Hi everybody. Thank you for your patience.

Chapter 7

Finn Storm.

He was a handsome guy, with dark skin, a bright smile, and designer clothes.

So this was the famous "Finn" whose call Rey had missed the week before.

"Nice to meet you," Ben smiled as he shook hands with him.

"Nice to meet you too, I'm a big fan," the other man replied politely.

His discomfort was perceptible, Rey's more than obvious.

The three of them eyed each other warily for a short time before Ben slipped away on the pretext of having a phone call to make, leaving them alone.

Damned. Who was this guy to her? Was he a friend? A boyfriend? An ex?

The actor was strongly leaning towards option three, asking himself a thousand questions all evening without ever managing to get rid of the frozen lump in the pit of his stomach.

The clock hanging on the wall of his room now showed ten p.m. and Ben was staring distractedly at the television, his mind elsewhere, when his cell phone rang. A glance at the screen caused him to slide his thumb over the LCD surface.

"Good evening, Amilyn."

"Hi, sorry to bother you so late, but I have good news for you: your laser procedure will finally take place tomorrow morning. Gwendoline Phasma had a time slot open up, and she'll take care of you around ten a.m. You will then have time to settle all the paperwork for your discharge, and you can leave Whitegrove in the afternoon, if you wish."

"All right, thanks for letting me know," Ben replied.

He was finally going to be able to resume the normal course of his life, get back to his apartment, look for a new agent, and immerse himself in reading whatever scripts anyone was willing to send him. Perhaps he should go through auditions again, just to show that his accident had not in any way diminished his desire to give the best of himself, but there was no real reason to do that. And anyway, the prospect of having to prove himself excited him just as much as ever. He had every intention of working once again with top directors and getting involved in projects that were important to him.

Yes, he wanted all those things.

And also to continue to see Rey. Or at least that's what he'd been planning to do before Finn appeared at the clinic earlier in the day.

"Tell me, Amilyn, do you know a man named Finn Storm? He was waiting for Rey in the lobby earlier when we came back from our walk on the beach."

"Finn came here?" the psychologist repeated, astonished.

"So you know him…"

"How did she react?"

"She was completely cordial. She introduced us to each other and then I came back to my room."

Amilyn sighed and Ben didn't hesitate to ask: "Her boyfriend?"

"Her ex," Amilyn corrected.

The actor leaned back on the couch, tilted his head back, and stared at the ceiling.

"Okay." He blew out a breath. "I thought so."

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"Is that a hint of annoyance that I hear in your voice, my dear Ben?" Amilyn continued.

There was no point in denying anything. "Aunt Ami" knew him inside and out.

"You were right when you said this girl is something special."

"I'm always right," laughed the older woman. "But tell me, has Rey really succeeded in breaking through the high walls around your heart?"

"Maybe…"

"Perfect! Leia keeps telling me that she can't wait to finally have grandchildren."

Ben had no trouble imagining the happy face Amilyn must be making right now, and against all odds, the corner of his lips also rose up in a smile.

His relationship with Bazine was not the first disaster. His love life was a series of failures, and he had been at fault most of the time: too obsessed with his work, too busy with Snoke in recent years, refusing to get attached, and above all, too angry with his mother, his father, his uncle...

He had come to believe that love was not for him. But it didn't matter—his job was enough for him.

And then Rey had tumbled into his life two months earlier, in the middle of the park. As soon as she'd pulled back her hood, revealing her pert little nose, her angel face, and her frowning brow, he had known…

She had put him in his place, apologized, and then shown up at the pool the next day in that absolutely hot bikini—and the die was cast. Everything he'd been able to discover about her afterwards had only reinforced his belief that Rey Kanata was made for him.

He liked everything about her, and the confidences she'd allowed herself to share with him had touched him: her mother's death in a car accident when she was three months old. The fact that she never knew who her father was. Her happy, carefree childhood at a stud farm upstate, surrounded by the unconditional love of her maternal grandparents. And the tragic death of her grandfather a few years earlier, struck down, like Han, by a heart attack.

"Maz is the only family I have left," she'd told him. "She's going to celebrate her seventieth birthday soon and she's my hero. She is so strong and independent, always in a good mood, and so brave. She's my rock, my pillar in life. I love her more than anything."

She had explained to him the origin of her family name and the real ethnic patchwork from which she came: her great-grandfather Yukio Kanata was Japanese, a Shiatsu master, and had fallen in love with a Russian nurse. They had emigrated with their son Dimitri to the United States, where Dimitri married Maria Isabella Prescott - Maz - a beautiful young Mexican-American girl whom he'd met while working as a groom on a ranch in Texas.

Rey loved her job just as much as he loved his own. And her friends meant a lot to her: Rose, Poe, and Kaydel were like the siblings she never had.

She also dreamed of going around the world one day.

So he too, day after day, had opened up to her as he had never done before. Rey now had more than enough personal information about him to feed all the fan forums, if she wanted to: about his life as a movie star, his projects, his family, how he missed his father terribly, and that he regretted his estrangement with his uncle Luke. About his passion for calligraphy and for Han's old Ford Falcon Futura 50, which he kept in the garage of his building in Brooklyn Heights, plus a whole host of filming anecdotes.

"I remember once we ordered chili on the set of 'Galactic Wars.' We were all starving and we only had ten minutes to eat in between takes. Tallie and I inhaled it without taking a breath, but the stuff was so spicy that we spent the next half hour drinking half the bottled waters on the tray. We had to give up shooting for the rest of the day. And I usually love spicy food!"

"Do you like chili?" she'd exclaimed. "Then you absolutely have to taste my grandmother's! Maz is a true gourmet chef, and I must admit that I'm not such a bad baker myself. I'm rather proud of my special triple chocolate cake!"

Rey was luminous. He couldn't help but try to see her again.

Back in the present once more, he felt the need to express his gratitude.

"Thank you Amilyn.. For everything you've done for me,"

"You're welcome, darling. But you should be thanking the team of physical therapists. And especially Rey, who succeeded in making you a model patient."

Ben's gaze was lost in contemplation of the clinic's wooded grounds visible through the window of his room. As a backdrop, evening twilight haloed the trees in the park in hues of red and orange as the sun disappeared over the horizon.

"Don't worry, I'm planning on it," Ben replied.

OoooooO

Rey's fingers left the forearms of the man currently pressed against her back to grab onto the headboard with force. Her heart was ready to explode in her chest and she felt like she was about to come like she had never come before.

In fact, her legs had begun to shake, and only the huge hand around her throat and the one skillfully torturing her clitoris prevented her from collapsing forward on the mattress. Her body was on fire from the tips of her toes to the top of her skull—a delicious fire that threatened to consume her whole body as her partner's hoarse, panting voice whispered in her ear how beautiful and wonderful she was.

How was it possible to feel so much pleasure? It was beyond good. It was divine.

"That's it, let go, Rey"

Her lover's dark locks caressed her cheek. His greedy mouth devoured the back of her neck, slipped over her shoulder, and now groaned against her skin.

"Oh yes, Ben! Please don't stop!" she almost screamed as she arched her back, tilting her head back to surrender herself completely to him.

Every cell in her body was ready to implode. The orgasm promised to be dazzling, unreal, magnificent...

A sudden ringing sounded, and Rey opened her eyes.

Breathless and with her heart pounding against her ribs, she sat up abruptly. A sheet of paper was stuck to her face. She brushed it off with a wave of her hand.

Damn it... She must have dozed off for a few minutes on her desk.

Her cheeks were burning, along with her core. When she realized that the landline phone was ringing, she hastily picked it up, still overwhelmed by the scene that had just played out in her head a few seconds earlier.

"Uh… Hello?"

"Rey? It's Amilyn. Sorry to bother you with this, but you'll have to finish completing Ben Solo's file before three p.m. this afternoon. Ben's leaving Whitegrove today. I'm going to take advantage of having to go to the clinic later to drive him to New York."

For a moment, the young woman remained silent on the phone.

This was it: the actor was leaving for good.

"Rey?"

"Yeah... yes, sorry, I... Sorry, Amilyn, I'll take care of it right away."

"Are you okay ?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's great that Ben can finally go home. I'm just, uh…"

"Don't tell me you'll miss him!"

The psychologist's voice had taken on an amused, almost satisfied tone, and Rey preferred to cut the conversation short.

"I'll take care of the file right away. Bye, Amilyn," she hurried to answer before hanging up.

The clock on the wall read one p.m., and Rey, with her hand still resting on the phone, suddenly felt extremely tired and empty. Her half-eaten sandwich lay in front of her computer screen, and material order forms were spread out all over the desk in front of her.

Nodding off in the middle of her work day was completely out of character for her, and was the consequence of the nearly sleepless night she'd spent, tossing and turning back and forth in bed without being able to close her eyes until the first light of day.

And now Amilyn was telling her that Ben was leaving.

The day before, her "almost kiss" with him on the beach had left her in total confusion. With her gaze lost in his, facing the ocean, she'd felt the mad urge to give in to this force that drew her inexorably towards him. Time had stood still for a few seconds and a kind of bond had opened between them. He'd felt it too, she was sure of it.

Then he'd leaned in to kiss her. Or had she made the first move? She wasn't sure anymore. But at the last moment, she'd turned away.

Because he was her patient.

Because what had happened with Lindsay was still etched in her mind.

Because despite everything they'd shared in those weeks of rehab, Ben belonged to a different world: a world of glitz, glamour, and fame. And she was just… Rey.

Yet at the last moment, as they walked up to the clinic, she'd finally decided to tell him how she felt—but Finn's unexpected appearance had cut her off.

Ben had gone back to his room, and her ex had practically begged her to give him some time. So the two of them had gone to the cafeteria to talk.

When she got home, Rey had immediately called Rose and Poe via FaceTime.

"What? Finn's in New York?" Rose was offended. "And he dared to come see you at the clinic?"

"Why would he do that? What did he tell you?" Poe said.

"He apologized."

"Apologized? That's a good one! Better late than never, I guess!" Poe laughed cynically.

"He seemed really sincere and relieved that I agreed to speak with him. He told me that he regretted the way it ended between us, he asked for my forgiveness, and he would like us to remain friends. Nothing more."

On her phone screen, Rey could see that Rose had raised an eyebrow, looking worried.

"Are you still in love with him?"

"Are you kidding? No!" Rey was indignant. "But I'm tired of blaming him for what happened. We had some good times together and I'm glad things are calming down."

Finn had seemed thrilled with his new life in London. He'd just come back to negotiate a big contract, and was staying at a hotel in Manhattan.

"He's only in New York for a week or two, maximum, so there's no point in you guys speculating about it.

"I don't trust him," Poe replied. "What about you, Tico?"

"I don't trust him either. What if he actually came back because he wants you back? I'm sure he didn't show up at the clinic like that just to make amends. He's got something on his mind."

Rey assured them that she wasn't going to fall back into her ex's arms, change her mind, and move across the Atlantic. "Listen. This weekend, we're all going to meet at the stud farm, have a good time, and then you're going to help me look for a place in New York City, okay?"

The conversation had then turned to the weekend at Maz's, and Rey had stayed silent about Ben. And she felt a little bit guilty about that.

Rose and Poe had become her best friends the minute the three of them started working together at the clinic. From that day on, they'd always confided in each other about everything. And yet, this time it was impossible to tell them what had been brewing inside her for quite some time: that she couldn't help smiling when she thought back to her first meeting with Ben in the park, that it had become more and more difficult to touch him without having a thousand indecent thoughts in her head, and that her heart raced every time he laid eyes on her. Not to mention the fire he awakened low in her belly.

No. Not fire… more like a torrent of lava.

Above all, she couldn't decently tell them that she had stopped counting the number of nights when, alone in bed, Ben's huge, expert fingers had taken the place of her own.

As the weeks went by, this man, whom she had initially found so bad-tempered and infuriating, had turned out to be someone totally different from the cold and overly serious image he projected to the world.

The conclusion was inescapable: she had fallen completely and irremediably in love with him.

Rey took one last bite of her sandwich before putting it back in its wrapper.

Amilyn had asked her to complete Ben's file and she was going to do it. Then she would go to the pool for her session with Mrs. Atkins, and then she would go to Ben's room before he left. She'd decide what to say to him when she got there.

OoooooO

"Bravo, Georgia, you did a good job today."

Georgia Atkins, 53, had breasts that were as augmented as her lips. Her neon pink swim cap almost matched the fuchsia shade of her long nails. She was the wife of a successful banker and a stay-at-home mother whose children, Meghan and David, had left home ten years ago to study at Yale and Harvard, respectively. Her husband had bought a David Hockney painting at auction the week before, and she'd unfortunately decided to try to install it over their fireplace by herself. The result: a fall from the top of the ladder, a broken femur, and an expensive painting hanging crookedly when the cleaning lady had rushed in because of the noise and found her lying on the ground.

"Thank you Rey, you're a sweetheart ! I'm going to miss you so much!"

"That's so sweet of you. But don't worry, Charlie is great."

"And handsome! I ran into him yesterday in the hall."

The young therapist started laughing and helped Georgia out of the pool. She then went to take a shower, got dressed, and walked resolutely to her office. It was three o'clock and she was supposed to meet Charlie there to brief him on the rehabilitation program she and Mrs. Atkins had completed so far. Through the glass wall separating the room from the hallway, she saw her colleague sitting on the sofa with his nose buried in a file—and also a huge bouquet of peonies and blood-red roses in a vase next to the computer.

"Hi Charlie," she exclaimed as she entered, her eyes glued to the flowers.

"Hi Kanata!"

"What's that?" asked the young woman, pointing to the bouquet.

Peonies were her favorite flowers. Her heart suddenly started beating very fast.

"It's for you, apparently. A delivery man just dropped them off."

Charlie gave her a mischievous look, and Rey noticed the little white card slipped between the crimson petals.

Without another glance at her colleague, she grabbed the note and pulled it feverishly from its envelope.

Thank you for your kindness, your patience (and God knows that with me it took a lot), your dedication, and your fabulous smile, which brightened every day of my stay here. Also in memory of a certain red bikini, divinely well worn, and in front of which I had the greatest difficulty remaining stoic.

I wish you the best of luck in your work at the clinic, and I think that since you will be in New York for the next few weeks, it would be nice to go for a coffee together or to have a meal one evening. If you feel like it and/or if you need anything one day, don't hesitate to ask Amilyn for my personal number.

With profound gratitude and affection,

Ben Solo

Rey's hands were shaking now. She put the card on the desk, took one last look at the bouquet, and stormed out of the office.

"Hello Charles, is Ben Solo in his room?" she exclaimed as she arrived breathlessly in front of Charles Threepio's counter.

"No, Miss Rey, I had his luggage carried out to Dr. Holdo's vehicle, and he just passed by on his way to the doctors' parking lot."

The young woman thanked him and ran to the door leading to the back of the building. She burst out into the parking lot and spotted Amilyn's SUV.

Ben, keys in hand, was about to get in on the passenger side. He was alone, and Rey took off running again.

"Ben?"

The actor turned around, and a smile grew on his face as Rey finally reached him and stood in front of him, panting and cheeks flushed from the sprint she had just taken through the corridors of the clinic.

"Hey… Looks like you ran."

He looked even more handsome than usual in his beige sweater and black jeans. He was no longer wearing the grey bandage on his cheek. His bare scar was slightly reddened by the effects of the laser, but there was no doubt that the result would be perfect. In the end, there would only be a thin, barely visible line left.

Blood was pounding against the young woman's temples. She couldn't believe what she was about to do and, without further hesitation, she grabbed Ben's shoulders and pressed her mouth against his.

For a moment, Rey feared she had gone too far. But the actor, surprised at first, quickly sank into the kiss, groaning. Rey felt a hand slip behind her neck while the other hand clutched her waist. Ben's palms were warm and caressing, soft and electrifying at the same time.

It was perfect. Just like in her dream.

Their bodies were now glued together. Ben was huge and his lips were wonderful, even softer than she had imagined. When his tongue tried to make its way through to taste hers, she surrendered entirely and their embrace suddenly became greedier. Ben's breathing quickened. She was overwhelmed with desire.

Let go, Rey...

The parking lot, the car, the clinic no longer existed. The oxygen in her lungs began to run out so she slowly pulled back, but Ben continued to peck at her lips, her chin, the line of her jaw.

"God, Rey... I've been wanting to do this since we first met in the park," he said breathlessly.

"We yelled at each other," she smiled.

"You dazzled me."

The young woman then brushed his cheek with her fingertips, taking care not to touch his scar.

"I hope you're not in pain."

"It doesn't hurt."

Ben's scent was starting to go to her head. Bergamot, vetiver, and something absolutely exhilarating and slightly wild that she still couldn't quite identify...

What if Amilyn came along?

So her words came out hastily, a bit jumbled:

"Finn's my ex. He lives in London now. Because of work. We broke up last year. He just came back to New York for work too."

"Okay…"

Ben's mouth was on her earlobe, then slid slowly against her cheek to come back to her mouth. And Rey's whole body tensed.

She had to be honest with him, because she didn't want him to think that her past reluctance had anything to do with Finn...

"Finn just wanted to talk to me yesterday... As a friend, I mean. I wanted you to know that, to make it clear, because…"

"Because?" Ben whispered, now looking her straight in the eye.

She felt like the earth would open up under her feet and swallow her whole. But she clung to his shoulders and got a little lost in his dark eyes, and they grounded her and gave her the courage to tell him the truth.

"Because your bouquet was beautiful and I would love to go for coffee with you."

Ben then gave her the most wonderful smile. He grabbed his phone from the back pocket of his jeans, unlocked the screen, and handed it to her.

"So, can I have your number?"

Damn, what was her phone number again?

Without quite realizing what she was doing, Rey opened his contacts app, tapped on the keyboard, and then returned his cell phone.

The sound of high heels clicking on the asphalt was suddenly heard behind them. Rey turned her head to see Amilyn walking in their direction.

"Well, well... You're here, Rey?"

The young therapist quickly ran a hand through her hair. It was so embarrassing... She was sure she must look completely disheveled and as red as a tomato. Instinctively, she took two steps back while Ben continued to stare at her greedily. The actor's lips were still pink from their kisses and his cheeks were on fire too.

"Yes, I… I was just saying goodbye to Ben," she replied, stammering.

The psychologist refrained from commenting and just nodded with a smile that spoke volumes.

"Ready to go, Solo?" she said, turning to Ben, who gave her the keys.

"Yes, we can go."

He worked his jaw and then gave the young woman a last knowing smile as Amilyn settled behind the wheel. "Goodbye, Rey. See you soon, I hope."

"See you soon," she echoed.

Then she watched the car drive away along the cypress-lined driveway, pass the gates of the clinic, and disappear.