AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Not often. I did have a close call with a photographer who thought sex with models was part of his compensation.” Her face was grim. “I got him fired from that particular job and later someone else went further. I understand he’s in jail now.”
“Good.”
“You said that passionately.”
“I don’t like victimizers. Taking advantage of someone with less power is contemptible.”
A smile turned up the left corner of her mouth. “That’s an excellent ethical standard.”
“Does it surprise you that I have ethical standards?”
“Not so much now, but it might have when we were kids.”
It had never occurred to Jordan to wonder what Nicole had thought of him when they were growing up. He’d called Nicole “the little princess” and hadn’t meant it in a complimentary way. To his friends he’d groused about his mother’s awe when it came to the girl who was pictured everywhere, though he’d never mentioned the spite his mom had later developed. But he had never thought about whether Nicole’s attitude toward him was positive or negative.
“So, what did you think of me back then?” he asked.
“When we were kids, you came off as a brat who didn’t care who he ran over or whether he hurt anyone. Literally, like the time you mowed me down when I was trying to learn how to skate. When we were older, it still seemed as if you didn’t care very much if what you said or did injured me or other people. You were also full of yourself, anxious to have sex with girls. Now I think you were trying to run so fast your feelings couldn’t catch up with you.”
As Jordan stared through the windshield, he wondered if Nicole had hit the mark.
“Really,” he said noncommittally.
Her head cocked. “It’s possible. Anyway, teenage boys tend to be driven by their hormones, which explains some of it.”
Curiously, Nicole wasn’t showing rancor over his past behavior. The quirk in her lips indicated humor instead.
“When did you stop holding my youthful transgressions against me?”
“Who said I have?”
“It’s obvious, or at least it seems that way.”
She unfastened her seat belt. “Everyone has to choose what portions of the past are going to matter. It’s part of growing up.”
“And I wasn’t significant enough to matter?”
“Heck, I never expected to see Jordan Masters again, so my memories of you got mostly sanitized. You know, bleached bones of history or something like that…something poetic.” There was a glint of amusement in her voice and eyes.
There was no denying that Nicole was entirely different than he had expected, and he shouldn’t have had expectations about her in the first place. Maybe he’d fallen into the trap of viewing her as two-dimensionally as a magazine layout. For one thing, he’d never imagined she had a sense of humor, or that she was rational and mature enough to shrug off old injuries.
Stupid of him.
He sighed. Maybe lingering guilt was responsible. After all, outside of the parties involved, he appeared to be the only one who knew what had really happened between their parents. Not that it mattered anymore. Nicole might not even care that his mother had tried to seduce her father. But he wasn’t sure. It was something he’d kept to himself for a long time, something that didn’t seem right to share. Now he wondered, particularly since learning his mother had taken the feud to social media, however briefly.
“Sorry, I have to cut this short,” Nicole said. “I need to get inside and finish up some work.”
“Of course.”
He climbed from the car, aware of her graceful movements as she did the same.
“There’s something else,” Nicole said after locking the vehicle. “I’d like to suggest that if we go somewhere together in the car, we don’t do interview questions while driving.”
“Why not? Multitasking gets more done.”
She shook her head. “Not everyone agrees that it’s productive. I’ve always had a preference for concentrating on one task at a time, and some recent studies indicate that it’s healthier.”
“Okay, we’ll play by your rules.”
