lifted her gaze, mildly affronted. “Why is that shocking? I was a front-runner.”
“I didn’t know there was such a thing. This is the same school where you were making websites?”
“To build our online presence from the earliest age, yes. I was eleven when I started and built it into something that would have been a decent calling card today, but it’s long been taken down.” She was still annoyed at her hard work disappearing into cyberspace.
“This is why you wanted your site to stand out from the crowd?”
“Everything was a contest.” Understatement of the decade. She tasted another bite of stingray. It was smoky and stringy, but tender and not too fishy. Tolerable.
“Which means no friends there, either?” he guessed.
“Some girls were friendly, but my mother’s view was that a consolation sash like Miss Congeniality is for those who need consoling—something winners don’t require, so there was no need to aspire to achieve it. She once played a vicious mind game with a rival, though, by pretending she was trying to win that particular title.”
“Your mother competed?”
“Won every major title, yes.”
“And yet she had no money for an apartment?”
“She has expensive tastes. And she was angry with my father. Me, too, I think.”
“Why?”
Luli sighed, hating to face this head-on.
“There’s renown in keeping the crown in the family and the prize money I won paid for my school, but how can you claim to be the most beautiful woman in the world if your own daughter is threatening to take the title from you?”
“She sounds like a lovely person. Did no one notice you dropped out and disappeared?”
“She told people I’d gone to live with relatives. A few schoolmates inquired online and I backed her up. The reality was too...”
To this day, thinking of her mother’s casual divesting of her sent a lightning strike of agony into her heart. Her mother had been purely self-serving. It was why she’d had an affair with a married man in the first place. Getting pregnant had probably been one more way to squeeze support out of him. One more thing she hadn’t thought through and wound up regretting. She had considered her daughter a commodity and certainly never loved her the way mothers were supposed to love their children. It had left Luli with a gaping emptiness in her soul, one Mae hadn’t filled, but had at least acknowledged and attempted to paper over.
“I wasn’t sorry to be away from my mother,” Luli admitted quietly. “I saw no point in telling people what had really happened. The best-case scenario would have been that she was arrested and I would be living as an orphan there, without prospects. Not even at school any longer.”
“Did you want to compete? Or did she force you to do that, too?”
“I saw opportunity and applied myself. I only competed in national titles for girls in the younger categories. I left before I moved into the teen contests. I’m confident I would do well in the global pageants if I entered today. It’s one of my contingency plans, if I’m deported. There’s quite an investment up front, though. You have to win all the feeder pageants. It’s a long game.” She was talking too fast. “That’s the only reason I set up an account for myself in Venezuela. If I’m forced to draw from it, I promise I’ll pay you back with interest.”
He didn’t immediately refuse her, only narrowed his eyes. “Pageants sound like a path to modeling. Would it be so bad to start there?”
“In Venezuela? The minute I gained any sort of publicity, my mother would come back into my life. I’d prefer to avoid that.”
“That’s the main reason you don’t want to be deported? Your mother?”
“Sí.” She poked at the stingray flesh, unable to take another bite of it.
“Stop torturing that. It’s already dead.” He took her barely touched plate and set it atop his emptied one. “I’ll finish it if you’re only going to play with it.”
“I’ll clean toilets if that becomes the only option available to me,” she told him, clutching her empty hands in her lap. “I will pursue programming, which I know can pay well, but it’s also a long game. My physical attributes mean I can aim for a higher and faster return if I try modeling or something like it. It only makes sense that I try. Don’t you agree?”
She held her breath, waiting for his assessment. So far he hadn’t pulled any punches. If he said she wasn’t attractive enough, she would rethink her strategy.
His gaze swept across her face in an almost tangible caress, like a cool scarf of silk wafted over her skin.
“I can’t deny you’re beautiful.” The gravel in his tone had her reflexively holding her breath, waiting for a strange all-over ache to subside.
Then he looked away and his expression hardened, making something catch in her chest. She wanted him to keep looking at her, keep sending that electric current through her that held such possibility.
“I’m only asking that you take me with you and give me time to establish myself,” she pleaded softly. “I’ll continue my work on Mae’s investments in exchange for accommodation and meals—”
“Quite the bargain, considering your minimalist approach to both.”
“I would need a small loan for clothing and makeup, but I can continue wearing this uniform for office work—”
“Like hell you can.”
She closed her eyes, angry with herself for trying too hard. Judges could always smell desperation.
Ignoring the sting behind her eyes, she considered other avenues of persuasion. He hadn’t seemed interested in sex in exchange for favors, maybe because he sensed her inexperience in that department? Should she tell him she’d read up on that particular topic? Extensively? She was always willing to put in the work to do better.
Soft footsteps sounded. The maid arrived with braised duck on a bed of colorful, julienned vegetables.
“Take that one back,” he said of Luli’s plate before the maid could set it. “You enjoy it. We’ll share this one. I’m getting full.” He sent Luli a droll look as he set the single plate between them.
The maid curtsied and hurried away with her full plate and fresh gossip. Luli imagined she would be accused of sleeping with Mrs. Chen’s grandson very soon. Little did they know he had already turned her down.
“Mr. Dean—”
He dipped his chin in warning.
“Gabriel?” She said it softly, not wanting to be overheard when it felt so much like an overstep. She was still the youngest on staff and always addressed others formally or at least with a respectful auntie.
“Eat,” he commanded. “My turn to talk.”
He
