Page 14 of The Charm Offensive
“Anddo notact dismissive toward the women on the show, do you understand me? You are not better than them because you went to Stanford and care about fracking.”
“Jesus, Parisa, I wasn’t—”
“You were.”
He thinks about Megan and her exercise videos. He kind of was.
“You’re the one who told me these women aren’t really here to find love.” He bristles. Then he thinks about Dev, his crooked grin at four in the morning.I know I can make you fall in love.
Charlie shakes off the dread of that thought. “You said that’s why it’s morally justifiable to use the show. Because the women are all here for shameless self-promotion, too.”
“I’m sure most of them are,” Parisa concedes, “but that doesn’t give you permission to condescend them like a sexist a-hole. Also, are you listening to Leland Barlow right now?”
“It’s not me. It’s my new handler. Dev.”
“Dev?” Parisa smooths out her perfectly smooth ponytail and pushes her round face close to the screen. “Is your new handler cute?”
“Why… why would it matter if he was cute?”
“Because I’m thirty-four and single and these things matter to me.”
He sighs. “You can’t date my handler, Parisa.”
“Because you’d be jealous?”
“What?No. Why the heck would I—jealous?”
She preens in front of her camera. “Because you’re secretly in love with me. That’s why you’re blushing right now.”
“Yes, you caught me,” he says, the strange tension easing from his shoulders. “I have spent the last four years secretly pining for you, and I’ve only rejected your drunken proposals of marriage because I’m playing hard to get.”
“I have only drunkenly proposed to youtwice, and I assumed you rejected my offers of a marriage of convenience because you intend to fall madly in love with a former Miss Alabama.”
“That… will not happen.”
“Because there is no former Miss Alabama on this season? Seems unlikely.”
“Because I’m not exactly lovable.” He means to say it jokingly, but the sentence sags in the middle, becomes heavy and tinged with sadness. Shit.
“Charlie.” Parisa stops her teasing instantly, her voice tender and sweet.
“You are so lovable and sodeservingof love,” she insists.
Dev yells his name from the kitchen over the sound of his blaring music. “I… I need to go.”
“I just want you to be happy. You know that, right?”
“I know, but not everyone needs a romantic partner to be happy.”
“So you’re happy now, then?”
“Iwillbe happy, when I can work in tech again.”
“Makes sense, given how happy you were at WinHan before.”
“Goodbye, Parisa.”
“Just remember, you have the world’s biggest heart and the world’s finest ass and—”
