“I’m not a reality TV fan.” When she winced, he belatedly realized just how insulting his comment had been. “Rosa, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay. I know what I do isn’t exactly Shakespeare.” When she put down her fork, Oscar decided that meant it was okay to put his big muzzle in her lap. She stroked his head as she sighed and said, “You said those pictures aren’t my fault. But they are.”
“How the hell can you say that?”
“Because I’ve done dozens of photo shoots where I’m barely covered at all. My mother was right that it isn’t anything people haven’t seen before.”
Her mother said that? Drake didn’t have a prayer of pushing his fury away. “First of all,” he said as his fork hit his plate with a clang, “you made a decision to do those photo shoots. You looked at yes, you looked at no, and you chose yes. But the guy who snuck the pictures in your hotel room didn’t give you a choice, did he?”
“Well, no, but—”
“No buts. Just no. As for your mother—” He should get up from the table, go outside, and cool off in the rain. But, damn it, he couldn’t stand the thought of Rosa’s mother having said that to her. “She should be protecting you, doing whatever it takes to keep you safe, down to her very last breath.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is.”
“No, it isn’t. After my dad died, we nearly lost everything. I know most people think reality TV is a joke, but it saved us. My mom did what she needed to do to make sure my brothers and I had food on the table for every meal and a roof over our heads and clothes for school. She did what she thought was best.”
“Including condoning people selling naked pictures of her daughter?”
Rosa pushed back from the table and stood. “I shouldn’t have come here. And I definitely shouldn’t have stayed. Thanks for the lasagna and for towing and fixing my car. I hope your painting goes well from now on. Take good care of Oscar.”
Damn it, she was saying good-bye. Because he couldn’t leave well enough alone. Because he’d pissed her off by sticking his nose into her family business. Because he hadn’t made sure to tread carefully when he knew it was exactly what she needed when everything was this raw.
Oscar stood in the middle of the room looking like his world was ending. He turned baleful eyes to Drake as if to say, Fix this, you idiot, or she’ll never come back.
“I shouldn’t have pushed so hard.” Drake was on his feet now too, barely keeping himself from leaping in front of the door and begging her to stay. “It’s just that I hate what happened to you. And I hate that you’re willing to take the blame for what everyone else did to you.”
She stopped with her hand on the doorknob and turned to look him in the eye. “I’m not a victim.” Her expression shifted as if she’d just had an epiphany. “I’m not a victim,” she said again, her voice firmer this time. “You’re right that I didn’t have any control over the guy who snuck the pictures of me in the bathtub, but I could have said no to being on the show at any time if I thought it wouldn’t hurt my family for me to leave. And if starting over wasn’t the hardest thing in the world.”
“Why do you think it has to be hard?”
She looked a little startled. “Why do I think starting my life over and trying to be taken seriously in a new field would be harder than being wined and dined all over the world while I’m filming my show?” She looked at him like he was nuts. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not.”
“Because you’re such a reality TV expert?”
“You’re right, I don’t know anything about the world you’ve been living in. I have family in the entertainment business, but that doesn’t mean I understand what your life has been like. All I know is that something about you makes me want to break all my rules. You make me want to risk the very thing that completely destroyed my parents. That’s how strong you are. That’s how much power you have. The power to do, to achieve, to have absolutely anything you want.”
Her jaw dropped at his impassioned soliloquy, and she stared at him for several long moments. “Do you know what the most dangerous thing about you is? How much you care about everything, even a stranger who hasn’t ever done anything good enough to deserve it.”
She held his gaze for a long moment in which he silently prayed she’d decide to stay instead of go. At last she said, “Good-bye, Drake,” and walked out the door, closing it quietly behind her.
Chapter Nine
Rosa hadn’t thought things could get any more complicated. But she’d never seen Drake Sullivan coming. And she’d never met anyone with so much passion that it simply overflowed from him. Not only onto his sketchbooks and canvases, but also to his mouthwateringly good lasagna.