Never mind that it was Friday and he had the weekend ahead of him to catch up. Not that the goal would be easy since he had no intention of leaving Emery’s side. She had hours of nonwork time, which meant she could get into a lot of trouble. He’d really like to avoid being a part of that, starting right now.
He looked over at her from his position in the driver’s seat. They sat in the driveway of her father’s house with the engine running. Had for the last five minutes. He’d previously volunteered to go with her to see her father. Of course, that was before they slept together. Before he’d trailed his tongue all over her and spent hours kissing and touching her. Amazing how that changed things when it came to meeting her father.
“I can wait in the car.” That struck Wren as a smart idea. He wasn’t really a meet-my-dad type anyway. He basically hated fathers thanks to his own.
Emery stopped flicking the lock toggle back and forth. Immediately the annoying clicking vanished. “We both know this will keep ratcheting up until you meet him.”
Wren wasn’t ready to admit anything remotely like that. Still . . . “This?”
“His poking around.”
So, not the sex. Seemed like they were on two different wavelengths tonight. Not the best time for a communications issue. But he couldn’t help but point out one tiny issue. “Notice how I’m not drawing comparisons between his behavior and yours.”
She switched from shifting on the leather seat to glaring. “That’s wise.”
Well, if someone was going to look at him like that it may as well be her father. He shut off the car and opened the door. “Let’s go in.”
She caught his arm before he could slip out of the car. “Before we do, there’s one issue we need to discuss.”
“Are you having an attack of nerves?” This was one of those times he’d missed the subtle clues. Worry he understood. From all accounts, and Detective Cryer didn’t have a very positive one, Emery’s dad was a dick. Knowing that as an outsider and being related to that were two different things.
“Hardly.”
“Really? Because that’s probably normal.” He had no idea what he was talking about, but he just kept firing out random thoughts he hoped sounded good or at least helped.
She twisted the strap of her purse between her fingers. “I’m dancing around the dating thing.”
“Meaning?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, so this should be interesting.” He shut the door and settled back into the seat. “Go on.”
She sighed at him. The type that telegraphed her utter annoyance with the male sex in general. “We should skip that part. Telling him about it, I’m saying.”
As in pretend the talking, the touching and all that sex hadn’t happened. On the bed, in the shower, against the kitchen wall.
Not fucking likely. “Excuse me?”
Her second sigh carried on for several beats. “Are you really not getting this?”
“I’m going to make you say it.” Because then maybe she would understand how weird and insulting this conversation was. He was supposed to change his life around, come out from hiding—something he never did—and she would keep on pretending he was the hired help. That sounded just great.
“I don’t announce my dating life to my father. Ever. He judges and it’s not his business.”
Uh-huh. “And?”
“He’s not a guy you want looking into your background.”
Wren wrapped his fingers around the wheel and tried to tamp down on his anger. “I think I can handle covering my tracks. I mean, it is what I do.”
“You’re ticked off.” She gnawed on her bottom lip.
“You picked up on that, did you?”
She put her hand on his knee. “I don’t want him knowing.”
“That we’re having sex?” He guessed the idea between the soft voice and the touching was to calm him down. It didn’t work. All he could think about was her wish to tuck him away somewhere. Yes, that’s basically how he lived his life, but that was his choice. For some reason it ticked him off when she wanted to do it to him.
“Anything.” She sank back into the seat. “If he thinks we have a personal relationship, he’ll fixate on it. I’ll get lectures about how I’m mixing business with pleasure, which is a mistake.”
That took some of the heat out of Wren’s anger. He switched from being frustrated with her to not liking her father. And he’d already started out not being that impressed with the good professor. “He does know you’re an adult, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you?” Because the way he saw it she had to own responsibility for her part in letting this relationship drag on this way.
“He has a phone and a computer and inundates me until I respond. He can be toxic.” She winced. “But he’s all I have.”
The words flipped the whole situation around on him. She yearned to belong. He got that. On top of that she placated and tried to please. She’d suffered tremendous loss and handled it by trying to make him happy. When that failed, she did what mattered to her and tried to balance that with what her father demanded. The longer he sat there, the clearer the picture became to Wren.