Talking Dirty with the CEO(46)
“What is it? You’ve gone pale.”
“It’s nothing. Really. Nothing at all.”
His fingers tightened. “Bullshit.”
Christie remained silent a long moment, her mouth as thin as a mouth like hers could ever get. Then she said shortly, “It’s probably an invitation to my brother’s engagement party. No big deal.”
“If it’s no big deal then why are you so pale?”
“Because I hate parties.”
“You hate parties that much?”
Christie let out a long breath. “Yeah. Particularly when they involve my family.”
Oh yes. The brother who could do every sport. The father who thought his daughter would never learn to ride. The hard-faced mother he’d seen pictures of on the Internet. “Why? What’s wrong with your family?”
She pulled her hand out of his but didn’t move away. Instead she gazed down at the creamy surface of the envelope. “The only thing my mother cares about is looking good for other people, and my dad and my brother are only interested in how much money you earn and what your golf handicap is.”
Ah. Interesting. He shifted on the bed, rolling onto his side, elbow bent, head propped on hand. “And you hate that.”
Christie fiddled with the envelope. “Yeah. It’s not exactly like I fit in.”
“You want to fit in?”
An expression of contempt crossed her face. “Me? Ha. No way in hell.”
“So what’s the big deal then?”
She turned her face away. “You don’t really want to know. It’s not very interesting.”
“Hey,” he said. “Don’t tell me what I would and wouldn’t be interested in, okay? I’m not asking you because I’m not interested. You make me sound like some shallow idiot.”
Christie’s shoulders hunched. “I’m sorry. It’s just…I don’t like talking about my stupid family.”
“They’re that bad?” How could they be worse than his? His father had been absent for most of his childhood and his mother had just been…absent.
The scattering of freckles across her cheek looked like gold dust against her pale skin. “They’re pretty awful. All they care about is the latest gossip, the latest party, and the size of your bloody bank account. They’re not interested in anything else.”
Joseph studied her, the tight lines around her mouth, around her eyes. “They’re not interested in you, right?”
A glossy russet curl swung over Christie’s shoulder as she turned away from him. “No,” she said in a muffled voice. “I don’t care about parties or gossip. I’m not some big success. I’m not anything according to them. Pathetic, huh?” Her fingers gripped the envelope. “But that’s okay. I don’t care what they think. I really don’t. And I’m not going to their party.” She tossed the invite aside without even bothering to open it.
She didn’t care? As if he believed that for a second. He wasn’t blind. And her family had hurt her, that much was obvious.
Abruptly he remembered the photo he’d seen on the web. Of Christie looking awkward in her party frock, with her mother standing by. Trying to fit in.
Oh Naughtygirl, I bet you tried. I bet you tried so hard. But you never quite managed, did you?
He decided he didn’t like her family. At all.
His fingers, already searching for something to play with, had found the envelope and were currently turning it over and over.
Christie noticed. “Here, give me that.”
But he didn’t. Curious, he opened the envelope and pulled out the invite instead.
“Joseph, give it back.”
He flipped it open just as Christie made a lunge for it, grabbing it out of his fingers.
But not before he’d seen the names written on the inside.
“So,” he said softly, “when were you going to tell me I’d been invited, too?”
…
Christie wanted to sink through the mattress, onto the floor, and then with any luck out the other side.
Failing that, tearing up her mother’s invitation into small pieces seemed a viable alternative. God, that was just typical for Helene to courier the stupid thing to her. And of course Joseph would have picked it up. And read what was inside.
He must think she was mad.
“You haven’t been invited, at least not really.” She scrunched the invite up. It didn’t crumple as satisfyingly as she would have liked.
“Yes, I have. That was my name on it.”
She could feel her cheeks beginning to flush for the fifty millionth time that day and she wished she could just unzip her skin and step out of it. Be free of herself for once. But there was no escape. There never was.