Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells (17 page)

She leaned toward him until their faces were only inches apart. To an outsider they must have looked like lovers sharing
sweet nothings. Her expression remained pure, her voice sweetly high. “Can you swear to me, Declan O’Brien, that you have never in your life—no, make that never in the past year!—had a sexual encounter with a woman where you came but she didn’t?”

“I always reciprocate.”

“
Always?
Really! Well, you
are
an unusual man, aren’t you? So there was never a time that you rolled over and went to sleep, figuring she’d had plenty of foreplay and hey, women are different, they can be happy even without an orgasm?”

“I’ve never heard any complaints,” he said, an unwelcome note of defensiveness in his tone, embarrassing to his own ear.

“That’s because you were asleep.” Grace tapped the tip of his nose with her index finger, like the fairy godmother chiding Little Bunny Foo Foo. “She was probably lying beside you while you snored, fantasizing about another man as she finished herself off.”

His twinge of embarrassment was his clue that she’d hit upon a truth. Of course it never happened the first few times he had sex with a woman, but yeah, once they were more comfortable with each other, once he no longer felt he had to impress and win her, he did occasionally slack off a bit and pretend not to see that flicker of disappointment in his partner’s face. It was so sweet to slide into sleep afterward; what guy wanted to sit up and go back to work on a woman, especially when it could take another half hour to get her off?

“Pussy tease,” Grace whispered naughtily, making it sound like an invitation.

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Even if that might have happened once or twice—if!—that doesn’t make it right that you left me hanging.”

She sat back, too. “So I’m to do as you say and not as you do?” The exaggerated innocence was gone from her face, replaced by a knowing wickedness that unsettled him. Where was the fumbling,
uncertain Grace Cavanaugh he expected, or even the boringly righteous one?

“Those were past relationships,” he said. “Nothing to do with this one, between me and you.”

“Declan,” she drawled. “We do not have a relationship.”

“There’s sure as hell
something
going on,” he muttered.

“And even if we did have one, if I were you I would think twice about asking me to treat
you
as you have treated me.”

And there she had him. His behavior that first night was neither forgiven nor forgotten, nor should it be. He retired from the discussion in defeat.

Grace moved the conversation on to innocuous topics and he gladly followed. Somehow she’d turned the tables on him, and he felt like a fourteen-year-old boy in the presence of a dangerous femme fatale.

What the hell was going on?

CHAPTER

12

“H
e didn’t touch you
at all
?” Sophia demanded, putting down her dinner fork.

“Nope. I took his arm a couple of times, but Declan didn’t lay a finger on me during our outing.” Grace speared a snow pea on her fork and nibbled it, trying to make it last. She had only eight of them on her plate. She’d counted. She was regretting her dietary restraint at lunch. Temporary sexual satisfaction and a purring sense of what she could only call vindicated bombshellitude had made her willing to forgo the bacon burger and fries she’d dreamed of.

The afternoon had left disturbing images in her mind. Ever since she’d parted from Declan several hours ago, she’d been having intrusive, arousing thoughts of him.

“How very odd,” Sophia mused. “Declan is usually such a physical man. Did it seem that he
wanted
to touch you?”

“There was a point at which I strongly suspected he did, yes,” Grace said drily, “but he didn’t give in to it.” There was no way she was going to tell her aunt that Declan had sat naked next to her and watched her masturbate in a field. She was having some trouble believing it herself. “Then at lunch I got a bit argumentative with him, and that seemed to kill any remaining attraction he felt.”

When did she ever lose herself in her own desires like she had in the field? She was always in control of herself during sex, always mute, a part of herself distant and observing, aware of the awkwardness of sex and how she wasn’t living up to the enthusiastic acrobatics and full-throated moans and cries of pleasure that were the standard for a liberated woman. Only repressed women were silent and still, right? But somehow, alone with Declan in that open field, she had disengaged from her self-consciousness. Her higher brain had shut off and the lower animal had taken over.

She must have looked ridiculous, her pale flabby body lying on the ground in the corset, all arched and contorted as she petted herself. But Declan hadn’t seemed to think so . . .

“Grace, Grace, Grace,” Sophia said, and sighed. “How are you going to crush Declan if you can’t keep better rein on your emotions? Arguing with him to what end? Winning a battle of words is not going to win you his heart.”

“Am I supposed to play dumb and agree with everything he says?”

“When you show your intelligence, then yes, it must appear to be in support of his position. He won’t like you if you make him feel like an idiot.”

“I would think an intelligent man would enjoy a spirited debate.”

“Men have to fight for status and resources all day. If you were his business partner, sure, go ahead, argue with him. But as the woman he goes to for relief from the rigors of the world, no. He won’t see it as a welcome challenge; he’s more likely to feel a need to soothe his ego with a softer woman.”

Grace curled her lip. “So I’m just supposed to be a big downy pillow for his tender ego to fall on at the end of the day?”

“And what do
you
want, Grace? A man who constantly
questions your choices and thoughts, or one you know will always support you?”

“A true loving partner can and should do both. You can’t automatically expect support from a spouse if you’re being an idiot. The days of Tammy Wynette and ‘Stand by Your Man’ are over, and good riddance. You can’t coddle someone, protecting them from reality as if they were a child. If they’re making a mistake, they should be told—and first and foremost by their partner!”

An expression of delicate pain flitted over Sophia’s face, her gaze briefly rising heavenward. “So when the world is against you because you made a mistake, your husband should be first in line to tell you you’re a fool?”

Grace tucked in her chin. “I should hope he’d be gentler about it than that. But yes, he should tell me if I’m wrong.”

“Like a parent corrects a child?”

“No,
not
like a parent correcting a child. Like two equal adults trying to help each other.”

“By criticizing.”

“No! You’re deliberately misunderstanding me!” Grace cried.

A smile played on Sophia’s lips. “Do you love me at this moment more than ever?”

“No!”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Yours! Obviously!”

Sophia chuckled and took a sip of wine, her eyes dancing with merriment. “And still you think that arguments strengthen your relationships with other people.”

Grace opened her mouth to protest, then scowled and shut it.

“And where is Declan this evening?”

“Out with Cyndee.” Grace played with her precious vegetables, starting to feel uncomfortable. There hadn’t been anything worth arguing about with Declan during lunch. She’d
been feeling powerful and had deliberately antagonized him, and enjoyed each verbal stab she’d landed. There’d been nothing kind about her actions, quite the opposite.

Sophia gazed at her, silent and sage as an owl.

“Well, what are you supposed to do, then, if someone you care about is being an idiot?” Grace finally asked.

“There’s your start, right there.”

“Where?”

“In a questioning mind, being willing to accept that you do not already have all the answers. Really, Grace, for a supposedly open-minded, liberal woman, you have a remarkably rigid, judgmental viewpoint.”

Judgmental? Rigid? Me?
Was that how people saw her? Sophia’s accusation shot an arrow into the core of who she’d always thought she was. Her lower lip trembled.

“Darling, don’t look so downhearted!” Sophia chided gently. “It’s a small flaw and common as daisies. It even has its advantages; it keeps a person from flitting off after flaky notions. You don’t want to be blown by the wind, this way and that, do you?”

Grace shook her head, and sniffed back the incipient tears. She
was
judgmental, wasn’t she?

“You’re a brilliant, gorgeous, warmhearted woman, and best of all, you care about learning and growing.”

Aunt Sophia thought she was brilliant? The ache in Grace’s heart eased slightly.

Sophia reached across the table and put her hand on Grace’s, squeezing it in gentle reassurance. “If you
do
sometimes feel that you want to be more flexible, I’m sure you’ll find a way to do it. There’s nothing a woman like you can’t do, when you put your mind to it.”

“Thanks, Aunt Sophia. It means a lot to me to hear you say that.”

Sophia’s eyes crinkled. “So how do you feel about your mean old aunt now?”

Grace smiled. “Very fond.”

“Exactly,” Sophia said with smug satisfaction, and sat back.

It took Grace a moment to put the pieces together, and then she choked on her shock. “You—! You just played me, didn’t you?”

“I meant every word.”

“But—!”

“But?” Sophia echoed innocently.

“Ooooh!”

“It’s all part of what I’ve been trying to teach you, Grace. A large part of charisma is in making other people feel that, in your eyes, they matter. They are worthy of attention. You care about who they are, what they say, how they feel, what they think. To do that, you must be open to and respectful of ways of being that are different than your own. You must
listen
to people. Not argue with them. Argument means I’m right, you’re wrong. Listening means I think your perspective matters and can teach me something. And what you can learn is how to get what you want from that person . . . or how to destroy them.”

Grace stared at her aunt in horrified awe. “You’re evil.”

“Powerful women usually
are
called nasty names. Ball breaker. Witch. Tartar. Castrating bitch. Why not add ‘evil’ to the list?”

Grace pointed an accusing finger at her aunt. “Don’t try to pull that ‘put-upon feminist’ stuff with me. You’re a master manipulator.”

“Which just means I’m old and I’m wise. All social interaction is a game of manipulation, Grace. One way or another, we’re all trying to get what we need at the least cost to ourselves.”

She was starting to feel queasy. “Is that what all these lessons in being a bombshell are really about?”

“I said that from the start. But maybe you weren’t listening.”

Grace slowly shook her head. “I’d thought it was just about being sexy.”

Sophia gave the sigh of the weary. “I feel like Anne Sullivan, having finally succeeded in getting Helen Keller to recognize the word ‘water.’ Hallelujah! We begin to progress.”

Grace didn’t know if she wanted to progress. Spike-heeled shoes and low-cut dresses suddenly seemed harmless compared to the mind-set Sophia was trying to teach her.

“How are you going to approach Declan the next time you see him?” Sophia asked.

Grace grimaced, the day’s events somehow seeming an even worse reflection on her character after this talk with Sophia. She
had
manipulated him, and gotten what she wanted. She’d been mean. She’d been selfish. She’d been argumentative and judgmental. “Declan seems to bring out the worst in me. Maybe I should practice flirting with someone else for a bit.”

“Like whom?”

“Someone who doesn’t make me so angry. Maybe . . . Dr. Andrew?” Grace peeked up from under her eyebrows and found Sophia’s green eyes resting on her. Grace shrugged a shoulder. “He seems nice.” And maybe she could be herself with him, and have him like her.