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“Shocking. I get too emotionally involved. Can’t help myself. I’m no good with secrets either. Don’t tell me anything you want kept quiet.”
She batted him with the cushion. “You’re an analyst. You deal in market sensitive information every day. How’s that going to work?”
He sipped the beer. “That’s different. I’m not the job. I can separate myself from work.”
Bree broke eye contact, what was that telling her? Mostly that she could trust him to take a corporate secret to the grave, that he’d never be jailed for insider trading, but if he found out about Kitty Caruso it’d be front page news. Good to know. “Answer the question. Why did you want to win so badly?”
He hid behind another long pull on the beer. She took her jacket off while she waited on him. He forgot beer existed. His eyes went straight to her bare arms. She might bruise easy but they faded quickly. There wasn’t a mark on her skin. Though there would be after tomorrow’s bout.
He said, “Okay,” and she wasn’t sure if he meant the state of her arms or it was the beginning of his response. “You look good.”
She sighed. She’d have left the blasted jacket on if he was going to get personal. Especially if she’d known she was going to like it. Like the hand holding and the knee touching and the eye contact that held and was so much more engaging than shoes.
“Hey, I’m sorry. You’re beautiful.”
She started, her back straightening. He interpreted that as annoyance. He didn’t know, couldn’t know, how much trouble she was in after hearing that.
His hand came up, a stop gesture to hold back the protest he expected her to make. “I know I’m not supposed to notice because you’re one of the boys and it’s work, but it’s nice to see you looking,” he hesitated; he’d done enough damage by calling her beautiful, she held her breath, “healthy.”
He grinned at her over the top of his bottle and she forgave him. He’d called her beautiful, so in this moment she’d forgive him almost anything—almost. “Answer the question.”
“Ah, Bree.” That pointed look at her arms became a lazy inspection of the rest of her. She worked to keep the heat it caused from her face. “You went to a good school, right?”
“Yes.” Where was this going?
“And got top grades. Then went to Sydney or NSW uni, yeah?”
She nodded. That wasn’t so hard to guess. She was a success story cliché unless you knew everything about her. About how being cute and good and smart had bored her, then scared her into doing things differently.
“You did a double degree, commerce, law. And you were high distinctions all the way.”
She smiled. He might not be a good poker player but he was a good analyst. “Mostly. There was that one distinction, but I was robbed.”
He tapped his hand on the cushion space between them, three times. “You’re first job was in a professional office. You probably did work experience with an accountancy firm or another broker, and you walked into this job with a recommendation from someone well connected in the city.”
She nodded. He had the ‘for public consumption’ version of her story down pat. “Close enough, what’s your point?”
“I didn’t do any of those things. I had to quit school at sixteen. I finished it at night while I worked in a hardware store during the day. Then I got a low paying office job at a no name stockbroker and I did every dirty job they threw at me while I went to uni part-time and did odd jobs on the weekend. I got passes and credits. I talked myself into this job and my probationary period was six months. I’m betting yours was three.”
She gasped. She had no idea his background was so different, or that he’d done it the hard way. Her senses were flooded with admiration for him and his big, loud, intense ways.
“I’m a fake, Bree. And you’re the real deal. The only way I can belong in a world you were made for, trained for, is to work harder than anyone else and do better. So when you ask me why winning is so important, I’d say it’s because I’m a fish and even a fish out of water tries bloody hard to swim.”
10: Confession
Christ he needed another drink. But it was probably that second one that made him shove a knife in his chest, carve himself open and spill his guts all over Bree. She was looking at him as though he was a combined dose of Bali belly and leprosy, and continued contact with him would rot her gut first then make her limbs fall off, one by painful one.
He looked over his shoulder. “Where’s a jumpsuit when you need one.” Bree’s hand on his arm made his head snap back like a ringpull.
“You need a medal, that’s what you need.”
She gripped him firmly. She didn’t look like she was having a lend. “Yeah, right.” His bitterness burned his own ears. Fuck knows how she felt about his whinging.
“No, Ant. I mean it.”
He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “I shouldn’t have said all that. I didn’t mean to make a big deal of it. I’m sorry. I caused a scene and ruined your victory dinner.” He looked around at the room full of people not having a fucking awkward moment like this. “I hauled you down here for a drink you don’t want. I crossed the line with that stupid comment about you being beautiful, then I whinged at you like a flaming five year old.”
“You forgot the fact you bet against me with your shithead mates.”
