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“Convenient.”
“In what way?”
“Well, to need to be here for two different things. Two birds, one stone…”
“The work is because of the wedding. My…brother just got married. His wife and he run a company based in New York. So while they’re on their honeymoon, I said I’d hold the fort.”
Was she imagining the undercurrent of tension in his words?
She pursed her lips a little, contemplated asking more, before remembering that there were things he didn’t want to talk about. She wouldn’t push, she wouldn’t pry. That’s not what they were.
“Do you like it?” She asked instead.
He exhaled, as if relieved that she’d changed the subject. “Doesn’t everybody?”
“Definitely not.”
“New York is a fascinating city. What’s not to like?”
“Oh, you’re preaching to the choir,” she assured him. “I adore this city. Everything about it, even the way it can smell in summer,” she laughed. “Well, maybe I don’t adore that, but it doesn’t tarnish the beauty for me. Then again, I haven’t really travelled,” she said with a lift of her shoulders. “So maybe I just love it because it’s all I’ve ever known.”
“Perhaps it’s both.”
She sipped her drink.
“Why haven’t you travelled?”
Maybe if this was a date, if he was a normal guy, she might try to couch things in a certain way to maximise the likelihood of him falling for her. But this wasn’t a date, and there was no future for them, which was actually really liberating.
“We had no money, growing up. Mom and dad worked good, honest jobs, worked hard too. They bought their own home, over in Brooklyn, but they had a huge mortgage and times were tough. Way too tough to travel.”
“But you’re now an adult woman, and you have a job…”
“Yeah, but life is expensive. Not that I’d expect you to know that, Moneybags,” she teased, and was gratified to see another grin flicker on his lips.
“I have money, but I do understand the realities of life.”
“Oh, yeah? So you know that a night in one of your fancy suites is more than some people pay for a month’s rent? And that there’s probably only like a thousand people on this whole entire planet that could just buy a Manhattan apartment like this on a whim?”
“Do you resent that?”
“I resent the disparity,” she said, honestly. “Yeah. I think the way the world works really sucks sometimes.”
“It does. Which is why we’ve had a long-standing relationship with several key charities. We have a foundation that is active in America, in fact.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen that on the hotel information,” she admitted. “I think it’s good that your family gives back in some way.”
“I think you and I are in agreement that it’s a moral obligation.”
“Still, you probably have a heap of wealthy friends who are happy to just pour everything they have into more private jets and yachts and fancy homes.”
“That’s what taxation is for. Not everyone has a social conscience.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m more than aware of that.”
He waited for her to continue and again, because this wasn’t anything like a date, she said what she was thinking. “I have come up against more than enough A-listers who don’t have a social conscience.” She shuddered.
“In the hotel?”
