“Okay, wait.” I held up my hands. “For the record, what Michael said: that is completely untrue. All of it. I did not pick you to be my…I won’t even say that. And I have never, ever slept with any of our maids. As for what my mother said: you and I both know better. You weren’t one of those girls and you never would’ve been. You were different. They had no right to say any of that to you. They’re both completely out of line.”
Keira sighed. “Yes. And then again, no.”
“What? You’re defending them?”
She shrugged. “I’m just saying, I don’t blame your brother for thinking that you chose me to be your sexual stress-ball, because I thought the same thing. I thought it when you picked me as your personal maid, and then you…well, we both know what you did, which seemed to back that theory up pretty strongly…”
My shoulders slumped. “Fair enough.”
“Maybe he was lying about you sleeping with the staff before, but maybe he thought it was true, because if this is how you usually behave then that’s a mistake that anyone could make. As for your mother; again, you can’t blame her for thinking that, because that’s what you’ve conditioned her to think. How would she know that I’m ‘different’? I don’t even know that! You say I never would’ve been just another of your bimbos, but really, how do I know that? How can I believe that, when you told me a false name and were about to take me back to your hotel room on the night we met? How is that different from what you do with any other woman?”
“It’s not,” I admitted, looking Keira right in the eyes. “But you are different.”
“I don’t feel different.”
“Well, that’s my fault then, for not making you feel it,” I said. “I can only apologize for the other morning. I could write it off as my terrible sense of humor or the fact that I was brought up with a real lack of boundaries—comes with the job—but the truth is, I was scared. I’ve never met anyone like you before, I’ve never felt like this about anyone before, and it’s insane to me that I should be feeling anything on so little acquaintance. So I acted out. I acted like a dick. I think part of me was trying to drive you away so I wouldn’t have to deal with how I still felt about you after our brief meeting in New York. Or maybe I was trying to reduce you to the level of my usual ‘relationships’. I don’t know.”
Keira listened, her eyes wide, and I continued. “None of this is an excuse, by the way, and none of this is me trying to get you to forgive me. You shouldn’t. And you’re right: my mother and my brother reacted the way they did because I’ve given them every reason to think the worst of me. Which doesn’t excuse their behavior either. I guess that’s just the family we are: a bunch of dicks. But I’ve changed. And I’m still changing. And it scares me, but it’s kind of cool too. And it’s happening because of you. I’ve somehow changed since I met you, and I want to keep changing until I can by some miracle change enough to become worthy of a girl like you. If such a person could ever exist—which I’m not convinced they could, because you are absolutely and in all ways completely and utterly perfect.”
What reaction Keira would have to that little speech, which had been rambling, off the cuff and in no way planned, I couldn’t have guessed. But if I’d been presented with a list of possible outcomes and been asked to rank them in order of probability, then Keira kissing me would have been right at the bottom of that list…which made it even sweeter when it happened.
It was a tender kiss, gently brushing against my lips, and I wasn’t even sure that Keira had even known she was going to do it. She looked as surprised as I probably did as she drew back from me.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she said.
“That’s fair enough.”
“And you know I used the vacuum cleaner first thing in the morning as my petty little revenge for New York.”
“Well, I don’t forgive you for that, either.”
“What you did was worse.”
“I had a hangover!”
Keira paused, examining my face. “This is bad. I’m starting to think that you might not be such a terrible person, and you clearly are.”
“Would it help if I did something despicable?”
“It might.”
I pulled her to me and kissed her, hard and full on the mouth, and she melted into my arms, returning the kiss with equal passion. I felt her hands on my head, sliding down to caress my body, and I returned the favor, marveling at the smoothness of her skin as my palm stroked across it. I found myself lost in another world, a world of Keira; her taste, her scent, the feel of her body, firm against mine. I was so lost in this world that I was barely aware of normal sight and sound.