Legally Addicted - By Lena Dowling Page 0,48

little kids? Who the hell do you think you are?’

Georgia’s voice had risen to almost a shout. It took him a few seconds to register that Georgia was fully aroused, but not at all in the ‘let’s have a little afternoon delight way’ he had been hoping for.

But before he could respond, she was speaking again, ‘I’ll tell you who you are. You’re a sickening, wealthy parasite.’

Suddenly she had a problem with the cost of their jaunt to the Pacific? It hadn’t stopped her chugging back the French champagne or accepting a trip to a resort on a corporate jet. Where the hell was this coming from? He lifted his hand, palm outwards, to motion her to stop speaking, but she was so far on a roll there was no stopping her.

‘You’ve had so much handed to you that you haven’t even got the first idea of what it is to struggle.’

He had known struggle. He had fought his parents to study law and again to go into practice rather than joining the family business. He was still fighting. It was a daily struggle to manage his family business commitments and carve out a place discrete from the corporate juggernaut of the Spencer family firm that constantly threatened to engulf him, stripping away his hard won separate identity.

But her small hands, balled into white knuckled fists at her side, and reddening cheeks told him now wasn’t the time for a reasonable discussion about life’s challenges.

‘Listen, Georgia. Neither of us can help what we were born into. I didn’t ask for all of this to be ‘handed to me’ as you put it, but do you see me judging you for your background? No, and yet you seem quite comfortable judging me.’

‘I judge based on what I see, and from where I’m standing you have no respect for your staff.’

He shook his head. His father might have been a skirt-chaser and absent parent, but his legacy as an employer had been a record of fair treatment that was second to none, and one that Brad was at pains to continue.

‘And you’re basing that on, what — half a day here? Prejudice is just as ugly flowing in any direction, Georgia.’

Now Brad’s hackles were beginning to rise. She might have grown up in poverty, but it didn’t give her exclusive rights to scale the moral high ground and lay claim to it as her own.

‘What? You think I’m some kind of reverse snob?’ she said, the barest hint of understanding crossing her face.

‘If the cap fits.’

She was still struggling to come up with a response when he turned on his heel and left.

Georgia wrestled to gain her composure. She had replayed their argument at least a hundred times, when the knock on the door she had been half expecting finally interrupted the unhelpful internal role-playing. She wiped the smudges of mascara she knew would be under her eyes, pinched her cheeks and took in a deep breath. If Brad was big enough to come and apologise, she would take her share of the humble pie; not that she would apologise for what she had said, but she was sorry for how she had said it.

At least this trip had confirmed her instincts. As much as she might wish things could be different, she didn’t belong in Brad’s life and if that had been in the least bit hazy before, it was now absolutely crystal.

But when she opened the door it wasn’t Brad. It was the waiter who had served them at breakfast, standing on the deck with a large envelope in his hand.

‘Excuse me, madam, but Mr Spencer asked me to give you this.’

He handed her the envelope and before she could say anything scuttled back down the path towards the resort.

Curious, she ripped the envelope open, expecting some sort of apology or peace offering.

Inside was a ticket for a commercial flight back to Sydney and an airport transfer made out in her name. She looked at the date and time. Brad was sending her home, immediately.

Economy class.

Chapter Eleven

Brad paced the office that had been made available to him during his stay by the resort manager, his fury beginning to subside, and along with it, his appetite for retribution.

Damn it.

That stupid economy class ticket wasn’t just revenge, it was humiliation, and the direct opposite of Miriam’s advice to ‘make like a knight in shining armour’.

Finally it had dawned on him what was going on with Georgia. She wasn’t just prickly about his