“I look good in a tuxedo,” he said.
/> Gemma didn’t laugh at his attempt at a joke. “What else?”
Colin gave her a suggestive glance. “She always said I was good in the sack. I have a bit of endurance.”
“Wow,” Gemma said, her eyes wide. “Are you talking four minutes or five?”
Colin burst into laughter. “Gemma, you’re going to unman me.”
She smiled. “At least I made you laugh.”
He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Thanks,” he said. “I know Jean was hurt and angry, but . . .”
“Her remarks still cut deep,” Gemma said. “You know, of course, that her contradicting herself showed she was lying.”
“You think so?”
“Definitely.” She paused. “How are you going to deal with your parents? They like Jean a lot. When your dad finds out that she won’t be cooking for him anymore, he’s going to be very upset.”
“I indoctrinated Dad to pain when I quit working at the dealership.”
“You carry a lot of guilt, don’t you?” Gemma said.
“You don’t? You’ve never felt bad for disappointing someone?”
Gemma didn’t say anything.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m doing some soul baring here, so you can too.”
“When my father died, my mother was devastated. She loved him completely and absolutely—and depended on him for everything. She wanted me to take over his household duties.”
“Fix the car, that kind of thing?”
“More or less. She wanted me to pay the bills, remember when the insurance needed to be paid. When the kitchen drain broke, she wanted me to call the plumber. When I said I had too much homework to do all those things, she got angry. She said I wasn’t much use as a daughter.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
“That’s way too young for that,” Colin said. “She should have been helping you.”
“‘Shoulds’ don’t always happen. In fact, in my life they never do. I couldn’t handle what my mother wanted, so I retreated into books. I read constantly, studied, researched. Besides, I was missing my dad so much that it was like a disease spreading inside me. I had trouble thinking coherently.”
“What did your mother do?”
“She turned to my younger sister, who lived up to all Mom’s hopes and dreams. Together, they figured out how to run the household.” Gemma looked at him. “See? I know a lot about guilt.”
“You know what I think?” he said. “I think your mother is the one who should bear the guilt, not you. You and your sister should have been her first concern, and she had no right to dump adult responsibilities onto her kids, either of you.”
“Thanks,” Gemma said. “And I think every word Jean said about you was a lie. She just wanted you back so much that she said anything she could think of to make you feel like you couldn’t leave her.”
“Yeah,” Colin said, smiling. He was silent for a moment, then said, “So what kind of furniture should we get?”
She looked him up and down, at the size of him. His muscles were still engorged from his workout.
Colin noted the way she was looking at him and his eyelids lowered in a seductive way.
“Strong,” she said.