Marriage by Mistake

either."
    "You got that right."
    "And yet he's smart."
    Dean snorted.
    "Hey, he managed to hypnotize you."
    Dean's eyes narrowed. "Your point?"
    Kelly sighed. "My point is that he just needs the right kind of motivation. If he could live at home I think it would make a huge difference." Saying which, she looked directly at Dean.
    His brows curled. "Home? Living at 'home' would be a little bit difficult. Kirk has no permanent address."
    "Kirk?" Kelly sounded baffled. "Who's that?"
    "Who—? That's Robby's father."
    "Oh." Kelly frowned. "You call your father by his first—? Never mind." She shook her head. "It's not like he has anything to do with it."
    "He doesn't?"
    "Oh, hardly. I meant with you. Couldn't Robby live with you?"
    It took Dean a full minute, staring at her, before he grasped her meaning. Then his brows shot up. "With me? You think Robby should live with me ?"
    She smiled. "Uh huh."
    Dean smiled back. It was so...nonsensical. At the same time, he felt the moral ground beneath him shift.
    Meanwhile, Kelly leaned over the little table. "He needs a steady influence, a solid foundation. Someone he can count on."
    "With me," Dean repeated, and laughed. But the ground beneath shifted some more.
    "Granted, it would help if you moved," Kelly went on. "Into a normal house, you know."
    "Excuse me?"
    Kelly rolled her eyes. "Something under ten thousand square feet. Picket fence. Shaggy dog." She sighed. "Although I have to admit it's nice having someone else cook and clean."
    Dean blinked at her. "You imagine me living in suburbia?"
    "Why not?"
    Dean just looked at her. Everything she was saying was absurd, and she had to know it. He was supposed to move to some tract house and play the doting father? To Robby? At the same time, he couldn't help wondering where she put herself in this picture. "No," he said, too loudly.
    "No?" Kelly shook her head. "All right, forget the part about the normal house. It isn't important. What's important is that Robby can rely on you."
    Dean's eyebrows jumped. "Exactly."
    She smiled. "Then we agree."
    "No." They agreed on nothing, and never would. The woman was—from another galaxy. Dean leaned forward. "The idea is that Robby has to learn to rely on himself. He can't depend on me—or on anybody else, for that matter."
    Kelly's eyes widened. "He's nine years old!"
    Dean leaned back. "So?"
    "So?" Kelly's lips parted.
    Dean crossed his arms. "There's no better place to learn self-reliance than boarding school. I started when I was six."
    "Six," Kelly said softly.
    "Right." Dean lifted his chin. He'd been sent off to boarding school at age six, right after Kirk had divorced his second wife, the one Dean had let himself grow fond of. Sending him away had been one of his father's few good decisions. Now Dean's jaw tensed. "Going to boarding school taught me self-reliance. Discipline. Self-control. The rewards of applied persistence." And it had kept him from growing fond of any future frivolous stepmothers.
    "Oh," Kelly said. There was a lost look on her face.
    Dean's eyes narrowed. "What?"
    She gave a slow nod. "I think that's what you learned at boarding school."
    "Right. That is—" He stopped short. "Oh no. Robby isn't so different from me. He can learn the same lessons from school that I did."
    "Discipline, self-control, and the rewards of applied persistence."
    "That's right."
    Kelly shook her head. "I think you really believe what you're saying."
    Dean's jaw clamped shut. She was acting condescending. Of him!
    She looked up, an odd smile on her lips. "Tell me, Dean, when did you have a chance to be a little boy?"
    His brows came down slowly. "Excuse me?"
    "When did you ever get to let somebody else be in charge, take a break?"
    Dean's frown turned into a glare. What was she talking about? Why on earth would he ever want somebody else to be in charge?
    Kelly kept her odd smile. "When did you learn to let go?"
    Let go ? Dean scowled. But he couldn't deny that her words conjured up an image of Kelly herself, naked and moaning beneath him. He wrapped one hand around his too-hot coffee mug. "Let go?" he queried icily. "I wasn't aware one needed to learn to do that."
    "Neither was I." Kelly looked down to dunk her tea bag. "Until now."

    CHAPTER NINE

    As she gazed out the car window on the drive home, Kelly supposed she could have handled that better. It wasn't diplomatic to tell a man that his entire life philosophy was lacking. It put rather a damper on an evening. But darn it, she