He hid his reaction. She'd thanked him, then added something more. He pretended he didn't care, didn't even hear it at first--Jefferson wanted to believe he didn't care--but just as she was so secretly intrigued in the Patriarch, so was Jefferson in she. More to the point, he'd never really been so completely thrown off his own guard and equilibrium before. Then again, he'd never been so... bothered with before. Nobody dealt with him. His strategies to be left alone usually worked, one way or another. He'd lectured Pendzez; it'd worked. He'd pushed away DaVinci and Iskata; they'd both worked, most of the time. With Allegro, he'd nearly ripped her throat apart... that had worked pretty well, actually. Why couldn't he bring himself to do the same to Geneva? Why didn't he ensure that she knew he was the one in charge?
When his stern green eye glanced back at her, he knew he wasn't. Neither of them were--and that feeling was completely foreign. For a moment, he was almost afraid. Jefferson remained still, his only movement the beating of his heart and the slow rising of his chest as he breathed. There was nobody in the world other than Geneva that would ever want to deal with him.
There was a long, sudden silence between them. He found no immediate words; his expression went unchanged. After a long while, his eye and head turned away to stare at the distance gruffly. "What do you want from me?" He found himself saying again. The brute had already asked her that once... Once was enough, but he still didn't have the answers she was looking for. Surely she knew that. "I don't know what the hell you see in me that's keeping you here, but... it's all wrong."