Michelle damn near ran back to the truck, hopped in, and shut it.
“Pretty thing,” his mother said to him. “Thought you’d have learned by now not to get mixed up with her kind.”
“Her kind?” Dex asked, annoyed.
“Don’t sass me. I’ve watched you drag your tail around, hung up on these kinds of women your whole life. I see the way you look at her. I just thought you’d seen reason with it by now.” She pulled him in for a hug.
The words to defend Michelle were on the tip of his tongue, and if Michelle had been there to hear the way his mother was talking about her, he’d have said them. But the other part of him knew that there was a truth to his mother’s warning. Michelle was a wonderful woman. That didn’t make his mother any more wrong that Michelle wasn’t right for him.
“You’re a smart man. You just need to stop acting stupid,” she said, and he couldn’t deny her words. Wanting Michelle was stupid. There was no long-term gain to be had. No more than a fun night at a time. And he’d just brought her to his mama’s house and had that pointed out to him. They were acquaintances.
“Call me if you need anything,” he said to his mother and hugged her back.
“Thank you for the groceries, son.”
“You’re welcome, Mama.”
She loved him and he loved her, but her truth stung. Because she was just saying what he knew deep down to be true. There was nowhere to go with Michelle other than down. Their lives were too different.
He only had a few hours left of training to complete with her, but deep down, he knew that’d never be enough.
“Sorry about that,” Dex said, climbing into the truck. “My mom can be chatty.”
Michelle nodded. Yeah, she’d gathered that. It was no secret that his mother didn’t like her and was being polite about it. Michelle was used to being too much or not enough. Her own parents looked at her like a failure with a case of wanderlust. They knew she’d never be more than her family’s money and title. Why should Dex’s mother see her as anything else?
But what bothered her more was Dex’s expression. Michelle had never thought about Dex being beneath her—at least not in the classist sense—but when his mother had used the term “handyman,” Dex’s eyes had flared.
Michelle hadn’t realized how much her background or where she came from bothered him, but if she’d needed another sign that they didn’t fit together outside the bedroom, there it was.
She was stuck in the middle of two shitty perspectives and hated them both. Which was why she liked Dex so much. He let her be, act, behave, and feel however she wanted. Even if she was terrified that it was all pretend.
Was her entire life now some fantasy? Her business was struggling, and as much as she wanted her success at these survival lessons to show her that she could be independent even if her boutique went bankrupt, that wasn’t true. Not at all. It would crush her.
Now that she and Dex were so close to the end, she realized that this whole mission to be an independent woman with him had been doomed from the start.
Their worlds didn’t mesh. Just look at the way he trained people to be independent. How could he ever be with a woman who could barely stand on her own two feet?
And the way he was with his mom. Was that an indication of what a real relationship would be like with him if Michelle ever opened herself to it?
“You’re in SAR,” Michelle blurted out.
“Yeah,” Dex agreed in an obvious tone.
“You teach people to be independent. To survive.”
His eyes snapped to hers. “Are you going to give me hell for helping my mother?”
“Of course not,” Michelle shot out quickly. Because she wasn’t. She thought Dex was wonderful for how he helped his mother. It showed that deep down, he cared and took care of others even when it was hard. Yet his mother relied on him in a way that Michelle would never want. Not in a way that her parents insisted she be dependent on them, but perhaps unhealthy all the same.
Michelle had experienced her fill of men saying one thing and expecting another. She had to be her own person. Dex had been helping her achieve that goal…until he’d saved the day. Like the first night they were together. She’d literally crawled on her knees to him. He’d never had faith in her ability to survive on her own, which was why he’d walked her in circles. He’d let her struggle until she broke, and then he’d offered a cozy sleeping bag. And she’d caved. Instead of being independent, she’d depended. On him.
“I just wonder what it is you really want,” Michelle finally said.
He frowned at her. His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Depends on the person.”
Michelle glanced down. That was an honest answer. And all she could wonder now was what kind of person she really was. How did Dex really see her? She’d been fighting to be more, to be her own person. To be adventurous and capable. But did he see that in her? Did he think she was weak?
Her thoughts were spiraling. Hell, she didn’t know what to call him. Trainer? Friend? Lover? She felt like she’d spent the last eighteen hours in a lust-induced, awesome bubble of fun, and now she had to come back to earth.