as she might, however, Molly couldn’t lay all the blame on her mother for tonight’s little humiliation. No, she had brought it on herself. And Damien.
She threw him a surreptitious glance. Mr. Cool hadn’t even blushed once. Only now she knew what he hid behind that mask of his. The man was dynamite disguised as a prayer candle.
“I told you so,” she mumbled, half hoping he wouldn’t hear her.
“What’s that?” he asked, calmly steering the car along as if they were on a Sunday outing. She resented his composure. What did it take to rattle him, anyway?
“I warned you we couldn’t act on it,” Molly answered.
“Apparently we could and did. You want an apology?”
Thank heaven he hadn’t smiled. If he had, Molly thought she might have to smack him. “Not necessary. Just see that it doesn’t happen again.” She knew she sounded grumpy and mean, but she was trying to make a point here. She was not going to have an affair with him.
He shrugged one shoulder. “Your mother told me that I should back off.”
“She did what?”
He nodded. “Brenda worries about you. Thinks I might be…‘playing’ was the word I believe she used.”
Molly rolled her eyes and pounded her fists on her legs. What was she supposed to do now? If she railed about her mother’s ridiculous warning, it might make him think she disagreed with her, that she thought he shouldn’t back off and that he wasn’t playing at all.
“Are you playing?” she asked before thinking.
Damien looked at her then, raised one brow and then fastened his gaze back on the road. “No.”
Well, what did he mean by that? He was serious about her, or serious about sex? She did think this time and kept her mouth shut. For miles they rode in silence so thick she could hardly breathe in it.
Molly couldn’t stand it. “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want.” She was, but her life was too messed up at the moment to add any more tangles. “I just can’t.”
“You are that certain you know what I want?” he asked. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure myself.”
Oh, she knew all right. A chuckle escaped before she could contain it.
“No, it’s true,” he argued. “It’s probably not you at all, just what you represent.”
“Oh, well, great! That does wonders for my ego. And it was none too healthy to begin with, thank you very much.” She ran a hand through her unruly hair and tugged on it. He was enough to make her pull it out by the roots.
The expression on his face was a mixture of embarrassment and contrition, new for him.
He pulled the car over, put it in Park and turned to her. “Look, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that you are a part of something I’ve never experienced, a way of life I’m not familiar with. You and the child and your mother have something…”
“A dysfunctional family? And that appeals to you?”
“Don’t,” he ordered. “Do not make fun of what you have together. You can’t know—”
“Oh, yes, I do know! My father left us when I was too young to remember him. Mama had to work and found so little time to spend with us, Ford and I were absolutely wild, the scourges of the neighborhood. And it wasn’t a very nice neighborhood, I can tell you! We fought the world and fought each other.”
“Sounds wonderful,” he said.
Molly shrugged. “Then I up and married the scum of the earth who got me pregnant and beat me silly. They thought that was my fault, and maybe it was. It’s a flaming wonder any of us even speak to each other.”
The sadness in his eyes stopped her ranting. “But you love one another,” he said quietly. “Don’t you?”
She scoffed at the question. “Well, yeah, but what’s so unusual about that? Your family has to love you. It’s not like they have a choice.”
Damien slowly shook his head. He remained silent as he turned away from her and started the car again.
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