“What did you do with the money?” Lauren had asked when, a month or two into their courtship, he’d volunteered this information.

“I paid my mom back for college. Set some aside for grad school. Banked it. Started a 401(k). Set up a scholarship. You know.”

“No, I don’t, since I’ve never made ten million dollars.” She smiled. “Did you do anything fun?”

He thought about that. “I sent my mom on a vacation,” he offered.

Turned out, he’d sent his mom and her best friends, Sumi and Ben Kim, on a monthlong vacation, first-class airfare and hotels, so they could visit Korea, Thailand and Australia. Private tours in the big cities, a designated credit card so he could pay for all their expenses.

“Did they love it?” Lauren asked, hands clasped in front of her.

“They did.” And that was that. But he smiled, and his smiles could say more than ten thousand words.

Joshua Park owned his apartment—a soulless but expensive two-bedroom in a new building near the river. It was a sharp contrast to her tiny but beautiful loft in a refurbished mill building, complete with original creaky floors and brick walls. While her apartment was cozy and charming, Josh’s was bleak, aside from the view of the capitol’s beautiful dome. He had a kitchen table but no kitchen chairs, two plates, two forks, two glasses. His living room held the medical chair, a couch, a huge TV, and a giant desk with five different computers. His bedroom contained a bed with one pillow. No art, no rugs, no throw pillows. He didn’t have a car but did have a retirement fund.

Aside from food, she couldn’t see that he spent money at all, adopting a painfully dull cargo shorts and T-shirt look that made him look seventeen years old.

“So being a spendthrift,” she said. “Not a problem, I’m guessing?”

“The money’s there if I need it,” he said. “But I can’t think of anything I need right now.”

“Except for the love of a good woman,” she said. “Which money can’t buy, of course.”

“I have that,” he said, and her heart thrilled, because they hadn’t said those words yet. Then he grinned. “My mom. She’s a very good woman.” And because he was so serious and quiet much of the time, his joke meant all the more.

Oh, she had it bad.