My cheeks flamed hot as I looked back up at him. “You’re worth standing up for.”
Goddammit. He was going to make me cry.
He didn’t seem embarrassed or awkward though. I took several long swallows of my orange juice to cover getting my emotions back under control. Jesus, what? I had one near-death experience, and now I was a wimpy cry-baby? Was that it?
I shook my head and sat up straighter. “Anyway, I just appreciate it. So thank you.”
He smiled at me, and for once, I let myself stare at him.
“You’re so different than I thought you’d be.”
He rolled his eyes, and his jaw went a little tense. “So I’ve finally convinced you I’m not a groveling little boy hungry for everyone else’s approval after all?”
I breathed out. “Okay, I deserved that.”
But he shook his head quickly. “I’m sorry. We cleared the air last night. I’m not one to hold grudges.”
To which I laughed out loud. “Aren’t you? It’s okay. I respect a good grudge.”
The corners of his lips turned up. “I might have made some snap judgments about you over the years too.”
“So tell me about who you are now. I’ve met Emmett the Master. But not Emmett the man. What do you, like, do in your spare time?” I popped a big bite of scone in my mouth as he shrugged.
“What’s there to tell? I work with my father running a multinational renewable energy company.”
“And you love it, don’t you? You were always geeking out about math and science stuff growing up, if I remember correctly.”
His brow furrowed a little. “You noticed what I was into back then?”
I rolled my eyes. “I mean, you always had that Rubik’s cube with you. And you did math competitions or something?”
He ruefully admitted, “I was a State Mathlete finalist my last three years of high school.”
I laughed out loud. “Exactly.”
“What can I say?” He rolled his eyes. “I knew how to impress the chicks.”
“High school girls are idiots. Including me.” I looked him in the eye as I said it and hoped he could understand what I wasn’t saying.
I knew I’d been a bitch to him back in the day. It had never been about him. He wasn’t the only one who could obsess about how things looked on the outside. There was a time when I’d been so desperate to keep up appearances that being thought of as a bitch was infinitely preferable to the pity and scorn I might’ve faced if anyone knew the truth. It was the only defense mechanism of a scared teenage girl.
I opened my mouth to try to explain some of this to him, but he was already talking.
“Yeah, well, it’s not a problem anymore. Now, I have the opposite problem.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He gave a long-suffering sigh. “You know Darlington mothers. Do you know how many Sunday brunches I’ve sat through that are such obviously desperate setups to pair off their gold-digging daughters? It’s not just here. In Atlanta, the women learn my last name and only see dollar signs.” His mouth turned down. “It’s disgusting.”
I nodded, feeling my cheeks warm again as I shoved my mouth full of more scone. “That must suck.”
He nodded, looking distantly toward the window. “My mom met my dad before the money, when he was just an MIT grad struggling to pay off his student loans. It’s one of the things I’ve always been jealous of. He knows she loves him just for him, ya know?” His eyes came back to me, and I nodded, mouth still full.
“That’s so rare in the world we live in. All these people here—” He gestured around us, and I knew he meant the opulence we found ourselves in. “—it’s all so fake. They’re just using each other like it’s a transaction.”
I swallowed down the scone, then reached for my juice again. After taking another long sip, I looked back at him. “I can’t even imagine the kind of relationship your mom and dad have. It’s completely different from the way I grew up with my parents. I mean, I like to think that at one time they at least liked each other…” My voice drifted off. “But by the end—” I shook my head. “—I mean, he traveled so often for business I barely ever saw him.”
“I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for your loss. He died a few years ago, right?”
I shook my head, denying his sympathy. “It’s fine. He wasn’t that great of a guy.” Understatement of the century.
“Anyway, I was groomed to be just like my mom. To be the perfect debutante so I could capture the perfect man. The culture down here is messed up.”
“So is that why you’re doing this?” he asked, and by the way his forehead was scrunched, I knew he was really curious. “As an F-U to that way of life, or what?”