Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

friends whose parents had split, but it was tough on my mom. She never got to go to college, and she wasn’t trained or qualified to do much of anything.” She shrugged. “Except look pretty and be charming. That didn’t pay the bills, though, so she worked two jobs. Two crappy jobs. She waited tables at night, and she cleaned people’s houses during the day. She’d take me with her on her housekeeping gigs in the summers, when school was out, and I’d help out.”

She sighed as she remembered. “Some of those houses she cleaned, Rufus…These huge estates in Glenview, and big houses in the east end…I couldn’t believe how some of these people lived. I couldn’t believe they had so much room to move around in, so many things to dust and polish and scrub. Beautiful things,” she added. “And the women would be home while we worked sometimes, reading the paper and drinking their coffee. Or they’d come home in their tennis and golf outfits while we were there.” She finally met his gaze, levelly and unflinchingly now. “My mom worked so hard, Rufus. She was no different from any of them. She deserved to live the same kind of life. But she had no life. She had to take care of herself and me instead. I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to me.”

“That sucks, Bree,” Rufus agreed. “You and your mom should both have had better. But you know what? A lot of people have crappy jobs. A lot of people deserve better than they have. It doesn’t make them go out and look for somebody else who has a better life to take care of them. Either they do what they can to improve their own lives, or they make do with what they have. Having money doesn’t mean all your problems are magically solved. A lot of times, it just makes more problems.”

“I know that,” she said. “I know my life won’t be charmed and perfect just because there’s someone else paying the bills. But it sure as hell would be better than what I have now. I’m not a lot of people, Rufus. I don’t want to make do with what I have. I want something better.”

“Then make it happen for yourself.”

“You don’t think I haven’t tried?” she said.

He jerked his hands from his pockets and took a step forward. “You majored in English, for God’s sake,” he reminded her. “That’s not exactly a degree that lends itself to moneymaking.”

“No, but it’s good for making a person smart and articulate and interesting to talk to. Look, Rufus,” she hurried on when he started to object, “I tried taking classes in economics and finance and business, and I just don’t have a head for it. It’s not in my genes. From my dad, whoever he was, I got a strong survival instinct and good strategy skills. From my mother, I got good looks and the ability to be charming when I want to be. Put them all together, and you get someone who knows what needs to be done and can figure out the best way to do it. I knew a long time ago what I needed to do. And I’ve done my best to do it. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. Maybe it’s taking longer for me to reach my goal, but I will reach it. I have to.”

“You’ll hand yourself to some guy—let him take whatever he wants from you—just because he opens his wallet and lets you take whatever you want from it.”

She tried to feel militant and defiant when she said, “Damn right.” Instead, she only felt tired and defeated.

“It’s not a fair trade, Bree. Not even close.”

She said nothing to that. Mostly because she couldn’t disagree.

When she remained silent, he nodded briskly, then dropped his hands onto his hips in challenge. “Okay. Okay, so let’s say you do find a guy rich enough to keep you in the style you imagine you need to make you happy.”

Bree thrust her fists onto her hips, too, mimicking his stance, rising to his challenge. “There’s no ‘imagine’ in the equation, Rufus. I know what I need to be—” She couldn’t make herself say the word happy, since she knew, really, that she would never be that. “To be content,” she finally finished. “And it can only be bought with lots and lots of money.”

He started ticking things off on his fingers. “Expensive home, expensive car, expensive jewelry, expensive clothes, expensive travel. Did I leave anything out?”

“Maybe one or two things,” she told him crisply. “But I think you got the biggies.”

He dropped his hands back to his hips. “You think having that will make you happy?”

“Yes,” she said. “I do.” As happy as she could be, anyway. Because all of those things could be turned into cash if an emergency arose. And cash was what Bree wanted—needed—more than anything. “But it’s more than just expensive things, Rufus,” she continued. “It’s knowing I don’t have to worry. It’s security. That’s even more important to me than the expensive things.”

“You think you’re going to have security in this life you envision for yourself?” he demanded. “Are you serious? Guys who buy women only pay for them for as long as they’re interested in them. And they don’t stay interested for long, Bree. What happens when your Sugar Daddy finds a new Barbie doll he likes better than you?”

Did he think she hadn’t thought about that? Hadn’t she just told him she was smart? She sure as hell wasn’t that naïve. She knew men didn’t marry their mistresses. And she knew they didn’t keep them forever. “By the time he gets bored with me,” she said, “I’ll have moved in his society long enough to have met dozens of men just like him.”

Rufus’s mouth dropped open at that. “So that’s it then?” he asked. “You’ll just hire yourself out to