"He must have been. I can barely get you to say hello to me while looking me in the eyes."
Elodie grimaced. "He wasn't at all like you. You're so... and he was so... you'd mow over him in a minute."
"So some weak, spineless idiot got you to marry him when you were eighteen?"
Why was he giving her the third degree? She was getting even more flustered than she had been. "Well, at least I wasn't afraid of him."
Elodie wished the floor would swallow her up the moment the words escaped from her mouth. She could have sworn that that wasn't even what she had been thinking—she had no idea how that thought ended up being said out loud.
Their appetizers were set in front of them, but Elodie had suddenly lost her appetite, despite how gorgeous the plate of fruit and ham looked.
And Clay looked as though she'd just slapped him across the face. His lips were pinched tight, brows drawn together, looking like a storm cloud. "You're afraid of me?" He sat back in his chair, staring down at his clam chowder as if it were a bowl full of frogs. "And it must have helped so much when you found out that I spanked April. You must really have thought I was a beast after that."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I've never thought you were a beast. I told you, she explained how the spanking was consensual." Elodie cleared her throat, unable to believe they were having a conversation like this at dinner. "And I'm sure there were times when April more than deserved what she got. She got spanked a lot by our father, too."
"Domestic Discipline is different than how a child is punished by a parent."
"Sexual?" she asked without even thinking.
"It can be." He paused and studied her in silence for so long that Elodie had no choice but to fidget in her chair. "How much do you know about Domestic Discipline?" he asked. His skeptical look made it very clear that she couldn't pull one over on him and fake that she knew all about it.
"Nothing. I didn't even know that was what it was called. April just told me you spanked her, and not much more than that." Elodie took a large swallow of her water to try to wash away the large lump forming in the back of her throat. "But don't feel you have to defend your belief. I'm not judging at all."
"Well, to me it's something very intimate between the two people involved, but it seemed to help keep her from doing things she oughtn't—she never wore her seat belt until I wore out her bottom one time when I caught her without it one day by accident. And she didn't even own a winter coat—"
Elodie's eyes darted away from his. She didn't own one either, but not for the same reason. April had thought they were unnecessary; she was one of those people who were always warm. Elodie, on the other hand, didn't have one because she couldn't afford it.
But Clay was too eagle-eyed to miss something like that. Several somethings. "Eat your appetizer before it gets—" he smiled and gave the sexiest little wink, "before it gets cold."
She couldn't help but giggle, which wasn't something she did freely, but with Clay, she couldn't help but feel happy.
"And why, pray tell, don't you have a winter coat?" he asked.
Elodie stopped with a ball of sherbet-colored melon on its way to her mouth. "How would you know whether or not I have a coat?"
"I remember from last year. And I distinctly remember telling you to get a coat then." He wiped his very sensual lips with his white linen napkin. "Did you?"
She had to think about her answer for a moment, and then quickly decided to avoid giving a direct answer. "I think I'll take the fifth." Despite the fact that their discussion had her sitting on tenterhooks, and seconds ago she could have sworn she couldn't eat a thing, the sweet, salty smell called to her, and she began to delicately devour the bounty before her.
"No, no, no. The fifth isn't available to you, any more than it was available to April."
"But I'm not April." The statement was firm and strong, as if she was trying to reinforce it to herself as well as to him. Elodie didn't want to be April, and she didn't want him replacing April with her under any circumstances, fantasy life be damned.
He gave her a look that she was sure must have been "the look" that April had referred to so often. "I know that. But you're her sister, and it's my brother-in-law-ly duty," he looked confused at himself and the way he'd mangled the English language, "to make sure that you're as healthy as you can be, too."
Elodie snorted. "You have no such duty to me."
"I need to do a better job of protecting you."
Her stomach flipped at his words, and a sudden urge to feel his arms around her almost knocked her out of her chair. It took all her might to barely squeak out, "I can take care of myself."