I quickly corrected my features, but it was too late. “I?—”
“I know what I look like, Parker. I also know that you shouldn’t judge people by their appearance. Graduating summa cum laude is a point of pride for me, and being a blonde gal with big tits doesn’t affect my brain.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay, fair. I’m sorry. That’s great you got those offers, and youshouldbe proud. I got a business degree at Stanford, though I only graduated magna cum laude, so you’ve got me beat there.”
She puffed up like an unfairly gorgeous peacock. “Business was top of my list for what I figured you studied. What about the others?”
“Avery did business too. Logan didn’t get a degree, he just took classes that caught his interest. Mostly the same for Hunter since his music career took off when he graduated high school.”
“I thought the record label was newer?” Clover asked as she assembled another crepe.
I was more surprised than I should’ve been. “Do youactuallynot know who he is?”
She tilted her head like a confused pup. “What do you mean?”
“He’s Hunter Hartwell. The rock star?”
The blatant shock on her face told me everything I needed to know. She had no idea who the fuck we were, and she wanted us anyway. That didn’t mean she couldn’t be formulating ways to take advantage now that she’d been told, but for the moment, some of my worries were assuaged.
“Are you shitting me right now?” Clover yanked out her phone, and I watched her search his name and scroll. “Well, now I feel stupid. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him and got sidetracked on figuring out why. That’s so cool! I definitely hadhis debut album and didn’t realize what he’d gotten up to after he stopped performing and recording. I guess a record label feels like a natural progression.”
“I thought so too. He has a knack for scoping out talent.” We kept talking while working our way through the rest of the food. I gave sparse details about my childhood, and she returned the favor as we sized each other up. She lit up when she talked about her fathers, about Meadow—whom I vaguely knew through Hunter’s contacts—and her nephew.
Every word weakened my resolve against her as she made it blatantly obvious why my pack mates had been drawn in.
Fuck me.
I couldn’t help staring at the way her lips formed her vowels or the sparkle in her eyes when she got excited about a story. I nearly perished when I said something that made her laugh and she gently shoved me, the brief contact making me forget what I’d even said to begin with.
“Can I ask a question that’s almost guaranteed to make you be weird about it?”
What on earth could she possibly ask? “Um, sure?”
“What do youdowith your money? Like, what’s the point of having that much? I’d be building libraries and hospitals and providing free school supplies to all the kiddos if I had bank like you guys do.”
“We do a fair bit of that through registered charities,” I replied carefully.
“Yeah, but philanthropy on that scale usually turns around and benefits the donors as much, if not more, than the recipients. It’s like an emotional get-out-of-jail-free card so you feel like you’re doing something good while still helping yourself.”
“Something wrong with helping yourself and doing good at the same time?”
Clover shrugged. “Have you ever looked at someone struggling and fixed the issue for them simply because you could?”
“I…no, I guess not.”
“That’s what I would do if I was rich. I know it’s not a fix for everything, but you’d be surprised how little money is actually required to change someone’s life.” She glanced past me as our server appeared to bring us fresh drinks. When she departed, Clover focused back on me. “Bet you five grand would give her peace of mind, cover her rent for a while.”
“Are you asking me to give her five thousand dollars?” Why would she want me to give a random person money? That wasn’t the modus operandi of a gold digger.
“No, I’m just saying. You probably come across a ton of people whose lives could be made better by what you carry around in your pocket, and I want to plant the seed that there’s nothing stopping you from improving lives. Because you don’t really get to see your donation dollars at work when you give to big foundations, right? You could get those warm fuzzies immediately if you sacrifice the tax write-off.”
When our server came by again to check on us, I was still ruminating on Clover’s words. “What percentage of your tips do you keep?”
The server blinked at me. “Ninety percent, sir. Ten percent is split with the rest of the staff.”
“Would I be out of line to ask how much your rent is per month?”
Clover’s eyes were hot on me, but I remained focused on my task.
