Landlord Wars(52)

My mouth twisted as I considered. I was probably too hungry to be rational. “That should be enough. Did you order extra rice?”

His expression was pure cockiness. “I’m not an amateur, Sophia.”

Shit. No, he was not. “Good, good—just making sure.” I hurried into the kitchen for plates and utensils.

We sat at the counter and dug into the food, casual style, like we had at his place, and a wave of comfort washed over me. Max wasn’t as uptight as I’d originally thought, and I was giddy as I watched him eat. Giddy for the food, and giddy to be spending time with him. “Everything go okay at work today?”

He frowned slightly. “Work was all right, but…”

“But?”

He looked up and wiped the side of his mouth with a napkin. “My parents are going through something right now, and I’m not sure how to support them.”

“Is it something you can talk about?”

“It’s not something that’s known by people on the outside. If it were known, it would be a big deal.”

I held up my hands. “I don’t want to intrude.”

He smiled softly. “I want to share it with you. I want to share everything with you.”

Oh, wow. This was not Max the uptight landlord. This was the Max he didn’t show to everyone. And it made me feel special.

He set his fork on the side of his plate and then looked at me directly. “My parents lost quite a bit of money in a poor investment, and they’re looking for ways to make it up.”

“When you say ‘quite a bit of money,’ that equals destitute to me. But I somehow don’t think that’s what you meant.”

He smiled sardonically. “They lost a large fortune, but they have enough left to live out their lives in comfort. This loss won’t affect their lifestyle so much, but it will affect their standing in society if it comes out.”

“Right, society.” The foreign thing I knew nothing about. “What does it mean to lose your standing among rich people?”

He shrugged and bit into a fried wonton. “If their friends learn the truth, my parents will lose connections and business partners. Their name would be tarnished, and they likely wouldn’t be invited to as many society events.”

I pushed my plate away; I’d already eaten two platefuls of moo shu pork, orange chicken, and tofu vegetables. The food baby was at six weeks’ gestation, and it was time to simmer down. After all, I’d restocked the chocolate, and there was no dinner without a nip of chocolate for dessert. “The friends they’d lose don’t sound like good ones.”

He smiled as if to himself. “My parents don’t understand that. They’ve never had friends without strings attached.”

If they never had genuine friends, being a San Francisco first family wasn’t as much of a boon as I’d imagined. Maybe it was better to be one of the common folk.

“If their name is tarnished,” I said, thinking things through, “does that mean your name will be too? Will it affect your company?”

He shook his head, scooping another heaping of rice onto his plate. “I’m not worried about things like that. I’ve built business relationships based on my work ethic. Some people do business with me because of the name, but the people I’ve been working with for years know better. I’m not interested in society standings. I have very few close friends, and the ones I do have wouldn’t drop me over this.”

So confusing. “If it won’t affect you, and your parents will only lose superficial friendships while living out their lives in luxury, how is this a problem?”

He huffed out a breath. “It shouldn’t be. But my parents care about things like social standing. It’s how they were raised.”

“Weren’t you raised like that?”

“To some extent, yes. But I had something they didn’t—I had Jack and his family. Jack lost his mom right after we became friends, and I saw how that loss affected him and his dad. They struggled with finances in the wake of her death, and that was a cruel twist of fate. His dad worked long hours and could barely make ends meet, all while grieving his wife.”

He poked at the rice without eating it. “High society will tell you poor people are lazy, but that’s not true. They just don’t have the same connections, resources, and luck. I don’t care much for society’s opinions when it comes from a place of ignorance. Not to mention, wealthy people can be hypocrites.” He looked up at me through his lashes. “You’d be surprised how many are in debt.”

I held my hands up. “Wait, are you saying rich people aren’t really rich?”

“Oh, they’re wealthy, but not as wealthy as they claim. They keep up appearances and sometimes don’t have as much money in the bank as it would seem. My parents now fall into the second category, and they want me to help them maintain the image. And help them rebuild their wealth.”

“They want to be obscenely rich instead of only filthy rich?”

“Correct.”

I shook my head. “This is so strange. I had no idea classism existed among the wealthy. And no offense, but I’m not sure I feel sorry for your parents.”

“You absolutely shouldn’t,” he said. “My parents will be fine. They brought this on themselves because they were greedy and wanted more. So much more that they blindly listened to a sure thing that wasn’t sure at all.”