“I can’t believe you just did that,” she hissed.
They were standing by the refrigerator, which was covered in photos of Minh and Gali. He would have loved to take the opportunity to look at them, but Daria was apparently having a complete breakdown in the kitchen of virtual strangers, and he needed to focus.
Although…Minh was a smokin’ hot virtual stranger. The way she had looked just now when they’d been alone…all fire and passion, barely contained beneath the surface of that gorgeous face—beautiful. He’d seen that in her last night, hadn’t he? But she kept pulling back into that weird shell of herself, the preppy, snooty one that didn’t make any sense.
He shook his head, trying to clear it of thoughts of Minh, and stared at Daria as though that might help her make more sense. “Did what?”
“Criticized someone whose apartment I want to live in! Who cares if she doesn’t write the kind of music you think she should write? Why did you have to be so rude?”
“What? You mean you don’t think it’s weird? C’mon, it’s weird. She composed that piece, I know she did. Besides, I was only teasing her.” He thought for sure that Minh would cop to it then, but instead she’d looked…scared. And angry.
“You are such a moron.”
Chris bristled. “Hey! She was the one who was acting all holier-than-thou. I was just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Well, way to fail.” Daria shook her head at him. “Now she isn’t just wary of you—and don’t pretend that she isn’t, since you apologized for whatever went down between the two of you last night. Now she hates you.”
Hearing that did something to him. He wanted to tell Daria that it was impossible, that he couldn’t want a woman so badly and have her hate him. But now that he was away from Minh, thinking back on their interaction just now, he had to admit that maybe Daria was right. He’d come into Minh’s home and questioned the choices she’d made with her life.
Okay. Fine. So maybe he had taken it a bit overboard. It was just that he’d felt their strange connection again and had been startled by the intensity of feeling he had about her. He didn’t like the way she looked at him, as if she could see something in him that he didn’t want to show her, like she knew just how desperate he was to get a great composer for this movie. And then she’d lied—Why had she lied?—and he couldn’t take it, that a woman who could make him feel so opened up could somehow manage to keep herself closed to him. So he’d done what he always did—amped it up, brazened it out…
He shouldn’t have said a word. And now he’d messed it up for his sister.
“Shit. Daria, I’m sorry. I—”
“Offer her the job.”
That brought him up short. He furrowed his brow. “Offer her what job?”
Daria’s eyes flitted to the doorway, then back to Chris. She was acting like this was some kind of crappy spy movie from the seventies. He almost laughed, but then he heard her next words, “You said you were looking for someone to compose your film score but having problems finding someone you can afford. Offer. Her. The. Job.”
“What? No way.” Chris snorted. Fuck that. Minh might be hot, and he might want to strip those stuffy clothes off of her and show her just how much of a freak he could be, but no way did he want to deal with a personality like hers, even if her work was amazing.
When he’d heard her playing, he’d decided that he wanted that song. But all her talk about rules hadn’t made any sense. The piece she’d played when he’d been outside didn’t follow any rules, just like The Accidental Prince.
It was perfect.
And she’d denied writing it.
Then she’d gone on to talk about nonsense like technical superiority and rules, and that definitely wouldn’t work for the kind of movie he was making. It had made him crazy, hearing her say those things. The animation software he’d developed was a game-changer, and this film would showcase that. There needed to be soul in the score. Individualism. Not the same old shit.
Besides…she said she hadn’t actually worked on a film, but that she wanted to. This job would open up a lot of opportunities. She could use his contacts and his hard work to jump to the next level, and he’d be left behind. He may as well just lie down on the floor saying Go ahead. Crush me underfoot on your way up the ladder.
He wasn’t going to make himself vulnerable like that again.
“Look, I know Kendra screwed you over…”
How did Daria do that? Sometimes, the way his sister knew exactly what he was thinking was crazy.
“But that’s no reason for you to think all women are scary.”
Hold up. “I’m not scared of women.”
“Yes, you are.”