For the first time she saw some genuine irritation in his eyes. “I can take care of myself, and I’m not going in alone. Luis is coming with me. He camps a lot.”
She felt a brow rise. “Luis, your graduate assistant? In history?”
“Just because he’s an academic doesn’t mean he can’t camp.”
“Given that he’s here doing his graduate work, and from my very cursory look into his background, he’s not on a scholarship. That means he’s likely from a wealthy family. He glamped. You can’t glamp in the jungle.” Glamorous camping—otherwise known as glamping—was what she suspected David had done as well. Somehow she couldn’t see Grace Taggart roughing it out in the wilderness. His mom was an elegant woman who was always flawlessly put together. “Not that I don’t think a good glamp isn’t fun. I would far rather enjoy nature from the comfort of a pimped-out tent. However, I suspect that isn’t what we’ll be doing.”
“I didn’t think we would be doing it at all,” David pointed out.
“Well, plans change.” Hers sure had. She’d thought she would go home and get ready for an evening of standing outside an ex-president’s hotel room. She hadn’t expected she would be going to South America with a history professor. A hot as hell, “Oh, Dr. Hawthorne, I didn’t turn in my project, you might need to spank me” history professor.
How many of his students screwed up an assignment so they could get some private attention from him?
“We only have two tents. Kyle wasn’t planning on camping with us. He thought we would be safe enough on the island. So we have two tents and now apparently we have three people.”
It was her turn to shrug. “Then I guess you and Luis are going to be sharing one.”
“They’re small, Tessa.”
“You can cuddle.”
Although the more she thought about it, she should be the one sharing a tent with him. They called it close cover for a reason.
His hands tightened around the wheel. “I thought I would have more freedom if I agreed to go straight to the island.”
He was starting to get the reality of the situation. “We can turn this beauty around if you like.”
He sped up. “How hard are you going to make this on me, Tess? Is turning around what you want me to do?”
She wasn’t sure. Turning around would be the smart thing to do, but she was starting to think she wanted to be dumb when it came to him. “I’m not trying to make this hard on you at all. I’m trying to do my job, which is to ensure you make it back safely. Look, the jungle is dangerous. I’ve spent some time in a couple. We trained on all kinds of terrain. I’m going to stay in the background most of the time. You’ll barely know I’m there.”
“So first you nix my bus ride and now you want control of my search for the treasure. I understand you don’t want to be here, but I need to know if you’re going to…I don’t know…sabotage me in some way. It would be easier to call it all off if that’s your intention.”
Ah, there was the irritation she’d expected. It was good because they couldn’t talk about the problem if he didn’t acknowledge it existed. “My only intention is to do my job, David. I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear. Can we talk about it now?”
“We don’t have to.” At least he wasn’t playing dumb.
It would be easier to ignore the problem, but the truth was she didn’t want him to dislike her. And she was starting to think they needed to work this out or she would never be able to stop thinking about him. “I think we do because you think I’m out to get you or something.”
“You made it clear you didn’t want to see me again and now you’re being forced to spend a week with me,” David pointed out. “If I were in your position, I might try to find a creative way out of it, too.”
She hadn’t tried very hard when she thought about it. She could have gotten out of this job. “I know this sounds like a cop-out, but it wasn’t you. It’s me.”
“Sure.” His eyes stayed on the road, but she didn’t miss the way his jaw tensed.
“I mean it. I told you that night that my last relationship ended. What I didn’t tell you was my fiancé was Michael Malone, the son of a ridiculously wealthy oil baron.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have to explain. You don’t owe me any explanations.”
“Stop being the good guy.” She huffed in frustration. “I know I don’t owe you anything, but I want to explain. We’re going to be stuck together for a week, and it’s best if we both know where we stand.”
“Okay,” he agreed.
“I didn’t fit into his world. I didn’t even want to. It’s not that they weren’t lovely people, but I felt uncomfortable there. He was raised in an entirely different way than I was. I know that sounds weird, but we would fight about things like paying too much for groceries. He didn’t understand why I was upset he didn’t use the coupons I found. He thought it was silly for me to try to keep costs down when he has all the money in the world.”
“But it wasn’t your money and it never would have been,” David said. “Even if you married him, you would have still felt that way.”
It was one of the things she’d worried about. They’d come from two different worlds, and she simply didn’t fit into his. And she hadn’t loved him enough to truly try. “Yeah. Like it’s hardwired in me to be frugal. I didn’t like the parties we went to. I always felt like they were watching me, waiting for me to screw up. Again, it wasn’t his family, though I was always worried about embarrassing them. Reporters actually followed us around when we went to visit Nina after she had her last kid.”
“Yeah, I understand that,” David replied. “It’s weird. I don’t know how or why anyone would want to live that way.”
“Sean’s been on TV.” She hoped he could start putting two and two together. “He’s on TV a lot.”
“Sean’s got actual groupies. I don’t know why people watch shows where other people cook. It’s not like you can eat the food.”
She could understand. She’d actually watched Sean’s shows. “I don’t know. There’s something soothing about it.”
“So you decided not to take me up on my offer because you think I run in those circles?” David asked.
Good. At least he understood. “I think you’re Sean Taggart’s stepson. You’re related to Ian Taggart. He might not be TV celebrity, but he’s a rock star in my world. He knows presidents and prime ministers.”
“He also once threatened to punch a reporter if he didn’t walk away.” David chuckled, though it was obvious he wasn’t amused. “Sean’s a little better but only because his agent forced him to take media training. You know they nicknamed him Sean the Viking Chef, right? Once this group who call themselves Sean’s Shield Maidens showed up at Top. These are not nice women. They like to troll my mom and tell her she’s too old for him or too fat for him.”
“What?” His mom and stepdad were one of the most gorgeous couples she’d ever seen.