreacting, but she couldn't help it, she hurt physically and seeing Ben clean shaven with a haircut hurt her emotionally. She wasn't prepared for it.

"I warned you it was going to happen, Lia," Ben said in an attempt to calm her as he let Huck smell him so he would settle down.

"But why now? Your tour isn't for another few weeks, why couldn't I keep you a little bit longer?" She didn't understand what she was saying until she had said it, but as she said it she realized that his cleaning himself up felt like she had lost him. He had to be the famous writer, Benjamin Emerson now, not her grumpy neighbor Ben. He was going to leave and there was a good chance he wouldn't come back.

With the completion of this book, he had to re-enter his old world, and it was a world that she knew nothing about.

"You're so worried about me changing you, but I didn't do this, you did." She shook her head and he reached out to her as she stood with her arms wrapped around herself.

"I had to shave and cut my hair because I am having the photo taken for the book cover, Lia. It's only hair, I haven't changed." He placed his hands on her shoulders.

She reached up and ran her hand down his naked cheek, tracing his jaw, and then reaching around to his bare neck where his hair was trimmed neatly and no longer brushed his collar. The waves had been cut into a controlled pattern and he looked like every other rich man in Savannah.

He had been handsome with this beard, but without it he was devastating.

Lia had never been overly harsh on herself, she wasn't beautiful nor was she plain, she was somewhere in between, but Ben now made her feel plain. He made her feel as if he belonged with someone beautiful and put together like Kimberly or even Chloe. It definitely didn't help that her face was one giant swollen bruise.

"No wonder you don't want me," Lia voiced her thoughts aloud before she could control herself, and she turned away in embarrassment as soon as they left her lips.

He grabbed her spinning her around. "I never said I didn't want you, Lia, in fact, I think I've made it pretty clear just how much I do want you," he growled.

Lia pulled away, and he made no attempt to hold her. "Physically sure, but not all of me, forever." She shook her head. Her face and head hurt, and now her heart did too. She knew she was overreacting, but she couldn't help it. Why did he have to be so handsome, and how could Ilianna have ever wanted to change him? There were plenty of women in the world who would take all the bad stuff to have a man who looked like he did.

Which must make Lia one in a million, because she wanted him the way he had been. His beauty hidden from the world, she'd take the bearded man with all his moodiness and grumbling over the handsome charming one any day.