Page 126 of Her Reluctant Hero
“He’s right. We have our own private beach right here,” Jonathan murmured. “Let’s take advantage of it.”
Okay, Adrian didn’t want that picture in his mind, and apparently Mallory thought the same because she blushed a bright pink and turned her head as she walked past him.
“You’re different out here,” Jonathan said once they reached the other side of the dunes, the camp behind them.
Mallory’s pulse kicked at his observation. He knew what she planned to do. She wasn’t ready, didn’t have the words, couldn’t make him understand yet. So she stalled. “Really? How?”
“You’re so much more adventurous, more sure of yourself. I never would have expected the woman I knew to jump off that barge to go after the camera.”
She rubbed her hand over her arm, wishing she’d thought to bring a sweatshirt against the sea breeze. “I was the logical choice.”
“Right, but.” He stopped, shook his head. “Alone, in the ocean, nothing there to protect you. If anything had gone wrong, I couldn’t help you. Adrian couldn’t help you.”
Adrian would have found a way, but she didn’t say it. “I’ve done things like that all my life.”
“I understood, I guess, in theory. It was just unsettling to watch.”
She didn’t know how to respond, was grateful when he started walking again.
“You miss it, don’t you?”
Finally, a chance to be honest. “More than I thought.”
“You want to stay.”
She sucked her breath in through her teeth, laced her fingers together and turned to face him, still walking. “It’s not possible.” That would mean working with Adrian, being vulnerable to him. She never had resisted that too well.
“But you don’t want what you thought you wanted now.”
Another chance to be honest. “No.”
“You still love him.”
“Of course I don’t.” The denial came easier than she expected.
His brow lowered solemnly. “I saw the underwear on the barge, Mallory. I know the two of you were out there alone. I saw the way you looked at each other, how you communicated without talking. I remember all the things you told me you loved about him. I saw them today when he looked at you.” His matter-of-fact tone cut deeper than accusations would have.
“The underwear—it wasn’t what you think.” She pushed her hand through her hair. “I just got out of my wet clothes. There was nothing sexual.”
“With Adrian, who you told me yourself you made love to the first day you met, and never stopped, even when you hated each other.”
Adrian had been right about the whole confiding-in-Jonathan being a mistake. He knew all her secrets, all of Adrian’s as well. She shut her eyes and sought an answer that would appease him. “We were together ten years.” And had been as close as two people could get. “I didn’t strip to tease him. It was all very—businesslike.” Until he took her into his arms.
“So you’re denying you love him.”
“I’ll tell you what I told him. I wouldn’t have said yes to you if I still loved him.”
Her tone must not have been very convincing, because his face fell. God, she didn’t want to hurt him. “He thinks you still love him, too?”
She pivoted and took a few steps down the beach before turning to him, flinging her arms out to her sides in frustration. “Jonathan, you’ve met him. He’s arrogant. Of course he’s going to think I still love him.”
Jonathan approached and curved his hands over her shoulders as he looked into her eyes. “But you can swear to me, after being here with him, that you don’t.”
“I don’t. I swear.”
Jonathan drew her against him, nuzzled her mouth with his. Mallory drew away when he touched his tongue to her lower lip. She couldn’t. She couldn’t kiss him with Adrian’s face clear in her mind, his warming touch so recent. Jonathan was a good man, but there was no thrill in his arms.
She’d forgotten how much she loved the thrill.
