Mason shook his head, looking entertained and frustrated in equal parts. “Except she won’t buy it. And she knows you can’t be a client.”
“Hey. Why couldn’t I be a client?”
Was I too young? Not classy enough? Not his type?
His lips tightened as if he was trying not to smile. But his eyes lit with amusement. “Reese, you just admitted you couldn’t afford the same kind of shoes as her. There’s no way you could afford me.”
Oh, now he sounded like Eva.
I didn’t want him to know it, but that kind of offended me.
“Really?” I arched an eyebrow and set my hands on my hips. “Just how much do you cost, Mr. Ego?”
Leaning in close, he whispered an amount in my ear. My mouth dropped open. “Okay, yeah. I couldn’t afford that. But…wow, I don’t know.” I flailed my hand. “Don’t you have a payment plan or something? Reduced prices for the lower income?”
He sputtered through a startled laugh. “No, I do not offer payment plans. Are you for real? I play the expensive way, or I don’t play at all. I don’t do this for my health, you know.”
“Then why—”
“Because being a decent, moral upstanding citizen didn’t keep the eviction notices away,” he snapped. “It didn’t get my sister a new wheelchair, and it didn’t put food on my mother’s table, or keep the electric company from turning off our power in the middle of the hottest day of the year. And it sure as hell didn’t get me enrolled in college this semester. This is all about the money. Only about the money. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said in a small voice. Then I offered him a smile. “Actually, that explanation makes you sound kind of noble, you know, with you falling on the sword of absolute depravity to save your family. You’d probably make a good Saturday afternoon movie.”
There. I hoped that sounded frivolous enough, like I really didn’t care what he did with his life.
But Mason blinked at me. “You’re…insane.”
“Only on Thursdays.” I wrinkled my nose since he was counting my nose-wrinkles and all.
He grinned—unwillingly, I think, but hey, at least I’d managed to ease some tension from the moment.
Popping a salted tomato between his perfect lips, he chewed with vigor…until I went and asked, “So, you don’t give out freebies? Like ever?” That just sounded so bizarre to me. I would’ve thought a gigolo would be a complete man-whore, even off the clock.
But when his jaw went dead still as he stopped chewing and he said, “Are you…asking for one?” I wanted to smack myself on the forehead.
Crap, I hadn’t meant to make my question sound so hopeful. “What? No!” Then for good measure, I made an incredulous sound. “God, no.”
He gaped at me, telling me he didn’t believe me.
I flushed and looked away. “I’m not—” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him sleeping with him would break my heart. But admitting that couldn’t end well, so I repeated, “No!” just to be clear. “I’m not like that. I need to be in, you know, a committed, monogamous relationship, and…in love, and stuff, before I…sleep with someone.”
Shifting closer and setting an elbow on the table to study me until I squirmed on the inside, he softly asked, “Have you ever been in love?”
My mouth fell open. “Are you asking if I’m a virgin? Because I’m not—”
Lifting his hand, he waved it softly to stop my flow of embarrassing words. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat and glanced away. More self-conscious than I’d ever been, I bit my lip and winced. “Well…I don’t…” I shook my head. His question was too complicated to answer with a simply yes or no. “I’m not sure what I was, if it was stupid, too-young-to-know-better infatuation or what, but it definitely wasn’t love. And I’m not about to make the mistake of not knowing the difference ever again.”
His lips tilted up in a smile, almost as if he were proud of me. “Good.”
Huh? I wasn’t sure which part of that he approved of so much, but the admiring gleam in his eyes made me a touch too warm. I promptly turned the subject back to him and back to why I needed to stay away. “So, if it’s common knowledge around here that you’re really, you know, what you are, then how have you never been arrested before?”
“It’s not common knowledge. It’s a common rumor.” He squinted as if he wanted to say more on the topic but sighed instead. “You’re not going to leave this alone, are you?”
“Hey, it’s not every day I meet a gigolo.”
He choked on a tomato when I said gigolo aloud, because my vocal chords might’ve risen a touch too vociferously, but I kept going. More quietly, of course.
“Can you blame me for being curious? I have, like, a million questions.” I held up a hand, remembering how uptight it had made him last night when I’d gotten nosey. “But only if you’re cool with answering them.”