“Then what’s your problem?”
He didn’t even hesitate, he answered me. He actually answered me, and it sounded like the honest-to-goodness truth.
“I’m angry at myself for reacting the way I did to what you said when you meant no harm and I’m angry with myself for leaving you unprotected.”
I stared at him for a beat, hiding my surprise, and then said, “Good. Now that’s settled, I’m taking a shower.”
His hands tightened on my hips and his eyes narrowed on my face. It was his turn to stare at me for a beat, then he said, “I take it I’m not invited to this shower.”
I pulled away from him. “Nope.”
I took my shower, washed my hair and surveyed my new cuts and newest bruises while I let the water run over me.
When I’d stepped out of the shower, I noticed that, unfortunately, when I went into the bathroom, I didn’t take any clothes with me. I had to grab Lee’s light blue, cotton robe from the hook on the back of the door. I wrapped it tight around me and tied it secure.
I went into the bedroom and Lee was lying in bed, his chest bare and the sheet pulled up to his waist. He was reading. Believe it or not, casually lying in bed reading.
Grr.
If I’d had something, I would have thrown it at him. Instead, I went straight to my bag, rooting through it to find underwear. I found it, straightened and glanced at Lee. He’d put the book down and was lying on his side, his head in his hand, watching me.
“It’ll be a wasted effort, puttin’ those on.”
I sent him my best Polar Freeze Glare, turned my back on him and pulled up the panties.
“Talk to me, Indy,” he said on a sigh.
I turned and put my hands on my hips.
He wanted me to talk? Then, I’d talk.
“I’ve had some time to think, what with being kidnapped, cuffed and tied to a chair for part of my evening and then spending the rest of it sitting in a hospital waiting room.” I was lying about thinking while I was kidnapped, but he didn’t need to know that. Anyway, it made my introduction more dramatic. “This morning, you told Hank you had a client. I thought you meant me, but I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
Lee continued to watch me.
I went on. “The thing is, when this all started, you were in DC and Ally said you weren’t due back. Then, all of a sudden, you were back and you knew about the diamonds. You knew about everything.”
He kept watching me.
I went into accusatory mode. “You came back to look for the diamonds. You have another client. You’re working for someone else.”
Lee came up on his elbow.
“Smart girl,” he murmured then patted the bed in front of him. “Come here, let me explain.”
Ha! Not even.
“You walked into your own condo and I practically delivered the diamonds to you by bringing Rosie here. Then, you tried to extort sex from me in payment for a job you were already getting paid to do with diamond man lying on the couch for all you knew!”
“Indy –”
I cut him off.
“No explanation necessary, Lee, I’m sleeping on the couch and tomorrow I’m going home. We’re through. The end.”
On that I huffed out of the room, put on the lights in the living room and grabbed the remotes. It took me ten minutes to figure out how to use them, five more minutes to set the sleeper timer on the TV and ten minutes to find something to watch. I turned off the lights and settled in.
Throughout this time, the light came through the open bedroom door but not a sound from Lee. This ticked me off more. Five minutes into my program, the light went off in the bedroom. My anger hit uncharted levels. Five minutes after that, I realized that was it, when I’d said “the end”, Lee didn’t have a problem with it.
Okay, great, wonderful, that was fine by me.
Luckily, I’d had a pretty traumatic day, what with being kidnapped and shot at, twice.
Not to mention two emotional dramas with Lee.
Even though my mind was racing, my body was crashing from adrenalin withdrawal. Before the sleep setting turned off the TV, I was already in snooze land. When the TV switched itself off, it woke me up. This wasn’t too annoying seeing as I didn’t fully wake me up, I was three-quarters asleep and one-quarter dozing.
The next thing I knew, I was being lifted in the air.
Lee was carrying me to the bedroom.
“What are you doing?” I asked, half-sleepy, half-angry.
“Takin’ you to bed,” he answered, fully awake.
“I’m sleeping on the couch,” I told him as he dropped my legs and stood me at the side of the bed. His hands went to the belt of the robe and he didn’t respond.
“What are you doing?” I asked again.
“Gettin’ you ready for bed.”
“Stop that!” I slapped at his hands and he ignored me so I grabbed the lapels of the robe and held them shut. “I’m nearly naked under this.”