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Hadn’t she been quite pathetic enough?
He frowned slightly, and she had the strangest feeling he could read her mind. “You’ve got a phobia, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“It’s not a phobia.” Damn, he could read her mind.
One dark eyebrow arched.
“It’s not,” she protested. “It used to be a phobia when I was a child. But I’ve had some therapy since, and it’s been downgraded. It’s only a paranoid fear.”
“Only?” he said, still looking skeptical. “What’s the difference?”
“I used to get so upset I couldn’t stop screaming. I don’t do that anymore.”
He curled his fingers around her elbow, pressed his thumb into the inside. The prickle of sensation migrated up her arm and across her chest.
“Do you know what started it?” he asked softly.
It was the question she’d been dreading, but somehow, with his hand cupping her elbow, and his expression puzzled rather than judgmental, answering it didn’t seem so terrible.
“Yes.” She hesitated. She’d never told anyone but the therapist before, because she knew how weak and stupid the reason sounded. But he didn’t prompt, didn’t question, simply waited, his thumb lazily stroking, and in the end, the words just spilled out.
“My mother used to leave me alone at night to go out—she was quite young when she had me. I was an accident and…” She paused, realizing she was probably giving him way too much information, but she didn’t want him to think her mother was a bad person. She’d simply been young and irresponsible. “She missed her social life after I was born. I was usually a good sleeper, but sometimes I’d wake up and get scared.” She shrugged. “Silly really. I don’t know how I ended up blowing it so far out of proportion.” She glanced at him, but his expression had become oddly unreadable. “But I suppose that’s the thing about phobias…paranoid fears,” she corrected herself. “They’re not rational. All you can do is learn to live with them.”
He didn’t say anything for the longest time, but his forehead furrowed as if he were thinking hard about what she’d said. And he didn’t look too pleased about the information.
She felt the tangle of nerves tie up in her stomach. He probably thought even less of her now than he had before. She should never have told him the truth. Why hadn’t she simply refused to answer the question? Why had she willfully exposed her most embarrassing secret to a virtual stranger? He’d accused her of being a princess, vain and selfish and superior, and he had even more ammunition no
w to support that theory.
But just as her anxiety reached breaking point, he slung an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze.
“Okay, look,” he said, the tone a little stiff but not remotely contemptuous. “We should head up to the electrical department first for a couple of flashlights. So we’re all set if the generator goes again.” He led her toward the stairwell. “Then we need to find you some dry clothes.” He glanced down at her attire. “Unless of course you want to wear the lap-dancing elf outfit again. I certainly wouldn’t object.”
“I’m not putting that on again,” she said, so relieved at the change of topic she felt almost giddy. “I looked ridiculous.”
Giddy relief turned to giddy shock when his arm tightened and he murmured, “Katherine, you did not look ridiculous. You looked seriously hot.”
The blush shot up her neck and set fire to her ears.
“But if you’re dead-set against giving me any more cheap thrills,” he added, apparently oblivious to her embarrassment, “which I personally think is a little small of you, then I suggest we check out the lingerie department and find a compromise we can both live with as a fallback position.”
“Um…” She stammered, her wits having completely deserted her. Was he flirting with her? And if he was, why was it making the giddy shock turn into a giddy thrill? “I’m not sure that’s appropriate…” She continued trying to find her indignation. Or at least a tiny iota of her usually very reliable common sense.
“Katherine, we’re stranded in the middle of a major weather event here. Forget appropriate. The only benefit to a situation like this is that appropriate no longer applies.”
It didn’t? “But I don’t…” she began.
“So,” he cut off her scattered thoughts, “once we’ve got you suitably attired to both our satisfactions, then we should hit the grocery section and, after that, we need to find somewhere to bed down.”
He steered her through the door to the stairwell, as her mind snagged on the prospect of finding somewhere “to bed down” with Ryder Sinclair—and the completely inappropriate shot of adrenaline that accompanied the thought.
“Sound like a plan?” he asked.
She drew out from under his arm, trying to quash the stupid compulsion to go with him wherever he wanted to lead her. He smiled at her, that super-sexy smile that she now knew made him a very dangerous man. And tried to concentrate on the specifics. Instead of the giddy thrill that was migrating all over her body. “We can’t do any of that, I didn’t bring my purse with me.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t have any cash, unless you do?” she said, not liking the silly spurt of hope. She didn’t want to spend the night having an inappropriate adventure with this man. Because that would be…well, inappropriate.
