“Relax, Alice,” he said sternly, and she realized he’d sensed her bristling. He sighed and pushed at the back of her head, urging her back to her relaxing pose. She resisted a little, until her cheek touched his skin and she inhaled his addictive scent. He sank his fingers into her hair.
“I’m impressed, not doubting you,” he added gruffly. Her pique evaporated at his sincerity. “Where do you think you got that head for numbers from?” he asked after a moment of her melting into him as he massaged her scalp. She closed her eyes, her flesh growing heavy and warm.
“Certainly not Sissy. She got confused counting change. In all fairness, though, she may have been a genius before meth turned her brain into Swiss cheese,” she mumbled.
“You never mention your dad.”
Her eyelids flew open. Had Dylan felt her eyelashes flick against his skin?
“You said he’d passed away. Did you know him?” he asked.
“No,” she replied shortly. She couldn’t stop herself from swallowing thickly, and thought Dylan might have felt the convulsion of her throat. She held her breath, worried she was revealing too much. His fingertips continued to move in circular, soothing motions on her scalp.
“Do you think you got your mathematical brilliance from him?” Dylan asked.
For several seconds, her lungs locked. Finally, they gave with a hitching inhale. “I sincerely doubt it,” she said.
“Why do you doubt it? Alice?” he prompted when she didn’t speak.
It struck her how gentle he sounded in those moments as he held her fast against him and stroked her. It only increased the swelling pressure in her chest. Was Dylan patronizing her? She lifted off him abruptly.
“Just how far back in my life did Durand go when they did that background check?” she blurted out.
“What?”
“Answer me, damn it. If you know something about my father from that stupid investigation Durand Enterprises did, just say so. Don’t play with me.”
“I didn’t learn anything about your father,” he replied in a hard tone that informed her he was insulted. “It was a standard report about criminal charges or any unusual circumstances you’d been involved in since you turned eighteen. What did you think I’d find out about your dad?”
“Nothing. I just wish you’d stop—” She cut herself off suddenly, unsure of what she wanted to say. “Pushing me,” she finally hissed between clenched teeth. She turned over on her side and clamped her eyelids shut when she realized how tense and crazy she sounded. Mortification swelled inside her for a few awful seconds. The truth did, too. She had a practiced lie at the ready about her father dying in a car accident before she was born, but it wouldn’t leave her throat for some reason. Not while she was with Dylan, it wouldn’t.
She didn’t know who her father was, but she knew enough to harbor shame. The probable truth was disgusting.
Wasn’t she—Alice—disgusting, in turn?
Shame flooded her, anger fast on its heels. It was all his fault. She pulled out of Dylan’s arms.
“I’m going,” she said. The need to be alone suddenly overwhelmed her, that harsh mandate of a wounded animal. She jerked furiously when Dylan halted her with a firm grip on her upper arms.
“Alice, stop it,” he said firmly.
“I don’t know who my father is! There. Are you happy?” she spat.
The silence seemed to press on her eardrums and chest. She didn’t know why she’d said it. Desperation? Irrational anger at Dylan for inspiring such a friction of feelings inside her? Maybe she wanted to let him in.
Maybe she just wanted to show him her ugliness, and get his inevitable dislike of her over with and done.
“I don’t know who my father is, either.”
He said it so evenly, so calmly, it took her a moment to soak in what he’d said. When it did, all the air rushed out of her lungs.
“What?”
“My mother was a prostitute. My father could have been one of any number of assholes, one as worthless as the next.”
She heard herself panting softly. “I don’t believe that.”
“It’s the truth,” he said, and this time, she heard the tiny edge of anger to his tone, the legacy of a defensiveness she understood all too well. It was true. That hint of vulnerability, a distant echo, given the man he’d become, was the stamp of the genuine. He really was akin to her, in a way.