Page 106 of Her Reluctant Hero
She nodded, not looking at him. Was she thinking about the peck on the cheek she’d given him? A perfectly innocent kiss that put him in a perfectly foul mood because for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why she would show him affection the day after she’d served him with divorce papers. And it didn’t look like she planned on enlightening him.
“I’m going back tomorrow,” she said quietly, looking out over the waves. For a moment he thought she meant back to the shipwreck, but she quickly clarified. “Back home.”
“Because that’s what you want, to be married to a linguist and work in an office and have manicures.” He snatched up one of her hands.
She yanked it away. “Yes!”
“And what about passion, Mal? Does he give you passion?” He summoned every ounce of control to look into her eyes as he waited to hear the answer, every ounce of control not to drag her against him and remind her of what they had.
“I had passion once. It wasn’t enough.”
He hadn’t been enough. She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. He just hadn’t been able to give her enough of himself. He’d known it, but to hear her say it, to remember how he’d let her down—he had to turn away. “I want you—to be happy.” The words dragged themselves out of him, and he had to rearrange them so she wouldn’t know he wanted to be the one who made her happy.
“Thank you, Adrian. I am.”
That statement tore at him as Toney joined them, ready to take them to camp. He had wanted to hear doubt in her voice. There had been none.
