Poppy could handle the odd occasion performing for his colleagues, but it would be wearing. She’d never been two-faced. What you saw was what you got with her, so playing Mrs. Blackwood would be a challenge. One she was certainly up for, for five hundred grand.
“Thanks, that sounds good.”
Considering the way he’d shut her down in the limo on the night they’d met when she’d brought up family, she probably shouldn’t go there. But he’d mentioned he’d grown up in the desert and surely she’d have to know stuff like his background for the sake of authenticity.
“You were raised out here?”
He grunted in response.
“I’ll probably need to know a little about your family, in case I’m quizzed.”
“My family is no secret. Tabloids did a spread on me when I first made it big. Mentioned my folks, how they died, that kind of thing.” His hands gripped the steering wheel, his frigid tone warning her to back off. “Irrelevant now.”
“Not to your wife.”
He shot her a quick glare. “Checkerville’s your typical small town. Rich folk, poor folk. We were the latter.”
“We?”
“My parents. Pa.”
He jaw clenched, as if he didn’t want to say anything more, so she waited.
“Nan died when Mom was young, so Pa raised her alone. He’s a mechanic, she was working at the grocer. Then Dad rode into town.”
She wanted to make a joke about cowboys but knew he’d clam up.
“According to Pa, Mom fell for Dad, Pa fell for his motorcycle. Dad had big dreams, but that’s all they were. He talked the talk but couldn’t hold down a job, let alone support a family. They had me nine months after they met. Dad packed us up, moved to Vegas.”
His glower darkened, if that were possible. “Fell into his old crowd. Grog. Drugs. Mom was miserable, got hooked on the stuff. Apparently, they drifted back to Checkerville every time they were broke, which was often. We lived in a trailer on the outskirts of town. It was a hovel.”
The longer he spoke in that flat, toneless voice, the more she wished she hadn’t opened this proverbial can.
“They OD’d when I was seven. Shooting up together. Bad batch of coke. After that, Pa took me in. So now you know.”
She’d been so caught up in his disclosures she hadn’t realized they’d pulled onto a side road leading to the biggest pair of wrought-iron gates she’d ever seen.
A guy like him would abhor pity, but she had to say something sympathetic. “Your Pa must be proud.”
The lines fanning his eyes eased and she released a little relieved sigh.
“He’s great. I don’t get to see him often enough these days.”
“He’d understand your work commitments.”
“Yeah, but it’s not good enough.”
The tension had returned and she grabbed at the quickest change of subject, gesturing at the towering cream-rendered wall that stretched as far as she could see. “This your place?”
“No, it’s Eldorado.”
She smiled at his sarcasm as he grabbed a remote from the console and hit a button. The wall prevented her from seeing much and she wondered if his desert house would be as fancy as his hotels. Curious, she wriggled in her seat as the gates swung open to reveal a building that took her breath away.
“Wow,” she said, not sure where to look first as he drove up the curving driveway to the front of the house. “Quite a house.”
She used the term lightly, because this was no ordinary house.
A two-story Spanish-style hacienda sprawled across the high-walled block, surrounded by native gardens that accentuated the stark beauty of the terracotta mansion.
“You were expecting a shack?”
She didn’t know if he was uncomfortable about divulging his past and was taking a dig to disguise his discomfort, so she let it slide.
“It’s beautiful.” She craned her neck as he pulled under a portico and cut the engine. “I love it.”
His expression softened. “It’s a great place to depressurize.”
And she bet he needed to do plenty of that, considering the guy was worth billions.
Learning of his background only exacerbated her curiosity. How did a guy from the wrong side of the tracks make it big? He must’ve worked his ass off, and his self-made success only increased his hotness factor.
It also explained the rugged, rough around the edges thing he had going on. He wore his hair a little too long to be strictly conventional, wore his designer shirts with the top button perpetually undone.
She liked the subtle rebellions against conventional corporate. Very sexy.
“Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”