I almost keel over backwards. “What? You think what she said was the truth—”
She flops onto the back of the golf cart and signals the driver.
Chest tight with anger, I push forward and leap into the little car before it speeds off. I force myself to take a calming breath, but it doesn’t ease the tension constricting my jaw. “There wasn’t an ounce of truth to what Sonja said,” I argue, stunned that Maggie would even suggest it.
“Maybe not. But it is something I’ve been wondering myself.” Maggie sounds frustrated. “What are you doing with me, Ben? You’re a movie star, I’m a waitress. You’ve got millions of dollars in your bank account, I’m lucky to see a hundred in mine. You know Brazilian supermodels and famous rappers, I spend my days with poor and abused kids.” She lets out a strangled sigh and scrunches up the material of her dress with one hand. “This isn’t me, Ben. This dress. Being pampered in a spa. Throwing away money at casinos. It’s not me, and you don’t seem to get that.”
“I don’t seem to get it?” I’m growing angry again. “Why would I? From the day we met I’ve been trying to impress you! And since nothing else seemed to work, I thought maybe I’d have some luck with whisking you away to a tropical island.” I roll my eyes bitterly. “My bad, apparently.”
“Why would you want to impress me?” Her voice comes out strained. “I…I don’t get what you want from me.”
I can see her pulse thudding in her throat, hear the ragged breaths exiting her mouth, and a thread of confusion stitches my insides. She’s just raised the one question I’ve been avoiding for days.
What do I want from her?
Sex would’ve been the answer a week ago.
More sex would’ve been the answer last night.
But, if I’m honest with myself, maybe it’s always been about more than sex. I liked Maggie from the first moment I met her. Liked her sass, her confidence, her complete disinterest in my celebrity lifestyle. I like that she isn’t scared to tell me off, and I especially like how she makes me work. For her body, her trust, her time. Women constantly throw themselves at my feet, but not Maggie. She knows who she is and what she wants, and she isn’t afraid to say it. That’s probably what I like most of all.
“I want to spend time with you.” I rake my fingers through my hair, frazzled. “I’m with you because I like you. Because you’re…real. Don’t you get it? I’m surrounded by plastic people. Fake, shallow people who think they know me, who pretend they care about knowing me. Do you realize you’re the first person other than a reporter who actually wanted to know where I grew up?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Hell, even my own agent doesn’t bother to dig deeper.” My mouth twists in a frown. “He hasn’t once asked for details about Gretchen Goodrich and that money. He just assumes—like the rest of the world—that I fucked her.”
“And you expected something different?” Maggie says wearily. “You’ve got a reputation for sleeping around. It’s really not so shocking that people believe you went to bed with a married woman.”
Something inside me hardens. “And what about you? Do you believe that line of bull?”
“I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know you, outside of the biblical sense.”
My nostrils flare at her dismissive tone. “You’re saying that in the entire week we’ve spent together, you didn’t get a single sense of who I am? That I might be a decent guy?”
She tilts her head and offers a look full of distress and far too much wisdom for her age. “Very few people are decent, Ben. In the end, the only person you can count on is yourself. Sex, relationships, even love, they’re not tangible, they disappear in the blink of an eye.”
“So, what, you avoid it all for fear that it might disappear?” I shake my head. “Is that why you hide behind your job and your volunteer work and college, because those are the only things you can count on?”
She just frowns.
I inhale the humid night air. “Well, I call bullshit. You can count on relationships and other people to be there for you. Some connections can never be broken. Look at my mom, for instance. She had a hard life, raised me on her own, struggled to put food on the table, and she never complained, never packed up and left, even though I know there were times she must have felt like it.”
“You want to talk about mothers?” Maggie shoots back. “Well, mine abandoned me in front of a gas station when I was five. She told me to wait outside while she went over to the bank, said she’d be back in ten minutes. You know how long I waited out there for her?”