“I know that’s all this life is,” he said. “I’ve seen how money makes the world go around. And there’s no arguing with that selfish crud, believe me.”
But I didn’t believe him.
Couldn’t believe him.
“I wish one of us could believe the other,” I whispered with a smile. “I think we’ll be having this kind of debate an awful lot over the coming sixty days if we aren’t careful.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You think you’ll survive sixty days of my intelligent reasoning without taking it on as your own?” he pushed, and it was my turn to feel the easiness in the comment.
“We’ll see,” I said. “I’m hoping maybe it’s you who’ll have to survive my intelligent reasoning and come out the other side wanting to sign up for charity gigs along with me.”
Brandon Grant looked gorgeous when he dropped his sandwich back on his plate and focused his stare right on mine.
“What charity gigs?”
I shrugged, regretting raising the topic. “I just do some stuff at university. Help the committees raise cash and hold fundraisers. I’ve been doing that kind of thing since I was a little kid.”
“Good Samaritan,” he said, but I shook my head, surprisingly honest.
“Not only that. You know, I’ve been thinking. Since being here. Thinking about me. About my choices. My thoughts. My methods of moving through life, the world and everything.”
“Go on,” he pushed.
I picked at a piece of lettuce. “I used to think it was purely the kind soul thing that drove me to do it. That I wanted to be a good person and give my time to people who needed it.”
“You seem to be a very kind little soul,” he said, and it should have pleased me no end to feel a scrap of flattery, but it didn’t.
“Thanks,” I told him. “But I think pushing hard for change and goodness in outside aspects of life made it easier to believe there was some way I was heading out of my own darkness. Like I had some power somewhere. Some fight. Some way of standing up for something.”
“And you don’t feel like that now?”
I dropped my gaze to the remains of my sandwich. “I don’t know what I feel like now. Not anymore. Not here.”
At that he cleared his throat. I could have sworn he was about to make a comment in response, but his eyes sharpened as his mouth opened, and he stopped the flow. Just like that.
I didn’t get the chance to ask him to carry on with his train of thought before he cleared his throat a second time and pushed his half-eaten sandwich aside.
“Tonight is going to be quite a performance,” he said. “I trust you’re rested?”
I nodded. “Yes, thanks. I rested well last night.”
How I wanted him to say he did too. How I wanted him to acknowledge that there was something between us. Something brewing and weird and fluttery and crazy, and not just from my direction towards his, please God no.
I really wasn’t expecting his next question. Not for a heartbeat.
“Jake Wharton,” he said. “What do you know of him?”
I’m sure my jaw dropped wide. “Jake Wharton? He’s just a guy, from college…”
“And?”
“And he’s one of the three on the beach, one of the guys I crawled to across the sand… one of the guys you pulled off me before they…”
“Before they violated you and you broke my instructions,” he finished and I nodded.
“That’s all I know of him, really,” I concluded, but he raised a brow.
“Nothing more you want to share of your interactions with the guy around campus?”
My heart thumped in my chest. “I wasn’t expecting him to seek me out for a conversation. I was outside of a lecture and he asked if he could speak to me. He’d heard rumours around campus of me seeking out money in the same way Rebecca Lane earned hers. Was worried I was signing up to something he didn’t think I should.”
“He was worried?” he prodded.
Another nod. “So he said. He offered me an alternative.”
“An alternative? What kind of alternative?”
I ate a slice of tomato and hoped my face wasn’t the colour to match it. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask him to elaborate.” My pause was longer than I needed to pick at my salad. “I didn’t want to take his proposal.”
“Why not? What if it was a considerably less invasive way of saving your sister’s skin?”
I couldn’t find the words. I picked at my food like it was the puzzle of a lifetime.
“Why didn’t you get him to elaborate, Miss Emmerson? Why were you so committed to putting yourself on the edge of your physical limits for sixty days straight if there was an alternative available?”
I felt the prickle in his tone. The prod of his questions butting so hard in my gut. Wanting answers.
Wanting the truth.