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As she watches me, I can’t help but think about the promise I made her father before he passed. I told him that I would always take care of his daughter after he was gone. No sooner had his funeral passed than Lydia disappeared with Kendall.
I tried to find Lydia for a couple years, but it was like she dropped off the face of the earth.
Though, I can’t blame her for that. She lost the love of her life and was left trying to figure out how to carry on with life on her own. She had to become the sole parent for a toddler.
It couldn’t have been easy and that just makes me feel worse.
“You know, there’s something about you that bothers me,” Kendall says as she grabs her wine. She takes a sip as I raise my eyebrow, waiting for the rest of her statement. “You’re not like the other rich men I’ve met and yet you’re exactly like them at the same time. It bothers me.”
“What does that mean?”
She shrugs one shoulder, taking another sip of her wine. The smile that tugs at the corner of her mouth is mischievous. I want to cross the hot tub and kiss the little smile away but I keep myself where I am, sipping on my beer to distract myself.
“It means that you say things likeI try to educate myselfbut what do you actually do for people?”
“Why do you assume that I do nothing?”
She gestures at the surrounding area with her glass. “Look at this place. You’re telling me that you live a life of isolation but you also actually get out and help people yourself?”
“I make donations.” I fidget slightly in my seat, hating that she’s able to guess something about me so accurately.
“But what do youdo?” She pins me in place with that green gaze.
Attraction and irritation flow through me in equal parts as I struggle to come up with anything that I’ve done in person.
I hate that I can’t think of a single thing. It means that in some ways, she’s right about me.
I don’t want her to be right about me.
“Exactly.” She finishes the last of her glass.
Kendall rises from the water. Droplets roll down her sun-kissed skin and my mouth waters. I can’t keep my gaze from falling to her round ass as she turns and leans out of the hot tub, her back to me.
Once she has another full glass of white wine in hand, she turns back around and slips beneath the water, stretching her legs out on the seat.
“You think that you can read me that well based off maybe four interactions with me?”
“That’s the funny thing about growing up on the other side of the poverty line, you get good at reading people.”
“You were poor growing up?”
Kendall shrugs again. I’m starting to hate her noncommittal answers. My eyes narrow as I wait for her to elaborate while that same mischievous smile crosses her face again. She enjoys making me work for her answers, though I suspect if my life were more similar to her own she would give the answers freely.
“My mom worked hard but it was just the two of us. I didn’t want for anything but I didn’t have anything extra either. There are definitely people who have it much worse than I did.”
I nod, not ready to dissect how I feel about Lydia being on her own. I’m glad that she provided the best life she could for Kendall, but their lives would have been so much different if she had stayed.
“What have you done for others?” I ask her.
“If you have to know, I work at a homeless shelter two weekends a month. Normally in the kitchens.”
“I didn’t see that on any of the background checks that I ran on you.”
Her eyes narrow slightly. “Why would I broadcast what I’m doing for others to the world? They don’t need to know. I’m volunteering to help people, not because I want people to think that I’m helping people.”
Maybe it’s the judgmental look she gives me for even suggesting that her volunteering could be performative that turns me on the most. The more I talk to her, the more it’s becoming clear that she is a good person.
My attraction to her can only be attraction. It has to stay a secret, and hopefully I can get over it before it becomes a problem. While she is attractive, she’s irritating too. In the few meetings I’ve had with her, she’s already made me question the worst parts of myself.
