With Private Eyes Part 10

She grimaced.

Ethan glanced at her. "Something wrong?"

He had that gentle tone in his voice. The one he'd used when she'd admitted to being romantically impaired. She didn't like it. It made her want to tell him ... things.

Well, there was something she had to tell him. She took a deep breath, thinking about horizons and crossing unseen lines. She'd stepped over one. "About what happened in your office-"

"We aren't going to discuss that. Besides, nothing happened. We stopped."

"Right." Never mind what might have happened if his ex-wife hadn't chosen that moment to show up. An image flashed through Claudia's mind involving Ethan's desk and a serious lack of trousers on her part. She flushed. "We stopped. But you should know-"

"Look, I really don't want to go through any postgame a.n.a.lysis. There's no point. No offense, but you aren't my type."

"And you aren't mine," she said through gritted teeth. "But what I'm trying to say is that I'm seeing someone else right now, so you don't need to worry about any, um, repeats."

"Oh. Right. That's excellent." He gave one sharp nod. His finger tapped out an agitated rhythm on the steering wheel. "If you're seeing someone, you had no business kissing me that way."

"Neil and I..." No, she did not owe him any explanations. "Are none of your business," she finished, but immediately lost the high moral ground by adding, "Besides, I thought you didn't want to discuss it."

He took that in grim silence. She rewarded his forbearance by prying delicately. "Actually, I was thinking about Bianca."

"Thinking about her has that effect on me, too. Puckers me up like a lemon."

Poor Bianca. "She doesn't seem your type."

"Now, there's an understatement. I was pretty young when we met. Easy to mistake the razzle-dazzle of s.e.x for something lasting."

"So that's all it was? s.e.xual attraction?" He'd been attracted to a strong, if obnoxious, woman in the past...

"It sure wasn't because we had so much in common. I've learned my lesson, though. No more society twits."

Society twit. Had he meant that as an oblique comment on their recent grab-and-pant session? Which had been entirely mutual, dammit. She frowned at his unrevealing profile. "Having a common background is no guarantee of romantic bliss. If things go wrong, it just makes the disaster more public."

He glanced at her. His face still wasn't giving much away, but his mouth softened. "I guess you'd see it that way."

"Mutual respect is the most important element."

"I won't argue with that."

"I'm not talking about Drake, you understand."

"No?"

"I'm talking about..." She sighed. "All right, about him, but not just him. I'm extrapolating from more than one datum."

"You're what?"

"Extrapolating. It means-"

"I know what it means. Believe it or not, they use words of more than one syllable at Harvard Business School. Even football grunts are expected to learn all kinds of tricky language like collateral and market-based economics. But I never thought I'd hear a woman extrapolate about relations.h.i.+ps. Women are always going on about feelings, not logic."

"Well." She shrugged, uncomfortable. "I'm not especially feminine. My instincts about intimate relations.h.i.+ps are undependable, so I make do with logic."

"You're kidding, right?" His glance was quick and surprised, but that faded into puzzlement. "You aren't. You really don't think you're feminine. But that's stupid. Just look at you."

She shook her head, her mouth twisting wryly. "Protective camouflage. I learned how to blend in a long time ago. It's not really fake," she a.s.sured him. "I enjoy clothes and makeup and all that. But that's frosting. Putting frosting on a basketball doesn't make it a cake."

He chuckled. "Wouldn't make it easy to shoot hoops, either. Not that you remind me in any way, shape or manner of a basketball."

"Glad to hear it. How about a steamroller? That's what my brother Daniel calls me-a steamroller in white gloves."

He didn't say a word.

"I can tell you agree." His expression made her grin. "For heaven's sake, it's not an insult. I'm very goal-oriented, and I generally do accomplish what I set out to do. That's not a feminine trait, but I'm certainly not apologizing for it."

He was frowning as if she'd posed some difficult problem and insisted that he solve it. She wondered if she should rea.s.sure him again that none of this bothered her, but perhaps he'd think she was protesting too much.

How had they gotten off on such a stupid topic? "About Ed Norblusky-"

He spoke right over her. "What was his name again?"

"Who?" she asked, at sea. "Norblusky?"

"No, this man you're seeing."

"Uh, Neil. Neil Braddock."

"And Neil doesn't think you're feminine?"

"Well ... I'm sure... That is, he appreciates me the way I am. He doesn't care if I'm feminine or not." Neil did like and appreciate her. She appreciated him, too, even if ... well, Stacy was wrong, that was all. And Ethan's opinion didn't count. He didn't even know Neil. Her voice turned tart. "I can't imagine why I'm telling you any of this."

"Mmm," he said absently, and shook his head. "I don't get it. How can a woman who d.a.m.ned near ignited my shorts with a kiss think she isn't s.e.xy?"

Something jumped right up in her throat and stuck there. Some warm, alarmed feeling. Claudia swallowed, looked out the window, ran a hand over her hair and eventually was able to speak. "Thank you. I think. But 's.e.xy' and 'feminine' aren't the same thing."

"Is this some kind of female code?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"What?"

"You know, like mauve. Women all know what mauve is. Is this 's.e.xy but not feminine' business something you could say to ten women and they'd know what you meant? Because I can tell you right now, it doesn't make sense to a man."

A bubble of laughter unstuck whatever had been clogging her throat. "Maybe it is. I hadn't thought of it that way." She c.o.c.ked her head to one side. "You seem to know a lot about women."

"Cousins." The car slowed as he turned off on a residential street. "My life is littered with cousins, and what do you know-about half of them grew up to be women. They all want to give me advice."

She grinned. "How many cousins do you have?"

"Enough for two football teams, with a few left over."