The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [166]
“Underestimated you. Here.” He handed her a glass of wine.
“Backup plan.” She took the wine, paced to the hearth with its snapping fire, back again. “Someone like her has one. I’m not receptive, she’ll have a way to go straight to the source. Right to you. Try for sympathy, some hard-luck story. Move to threats if that doesn’t shake the money tree. She’d want a nice fat lump sum, come back for more later, but get a juicy bite right off . . .”
She took a moment to study his face. “And none of this is news to you.”
“As you said, you’d have come to it yourself right away if you hadn’t been so twisted up.” He lowered his head enough to brush his lips over her jaw. “Come, sit by the fire.”
“Wait, wait.” She grabbed his sleeve. “You didn’t go warn her off. You didn’t go see her.”
“I had and have no intention of going to her. Unless she continues to harass and upset you. Do you know she had eleven other children put in her care over the years? I wonder how many of them she tormented as she did you.”
“You ran her? Of course you ran her.” She turned away. “I’m really slow on this one.”
“It’s taken care of, Eve. Put it out of your mind.”
She kept her back to him, took a slow sip of the wine. “How is it taken care of?”
“She came to my office today. I made it clear that it would be best for all concerned if she went back to Texas and didn’t attempt to contact you again.”
“You spoke to her?” She squeezed her eyes shut against the helpless anger. “You knew who she was, what she was, but you let her in your office.”
“I’ve had worse in there. What did you expect me to do?”
“I expected you’d leave this to me. That you’d understand this is my problem. This is for me to handle.”
“It’s not your problem, but ours—or was. And it was for us to handle. Now it’s done.”
“I don’t want you dealing with my problems, my business.” She whirled around and before either of them knew she intended it, she let the glass fly. Wine and glass splatted and shattered. “This was my personal business.”
“You don’t have personal business from me any longer, any more than I do from you.”
“I don’t need to be shielded, I won’t be shielded. I won’t be tended to.”
“Oh, I see.” His voice softened, a dangerous sign. “So it’s perfectly fine, we’ll say, for me to see to those pesky little details. Can this get wrapped, for instance. But the things that matter, I’m to keep my nose out?”
“It’s not the same. I’m a lousy wife, I get that.” Her throat was clogging up, and her voice thickening as the words fought their way through. “I don’t remember to do things—don’t know how and don’t give a rat’s ass about finding out. But—”
“You’re not a lousy wife, and I’d be the one to judge that. But you are, Eve, an extremely difficult woman. She came to me, she tried to shake me down, and she won’t try it again. I have every right to protect you, and my own interests. So if you want to have one of your snits about it, you’ll have to have it alone.”
“Don’t you walk away from me.” Her fingers actually itched to pick up something precious to throw at him as he started for the doorway. But that was too female, and too foolish. “Don’t you walk away and flick off my feelings.”
He stopped, looked back at her with eyes searing with temper. “Darling Eve, if your feelings weren’t so important to me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If and when I walk away from you, it’s to prevent myself from taking the alternative, which at the moment would be to beat your head against some hard object until a little sense rattles into it again.”
“Were you even going to tell me?”
“I don’t know. There were good reasons on both sides of that, and I was still weighing them. She hurt you, and I won’t have it. That’s simple. For God’s sake, Eve, when I found out about my mother, and went into a spin, didn’t you knock it out of me? Didn’t you tend to me, even stand in front of me?”
“It’s not the same.” Her stomach burned, and the acid of it