I slip my hand into his big palm, threading my fingers through his, and rest my cheek on his arm. "What happened?"
"Does it matter?"
"Maybe it's not my business, but I'd like to know."
He closes his fingers around my hand. "I was a copywriter at an advertising agency, but I was made redundant three weeks ago."
"Redundant?"
"It means I was let go. 'Laid off' I think is what Americans call it."
"That's awful. What will you do now?"
He shrugs. "I'm getting redundancy pay, but I need to find a new job. I probably shouldn't have come here for a holiday instead of searching for a new position, but I needed... I don't know. A break."
"That's understandable. I'm sure your family gets it."
Reese squirms, his face pinching into a tight expression. "I haven't told them yet. They think I took time off from work."
"Why haven't you told them about getting laid off?"
"It's humiliating. Chance is a successful lawyer, even has his own firm now with Elena. Dane is successful too, has his own company, which leaves me as the unemployed loser in the family."
"No one would say that." I turn toward him, still holding his hand. "Getting made redundant doesn't mean you're a loser. It happens to a lot of people."
He angles toward me and studies me for a moment. "What about you? What's your profession? If you're from a wealthy family, do you even need to work?"
Though I would completely understand it if he were envious of my family and my life, he doesn't sound like that at all. He seems curious, not irritated.
Starting with the less shocking truth seems like the best plan. "I'm a freelance fact checker."
"Fact checker? What does that mean?"
"Authors and publishers hire me to make sure they got the facts straight in the stuff they publish, which means I do a lot of research. I specialize in science topics."
"I guess that shouldn't surprise me, since you're very clever." He gives me a playful smile. "Even if you are barmy."
"You should know by now that I'm not sensitive about how weird I am. I like being kooky."
"And you should be proud of your barmy nature. It's endearing." He pauses, glancing down at the ground, then looks at me again. "You didn't answer the other question. Do you need to work, or do you just like to?"
I want to tell him the truth, but that's never worked out well for me. Over the years, I've used the truth as a means of testing guys to find out if they're really interested in me or if they like the prestige of dating Celeste Arnaud's granddaughter. Ninety-nine percent of them fail the first test---my kooky behavior. Their eyes light up when I tell them the part hardly anyone knows about. And ninety-nine percent of the one percent who pass the first test will fail the second one.
Reese is different. I feel it. He passed my kookiness test, and after a couple days with him, I get the sense he might pass the other test. Do I want him to? He lives in another country, and we're such opposites.
What have I got to lose? I gave this man my virginity, so maybe I should go ahead and tell him everything.
"Did I push too far?" he asks.
"No, not at all." I take a deep breath and dive in. "Grams set up a trust fund for me when I was born. On my eighteenth birthday, I started receiving a monthly stipend that more than covers anything I might need or want. I can request more if I have an emergency or something. When my grandmother dies, I'll get the whole enchilada. I hope that doesn't happen for a long, long time."
Reese seems to be waiting for me to go on.
I suck in a breath and blurt out the rest. "My trust fund is five hundred million dollars."
His jaw drops. He keeps hold of my hand, but he doesn't move or speak for several seconds. "Five hundred million?"
I nod, biting my lip. "Grams is very generous."