“I think we’ve had enough excitement for the day.” Her lips were tight again. Pinched. “Let’s go home.”
From that expression, he could only assume her patience had run out.
Sure enough, she was silent only a minute before stating firmly, “I’d like to talk about what happened outside the salon now, if that’s acceptable to you.”
Fortunately for them both, the scalp massage during the shampoo had lowered his blood pressure to a nearly normal level again.
“If it weren’t”—he slipped on sunglasses to combat the glare—“how exactly would I stop you?” When he contemplated the issue, only one good solution came to mind. “By kissing you?”
Her silence seemed to expand, filling the entire car.
When he chanced a glance over, she was staring at him, open-mouthed, cheeks pink.
“You could stop me by asking me to stop,” she said slowly, pronouncing every word with crystalline clarity.
Oh. Right.
With an especially casual shrug, he turned his eyes back to the traffic. “Fair enough. Anyway, it’s fine. Chastise away, Nanny Clegg.”
The roads seemed particularly clogged today, even for L.A., and he resigned himself to a long, boring lecture about professional conduct and legal consequences. Nothing he hadn’t heard a thousand times before, but for Wren, he’d at least pretend to listen.
She didn’t say what he expected, though.
What she said was worse. Much, much worse.
“People say terrible things to me all the time.” Her voice was entirely matter-of-fact, free of both anger and self-pity. “They have since I was a child. At some point, I just stopped telling my parents or anyone else, because it upset them so much, and there was no point.”
No point to telling her parents she’d been hurt and insulted? No point?
Because her feelings were less important than protecting theirs?
She was still talking, even as his pulse rocketed back to near-stroke territory. “It’s not right, but it’s also not important, as I’ve told you before. Reacting to insults directed my way isn’t worth your time or energy, and it’s certainly not worth your job or professional reputation. I appreciate your instinct to defend me, more than you know, but you have to learn to let it go, Alex, the same way I have.”
By all rights, the car should be festooned with the exploded remains of his head.
“What?” Somehow, that was all he could articulate. “What?”
“Thank you for caring about me.” She cleared her throat. “But retaliating against people who insult me isn’t necessary or wise, and you shouldn’t do it again.”
For some reason, his poor, exploded brain filled with her expression the night he’d returned from visiting Marcus and April.
He and Wren had been standing just inside the doorway of the guesthouse, where he’d escorted her after their late dinner together. Before they parted, he’d offered her the huge plastic bag he’d kept protectively tucked in the carry-on bin the entire flight.
For some reason, he was nervous, his hands not entirely steady.
She’d blinked at him, confused, her own small hands motionless at her sides.
“This is for you,” he’d finally told her, impatient and uncomfortable. “Take it, you impossible dolt of a woman.”
Slowly, her face filled with befuddlement, she’d accepted the bag’s handles, then looked inside. Her brow furrowed even further, and she stumbled toward the nearest table.
When she removed the blanket from the bag, those ludicrously short fingers stroked the fabric. Once. Again. Again.
“Is this—” She spread the silk out over the table, still caressing. “Is this a … blanket?”
He’d planned to say, When it gets wet, it’s just like you! Only—first of all, the phrasing raised images of Wren, uh, wet. In various ways. Which was …
Disturbing. Yes, that was the word. Disturbing.
Second, this particular blanket was dry-clean only. He’d already taken care of that overnight, in a rush job.
And third, he didn’t feel like mocking her anymore.
No, he kind of felt like his sinuses were burning with some odd mixture of rage and pain, because she looked so stunned to receive a gift. So bewildered at the thought that someone else had thought about her and procured something for her, even as a stupid, stupid joke about how she was a wet blanket, ha ha, so funny.
So instead of making fun of her, Alex simply told her the bare facts. “Yes. It’s a blanket. It’s made from charmeuse silk. Dry-clean only, but Dina can take care of that periodically, when she brings in some of my clothing for cleaning and pressing.”