His face abruptly creased in concern. “Not that you aren’t beautiful every day, because you are. Obviously. That’s not what I meant at all.” He’d called her beautiful. Just said it outright, as if it were a given. An immutable fact. As if any suggestion she wasn’t beautiful would offend him. How had all that sweetness survived his childhood intact? She would have said he had a heart of gold, but it must have been stronger than that. Steel. Diamond, maybe.
