Chapter Text
It’s silent, save for the beat of her own heart and the steady ticks from the clock on Ben’s office wall. The two don’t mesh well together – one completely hard, fast, and erratic, the other constant and unchanging.
Rey avoids his eyes by keeping them on the sight of her hands tucked between her thighs, prayer-like. She fights to focus on her breaths; counting them, regulating them, but one of his stupidly long fingers is tapping on the desk now.
She does not look at it. She won’t. She’s better than that.
Her eyes flick skyward, landing on his hand, and a small exhale follows at the scale of it.
“You’re right, Rey,” Ben voices suddenly, but in a tone she’s completely unfamiliar with. “I don’t pay you enough.” It’s quiet, and unsteady, and maybe there’s even a slight tremble. It hardens before she can say for sure. “But if you want something in this world, you have to ask for it.” She raises her gaze to his own then; warm caramel burning darker now. His eyes are slightly narrowed, brow drawn. Determined, she thinks.
To keep her.
“You have no idea just how long I’ve waited for you to ask, Rey. To make a case for yourself. To come to me and tell me how good you are and why you deserve it.”
Something about his sharp delivery eases the weight off her chest, and words seem to slide of her tongue before she can even think to keep them in. “But if you know how good I am, why can’t you just give it to me?” Her voice is high and whiney, and any other time she’d cringe from the sound, but Rey’s too consumed from the moment to care. “Why should I have to ask? You should recognise it yourself—you do recognise it yourself. So why not show me, and reward me with—”
“Because I want to make sure you know you’re good.”
She exhales out a scoff, her neck shifting left to stare out the window. It’s raining. Just a drizzle, really. It’d be nice to feel the drops on her skin, she thinks. All this talk of her being good has her flushed red and hot.
“Well maybe a pay-rise would help with that little bit of self-worth, if it matters to you so much.” Rey straightens, levelling a hard glare his way.
“Alright,” he murmurs. “We can agree to disagree, but… duly noted. We’ll discuss an exact salary increase later—”
“Later?”
“—but for now, I’d like to move onto point number two.” He cocks his head. “I don’t appreciate you. This one hurts a little, if I’m honest. I’m sorry if I haven’t made it obvious, Rey, just how much I appreciate you but I—I’m not sure how you’ve come to this impression.”
“You’re not sure?” She repeats. “You’re not sure?” He blinks at her blankly. “You hardly even look at me, Ben! You never give me praise on whether I’m doing a good job, or an efficient job, and don’t even thank me when I pick up your suits from the dry cleaners—which, by the way, was never part of the job description. I may as well be your little errand girl!” Rey watches as his lips quirk. “And now this is funny to you. Y’know, you’re doing an awful job of proving me wrong here.”
“I don’t find it funny, Rey. Just…” he trails off into a huff. “I can see why you’re confused. I’m not the best with words. They’ve so often been misconstrued, and taken the wrong way, so I… sometimes, nothing said is better is all.”
“I won’t misunderstand a ‘good fucking job’, Ben.”
He barks out a throaty laugh, and she hates just how comforting it feels, the sound washing over her body, easing tense muscles to relax into her chair.
“You’re right again.” His gaze is softer now. “But I like to show it in other ways.”
Rey’s eyes narrow. “And what ways are those?”
“Your regular morning muffin and coffee.”
“Finn buys me those—”
“Finn delivers you those on me.”
“Well Finn’s never said otherwise.”
“Yes, and I doubt he ever will.”
He has a point. Finn’s made his dislike for their boss very clear. Why would he say anything about it?
“Then there’s the morning tea pastries—”
“For all staff,” she argues, but it’s half-hearted, shadowed in doubt.
“Be serious, Rey.” Ben gives her a half smile, the left corner of his lip stretching wide. She’s never seen that smile before. “You’re the only one in the office who likes those disgusting cheesymite scrolls.”
Rey shakes her head. There has to be someone else—
“And the anonymous flowers around the holidays.”
“Everyone gets those.”
“Yes. I can’t make it too obvious now, can I?”
“But that’s… a lot of money.”
“Well I have to spend my trust fund on something.” He gives a fond shake of his head. “And have you really not noticed just how much better your bunch is than the rest?”
Rey drops her chin to her chest, staring at her stockinged knees; how the fabric pulls taut, her skin becoming more visible underneath. A revelation, kind of like Ben. “I never knew it was you,” she says quietly.
“You do now,” he says. “But if it’s words you want, it’s words I’ll give. Alright?”
She gives a soft nod of her head but doesn’t dare look back up.
“Now this third point: you can’t concentrate when I’m around. I don’t understand this one, Rey. You’ll have to explain it to me.”
A beat passes. Then another. Then a whole semibreve of them. They’re back to silence – with the clock, and her heart, and the jittering movement of her own knee, along with the shift of fabric of skirt against stockings.
Ben speaks again when concluding that she won’t. “Because your work is excellent, Rey. That’s what you want to hear, no? How amazing you are – always meeting my deadlines, keeping me to mine. You’re so clever and organised and detail oriented that I sometimes wonder why you haven’t already left in search of something better, but… you’re still here. And if you truly can’t concentrate, I imagine your performance would take a dip, and let me assure you Rey, it never once has.” She feels the weight of his gaze burning straight through her, and Rey’s skin feels alight, sticky from nerves and hot from praise. “So I need you to elaborate on this one, Rey.”
There’s a sting to her eyes that she desperately blinks away, but it’s no use. Her vision blurs, and she feels them fill with tears, and she can’t even tell whether it’s from relief or agony; to know that she’s viewed this way by him; to be told that she’s good at what she does; to realise that this is the first time in her life she’s ever heard herself described this way.
“Is it not obvious?” It comes out shaky.
“I suppose it has something to do with point four.” Ben’s voice is a soft hum. “I don’t love you.”
Her eyes squeeze shut tight enough to burn, a tear hot down her cheek. “Let’s not talk about this one—”
“No—no, we need to, Rey. We need to clear this up, because I—” Ben cuts himself off into a clearing of his throat. “I can’t stop you from leaving. If that’s what you want – if you’d rather work somewhere else. But I can’t have you leaving without knowing the truth.”
“No,” she murmurs, and the tears come unbidden now. She can’t bear the thought of being told she isn’t loved.
Not another time. Not from him. i
“You mentioned earlier that I never look at you.” Ben pushes on despite her protests, fast and breathy. “That’s deliberate. I like the look of you too much, Rey, and when I do happen to look at you, I find it impossible to glance away.”
Her shoulders hunch up, frozen in place, mind spinning to catch up with what he’s saying because…because it can’t be – there’s no way he actually—
“Because I want you, Rey,” Ben answers, before the thought can fully form in mind. “I want you in ways a man shouldn’t want his secretary, in a manner that would catch me a HR case the second I tried to act on it and so you wouldn’t know it, Rey, because I’ve tampered that side of me so that this can all remain professional—so I can remain professional.” Her breath lodges in her chest, tight and heavy, as if there’s a dumbbell resting on ribs. “Because you really fucking test my professionalism, Rey.”
Oh.
Oh.
“So yes, I don’t look at you, or talk to you, or even say your name, Rey, because all of that threatens every bit of self-control I have to not snap and do what I really want.” The words are louder, and more confident, and Rey wonders if anyone outside can hear. “And will you please just look at me!”
Rey does as he says. Tentatively. Because she’s always been so good at following his orders and bending to his demands. And she doesn’t want him to ever think the opposite.
When their eyes connect, Rey notes a few things:
His hands have been tugging at his hair, the strands restless and messy at his forehead. There’s a flush to his own cheeks, roving across the nose she’s desperate to trace, and his pink, plush lips are twisted, as if this whole encounter has been just as hard for him as it as for her.
She drops her gaze down, briefly, to see his tie loosened, and the top two buttons of his shirt undone, and his broad chest is heaving in such a way you’d think he’d just ran a whole marathon.
“If that doesn’t answer point number four for you, Rey, then let me tell you clearly.” Ben’s voice doesn’t shake, and his eyes never waver. "I love you.”