Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(85)

If he was being honest, she looked like she was having a stroke. Her face had gone all splotchy and her neck was pitched at an awkward angle.

DJ had the strongest urge to pinch himself. “Oh, a disaster is definitely how I would describe it. But do go on.”

The hand she had pressed into her belly turned into a fist. “Do go on . . . see, I think it’s the way you talk. It’s like those historical novels Nisha reads. ‘Do go on,’ drawled the duke . . .” She was babbling, and also doing the worst imitation of British English he’d ever heard.

Suddenly her face collapsed into panic as though she’d just realized she was having a mental episode. “You can’t possibly not see how ridiculous this is. You . . . You . . . I’ve never dated anyone who isn’t a physician . . . let alone someone who hasn’t been to college.” Just saying those words made her look like she was going to burst into tears. “You cook for a living. I’m terrified of kitchens. But I don’t care. I . . . I . . . When I’m with you, I feel, I feel . . . Maybe we should just get this out of our systems.”

Excuse him?

He took another two steps away from her but she followed him. She seemed desperate to get it all out now, this awful affliction that plagued her that was somehow his fault.

“I don’t know . . . I don’t know how to get you out of my mind.” She looked up at him with big limpid eyes that should have melted him. But all he felt was a restlessness to get the hell away from here. “What are we going to do?”

All right then, time to stop this nonsense.

He held out his hand so she wouldn’t get closer to him. “We? We are not going to do anything.” Was she addled? He’d spent the last four days wanting to hunt her down and kill her for almost getting him killed, for the humiliation that hadn’t stopped burning inside him. Not for one sodding moment.

Then there was what Julia had told him—the pain in her eyes when she’d talked about being homeless, like him. Because of her.

Even if he did have feelings for her—and thank the good Lord that he wasn’t that much of an arse—he wasn’t quite reckless enough to put himself in the path of the kind of callous destruction Julia had experienced.

“I have absolutely no interest in you, Dr. Raje,” he said, meeting the wild plea in her eyes.

Her hand went to her mouth in disbelief, and she made a sound somewhere between “Why?” and “How?”

It hadn’t struck her for one moment that he might not lap up her proposition, or whatever this was.

“This might baffle you, but despite not being a physician, I do have some pride. Although most certainly not enough to withstand the kind of beating you’re capable of dealing it. The kind of beating you’ve repeatedly dealt it from the first time we’ve met. You’re right, I value honesty, so I’ll tell you that I make it a practice not to find women who insult me at every opportunity attractive.”

Color flooded her cheeks and traveled down her neck. Finally, she stepped away from him, too, and found the back of a chair to clutch. She looked entirely devastated. Had no one ever denied her anything? He hated the hurt in her eyes. But it was done now.

“How is telling you I’m attracted to you an insult?”

He pressed the back of his hand into his forehead. It made him feel like a drama queen in some sort of musical farce. Which this had to be. “Telling me how unworthy I am of your attraction, that’s the insulting part. And, no, that’s not all it is. Even if you hadn’t told me at every opportunity how inferior to you I am . . . how all I do is cook . . . every assumption you’ve made about me is insulting. Culinary school is definitely college. And Le Cordon Bleu is one of the most competitive institutions in the world. The fact that that’s so wholly incomprehensible to you . . . that’s the insulting part. And it wasn’t thrown in my overly privileged lap either. I had to work my bottom off to make it in.”

Ammaji had sold her dowry jewels to pay for his application, something her family would have thrown her out on the street for had they found out.

Trisha squared her shoulders, the devastation draining fast from her face, leaving behind the self-possession he was so much more used to. And the speed with which she gathered herself shook something inside him. “I might not do what you see as important work, but I work hard at being a decent human being, and I would need anyone I’m with to be that first and foremost. Even if I didn’t find snobbery in general incredibly unattractive, I would never go anywhere near a person as self-absorbed and arrogant as you, Dr. Raje. I would have to be insane to subject myself to your view of me and the world.”

“Wow.” She was panting, or maybe it was him. He couldn’t be sure.

“You wanted honesty. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

She cleared her throat. “I’m surprised you think someone as . . . as . . . self-absorbed and arrogant as me is even capable of being hurt.” With trembling hands, she picked up the bag of muffins Naomi had left on her table, but she looked too unsteady on her feet to move. He reached out to steady her, but this time she stepped away and clutched the brown paper to her stomach. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Sorry that I asked for your honesty. What you just said to me wasn’t just hurtful, it was judgmental. Honesty, I now realize, only has value when it goes with fairness.”