He bit back a curse.
“Stop playing mind games. If you’re angry, say so. I won’t chase you around this house begging you to tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m not angry.” She came back into the closet, brushing by him in the doorway. “I don’t even know how to play mind games.” She yanked open a drawer, slammed it, opened another.
“What, then? Why are you acting like I’ve got a gun to your head? Are you really that embarrassed to marry me?”
“I never said that.” She paused, seeming genuinely surprised, but still cross. Her color was high.
“You’re treating our wedding planner the way I treat my doctor when he tells me to turn my head and cough.”
“I was perfectly civil!” she cried with a complete lack of civility. She went back to slamming through drawers. “I don’t like being the center of attention. I hate it. Loathe it. There are no words ugly enough for how much I despise being stared at. The fact that you’re standing there watching me melt down because I can’t find my pants is my own personal nightmare and I hate myself for being this way, but I am.”
She stopped, eyes welling, cheeks flushed, arms folded over her shuddering breasts.
Angelo reached out and dragged her jeans off a hanger where they hung in plain sight at eye level. “See, if you had asked my thoughtful and efficient staff...”
She grabbed them and shoved her legs into them, giving a little hop to snug her bottom into the seat. She might have sniffed, but it could have been the sound of the zip.
“I hated the idea of a big wedding when I thought I’d be marrying someone normal. Someone unremarkable. Like me.” She gathered up the tails of the shirt and knotted them with shaking hands. “I want a hole-and-corner wedding and photos that are so boring no one even looks at them. I don’t want photos that make me look like—”
She started to brush by him but he leaned to block the doorway, one shoulder against the casing, arms folded, trapping her into continuing this conversation.
“Like what?”
She hugged herself, brow crinkled. “Like I feel,” she admitted in a strained voice.
The house could have exploded and he would have stayed in this timeless bubble with her, every word ringing with impact.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I don’t know! I’ve never been allowed to feel, have I?” She flicked at her hair so it wasn’t in her eyes. “Like my toddler nephew. Confused. Irrational. Like I should be able to make sense of this. Make order from the chaos, but I don’t have any control over what’s happening to me or how I feel about it. I don’t like being—”
“Human?” he suggested dryly.
“It’s never been encouraged,” she said flatly. “You saw what they’re like.”
Her parents were definitely part of the problem, not the solution, but it was more than that. He saw the real issue now and wondered how he hadn’t seen it sooner. The way she fell back on what she knew when her confidence flagged, how she used her big words to distance people and kept that aloof smile on her face. She was exactly like almost every gaming nerd he’d ever met—introverted and quiet and preferring to live in an alternate universe because participating in the real world was such a burden for her.
“You’re shy,” he accused.
She took a breath as though his words had struck somewhere tender.
“I am,” she admitted miserably. “I always have been. Literally painfully shy. I feel the hurt inside me when people look at me. I hate that I have to work so hard to be as confident as...” She waved. “As all those people out there who talk like old friends when they’ve only met each other today.”
“And right now? With me?”
“Like I have a pin in me, right here.” She pointed to her chest. “Like there’s a knife twisting, making each breath burn.” She clenched her eyes shut, blinking at the ceiling to fight back her tears. “I wasn’t supposed to have any feelings, especially bad ones. I certainly wasn’t supposed to blush and cry and hide. I was supposed to get over it. Become a society maven who holds court over the masses the way my mother does. A fashion icon. A belle of the ball. Instead, it’s a good thing she’s incapable of disappointment because I am her greatest achievement in that regard.”
“That’s a lot of self-hatred. Maybe lighten up on yourself.”
“I can’t! You just accused me of treating the wedding planner like a molester. You told me to act like a human. Like I’m some kind of robot. I know I’m bad at this, Angelo. I’ve tried to learn how to get past it. Nothing works.” She scowled, but he saw the flex of anguish beneath.
“Is that why you bury yourself in research?”
“Tried to, but girls aren’t allowed to like science in my family,” she grumbled. “I hated dresses until my brother told me about silkworms, then it gave me something interesting to think about when I had to wear one. And yes, pursuing my doctorate made for a convenient argument against being rushed into marriage. It was a great excuse to avoid a lot of mindless socializing, but I like it, too.”
“You really are as efficient as you are intelligent.” He wasn’t being sarcastic. He was impressed. He had street smarts that wouldn’t quit, but academically he’d been more of a skater, capable of better grades, but only finishing the American high school equivalency at night school when he was in his early twenties. Even then, he had only done as much work as necessary to pass.