Which would officially put Griffin into the crazy, stratospherically rich category. Something that made her really uncomfortable if she thought about it too much.
“Exactly. Everyone I work with can make a guess and get within a couple million dollars of my potential worth. Would you want to date someone under those circumstances?”
“Good point.”
“Besides, it’s not just the money. If I made a mistake and trusted the wrong person, it wouldn’t be just me paying for it. It would be the whole family. The entire company.”
She couldn’t help asking, “Have you made a mistake like that?”
“Once. I was young and stupid. It could have been a lot worse than it was.” His hands clenched on the steering wheel and he gave it a little twist, like he was stretching out his arm muscles while he was trying to decide what else to tell her. “But mostly I just learned from watching the way my dad operated. He had women he slept with all over the world, but he rarely let any of them close. Of course, after Sharlene left him, that’s when it got really bad. He didn’t trust anyone after that.”
“Is that why you think this affair he had with the heiress’s mom must have been before he got involved with Sharlene?”
He seemed to ponder that for a second. “Yeah, I suppose so, though I didn’t think it through before now.”
“Here’s what I don’t get—I’ve worked with Dalton for nearly a year now, and I’ve never seen any indication that he’s even half this paranoid.”
“He’s not,” Griffin agreed. “But Dalton’s different. It’s like what you said about the way he looks at you.”
She nodded, knowing what he meant. “Like you’re a resource, not a person.”
“Exactly.” He drummed out another beat on the steering wheel. “It’s not even that he really thinks that. That’s just the perception he gives. But no one would ever look at Dalton and think that he was vulnerable. If you’re going to invade a castle, you don’t try to blast your way through the front gate—you look for the weakest spot in the defenses. You try to find the back door and sneak in that way.”
“Wait a second. You can’t think that’s how people see you!”
“Of course it is.” He shrugged. “I’m the second son. I’ve never been a serious contender for power within the company. I don’t have a real job there.”
Even though she’d had the same thought, she bristled in his defense. “You have a real job!”
“Do I?”
“Of course you do. You’re the CEO.”
He raised his eyebrows in mocking question. “Really? I’ve been interim CEO for about five minutes.”
“And before that you were a VP.”
“A VP of what, precisely?”
“You were the VP of International—” But then her memory failed her and she couldn’t remember what exactly he did internationally.
“International…” he prodded.
“International something.”
“Any idea what I do—or rather did—as VP of International Something?”
“Well, you…travel a lot. And I’m sure you…have a lot of meetings. And…”
“Come on. Seriously, can you describe my job?”
“Well, no. But I’m sure you could.”
“Look, I don’t do a lot at Cain Enterprises. I’m the first person to admit it. If it wasn’t a family business, there’s no way I’d actually work for Cain Enterprises.”
Interesting. And it made her wonder what he would do if he had picked his own profession.
“But you do actually care about the business. You clearly pay attention to what’s going on. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have even had opinions about how to handle the change in leadership.”
“Of course I care about it. If Cain Enterprises’ stock tanks, it’s my inheritance that goes down the drain.”
“That’s really what you care about? The money?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“I don’t believe that.” Or maybe she just didn’t want to believe it. When he didn’t say anything in response, she felt a growing sense of unease. Finally she prodded. “You can’t be serious about that.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t believe you only care about the money.”
“Really? You need me to tell you again how much money it is?” he asked glibly. “Because I only need to care about each dollar a tiny amount for it to really add up.”
“You’re not that guy. You don’t even drive a flashy car. You drive a sensible hybrid.”
“Maybe I just care about the environment.”
She frowned. Yeah, okay. She could see that. If he cared about the environment and worked for a company that did land development and oil exploration, maybe that was how he balanced it out. “Still, it’s a sedan. It’s like the least fancy car ever.”
“Hey,” he said, his voice all mock offense. “Don’t diss my car. It’s a great car.”
“But surely there are other hybrids that are a little more—” she mentally fished around for a word that wouldn’t be dissing his car “—stylish.”
“Sure. That’s why I have a Tesla parked in the garage under my condo, but it’s not like I’m going to drive that puppy to work every morning.”
She didn’t even know what a Tesla was, but she could guess. Somehow, knowing he owned a fancy sports car annoyed her, even if she didn’t know jack about fancy sports cars. Even if it fit every preconception she had about him.
Yeah, when she’d first met him—hell, even when they’d first started sleeping together—she’d thought he was just some charming playboy type. But in the past few days, her opinion of him had shifted. And the truth was, she kind of liked the guy who cared more about Cain Enterprises and who drove an unimpressive sedan.
That charming playboy? He was a great guy to sleep with. Fantastic in bed. Loads of fun to hang out with. But that other guy—the guy who worried about the family company and drove a sensible car? That was a guy she could really care about.
Not that she wanted to care about him. That was just a heartache waiting to happen.
The truth was, she was perilously close to caring way more about him than she wanted to. The last thing she needed was more reasons to like him.
No matter what else happened, no matter how their relationship seemed to have changed in the past few days, it was just an illusion. The relationship had taken on this false sense of intimacy. The no-strings, just-sex relationship they’d started out with four months ago had gotten very muddled. Things went downhill the second they stopped ha**ng s*x. Now that they were sharing their histories and emotions, this felt like a real relationship. Like something that might last.
But she knew that was an illusion. He needed her right now. His entire life had been thrown into turmoil over the past six weeks. First with his father’s proclamation and then again when Dalton quit. Griffin needed her right now because their affair was the last vestige of normalcy in his life.
But she had to be careful. She couldn’t let herself forget that this emotional attachment he seemed to feel for her was temporary. Once his life got back to normal, he wouldn’t need her anymore. She just had to make sure that she didn’t still need him.
Eleven
Griffin couldn’t stand the unnatural calm that had overcome Sydney. “You’re being awfully quiet.”
“There isn’t anything to say.”
“That sounds like code for you’re pissed off at me,” he surmised. “You must be mad at me about the background check.”
“No. I’m not.”
“Of course you are. Why wouldn’t you be? I’ve invaded your privacy.”
She tilted her head to the side as she seemed to consider. “Well, yes. I suppose.”
He watched her carefully. “So then you should be mad.”
She frowned. “Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“Sure.”
“Possibly?” he repeated.
“Actually, I’m more than a little curious as to why you want me to be mad.” There was puzzlement in her gaze but no real emotion. It was like she was purposefully distancing herself from him.
And frankly, it did piss him off. What the hell was wrong with her?
“You want to know why I want you to be mad? Do you have any idea how crappy I felt about reading that file?” They’d finally reached the downtown exit, and he maneuvered the car onto the exit ramp. “The least you could do is be pissed off at me.”
She arched an eyebrow, speculation in her eyes. “Let me see if I’ve got this right…you’re mad at me because I’m not mad?”
He fumed for a moment while he formulated an answer. The building that housed Sheppard Capital was only a block off the loop; driving into the parking garage bought him a few minutes. He pulled into one of the visitor parking spots and killed the engine before answering.
“I just don’t get it. You should be pissed.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“It should be.”
“No,” she snapped. “It shouldn’t be. Don’t you understand?”
Now her words were laced with the kind of indignation he’d been expecting all along.
“Apparently not.”
“That girl that I used to be, that terrified seven year old, she has nothing to do with me.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“But it’s true.” Sydney flung her car door open and jumped out. She slammed the door shut and waited until he’d climbed out, too, before saying, “That girl, the one who refused to talk to anyone at school because she was terrified that she’d be taken away by Child Protective Services. That girl, who used to Dumpster dive just to get enough food to eat. I am not that girl anymore. I haven’t been that girl since I was eleven.”