just bash your head against the nearest concrete surface while you’re at it? It would involve about the same level of intelligence.
Swiveling to glare at Zach as if he’d been the one to suggest she rate his sex appeal, she snapped, “If you’re so darned concerned about your sister being taken to the cleaners by every Tom, Dick, and Harry she encounters, why the heck didn’t you ever bother to teach her some basic money management skills?”
Zach’s hands, which he had consciously been keeping occupied to prevent himself doing something real stupid with them, froze on the steering wheel midtap. Then he turned to stare at Lily. Where the hell had that come from? Was this the same woman who’d been so relentlessly, annoyingly cheerful all day? It didn’t takeSigmund Freud to know what his problem was, but what had gotten her panties in a twist all of a sudden?
When it came right down to it, however, he really didn’t give a good goddamn what her reasons were. All he knew was that he was ripe for a fight…and she’d just obligingly hand-delivered one right to his door.
Turning, he braced his arm along the back of the seat and gave her a slow, insolent appraisal. Not until hot color flooded the surface of her skin did he drawl, “And you consider this to be your business why , sweetheart?”
“I consider it to be my business, bud, because Glynnis is only a few days shy of her twenty-fifth birthday, and she didn’t even know the bare bones of handling her finances until I started giving her some pointers a couple of months ago.”
“Oh, yeah, I can just imagine how that worked. It takes a real humanitarian to point her money into your bank account.”
“ What money? Have you ever paid the slightest attention to your sister’s struggle to make ends meet? Yes, she lives in that lovely beach house, and her allowance is generous for a young woman her age. But it must be obvious even to you that she barely has a rudimentary grasp of economics. She was sent to European finishing schools and raised to expect the very best. No one ever bothered to tell her the reasons she couldn’t keep spending in the manner to which she was accustomed before I sat down with her and explained why it was no longer viable. For heaven’s sake, Zach, where her contemporaries are shopping Nordstrom Rack if they’re lucky, she’s still buying couture. She didn’t even know how to balance her darn checkbook until I taught her!”
He stared at her. There was a ring of truth in her voice that he didn’t want to hear, so he shoved it away with a flatly stated, “Bullshit.” But agitation, born from an old familiar guilt, began to churn in his gut.
“It is not bull crap,” she said hotly. “You know what I think? I think you must be one of those control freaks who likes keeping his womenfolk in ignorance. What is it, some kind of power trip that provides your kicks or something?”
His sister was the only family he had left, and Zach had been on edge for three days, worrying about her. Anger and guilt and a sense of his own failure exploded in his gut and rose in a red tide to erode his control, and reacting for perhaps the first time in his adult life without considering the consequences of his actions, he grasped Lily by the shoulders and hauled her half out of her seat. Pulling her toward him over the console, he bent his head until their noses were a fraction of an inch apart and rasped, “You are full of shit, lady, you know that? If I was even half the control freak you accuse me of being I’d still have more candidates for victims than I’d know what to do with. I’ve got big, tough Marines to push around—I sure as hell don’t need to dominate my little sister to get my rocks off.”
To his surprise she didn’t have an immediate smartass comeback, and he was on the verge of congratulating himself for finally scoring a point off her when he became aware that she was staring fixedly at his mouth. He stilled…and
Swiveling to glare at Zach as if he’d been the one to suggest she rate his sex appeal, she snapped, “If you’re so darned concerned about your sister being taken to the cleaners by every Tom, Dick, and Harry she encounters, why the heck didn’t you ever bother to teach her some basic money management skills?”
Zach’s hands, which he had consciously been keeping occupied to prevent himself doing something real stupid with them, froze on the steering wheel midtap. Then he turned to stare at Lily. Where the hell had that come from? Was this the same woman who’d been so relentlessly, annoyingly cheerful all day? It didn’t takeSigmund Freud to know what his problem was, but what had gotten her panties in a twist all of a sudden?
When it came right down to it, however, he really didn’t give a good goddamn what her reasons were. All he knew was that he was ripe for a fight…and she’d just obligingly hand-delivered one right to his door.
Turning, he braced his arm along the back of the seat and gave her a slow, insolent appraisal. Not until hot color flooded the surface of her skin did he drawl, “And you consider this to be your business why , sweetheart?”
“I consider it to be my business, bud, because Glynnis is only a few days shy of her twenty-fifth birthday, and she didn’t even know the bare bones of handling her finances until I started giving her some pointers a couple of months ago.”
“Oh, yeah, I can just imagine how that worked. It takes a real humanitarian to point her money into your bank account.”
“ What money? Have you ever paid the slightest attention to your sister’s struggle to make ends meet? Yes, she lives in that lovely beach house, and her allowance is generous for a young woman her age. But it must be obvious even to you that she barely has a rudimentary grasp of economics. She was sent to European finishing schools and raised to expect the very best. No one ever bothered to tell her the reasons she couldn’t keep spending in the manner to which she was accustomed before I sat down with her and explained why it was no longer viable. For heaven’s sake, Zach, where her contemporaries are shopping Nordstrom Rack if they’re lucky, she’s still buying couture. She didn’t even know how to balance her darn checkbook until I taught her!”
He stared at her. There was a ring of truth in her voice that he didn’t want to hear, so he shoved it away with a flatly stated, “Bullshit.” But agitation, born from an old familiar guilt, began to churn in his gut.
“It is not bull crap,” she said hotly. “You know what I think? I think you must be one of those control freaks who likes keeping his womenfolk in ignorance. What is it, some kind of power trip that provides your kicks or something?”
His sister was the only family he had left, and Zach had been on edge for three days, worrying about her. Anger and guilt and a sense of his own failure exploded in his gut and rose in a red tide to erode his control, and reacting for perhaps the first time in his adult life without considering the consequences of his actions, he grasped Lily by the shoulders and hauled her half out of her seat. Pulling her toward him over the console, he bent his head until their noses were a fraction of an inch apart and rasped, “You are full of shit, lady, you know that? If I was even half the control freak you accuse me of being I’d still have more candidates for victims than I’d know what to do with. I’ve got big, tough Marines to push around—I sure as hell don’t need to dominate my little sister to get my rocks off.”
To his surprise she didn’t have an immediate smartass comeback, and he was on the verge of congratulating himself for finally scoring a point off her when he became aware that she was staring fixedly at his mouth. He stilled…and
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