She flat out refused to show him any of her paintings, but he was working on that, slowly but surely. Apparently, all of them were in her apartment, and he hadn't been invited in there yet, either. But he could be patient when he wanted something, and he wanted Elodie. He already loved her platonically, and that had already changed into something he didn't really recognize any longer. But the change with her, was something he welcomed.
The trip to the museum had been the cause of their one and only fight—the others were barely skirmishes, as far as Clay was concerned. They had been lazing around his house, watching the Patriots play football—which was another thing he liked about Elodie. She not only didn't get after him for watching football on a Sunday afternoon, but she liked it, too, and was more animated while they were watching a game then he'd ever seen her before. She leaned forward and literally screamed at the players worse than any head coach, dancing when they did well and berating them searingly when they didn't. It was amazing to see, considering how calm she was usually.
They had a pig out going, with delivered pizza laden with pepperoni and meatball, chips, dip, Reese's peanut butter cups, and Ben and Jerry's. Clay was on a stealth mission to fatten her up, since he knew how sensitive some women could be about their weight, and had very carefully listened to her tastes and rounded up all of her favorites for that day. A spread of half-eaten food lay before them like wounded soldiers on the battlefield, bleeding mozzarella and caramel chocolate ice cream. His offhand suggestion about them going down to San Antonio the following weekend was met with the usual resistance, which he'd grown used to plowing though.
Clay didn't know why she almost always objected to something first, then had to be persuaded to do it, but it was a definite pattern with her. In another woman, he might have seen it as a call for attention, but it seemed very unlikely in Elodie's case. She tried her best to avoid doing anything that might draw attention to her.
Persuasion, though, wasn't working, and the bone of contention was the usual one—the fact that he had offered to pay for everything, and do all the driving. Clay knew that he made probably about twenty times what she did—or more. And it didn't make one bit of difference to him. But then, he could understand her point from the other side of the equation. He couldn't quite say that, if the roles had been reversed, he wouldn't be just as stubborn about it.
But he wasn't about to let the fact that she was poorer than he was dictate what they could and could not do together. He had money, and they were going to spend it. Together. He worked hard for every penny he earned, and it gave him joy to spend it on Elodie.
There was no need to chase her around after their last definitive round, which ended with her sitting further away from him on the couch than she ever had before, her arms folded over her chest, fuming furiously in that subdued way of hers. For a moment, watching her made him smile. Even in anger, except when it came to football, she was so restrained. It made him want to coax her out of that shell, out of those self-imposed proprietary restraints and into his arms with abandon. Just once... well, a lot, but he'd settle for once at first.
Without really thinking about it, he reached a hand behind her and pulled her over his legs. She settled there a lot more naturally now than she had—she'd had enough occasions to end up there, unfortunately for her.
*****
Elodie's complete concentration on her snit—her totally justified snit—had prevented her from noticing exactly what he was doing. And it never paid to be off one's guard around Clay. She thought he was going to apologize, or at least make some sort of conciliatory gesture, since he was the one being a stubborn ass about the situation. If she couldn't afford to do something, then she couldn't afford to. She wasn't going to become some kind of kept woman and let him pay for everything.
She didn't want to know what kind of repayment he might be interested in, even though she knew he was too honorable to be that kind of man. It just made her feel bad that she could barely afford to pay her own way—and more often couldn't—and would probably never manage to treat him to much other than a dinner at their original dive of a diner, if that. And for the first time in her life, Elodie wished she'd paid more attention when her mother had been cooking those wonderful family dinners, because at least then she might have been able to swing making him a dinner, maybe, but since she barely knew which end of the kitchen was up, that wasn't likely.