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She shrugged. “You never know.”
“Fine. Brown.”
Merritt wrinkled up her nose. “Brown?”
“Yeah.” He leaned close and gazed at her. “The exact shade of your eyes.”
She laughed. “Does that usually work with the women you date?”
“What do you think?”
Her eyes rolled for what felt like the hundredth time during that flight.
“And I don’t really date,” he said.
“Whatever.”
“I’m serious. I’ve never even had a steady girlfriend.”
“Never?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
“Then why in the world would you think we could pull this off?”
“Motivation. The point of all this is to convince my family that I’m capable of settling down and committing. I want my family to let me back in, to give me more responsibilities at the company, to see that I’m good at what I do and won’t let them down again.”
Whenever he talked about proving himself to his family, she could feel his desperation.
“I heard about your lawsuit,” she told him.
His eyebrows raised. “Are you stalking me online?”
“Adelia told me.”
“Ah.”
“I’m sorry you went through that.”
“I’d do it all again if I had the chance.”
“But it’s the reason your family gave the company to your sister, right? You’d still make the same choice, even after that?”
“I would defend my sister’s honor any day of the week, even if I lost everything. And it was all bogus anyway. I barely touched that guy. But after all he put me through, I wish I had. He deserved so much more than he got. And the fact that he walked away with a chunk of my family’s money really gets me.”
Merritt was touched by Gus’s loyalty to his sister. She hated to think of him assaulting anyone, though.
“So, I should probably know more about you too, right?” He obviously wanted to change the subject. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Aquamarine.”
“That’s very specific.”
“I love the color of the water in Lake Superior. It’s been my favorite color since I was little.”
Gus’s eyes widened. “Are you from Michigan?”
She nodded.