“Well,” I say, trying to keep my voice neutral, “I imagine it’s hard for one family to keep up with a place like this.”
“Exactly,” he says as if I’ve just proved his point. “I don’t care how rich you are. There’s no reason you need a place this size. Especially when you can’t take care of it.”
I press my lips together. I should keep my mouth shut. The last thing I need to do is blow my cover before I’ve even been here a week.
But what am I supposed to do? Sit by and let Mr. Casanova badmouth my family?
“Wasn’t it passed down through the family?” I say casually. “Maybe it wasn’t just a simple matter of needing or even choosing to live here.”
“Everything’s a choice.”
“But if you were born to a place like this,” I say, “if your family history was built into these walls, would you have just been able to give it up?”
I don’t dare look at him, but I can feel his eyes on me. I force myself to fold the shirt in front of me.
“I’d like to think that even if I’d been born to that privilege, I’d still have had the strength of character to sell this place and actually do something meaningful with my life,” he says, not bothering to hide his resentment. “The problem with people who live in places like this is that they think money is everything. Their self-worth is tied to how many rooms they have in their houses and how many thousand-dollar suits they have hanging in their closets. This place was a status symbol, nothing more. Can you imagine what sort of difference they might have made if they’d used their money to change the world instead of building a rooftop pool or buying another Ferrari for their sixteen-car garage?”
And there it is: the question I’ve struggled with since I was a teenager. The question that drove me to Thailand. It never seemed like enough that my family had sponsored dozens of philanthropic projects throughout the years, not when we were still drowning in luxury. Not when we barely had to lift a finger to “support” some abstract cause on the other side of the world.
I grab another shirt and begin to fold it. I’m not allowed to be this upset about losing this house. I should be looking at this as my opportunity to become something more than a privileged, self-centered ex-heiress.
“Did I say something wrong?” Ward asks after a minute.
I need to be more careful. Smile. Flip my hair. There will always be people who upset you, my father used to say. Either by choice or by accident. Don’t let them see you sweat. Addison Thomas wouldn’t get upset about something like this. Neither should Lou.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say sweetly. I fold the next shirt.
He’s looking at me. I can tell because the tiny hairs on the back of my neck are prickling. I grab another shirt and tell myself that I don’t care what Ward’s thinking. At least if I’m disgusted with him I’m not thinking about the way his fingers felt on the bare skin of my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally.
I grab the next shirt. “Sorry for what?”
“For making this mess. Getting you stuck with all this extra work.”
He sounds sincere, at least. But I’m not interested in being friends with this guy. I can’t imagine a scenario where that would end well.
So I say nothing. As the afternoon goes on, he talks to me a couple more times, but I respond to him with one-word answers. He probably thinks I’m a bitch, but that’s okay. He can’t think any worse of me than I think of myself these days.
Finally, he sighs and says, “I don’t know what I did wrong. I wasn’t trying to piss you off, I promise.”
“You didn’t piss me off,” I say. “I just have a lot to do.”
“Again, sorry about that.” His voice is light. “But hey, at least I got you away from Haymore for a few hours, huh?”
I don’t reply. He finally gets the hint, though, because a few minutes later he says, “I need to go get some supplies.”
And I don’t see him again for the rest of the afternoon.
* * *
That night, I can’t sleep.
It’s nothing new for me. This past year, I’ve been lucky to get four hours a night. In Chiang Mai, I used to lie next to Ian and listen to his slow, steady breathing. It should have been calming, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he slept, but instead it woke something terrible inside of me—a panic that made my heart beat so quickly that more than once I thought I was dying. My whole body would shake, and my breath would stick in my throat until my head grew light and fuzzy.
Sometimes when that happened, I’d roll over and shake Ian. I’d kiss him as he woke and pull him into my arms. And slowly, his warmth and his touch would bring me back, make me feel safe again.
But there’s no one here now.
I toss and turn on my bed. The mattress is too soft for my taste, but honestly, even a nicer bed wouldn’t help much. I have too much on my mind and no one to chase the thoughts away.
You have to learn to do this on your own, I tell myself. But I feel like I’m going crazy, lying here and trying to calm the thoughts rushing through my brain. My body is exhausted from a day spent cleaning that stupid gift shop, but it’s like my mind is doped up on something. The harder I try to push everything aside, to let it go just for a little while so I can get some rest, the more it clamors for attention.
I can’t stop thinking about what Ward said today. This house was a status symbol, nothing more. I resented this place as a teenager, for exactly the reason he’s criticizing it now: it’s excessive. I knew it then, and it’s even clearer now. I don’t miss this house as much as I miss everything it represents. The lifestyle. The security. The sense of identity. Everything that made me a Cunningham has been stripped away. Where does that leave me? I’m not the girl I thought I was. And I’m definitely not the selfless, kindhearted girl that the world thinks I am.
But that’s not the only thing that’s keeping me up. Every time the guilt starts to overwhelm me, my mind leaps to its latest distraction: the memory of Ward’s breath on my face. The feeling of his hands on me. Stupid, infuriating Ward—this is the last thing I need right now.
But I can’t keep myself from wondering—what would he have done in the gift shop today if I’d called his bluff? If I’d agreed to pick things up where we left off the other day? Would he really have let me pull off his pants? Would he have thrown me down on the table and taken me on top of those ridiculous T-shirts?