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“Get used to it.”
“Back at you.”
She crossed her arms, and they both endured a particularly unbearable version of “The Loco-Motion,” followed by a country ballad that made her fidgety.
“Do you need a restroom?”
“Stop asking me if I have to pee,” she snapped.
“Stop squirming like a three-year-old, and I will.”
“I’m squirming because this song is so awful.”
“You were the one who wanted to listen to the radio. You had your turn to choose the music. Now it’s mine.”
“For how long?”
“Until we get wherever it is we’re going.”
She snorted.
“What?” he asked.
“If this is a trick to get information from me, you should know that it’s not going to work.”
“If you’re irritating me on purpose because you hope I’ll lose my temper and blurt out something you can use against me, you should know that’s not going to work, either.”
“You think I’m being irritating?”
“I think you might be the single most irritating person I’ve ever met.”
She crossed her arms and looked down. When she glanced back at him, she was smiling again, proud and defiant, and he could almost convince himself he hadn’t seen it.
That instant gleam of moisture in her eyes, the widening of her nostrils.
He’d hurt her feelings.
She was so easy to hurt. Such a strange combination of tough and vulnerable. He didn’t know how to act around her. She made him feel like a giant, squeezing the goose to death in the hope it would lay a golden egg.
“Just quit messing with the stereo,” he said, trying to be reasonable. “Enjoy … whatever this is.”
“I think it’s Garth Brooks. I’m pretty sure I made out with a guy in a closet to this song once.”
“Why were you in a closet?”
Damn it, why did he keep asking questions in response to her inane conversation? She drew them from him against his will. He didn’t care why she’d made out with a guy in a closet. He didn’t want to hear about it.
“It was a party game.”
“Sounds like fun.” The statement didn’t come out as disdainful as he’d meant it to.
Ashley was exactly the kind of woman who’d spent her adolescence making out with guys in closets. Going to the beach all the time, prancing around in a sparkly bikini, playing dunking games with boys in the surf as an excuse to get groped. Working on her tan and drinking beer in the middle of the afternoon. Grinding sand into the floor mats of her cheap, dented car.
He’d never envied people like her. He’d pitied them.
Heberto disdained them. We work harder than they do. We deserve to have more.
And Roman did have more. Or he would. He had the Cadillac, Ojito Enterprises, a growing reputation for putting together innovative development deals and always coming out on top. He had the trust of Heberto Zumbado—Miami’s most successful Cuban real estate entrepreneur—and the key to all the doors Heberto would open for him. He had a nice condo, a country club membership, a beautiful girlfriend whose ambitions moved in lockstep with his own.
