Once he’d settled into his seat, started the car and expertly reversed, she couldn’t help herself, she’d lived too long in Mags’s house to let it go, she had to say, “What kind of gas mileage does this car get?”
“I’ve no idea.” His voice suddenly sounded bored.
Sibyl ignored his tone and persevered. “Mr. Morgan, I know it’s none of my business and I dislike people who lecture about this kind of thing, but as this is a sports car, you should know that it’s likely it burns fuel like nobody’s business. In this day and age, considering the state of the environment, everyone should have a car with fuel economy. You should consider a hybrid at the very least.”
Even though he was driving, she felt his body go somehow still.
After a moment, in a voice not bored in the slightest, he asked, “I beg your pardon?”
Sibyl felt like an idiot, lecturing him on fuel economy and decided to stand down.
“It’s none of my business,” she muttered.
“Sibyl,” he said her name for the first time and she felt the effect of it physically, almost as if the sound of her name on his lips, uttered in his rich baritone, pulsated through her body, and she caught her breath. He continued without noticing her extreme, and bizarre, reaction. “This is a high performance vehicle. The fuel economy is excellent. You can save yourself from worrying that you will be tainted with guilt-by-association by riding in my car. I’m not unduly destroying the environment.”
Sibyl was inordinately pleased his tone held no anger or even the slightest hint of it (not to mention the fact that he wasn’t “unduly” damaging the ozone layer).
“That was rude. I apologise. My mother is an environmental activist and sometimes it spills over, but, um… that said, I agree with Mom that we should all do our bit.”
He didn’t respond and she tried not to look at him but instead felt the lovely, smooth nearly soundless ride of his “high performance vehicle”. She’d never ridden in a Mercedes (all her cars, and her family’s, were jalopies that they rode into the ground before buying other, used, jalopies) and she had to admit (even though she would never tell Mags), she enjoyed it.
Colin deftly negotiated the difficult Bristol roads and entered the A38 at Cumberland Basin and Sibyl stared at the beautifully lit Clifton Suspension Bridge as they passed by.
“Why him?” Colin’s voice came at her suddenly and she jumped. Even the short drive in his smooth car had lulled her into a strange relaxation.
“Sorry?”
“The medic.”
She sighed as she understood his question. It was none of his business. Furthermore, they (especially Sibyl) were both forgetting that he had an unreasonable loathing of her and the last time they’d spent any time together he made sure she knew it (well, most of the time).
“He asked me,” was all she said and hoped he would let the matter drop.
“There is no way in hell a woman like you should be on the arm of a man like that,” Colin remarked with deep meaning and supreme finality.
He exited the A38 and headed around Long Ashton toward Clevedon.
She should have stayed silent. For sanity’s sake, she knew that. Rationally, logically and all good things that meant peace of mind, she understood that with certainty.
However, she didn’t stay silent.
“And what type of man should I be on the arm of, as you put it?”
“Me,” he answered boldly and she gasped, realising, without a doubt, she’d entered the Alternate Colin Morgan Universe.
He ignored her gasp. “If you were with me, you would not buy your own drinks. You would not be sent off to buy mine. I would most likely not let you out of my sight. We would definitely not be in a club. And you certainly would not, under any circumstances, leave with another man.”
Regardless of the edge of chauvinism that tainted his statements, something started fluttering in her stomach, something not entirely unpleasant, indeed, something alarmingly pleasant, and she did her utmost to ignore it.
“If you were an ass like Steve, then you wouldn’t have a choice.”
He didn’t reply which, in itself, was an eloquent statement.
Feeling the need to be safely out of Alternate but Somehow Entirely More Disarming Colin Morgan Universe, she reminded him, “However, the last time I saw you, you forced me to undress in front of you.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Would you have done what you were told if I left?”
She felt her body jolt at his uncanny perception into her somewhat stubborn nature.