Page 58 of The Christmas Tree Farm
Kira snorted. ‘You don’t know me very well.’
‘I think I know you well enough.’ His voice coasted over her as she kept her eyes trained on the cabinet in front of her as though it was taking a long time to choose between chicken noodle or vegetable soup. ‘I know you set this farm up all on your own,’ he went on. ‘I’ve seen plenty of your good ideas out there. It takes a lot of courage to start over––’
‘Stop.’ She spun to face him.
His eyebrows rose just a fraction.
‘You don’t need to make up bullshit compliments to get in my pants.’ She tried to laugh but it came out strained, his kind words doing weird things to her insides. ‘That’s a done deal. You’re in. Okay? Just don’t … do that.’
‘They’re not bullshit compliments, Kira.’
She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I made some really dumb decisions to get here. Let’s not romanticize it.’
Bennett shifted in his chair, his gaze not leaving hers. ‘Let me ask you this: why haven’t you asked your family for a loan? From your stories, you clearly come from money. I’m sure your parents would pay for a new boiler.’
‘No way.’
‘Why not?’
Kira huffed. ‘You really want to know who I am, Bennett?’
He nodded.
‘I am the reckless, spoiled daughter of an investment banker and his debutant wife. They were already rich because their parents were rich. I’ve spent most of my life assuming I could waltz through life doing whatever the hell I wanted, because I could. My father’s money meant I never had to think or care about anything. I treated people like crap for years because I could.’
She stalked closer, resting her hands on the kitchen table in front of him but he didn’t flinch. ‘While you were out helping old ladies cross the street, I was caring exclusively about myself. Elaine, that housekeeper I told you about, was working herself to the bone just to put her daughter through college.’
‘Kira––’
‘No.’ She shook her head. No, he wasn’t going to convince her that she hadn’t been a shitty human. Elaine had been making Kira’s bed in between doing her two other jobs to make sure her daughter got an education. Something that Kira had completely taken for granted. Her college years had been nothing but parties and bad decisions. She never would have graduated if her family’s name wasn’t on the library. It was unacceptable.
And the worst part was, Kira hadn’t known any of this until Elaine had to call in sick for the first time since Kira knew her, and she only noticed then because she didn’t like the way the new woman made her coffee in the morning. Crappy coffee was what made her pay attention to the fact that the woman who’d taken care of her home for most of her life was missing, was home sick. Sick because she’d worked herself too hard.
Kira still hadn’t forgiven herself for that. Even after making sure that tuition and room and board were covered for Elaine’s daughter, it wasn’t enough. Elaine had washed her clothes, fed her, and bailed her out of plenty of sticky situations over the years.
And Kira had treated her like she was invisible.
‘But you’re not like that anymore.’
Kira threw up her arms. ‘You’ve known me for two weeks!’
‘And I know that you’re not that person that you’re describing. Not anymore. You left.’
She sighed, feeling the fight go out of her. It was one thing for Bennett to be a nice guy, but now he was just being delusional.
‘I had to leave. Chloe left. I couldn’t be there without her.’
Chloe had left and Kira’d become a broken half-person. A broken half-person with so little awareness of the people around her, she didn’t even notice when they were working themselves to death. Moving here was a desperate attempt to find herself without her sister, to see if there was anything worth finding. And so far, she really wasn’t sure there was.
‘What happened to the rest of your trust fund, Kira?’
‘What do you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘If you’re as rich as you say, there’s no way you’d be this broke now. There’s no way this farm cost that much.’
She tried to turn back to the soup cabinet but Bennett grabbed her wrist, holding her in place, his eyes on her. ‘What’d you do with it?’
‘I don’t want to tell you.’
