Oh my god,stop.
Meg marched over to the counter and downed the whiskey. It burned her throat and warmed her stomach, leaving her with the faintly spicy aftertaste. “Take the money back, Theo. I mean it.”
“Impossible. It’s paid. Your semester is set. End of story.” The playful edge she’d seen when he showed up in the bar was nowhere in evidence tonight. This Theo was intense enough to send her rocking back on her heels. Meg was in over her head and sinking fast, but she was determined to keep her eye on the prize.
She set the glass on the counter with a soft clink. “I’m not a whore.”
“I’m aware of that.” Not even a flicker of surprise or outrage. “If you were a sex worker, you would have made ten times that much for the night we spent together.”
Her jaw dropped. Meg couldn’t decide if he’d just complimented or insulted her, but she didn’t like it one bit. A tiny voice inside her marveled at what she could do with twenty grand, but she shut it down. Having sex for money was—No. She didn’t care if other people did it. It wasn’t her business. But Meg had been accused of being a whore her entire life, and she’d be damned before she lived up to the slur.
Theo sipped his drink as if he had all the time in the world. “Why does it bother you so much to let someone else help?”
His words too closely mirrored Cara’s from earlier. If she explained her situation to Cara, her friend would understand. She’d flirted with true poverty enough times that she’d be able to put herself in Meg’s shoes and empathize. Trying to explain her realities to Theo… she might as well have tried to describe red to a blind man. His world and hers were so different, they were on different planets.
Meg straightened her spine. “I don’t need your help.”
“On the contrary. Unless you had a stash of money in your mattress for just this occasion, youdidneed my help.” Nothing showed in those blue eyes—nothing except a heat she did everything in her power to ignore. Theo drained half his whiskey. “Your degree is important to you. I don’t have to know you well to know that. Just like I know that you weren’t going to be able to make the remainder of that payment. I have more money than one person can spend in a lifetime. It’s nothing to donate it to a worthy cause.”
She stood there and let the words wash over her. They picked at the shields she worked so hard to keep in place, burrowingdeep and spreading their poison through her entire being. All of it boiled down to one word.Charity. She wasn’t a person to Theo, not really. She was a broken thing he thought his money could fix.
If she had any whiskey left, she would have thrown it in his face.
If she was Cara, she would have thrown the glass, too.
Meg marched around the counter and into the kitchen. She grabbed the glass out of Theo’s hand and downed the remainder of his whiskey. It wasn’t enough to drown out the words circling, pecking, pecking, pecking. They mixed with older, harsher, words from her past.Whore. Good for nothing. Waste of space. Failure. She reached for the bottle blindly and nearly knocked it off the counter.
Theo caught it before she cost him even more money. Concern flickered across his face. “What’s wrong?”
“What could be wrong? I’m a whore who’s not even being paid her full worth.” She grabbed the bottle from him and poured a double. Meg didn’t drink much these days, but the current situation called for it.
Theo covered the top of the glass with one of his big hands. “Whore is a derogatory term, princess. I didn’t put that word in your mouth.”
“How very woke of you.” She tried to slide the glass toward her, but he kept it trapped. “Theo, I am so angry, I am in danger of throwing something expensive that I can’t afford to replace.” Which accounted for everything in the damn apartment. “Let me drink.”
“Throw something if it’ll make you feel better.”
His dismissive tone rubbed against her skin like sandpaper. Of course he wouldn’t care if she destroyed everything in this place because he could afford to replace it without blinking or worrying about where his next meal would come from. The sheerprivilege he displayed staggered her. She glared. “Put the money back, Theo. That’s what I came here to say, and now that I’ve said it, I’m leaving.”
Meg made it a grand total of one step before his voice stopped her. “No.” The word fell between them, an almost physical thing that sank any chance she had of getting out of there without making a further fool of herself.
She turned. Theo wasn’t leaning against the counter any longer. He’d halved the distance between them and there was a look in his blue eyes…
Something akin to possession.
Meg licked her lips, roots growing from the soles of her feet and binding her in place beneath the heat of his gaze. “You don’t own me.”
“I don’t want to own you, princess.” He took another step toward her and, this close, it was impossible to ignore the differences in their size. Meg wasn’t short. Theo was just that tall. He tangled his fingers in her hair and gave it a light tug she felt all the way to her toes. “Stay.”
“Oh, fuck right off.” She pushed his chest, but he didn’t even bother to pretend she was strong enough to move him. “You can’t just lay on the smolder and expect me to drop my panties and jump on your cock. You… You…” She ran out of words to convey her fury and screeching at him like a banshee might feel good but would accomplish nothing.
Meg did the next best thing.
She kissed him.
3
Meg had every intention of ending the contact before it began. She was proving a point, damn it. But Theo dug those big hands into her hair and tugged her close, his big body enfolding her own.
