God, how she longed to tack on ‘worry about her money’ but she didn’t.Instead, she behaved herself and kept silent.
It wasn’t very fair to leave Ryan to her mother’s wiles, but hell, he was the governor equivalent of his Pride.If he could handle tens of thousands of Lions, he sure as shit should be ready for the cat opposite him.
Chapter 12
“What did he want to know?”
Shawn flicked her a glance in the rearview mirror.“Mostly why I hadn’t sent him a report on Ryan.”
“Do you often send reports over on the men I date?”she asked, and El’s tone was so wary, he hated having to tell her the truth.
“Yes.”He sighed when hurt had her bowing her head and casting her gaze down to her lap.“Don’t be silly, El.Of course your father wanted to know if you were dating someone.”Though his tone was chiding, it didn’t stop him from feeling guilty.
Why would it?
He’d always felt guilty for what was effectively spying on her.
As such, it had always been a great relief to him that she hadn’t dated much.
Of course, that relief had been twofold.One, because he hadn’t had to write reports on her lovers.Two, because he’d been jealous as fuck when she’d dated anyone at all.
“They don’t care about me at all.Ryan saw that today.I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life.”
Ryan sighed and squeezed her knee.“There’s never any need to be embarrassed in front of us.”
“You say that like it’s easy to control embarrassment,” she retorted.“My mother was coming on to you, for Christ’s sake.”
“She didn’t,” Trip demanded, looking as aghast as he sounded, but if Shawn wasn’t totally wrong, he could also sense some amusement there.
“Yeah, she did,” came Ryan’s wry retort.“Thankfully, she wasn’t too brazen, but it came close a time or two.”He shot her a rueful smile.“She’s definitely a piece of work.”
“Piece of work?”she snarled.“That in no way encompasses any of my family.Jesus.And when my dad kept going on at you like you were a gold-digger or something?I wanted the floor to open and swallow me up.In fact, that would have been too much of a kindness.”
Shawn grunted.“He wants me to dig deeper into your background, Ryan.Said the rudimentary facts I had on you weren’t enough.”
Ryan cocked a brow.“Interesting.”
“Humiliating, more like,” she snapped, covering her face with her hands.Ryan’s arm came up to slide over her shoulders, and he pulled her closely into him.
“Hey.Calm down.”
“I can’t,” she mumbled, turning her face into his throat.“I’m just… I’m so embarrassed.I-I want to crawl up into a ball and never come out.”
Shawn blinked.El wasn’t prone to melodrama, so for her reaction to be this intense then her parents must have acted like complete jerks.
Which, to be fair, wouldn’t have come as a complete surprise.
“What happened?”Marc asked softly, apparently picking up the same vibe Shawn was.
They were both riding up front so couldn’t touch El, but that didn’t stop them from feeling what she was going through.She was transmitting loud and clear.
“Father was making out like Ryan was in it just for the money, even though he stated point blank that he’d sign a pre-nup.”She whacked Ryan in the side for that.“Thanks for warning me on that front, by the way.I thought we were visiting them, not that you were going to ask for my hand in marriage.”
He snorted, grabbed a hold of the fist that had whacked him in the side and raised it to his mouth.Anointing the knuckles with a kiss, he murmured, “Considering how uncomfortable you were on the way down, and how unhappy you were to be going twice in over a week, I thought it best to kill two birds with one stone.”
“Yeah.I guess.Still… Next time, warn me when you’re intent on mass slaughter,” she grumbled.“I seriously did not know where to look.”
“Neither did your mother,” Ryan teased.“Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.Her flirting definitely toned itself down a notch then, didn’t it?”
