Page 49 of The Bargain
“I know. And in complete transparency, I knew you wouldn’t.”
I pull my legs to my chest. “Then why did you do it?”
“It was necessary.” He leans forward and presses his hand to my knees. “Please trust me. This is going to work out.”
“You can’t know that.”
“No. Not one hundred percent, but I sat in that Starbucks thinking about my meeting with him. I’m good at reading people, and what I saw in him was stubbornness and pride. He’s someone who needed to look me in the eye when I told him my interest was genuine. And if we let him wallow in that pride I just mentioned, we’ll be gone and his other investor will be in his face, and he’ll end up making the desperate, wrong choice.”
“You could have talked to me first.”
“Would you have said yes to me charging up to his door?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
“What if you just made things worse?”
“What if I just made them better?Tryto trust me.”
“I do trust you.”
“Do you?”
“Considering what just happened, I think it’s safe to say I trust you.”
“We both know there are different ways to trust someone,” he says. “If you trusted my judgement on this, you’d feel good about where we are with your father. You don’t, and that’s okay. I’m willing to earn it.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Ethan. I’m just worried about my father. I’m worried about me and my father, too.”
“I know how much he means to you. And I promise to make what matters to you matter to me.”
My heart squeezes with the commitment in those words I don’t want to read into, but it’s hard not to, at least a little. “Please don’t help my father for me. I know we’ve talked about this, but I need you to tell me one last time that’s not the case.”
“It’s not. There are other ways to help him than getting personally involved. I know people I could introduce him to who would treat him right. I promise you, when it comes to business, I don’t do anything for a favor or for charity. I do it because it’s a smart decision.”
I study him, searching his handsome face, and my fingers find his jawline, rasping over the dark stubble there, droplets of water running off my hand, and only then do I realize how comfortable I am touching him. He captures my hand and brings it to his lips, this tug between us that I’ve never felt with anyone else. I’ve dismissed anything real with him over and over, but how do I keep doing that when he’s the most real thing in my life?
“You know my shitty love life,” he says, a prod in his voice. “Tell me about yours.”
“Uneventful,” I assure him. “I dated someone in college, but we never talked about forever. He went off to med school, and I went to design school.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“L.A. He went to Duke.”
“Where is he now?”
“No idea. We haven’t spoken since college.”
“And since then? Anyone serious?”
“Not really.”
“What kind of men?”
“A lawyer. A professor. Oddly, a UFC fighter, who was always on a strict diet and healing from an injury. The only reason we made it six months was we never saw each other.”
