"That's just a product of my upbringing. It doesn't have anything to do with my intelligence."
"Are you going to argue with everything I say?" he growled, sending a shiver down her spine.
Shrugging as though he didn't have such a strong effect on her, she shifted to get comfortable on his lap, since he didn't seem intent on letting her go any time soon. "Probably."
"Honest to a fault." The words appeared on the pad in front of them, and she laughed.
"Is that a good thing?"
"Honesty is the best policy," he quipped, pulling another peal of laughter from her. "A laugh that lights up the room."
"Jason, you're making things up, now."
"Am not. You have a great laugh. Oh, you're crazy organized. Anyone who can whip Ro's filing system into shape is a genius." He tapped the pad of paper. "See? Halfway there already, and we haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet."
"Like what?"
"Your turn to think of something,tesoro."
"I wish you wouldn't call me that. I'm not a treasure." But sitting in his lap, reading the words he'd written about her so far, she could almost convince herself that she was.
"Disagree. What's next on the list?"
Chewing on her bottom lip, she considered. "I love my sisters. I don't know if it's something I'm any good at, but I like that about myself. I didn't care for them at first," she admitted quietly.
"It took you all a little bit to warm up to each other. But you're a unit now. I saw that tonight, and it made me proud."
"Yeah?" Smiling, she tapped the pad. "Can I put it on the list?"
He handed her the pen. "Absolutely."
I love my sisters more than I love myself.Maybe for most people, that wasn't a big deal, but it was to her. She'd been raised to be selfish and to think of her image first and foremost, so loving anyone more than herself was new to her.
The thought brought to mind the fight she'd had with her sisters earlier, and she frowned. "Ro said I was selfish." She didn't know why she was telling him, she just knew she needed to. It wasn't like she wanted to get Ro in trouble, she just wanted him to know what she was thinking.
"That doesn't sound like Ro."
"Well, she said it, when I told her about provoking Branson last night. She was upset. But she's right. I'm an inherently selfish being, and I have been my entire life. But I like to think I'm changing that."
"You are not selfish. And I'm tempted to whip Ro's ass for even thinking it."
The heat in his voice confused her. "She didn't do anything, Jason. It's the truth. When you guys introduced me to Ro, all I could think was how this was going to ruin my life. I didn't want sisters. I didn't want the complications and the scandal. And when I kept my plans from you all, I didn't want to run the risk of anyone keeping me from doing what I wanted."
"That's not because you're selfish. It's because you're a survivor. You think in terms of how to get from one thing to the next. You're strong, and you're smart." With a wry grin, he tapped the paper. "Write that down."
"But I don't like that about myself."
"You should, dammit. You should be proud of doing what you had to do to survive. Write it down, Evelyn."
Reluctantly, she wrote the wordSurvivor.
"Strong, too,tesoro."
"Bossy," she mumbled as she addedstrongto the list.
"When I need to be." His tone softened when he spoke again. "Do you remember at Thanksgiving, when Ro's parents told everyone about her fertility treatments and started badgering her about them?"
"Yes. Poor Ro was so upset."