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‘I don’t know...’ He arched a satiric brow and pretended to consider the answer. ‘He’s rich?’
Her chin lifted to the defiant angle he was getting very familiar with. It was a long time since Zach had been regarded with such open contempt.
Better than indifference!
The knee-jerk reaction of his inner voice brought a brief frown to his brow before he turned his critical attention to the play of expression across her flawless features. He had never encountered anyone who broadcast every thought in their heads quite so obviously before.
The concept of a professional guard would be alien to her. Though in her defence, this wasn’t professional to her—it was very personal. He was getting the idea that everything with this woman might be.
For someone who compartmentalised every aspect of his life, the emotional blurring was something that appalled him.
‘So you’re of the “everyone has a price” school of thought,’ she sneered.
‘They do.’
His man-of-few-words act was really starting to get under her skin.
‘I don’t. I’m not interested in money and...and...things!’
He arched a satiric brow. ‘That might be a more impressive statement if you hadn’t come here with a begging bowl.’
She fought off the angry flush she could feel rising up her neck. ‘That is not the same.’
He dragged his eyes up from the blue-veined pulse that was beating like a trapped wild bird at the base of her slender throat. This might be the moment he told himself to remember that the untouched, fragile look had never been a draw for him. He had no protective instincts to arouse.
‘If you say so.’
His sceptical drawl was an insult in itself.
‘I am not begging. This isn’t for me.’
He cut her off with a bored, ‘I know, it is for the greater good. So consider that for the moment—consider how much you could help the greater good if you had access to the sort of funds that your grandfather has.’
He allowed himself the indulgence of watching the expressions flicker across her face for several seconds before speaking.
‘You see, everyone does have a price—even you.’
‘There is no even me. And I’m not suggesting I’m a better person than anyone else!’ she fired back.
Zach watched her bite her lip before lifting her chin and found himself regretting his taunt. As exasperating as her attitude was, she had just received news that was the verbal equivalent of a gut punch.
And she had come out fighting.
‘If you say so.’
She blinked hard, not prepared to let it go. ‘I do say so, and,’ she choked out, ‘I really don’t want to know the sort of person who would abandon his daughter.’
‘Maybe she abandoned him?’
The suggestion drew a ferocious glare. On one level he registered how magnificent she looked furious, on another he realised that he was now in uncharted territory—he was playing it by ear. Zach trusted his instincts; his confidence was justified but, in this instance, it had turned out to be massively misplaced.
The unorthodox role assigned to him had been unwelcome, but he had approached it as he would anything. He’d thought that he had factored in all the possibilities...had considered every reaction and how to counter them to bring about the desired outcome with the least effort on his part.
Pity she didn’t read the same script, Zach!
In his own defence, it hadn’t seemed unreasonable to assume that the idea of being wealthy beyond any person’s wildest dreams would swiftly negate any anger the heiress might feel towards the absentee grandparent.
He had never found it particularly admirable when people were willing to disadvantage themselves for a point of principle. He found it even less so now, when those so-called principles were making his own life hard work.
