Page 58 of Ruthless King

She blinked. Why was he asking about smoke alarms?

Because yours didn’t go off . . . idiot.

“Oh. They should have, right?”

“Yes.”

Jilly gulped. “I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t one in the kitchen.”

“You don’t know whether you have a smoke alarm in the kitchen?”

“I, uh, I guess I never thought about it.”

“You have one above the doorway to the hall.”

“Oh, good. Uh, so it didn’t work?”

“It didn’t. Neither did the one in here.” He nodded to the smoke alarm on the living room wall.

Crap.

“I’m guessing that you’re supposed to check the smoke alarms regularly and replace batteries,” she said.

“You are. Do you want to explain to me why you haven’t been doing that?”

He sounded so reasonable. Yet, she could tell he was holding back.

“I think I’d rather not.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” she told him. “This is all my fault.”

“I’m sorry that I worded that like you had a choice about whether to answer me.”

Oh. That’s what he’d meant.

And now she felt like an idiot. She could feel herself flushing, her cheeks heating.

“You know what . . . I think we should just call this a night and move on. I don’t know why I thought cooking dinner was a good idea since I can barely boil an egg. Once, I put some eggs on to boil, thinking I’d make egg salad. And then I forgot and got busy doing other things. When I came back, the bottom of the pan was burned black and the eggs were kind of stuck to it. I had to throw the whole thing out. Come to think of it, the smoke alarms didn’t go off then, either.”

And she probably should have stopped talking several sentences ago if the look on his face was anything to go by.

“You didn’t think to check the batteries?”

With a groan, she covered her face again. “In case it’s escaped your notice, house maintenance isn’t my forte. I don’t notice things or I forget about them.”

“Like your security light,” he said.

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing to me?”

“Because you own this house and I nearly burned it down!”

“Sweetheart, do you think I’m worried about the house?” He took her hands in his.

She didn’t know what to focus on more. His touch or the fact that he’d called her sweetheart.

---