topic?”
He grinned and a healthy dose of that guilt-free lust slammed her. “No. They simply don’t talk.”
It was the most he’d ever said about his family and she was curious to know more. “The British stiff upper lip?”
“Something like that. And their heads are full of ancient artifacts and civilizations.” Per Elliott, his father was a museum curator and his mother was an archaeology—or maybe it was anthropology—professor. “They find the modern world something of an inconvenience.”
It took a nanosecond for her to feel the loneliness of a little boy who had always hovered on the periphery of his parents’ attention. Tawny knew as surely as she knew her name that Simon had been something of an inconvenience, as well. She related. “I wasn’t an inconvenience, but I’ve always been a disappointment.”
“I never said I was an inconvenience.”
“You didn’t have to say it.”
He tilted his head to one side. “How could your parents possibly find you a disappointment?”
Okay. So he was probably just looking to shift the conversation from himself, but he seemed genuinely puzzled that she might disappoint Dr. and Mrs. Carlton Jonathan Edwards III.
“It’s been all too easy. I’m not exactly the overachiever my sister Sylvia is—magna cum laude from Yale and a rising member of the Savannah bar.” Out of nervous habit she started to twist her ring on her finger and realized it was no longer there. Her nail scraped her bare finger. “Betsy, my younger sister, married one of Daddy’s partner’s sons. She and Tad have a beautiful home on Wilmington Island in a prestigious gated community. Me? I’m not as smart as Sylvia and I’m not as refined and gracious as Betsy. I talk too much, I’m too assertive, I have a master’s degree in business but I plan parties for a living. I committed the ultimate sin of leaving Savannah, Georgia. When I came home with Elliott, they were pleased, although he wasn’t a Southerner. Now it turns out he’s gay.”
She was batting a thousand here. And while she was hauling all of her shortcomings out for examination... “Oh, yeah, and Sylvia and Betsy take after my parents, who are tall and thin. Thanks to recessive genes, I take after Grandmother Burdette, short with a big butt.” And add talking too much and saying the wrong thing to that list. Why the heck had she mentioned her big ass?
Simon crossed his arms over his chest, restrained strength in lean, sinewy muscle. He leveled an uncompromising look at her from his end. “Are you sure you want the truth, here in the dark?”
Uh-oh. Something in his tone reminded her of Nicholson in A Few Good Men, assuring them they couldn’t handle the truth. She’d asked for it, but now she wasn’t so certain she wanted it. But she’d never run away from things or buried her head in the sand, and she wouldn’t start now. “Absolutely.”
“If that’s really how your parents feel, all of you need to get over it. Lose the pity party and look at things the way they really are. You say you’re a party planner as if it’s some lesser accomplishment. You’re an event planner for a law firm with a hundred and fifty practicing attorneys. According to Elliott, you do an incredible job planning and executing a multitude of functions. That requires tremendous organizational and negotiation skills.”
She opened her mouth to point out she had an assistant, but he forestalled her with a raised hand.
“Let me finish and then the floor’s yours. I think you came to New York to get away from your parents’ censure, but you might as well pack up and go home if you’re going to continue to see yourself through their eyes and judge yourself against some mythical standard.” Ouch. His tone softened. “You’ll never be free to be you until you accept and like who you are. I don’t know what your sisters look like and I don’t care. Your body would drop most men to their knees. Any man with half a dose of testosterone would tell you that you have the perfect behind. I’d like to think men aren’t quite so shallow as to fall in love with your behind and overlook all of your other obvious attributes and qualities, but certainly any man would love your derriere. It could drive a man to madness.”
Well. It was her turn to talk and she didn’t know what to say. He’d certainly taken her at her word and said a lot. And perhaps