“That’s your first thing?” He furrowed his brow at her. “It’s a weird first thing.”
“It’s not my first thing. It’s an addendum, jackass.”
He gasped, loudly enough that a nearby bird flapped away in alarm. “Such language! Why, my delicate ears!”
Her breaths seemed to dramatically lengthen at that point, and he figured she was counting to herself.
After several vastly entertaining and very deep inhalations, she got a hold of her temper. “First thing: I am not a sex worker, and you are not my client. Thus, we cannot, as you so eloquently put it, ‘Pretty Woman this shit.’ Second: As you are neither my john nor my sugar daddy of any sort, you will not be paying for these garments, and I can’t afford thousands of dollars’ worth of clothing I’ll never wear again. Third—”
“The production would pay for a red-carpet-appropriate dress,” he interrupted.
“Third,” she repeated with steely determination, “cocktail dresses don’t come in my size, at least not ones you’d find in standard L.A. stores. For something beautiful that truly fit me, you’d need to employ Christian Siriano—”
“I knew you liked reality television! Ha!”
He’d figured her indifference to GBBO was an act. It had to be. Who could resist Nadiya’s sweet, emotional ascent to baking triumph? Also the hilarious duo of Sue and Mel?
“—or, more likely, go online and order something a lot less pretty but also a lot less expensive. Then get it hemmed. Which we, fourth, do not have time to do, since the event is tomorrow night. So, fifth, we need to drive to my duplex and decide which of the few dresses I already own might suffice.”
Oooh. He was going to see his stern minder’s inner sanctum? Her Fortress of Stultifying Solitude? He couldn’t wait.
“You’re bringing me home?” He widened his eyes. “But you haven’t even taken me out on a real date yet. I don’t want you to think I’m cheap.”
“For the love of …” Now she was rubbing her forehead as well as her temples, and he would feel worse if a tiny little smile weren’t also curving the corners of that wide mouth. “I’d planned to visit my apartment soon anyway, since the clothing I packed for a Spanish vacation isn’t the same clothing I want to wear here. So we might as well take care of everything today. I’ll drive.”
He sprang to his feet. “Let’s do this, Thelma.”
“Sit down, Louise.” She pointed a commanding finger at his chair. “You’ve barely had anything but coffee. Last week, you repeatedly complained about stomach pain because of your medicine, and you told me the best way to prevent that pain was eating more breakfast. So let’s make sure you do that.”
He hadn’t realized she’d been listening to him. If he had, he might not have mentioned—
Oh, who was he trying to fool? Of course he’d have mentioned the issue. Not saying things was unnatural, which he’d also explained to Lauren multiple times.
She was still talking, so apparently she’d listened to him then too.
“—the label on your pill bottle, you should be taking your medication with plenty of water,” she told him. “We’ll bring a bottle in my car, and you can drink it along the way.”
What he ate or drank wasn’t in her realm of professional authority over him. Then again, the concern in her voice didn’t sound professional either.
It was personal. It was present.
He couldn’t see her glorious green eyes, but he knew they’d be warm. Worried.
So he sat his ass back down and ate his remaining Danish without argument before they headed back to the house. Which made her lips quirk that tiny bit again.
He liked it.
He wanted more of it.
LAUREN’S FUCKING DUPLEX. It had a steeply pitched roof and cream stucco siding, and for the entrance—
It had a goddamn turret. A small one, but definitely, positively, a turret.
If Alex lived in a mini-castle, she lived in a mini-mini-castle.
No wonder she’d lost her shit at the sight of his house yesterday. Hell, he was losing his shit now, because what were the odds?
“Keep breathing.” She parked inside the detached two-car garage and thumped him on the back. “I told you not to take a sip of water before we turned onto my street.”
Once he stopped cough-laughing and finally caught his breath again, he needed more details. “What’s that architectural style called?”