Always, even if they only realized it in brief chunks of moments.
And why was she going to show him out of the room again?
“All I know is that I want to be with you, Camilla. And I’m not talking about sex,” he added, turning back to her. “Fuck the sex. Forget about sex. That’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t care what anybody wanted to be when they grow up.”
His confessions were kind of getting to her. “There were unusual circumstances involved when you asked me that Mason.”
“What unusual circumstances?”
“We thought the plane was crashing. You were trying to help me get my mind off it. You didn’t really care.”
“That’s right. I never care, but I did then. And I do. I do right now. I feel bad you wanted to be a pilot.”
“Believe me, I’m over it. Especially after yesterday.”
“Or that you don’t like being a lawyer.”
“Everybody hates their job,” she said with the automatic consolation she used to justify the stupidity of taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans to become something it turned out she hated. “I’m just on the far end of that spectrum.”
“No, everybody doesn’t hate their job. Well, actually, I don’t know that. I know I don’t hate my job.”
The billionaire exception again.
“And I don’t know if anybody else does, because sincerely I have never given a fuck. Really.”
She laughed. “I believe you.”
“But I do with you. That’s what I’m trying to say. I do. I don’t know why.”
“Maybe because we went through a plane crash together,” she offered, “or almost, I mean. It’s a post-traumatic stress thing.”
“No, I cared before. You said you hated your job before that, and I wondered why you didn’t do something else.”
“The crushing debt load,” she said.
“I know. I know. But the point is I even wondered. And I’d like to talk to your brother Joey. See? My God, I even remembered his name.” He was laughing and shaking his head.
She didn’t quite know what to say. She tried to remember this was the guy who casually commented that he wouldn’t mind marrying her so he could have a steady stream of sex with someone to whom he was attracted. He wasn’t really the sexy, sweet guy he’d been before they screeched to a halt on the runway or as they trekked along side by side on the muddy trail. He was a nutty, introverted billionaire who wouldn’t be giving her the time of day if his biological urges hadn’t been primed just right.
Time to bring that guy back to the conversation.
“Joey’s the youngest, and my mom was older when she had him. He had a loss of oxygen when he was in the womb,” she said, making it sound as callous as she could. “I don’t know his actual IQ, but let’s just say I don’t see you having a lot in common with him.”
“I don’t have a lot in common with anybody,” Mason said right away, not pausing a beat. “And I’m sorry about the oxygen thing, but normal’s not all it’s cracked up to be anyway. And, see the thing is, if you think he’s great, I think he must be then. You see, that’s it! That’s the thing!”
If Mason Talbot wasn’t understanding her or Marcia, she had to admit she wasn’t quite understanding him here, either. He was saying, “that’s the thing” and “that’s it” and giving it the enthusiasm of a “Eureka!”
“I can’t believe anyone would be perpetually disappointed in you, Camilla. That’s what I’m saying.”
She had forgotten she had even said that to him about her parents. It wasn’t true. They were never disappointed in her, in any of them, even Joey. Especially not Joey. “I was being a bitch there. My parents aren’t disappointed in me. If anything, I’m disappointed in myself for the choices I’ve made. I valued trying to look like I was smart and making money over what I really wanted to do.”
She shouldn’t have disclosed that last part.
“What did you want to do?” he asked. “It wasn’t become a pilot?”
She wished she had managed to limit the confessions here to him. But what the hell? She should give him something.
“I wanted to be a writer,” she admitted. “Pathetic, huh? Me and twenty million other English majors.”
“I doubt twenty million people major in English.”
“It’s a turn of phrase.” She shook her head and held a hand up to the throbbing temple to ease the pounding headache she felt coming on.
“And it’s nowhere near pathetic.”