Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
“I haven’t specifically told my parents anything about you personally or why I bought the pudding company. They know your name, they know I’m supposedly crazy about you, and they know you work at the company I just bought. But I’ve been purposely vague about the how and why and the super fine details.”
I don’t know if she’s settled into this as her fate or if she’s decided that I’m not such a villain, but she nods, satisfied.
“You sounded scornful when it comes to legacy.” I have to ask because it’s going to be like a thorn that constantly bothers me otherwise. “There are some people that say enduring is the most important thing there is.”
“I guess most people think that way. Is that why you do what you do? Because you want your name to live on?”
“I do what I do because I was born into it, sort of, but I never wanted anyone to say I didn’t work for what I have.”
“But you just said you were born into it.”
I can’t explain the aversion I have to being labeled a silver spoon child or a trust fund baby, or whatever people call it now. Nepo baby. I guess that’s the new term. “I was, but I wanted to earn my way as well. I wanted to expand on what was already there.”
She looks like she wants to yawn, but her gaze slowly comes back around to me after doing a slow perusal of the place. It’s getting busier after the dinner rush, not the other way around. “Running an empire is probably hard work.”
“I guess so.”
“It doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else,” she adds.
“Not really.”
“Or do you think it could if you wanted it to? Isn’t the point of life supposed to be working smarter? Or don’t work if you don’t have to? Find something you love and do it?”
“I love what I do.” I sound defensive, and I know it.
“Okay.” She wants to change the subject. But unlike me, she’s good at it. It gives me a glimpse of what she would be like if she was taken out on an actual date and she was actually trying. She wouldn’t try to botch it like the first one we went on. “What else?”
I made a perfectly good list of facts about me, which she dismissed without so much as a glance. Now, I’m lost, and I don’t have anything else. I’m terrified that in two seconds, it’s going to become apparent there is nothing about us that could have ever connected. I’m afraid she’s going to think I’m only surface-level deep, that my whole life is work and money, driving to the top, and climbing rungs. There’s always a top on top of a top. I don’t think anyone is ever satisfied with having everything. My family doesn’t live like that. We might have lots of money, but it’s poured into investments, businesses, savings, property, and donations.
“My parents are kind of minimalists. You wouldn’t know they had money if you didn’t know,” I say.
“So they live like doctor or lawyer-level rich?”
I think about their house in a neighborhood where most people are actually doctors and lawyers. “Their house blends in with everyone else’s. Their vehicles, too.”
“So, not overly showy. Got it. And you? You like to live the same way, or you have some high-level penthouse that overlooks the city?”
I do own one, but it happens to be in the building I also own, and I don’t live there, so I don’t think it counts. “I have a decent place,” I say vaguely.
“That’s probably code for something super awesome, but you’re trying to downplay it because you think I’m not going to like hearing the truth?”
“I…no. It’s a warehouse condo.” I own that building, too. I have to live somewhere, so I thought the top floor was a good choice. I probably should have made it into two condos instead of one giant beast, but I couldn’t choose, and then the architect I hired seemed convinced that breaking it up would have been a crime.
“That’s pretty cool.” She perks up. Does she like architecture? Who doesn’t like warehouse condos, though? “Is it old and full of brick and wooden beams?”
“Yes, and the windows are to die for. They’re those curl up in the seat and overlook the whole city kind.”
“Ooh. I’m getting the best mental picture.”
Her smile. Lord. It’s breathtaking. The way she tilts her head and the way the lights in this place hit her hair is equally a punch to the lungs of amazingness. The red-gold blend is in perfect ratio. There’s probably a word for it, but without looking up a color palette or wheel at the moment, I can’t think of anything. Sand is all wrong, and copper doesn’t even half get there.