It took Lia several panicky heartbeats to decide whether to be
alarmed or thrilled. Obviously, he hadn’t yet decided to go along with Ethan’s wild scheme.
“Awesome.” She managed the comeback without a trace of irony. “Does that go both ways?”
Paul stopped concentrating on the road and glanced her way. “What do you mean?”
“You want to know everything about me.” Something reckless had taken ahold of her. “Are you going to let me get to know you, as well?”
“Why would you want to do that?” While Paul’s tone remained neutral, a muscle bunched in his cheek.
“Because it’s what normal people do. They exchange information and feel each other out.”
Feel each other out? The phrase sounded flirtatious, and heaven knew she’d give anything if he’d just smile at her, but Paul didn’t seem to hear it that way.
“Is that what you did with Ethan?” The tightness in his voice took her aback.
“Why would you ask about him?”
“I still can’t figure out your relationship with my brother. How much is he paying you for this little charade?”
Now she understood where Paul was going with his questions. “He agreed to cover what I’m losing in income for a couple weeks.”
“How much?” Paul asked.
“I don’t know.” Lia scrunched up her face as she calculated. “No week is the same. I get paid by the client and that varies.”
“Ballpark it for me.”
“Including tips, it averages to about eight hundred dollars a week.”
For the first time Paul looked taken aback. “That’s it?”
Spoken like a man who drove a luxury SUV and lived at the beach. No doubt he couldn’t fathom Lia’s frugal ways any more than she understood paying more for a single pair of shoes than it cost her to eat for an entire month.
“That’s it.” Lia believed in the equitable exchange of money for goods or services. “All I want is what’s fair.”
Paul gave her a skeptical look. “What if I paid you fifty thousand dollars to go away and never come back?”
For several seconds Lia pondered the fancy truck she could buy with such an enormous sum. For six months she’d been stuck in Charleston while she saved enough to replace her wrecked vehicle. Accepting Paul’s outrageous offer would enable her to return to her nomadic lifestyle in a few days.
“You said you wanted to get to know me better,” she said. “Well, the first thing you should know is that I’m not motivated by money.”
“Which is exactly what you’d say,” Paul countered, “if your endgame would guarantee you a greater payout.”
“Are you suspicious of me in particular or people in general?”
“You have to see that I have good reason to doubt you,” he said.
“I really don’t see it at all,” she shot back, wishing that he’d stop toying with her.
Did he know about her past? Bile rose in her throat as she imagined his disgust. But if he’d dug up her secrets, he’d confront her directly. She studied his profile while her heart thundered in her ears and realized that fearing that he knew all about her background was making her come across as guilty. Lia breathed in for a count of four and released the air just as slowly. What did it matter if Paul knew her story? His good opinion shouldn’t matter to her.
Paul studied her the whole time she was striving for calm. “You didn’t answer me about taking fifty thousand to disappear.”
Lia considered what her mother’s reaction would have been to Paul’s offer. Jen Marsh had a complicated relationship with money and many of her attitudes had rubbed off on her daughter. Lia lived frugally, avoiding debt, buying only what she needed, living with less stuff. But Jen Marsh took her disdain for spending one step beyond obsessive after what she’d experienced growing up.
“You don’t have to pay me anything to drop this whole charade and vanish from your lives,” Lia said, noticing a subtle easing in the tension around Paul’s mouth. The desire to gain his trust prompted her to add, “Whatever you and Ethan decide is fine with me.”