Page 88 of Mr. Dangerous

I took that as an invitation. I closed the fridge door as if I hadn't just been caught staring into the crisper in a moment of transcendent understanding. Rob might not be able to talk about his feelings very well, but I thought another piece of his puzzle had clicked clearly into placeforme.

"I've had a long day," I said. "We keep losing clients. For some reason. Usually, people are quite happywithus."

"Oh, dear." Rebecca said. She pushed the wooden tea box across the island towards me. "Well, I recommend mint tea forclarity."

I looked over the tea bags and plucked out a teabag of apple-cinnamon. I smiled sweetly. "I think I've had as much clarity as I canhandle."

"Oh?" Rebecca asked. "That'swonderful."

"I think maybe someone is trying to ruin my familybusiness."

“Oh? How peculiar. You seem like such a sweetperson."

"Mm," I said. "So why would someone have it out for me? Maybe they want me to just sit this situation of Rob's out. To disappear from his life. Right when heneedsme."

"Oh, I don't think you need to make decisions for Rob's sake. He has his family to help him in this tough time." Rebecca smiled tightly at me across the island. "How often does anyone really need their own personallocksmith?"

"Yeah," I said. "Well, that's beside the point. I won't bebullied."

"When did you and Rob start thisrelationship,anyway?" Rebecca asked tartly. "Aweekago?"

"I'm not sure I'd call it a relationship." I said,quotingRob.

Rebecca shook her head. "In my day, we believed sex was precious. For within amarriage."

"In your day, almost every firstborn baby was 'premature', even if they weighed eight pounds. And those rules were only forwomen."

Rebecca smiled thinly. "So you claim you’re doing this for…equality?"

"I wouldn't want to marry someone who wasn't any good in bed." I said. Then, softly, so my words couldn't carry out of the room, I added, "Rob is very good in bed. I'm willing to take out another ad or two for newclients."

"In my day, we would have called a girl like you a shameless hussy."Rebeccasaid.

"In my day, we have some choice words to describe women like you too," I promised. The kettle began to whistle. My hands felt like they should have been shaking with anxiety from the argument, but they were steady. I shut off the burner, lifted the kettle and filled our mugs with hotwater.

"You don't want to go to war with me, honey,"Rebeccasaid.

"It seems to me like the Delaney family is already at war." I took my mug and tea bag. "Thank goodness this is all out in the open now. I thought I'd have to sneak into Rob's room tonight to be polite. Instead I can go share this mugwithhim."

I headed for the doorway, but even though I held my head high and walked away, Rebecca wasn't going to let things go without thelastword.

"He doesn't like tea," she said to my back. "You don't even know that. You don't know the first thing about him or his family or hisworld."

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