stoneware, Ethan, and I'm not broken yet."
She punched a finger into his chest again, darkly pleased when his eyes
flashed a warning. "I wasn't so helpless when I got you into my bed, was
I? Which is just where I wanted you."
"You didn't get me anywhere."
"Hell, I didn't. And you're brainless if you think differently. I reeled
you in like a goddamn rockfish."
It gave her pleasure, oh, such vivid pleasure, to see both fury and
frustration race over his face. "If you think a statement like that
flatters either of us--"
"I'm not trying to flatter you. I'm telling you straight out, I wanted
you and I went after you. If I'd left the matter up to you, we'd have
been pinching each other's butts in a nursing home."
"Jesus, Grace."
"Just be quiet." There was no stopping now, whatever the consequences,
not with this roaring sea crashing in her head. "You just think about
that, Ethan Quinn. You give that some good long thought and don't you
dare call me fragile again."
He gave her a slow nod. "It's not the word that's coming to mind at the
moment."
"Good. I haven't needed you or anyone to help me build a decent life for
my baby. I used muscle, and I used guts to do what needed to be done, so
don't you tell me I'm china."
"You wouldn't have had to do it all alone if you weren't too damn proud
to settle things with your father."
The truth of that put a hitch in her step. But she balled her fists and
rushed on. "We're talking about you and me. You say you love me, Ethan,
but you don't for one minute understand me."
"I'm starting to agree with that," he muttered.
"You've got some ego-ridden male idea in your head that I need to be
taken care of, protected, coddled--when what I need is to be needed and
respected and loved. And you'd know that if you paid attention. You ask
yourself this, Ethan, who seduced whom? Who said 'I love you' first. Who
proposed marriage? Are you so nearsighted you can't see I've had to take
every step first with you?"
"You make it sound like you've been leading me by the nose, Grace. I
don't care for that."
"I couldn't lead you by the nose if I jabbed a fish hook in it. You go
exactly where you want to go, Ethan, but you can be so infuriatingly
slow. I love that about you, and I admire it, and now I understand it
more. You had a terrible period in your life when you had no control,
now you take care not to lose it. But you can slip from control into
stubbornness in one short step, and that's just what you've done."
"I'm not being stubborn. I'm being right."
"Right? It's right for two people to love each other and not build a
life out of it? It's right to pay all your life for what someone else
did to you when you were too young to defend yourself against it? Is it
right for you to say you can't and won't marry me because you'rea
stained and you made some ridiculous promise to yourself never to have a
family of your own?"