Page 54 of Second Time Around

“And here I am,” she said, sweeping her slender arm around in a graceful gesture. “In bed with a billionaire.”

“Ah, so you’re only sleeping with me for my money,” he joked. When she flinched, his attention sharpened. “I was kidding.”

“I know. It’s just a sensitive topic with me. One of the bartenders at Stratus really did go after wealthy customers for the gifts they would give her.”

“And it shocked you.”

“You can take the girl out of Macungie but you can’t take Macungie out of the girl.”

“I’m glad it shocked you.” He combed his fingers through her hair where it spread on the pillow. “So you’ve made your fortune?”

She snorted. “I’m working on my second million because I hear the second one is easier than the first.”

“Smart-ass.” And then he waited, letting the silence draw out.

Finally she looked at him, her brown eyes snapping with anger. “Would I be bartending at Stratus if I’d made my fortune?”

“That would be a rhetorical question,” he said. “What are you leaving out?”

“Why does it matter?” She started to roll away from him, but he snaked his arm around her waist to keep her close to him.

“Because I want to know you. Not like Petra.”

She went still, her body tense, her face turned away. He thought she wasn’t going to answer him, but she suddenly looked back at him, her eyes liquid with unshed tears. “My mother tried to build a barricade against death by buying things. Jewelry. Clothes. Shoes. China. Crystal. She ran up astronomical credit card bills. I’m still paying them off.”

“You’re not responsible for her debts.”

She looked away again. “She took out new cards with my name on them when hers hit their limits. I didn’t know.”

“A good lawyer could get you out of those.” But shock rippled through him at the betrayal of a mother using her daughter’s name without telling her. And then crushing her daughter under a mountain of debt. The monumental selfishness of it brought on a wave of fury.

“Oh, I’ve done everything I could to reduce it,” she said, her voice utterly flat. “The house went because she’d taken out a second mortgage. The car, gone. I returned everything I could. I negotiated payment schedules. I got interest rates lowered.” An ironic smile twisted the soft curves of her lips. “I’m quite an expert on credit card debt. But the truth is that she bought all the stuff, so it needs to be paid for.”

Another wave of fury washed over him, followed by the unaccustomed sense of being powerless. For all his vast fortune, he couldn’t help her, even though whatever debt she had would be just a drop in the bucket for him. But she would never accept his money.

She must have read his silence as disapproval because she said, “My mother was terrified of dying. I can’t blame her for that.”

His answer was to gather her up in his arms and cradle her against his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said.

He felt her resistance soften until she relaxed into him with a tiny hitch in her breathing. “I felt horrible for being angry with her even as I mourned her.”

“You had every right to be angry.” He stroked her hair as though she were a child. Maybe at that moment she was one, a child betrayed by her mother.

“I’ve never admitted that to anyone before, so we’re even,” she said, her breath whispering over his chest.

He wanted to shelter her in his arms and fend off the world for her, a protectiveness he’d never experienced before. Ironic, since she clearly didn’t need or want him to.

Even more ironic that Petra would have welcomed his newly discovered desire to play the male defender but he had felt the compulsion to escape from her.

Maybe it all boiled down to the fact that he didn’t really want to commit himself. He was too restless, too dissatisfied with his life to allow another person to share it.

“What time do you have to be at work tomorrow?” he asked before he thought too much about his flaws.

“Ten,” she said, surprise evident in her voice.

“Then you can stay the night here. My limo is at your disposal to go home in the morning.”

He felt her start and wondered what the hell he was doing.