Page 26 of Billionaire’s Game

“Undergrad and graduate. It was awesome. Especially if you love the outdoors. It’s beautiful in the springtime. My mom has a place in the country. I love it there.”

“It’s just you and your mom?”

I nodded. For some reason, I wanted to share with him what I shared with few others. “I never knew my dad.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and I truly thought he meant it. Most people just said it to be polite, but I could tell from his eyes that he was genuinely sorry for me. It wasn’t that he felt sorry for me. He actually was empathetic.

“What about your family? Have you always lived here in Florida?”

He nodded. “My dad is a lawyer. He used to be really involved behind the scene in politics in D.C. He met my mother who was from here and moved here.”

“D.C. lawyer, huh? That’s pretty impressive.”

He shrugged it off. “You’re pretty impressive yourself. Jude mentioned you have a PhD?”

I wanted to kick Jude. I nodded. “Yep.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Wow.”

I shrugged. “I skipped a few grades and was always good at school. It’s no big deal.”

“I’m not sure why you’re downplaying it. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

“To me, it was just something to do. There wasn’t much going on in my town.” I had grown up in a small town, but not too far from a major city. However, I didn’t tell Magnus that.

“I’m sure there are other things to do in West Virginia than earn a PhD.”

Of course, he was right, but I was tired of being the subject of conversation just because I happened to be smarter than average. When people found out, they seemed to lose sight of me and wanted to ask me questions about my IQ, or worse they’d ask questions about my parents, as if trying to figure out whether or not being intelligent ran in the family. Which meant I had to ignore the look of disappointment on their faces when I explained I didn’t know my father and that my mother was pretty average, just a hard-working woman in a male-dominated field.

“There’s nothing wrong with being smarter than your average person. You shouldn’t try to hide it.”

“I don’t try to hide it,” I lied. Sometimes I did, but Magnus didn’t need to know that. “I just hate dealing with people’s reactions once they find out. It’s amazing how people treat you differently when they’re intimidated by you. Or they treat you like some sort of freak and want nothing to do with you.” With that last statement, I was referring to kids in school.

“Their loss, my gain.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

His comment had been unexpected and stated matter-of-factly. I truly believed he meant what he’d said. So not only was he gorgeous, but he was also a genuinely nice guy. Resisting Magnus’s charms was going to be hard, especially when he was so effortlessly charming.

“I’m just being honest. I like hanging out with you. Simple fact.” We paused at a stoplight and he took his hands off the wheel and said, “I’d like to hang out with you more often if you’d let me.”

I sighed and looked away from him. I knew that it would be hard to resist his seemingly innocent request since I found myself liking him more and more, and I was running out of reasons to not date him. I didn’t really have reasons though… more like excuses if I were honest with myself.

“Ok, enough with that topic of conversation. Let’s talk about Brain Pain level questions. You know, the hard-hitting questions.”

“I didn’t think Brain Pain did any hard-hitting questions.”

“I’ve never seen the show before,” I confessed. “Besides those few clips we watched on your phone the other day.”

“You haven’t missed much,” he said, and we smiled at each other before he turned his attention back to the road...not that he needed to, the car was pretty cool and seemed to be driving itself. I felt like I was in a dream.

“Ok, ask me a hard-hitting question that you think Brain Pain would ask.”

I narrowed my eyes. “If you had to be any fruit, what would you want to be and why?”