feel better? I swear to God, if my father wasn’t wholeheartedly convinced that you were the only one who could do this job, I would walk out the door right now and gladly never see you again.”
“Well, I guess I should be thankful for small favors. One thing, though, are you going to be this screechy the whole time? If so, I will need to invest in earplugs. Your voice is grating.”
Grating? She sputtered. “You have a lot of nerve. I don’t know if I should be impressed by your decided lack of common sense or if I should feel pity for you because you’re an overwhelming idiot.”
He snapped his fingers with a smile. “Earplugs it is.”
She growled. The man was insufferable. “This room is about to lose its murder-free status because I’m going to kill you in your sleep.”
“Careful, making threats like that is a felony. I’d hate to have to arrest you. Although, you sitting in jail would definitely be a safe place. But I can’t promise that the accommodations are superior to what we have right here.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Princess, you’ll find that I dare much. Keep pushing and you’ll find out just how far I’m willing to go.”
There was something about the way he held her gaze that sent a dangerous thrill arcing through her nerve endings. There was no pushing him around—no bulldozing him. Men crumbled when she pushed. Not Rian. He not only pushed back, he dared her to push harder. There was something electric dancing between them even if neither wanted to admit it. And that stubborn mouth had the most sensual lips she’d ever seen. So he wasn’t hard on the eyes, she grudgingly admitted, finding it hard to pull her gaze away when she realized she’d been staring a little too long. Rian would be the perfect guy to have angry, I-hate-you sex with. If she were into that kind of thing. “So if there’s no room service, how exactly do you plan to feed me?” she finally asked.
He pulled a brown square package from his backpack and tossed it at her. She caught it in confusion. “What the hell is this?”
“That, my dear, is a military-issue MRE. I think it’s meat loaf. Not bad but not great, either. I don’t want to oversell it.”
She dropped the package as if it were made of poison and it landed on the floor with a dull thud. “Are you kidding me? Those things have, like, three thousand calories. I can’t eat that.”
“They fill the belly. I suppose if you get hungry enough you’ll dig in.”
“You can’t be serious. We’re not at war. There is no reason why I should have to eat something meant for soldiers in the field. And I don’t believe you eat these, either. If you had a steady diet of MREs, you’d be fat as a tick.”
He rubbed his belly. “I guess I just have a fast metabolism.”
There was no winning with this man. She threw her hands up. “I guess I’ll starve. And when you return me to my father, starving and near death because I haven’t had any food or water, something tells me he won’t be hot to write you a check.”
He sighed dramatically. “You are the biggest pain. Fine, I’ll go get you something to eat, but I’m talking burgers and fries, not some fancy French froufrou stuff. Got it?”
She supposed that was a victory of some sort. “It’ll do for now. But if that’s how you eat normally, your arteries must be clogged with gunk.”
“Don’t worry about my arteries—they’re just fine.”
“Are you always this much of a jerk with all your clients?” she asked. “Because you have terrible manners. I can’t imagine you’re saving all of that just for me.”
“How about you, princess? Your manners aren’t exactly great, either. I would ask how you have any friends at all but then you’re rich, so that probably helps. People can put up with a lot if they’re getting perks. Do you hand out Coach bags for the ones that hang around the longest?”
She drew back, stung. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t know me and you certainly don’t know what my friends are like.”
“Oh, I have a pretty good idea. Don’t you remember I watched you all night last night? I hate to break it to you but I’m willing to bet you don’t have any true friends. All those people were doing was trashing your house—excuse me, it’s not even your house—trashing your mother’s house. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“They weren’t trashing the house,” she disagreed hotly. “And besides, we have a cleaning company coming in to pick up in the morning. My mom will never know.”
“That’s not the point. It’s not your place to trash. If you are throwing a raging party at a house—pick your own.”
She blinked back sudden tears. “Excuse me, I don’t think it’s your job to lecture me. You don’t know my family dynamics so butt out.”
“You’re right. And I don’t care about your family dynamics. All I know is that someone is out there pretty pissed off at your family and looking to take it out on anyone they can get their hands on. But you have to wonder what is it you guys did to piss someone off that bad.”
“Who said we pissed anyone off? My father is a very rich, influential man. Sometimes people are just envious of his success.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. Or maybe your dad stepped on too many people on his way to the top.”
“Look, you don’t get to talk about my dad that way. You don’t know him. He is the nicest man you’ll ever meet. He would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. But he shouldn’t be made to apologize for his success. He worked his ass off to get where he is right now and it’s shady people who think that they’re entitled to what someone else has that has put us in this position.”
Her heated answer surprised him enough to soften a little. “All right, you’ve made your point. All I’m saying is that you’re not making anything easier with your bad attitude.”
“And it’s my job to make your job easier?”
“Maybe if you weren’t so difficult, people would be more interested in helping you.”
She cocked her head at him. “And by people, do you mean you? Because I’m not looking for your approval.”
“Whatever, princess. All I’m saying is... Hell, forget it. You can’t hear anything that you don’t want to hear anyway.” He went to the door. “Stay here. I’m going to get your food. Don’t leave.”
And then he was gone. For a long moment she just stared at the door, his words banging around in her head. Why did she care what he thought? He was no one. But knowing that he thought so little of her, that all he saw was a spoiled heiress, pinched her hard. She was more than that. And she hadn’t always been this way. Growing up for the first part of her life in rural Italy, she’d been like a lot of other girls. It wasn’t until her parents split up and she had to travel between two different continents that things changed.
It sounded like more poor rich-girl problems but no one knew what it was like to be raised by nannies, rarely seeing her parents. Her mother was never around, always too busy finding the next man of the
