“Can we talk about what happened the night of the accident?”
She sits back in her chair. “It was dark already, I didn’t even get a look at the car that rammed into me. I wish I could say it was an accident or coincidence, but whoever it was had followed me from the beach until that point.”
“Any idea who would do something like that?”
“Oh, any of the hundreds of enemies my father has made over the years. I’m not surprised it happened. I’m just annoyed that I have to be watched twenty-four-seven because of it,” she rolls her eyes.
“I’m not that bad now, am I?” I lean across the table, her sexy eyes dilating when I do. She licks her lips, and I want to taste them again. Beautiful women are my weakness, there is no doubt about that, and this one is in a league of her own.
“Worse,” she grumbles, looking away.
“Want to walk off those macaroons?” I ask.
She smiles, nodding. I call over the waitress to request a to-go box and settle the bill, then we leave the coffee shop to take a walk through the park.
“It’s not you, you know,” she says when we sit on a bench near a small pond. “It’s having my privacy taken away by my father that pisses me off. This is the kind of thing I promised myself I wouldn’t let happen once I was old enough,” she shakes her head.
“Do you know what it’s like to be a kid and be the only one at parent’s evening with a bodyguard instead of a parent?” she lets out a mirthless laugh. “My father was never around, and my mother just sat at home, waiting for him. It was like nothing else existed for her.”
“I don’t know what that’s like, but I do know it isn’t the way a kid should grow up.” Looking at her now, I can see why she wears anger to cover all the pain inside of her. I wish I knew what to say to make everything okay. I don’t, so I sit beside her in comfortable silence.
She looks out over the water and breaks some pieces off a macaroon, sprinkling it for the ducks. She looks at me and smiles sadly. “We should get going. Thank you for today.”
I nod and we stand, walking back to her apartment in comfortable silence.
