“Absolutely. It’s also easy for me to see that what you’re doing isn’t healthy. You’re too close to the situation, you can’t see that you’re screwing up your life.”
She didn’t have to listen to this. Or did she? Where was she supposed to go? She was stuck in a tiny room. “Okay, story hour is over. Somehow we can’t even have a basic conversation without insulting one another. How about we just spend the next couple of days refraining from saying a single word to one another. Sound like a plan?”
“I have one final thing to say about this, because it seems like no one else in your life has the balls to tell you what you don’t want to hear. Anyone who would encourage you to get shit-faced drunk or high on pills doesn’t care about you—you’re simply the entertainment for the night. So you have money... No one says you have to act like an asshole. You could be giving. You could be generous. You could make lives better for other people. But instead you spend your time thinking only of yourself and how everything in the world affects you. I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but the world is bigger than the circle you’re occupying.”
6
WHY COULDN’T HE KEEP his damn mouth shut? Things had been going smoothly—and then he had to go and lay all that truth on her like a load of bricks. It wasn’t his job to be her Jiminy Cricket. If she didn’t have a conscience about how she spent her life or how she frittered away her blessings, that was her problem. So why did it bother him so much that she refused to see the truth? He didn’t know her, not really. True, all he knew about her was from the tabloids and maybe that was his fault for only caring to look that deep, but it drove him crazy when people did so little for their fellow man.
“You know, I’ve seen people with so little to their names that they could carry everything they owned on their person, and yet they’ll be the first to offer you something if you need it. And then I’ve worked with people who owned yachts and mansions and throw lavish parties for their dogs but wouldn’t drop a dollar into a collection cup. There’s something wrong with the world when that’s okay.”
“Not everyone has to live by your definition of generosity,” she shot back hotly. “No one has to toe the line because you say so.”
“Maybe not but I think the world would be better off if they did. Every year I donate a big chunk of my income to charitable causes because I know what it’s like to go home hungry, to be cold, to wear clothes two sizes too small. My brother used to dig through a trash can behind a restaurant so that we could have food. Your idea of roughing it is staying at a place like this. When I was a kid this would’ve been the Taj Mahal. It’s all about perspective, I guess. It’s just my opinion, but I think you have a screwed-up sense of what’s right and what’s wrong in this world, princess. So yeah, my judgment comes on pretty strong because I’ve lived it.”
“But it’s not my fault that you were poor,” she said, blinking back tears. “Do you treat everyone who has money like this? All of your clients are rich. Do you treat them like dirt simply because they have more money than you?”
“No, of course not,” he said, frustrated. “But for some reason with you, it bothers me. It bothers me a lot. I know you could be a better person.”
What had he just said? He needed a roll of duct tape to stick across his mouth because he was saying all sorts of loopy things. “Arrrgh! You’re right, this was a bad idea. We shouldn’t have started this conversation. I’m sorry I got sucked into it. From now on no more talking of personal stuff. Let’s just keep things superficial and we’ll be cool. Yeah?”
“Fine,” she agreed grumpily. “I’m going to shower.” She scooted from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom and he was glad. He needed time to get his head on straight. How could things disintegrate so quickly between them? There was something about her that twisted him sideways—and maybe what bothered him the most was that he couldn’t stop looking at her. Everything about her represented something he didn’t believe in but his eyes sure liked what he saw. He couldn’t seem to stop noticing the way the slender column of her neck joined the soft flesh of her shoulders, and how her eyes lit up with passion when she was putting him in his place. It was stupid and he didn’t like the way his heart jammed to a foreign beat whenever his gaze strayed to her ass or her breasts.