Page 127 of Her Reluctant Hero
On impulse, she asked, “Would you go diving with me?”
“What?” He pulled back, blinking.
“I miss it. Will you let me teach you?” If he could say yes, maybe she wouldn’t have to end it, maybe she wouldn’t have to hurt him.
But she knew his answer before his eyes shuttered.
He released her and backed away. “I couldn’t do something like that.”
Her heart dropped. “Not even if it’s something I love to do? You wouldn’t do it for me?”
“Mallory, it’s very dangerous. You should be relieved it’s not something I want to do. I don’t think it’s something you should do. You could die.” He stroked her arm slowly, reverently.
Meant to reassure her, she knew. She longed to move away but didn’t want to hurt him. “What’s the difference between dying of old age after a life of doing nothing and dying doing something you love?” She heard Adrian’s voice coming out of her mouth and cringed.
Jonathan took her arms again. “Because you’ll be living those years with me.”
That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? A long, peaceful life with the man she loved, with the children they created from their love? And she shouldn’t base the future of their relationship on the answer to one question. But that one question encompassed so many things.
“You do want to stay.” For the first time in their relationship she heard anger in his voice. “What can you find in a place like this?”
She looked toward the ocean. “I need the mountains, I need the sea. I need to dive.”
“You need Adrian.”
She shook her head sharply. “No.” Not because of Adrian but because of the woman she used to be. The woman she’d turned her back on.
The woman she missed.
“I can’t think about what my life would be like if I never went diving or hiking or any of those things again. What will I do with myself?”
“You’ll be a wife and a mother and we’ll have our friends around us. All those things will fulfill you. You won’t need diving or hiking, or Adrian.”
He was so earnest, so sad. She felt like a selfish bitch. All the things he was saying—she wanted those things. The security, the love. The pretty little house they’d found on the edge of the Hill Country. But just like she had to wonder if she missed archaeology because of Adrian, she wondered if she wanted Jonathan because of the things he offered.
And now she craved adventure. She had to blend the person she used to be with the person she’d become. Until she did that, she couldn’t be with either man.
“I can’t stop being who I was, not even for you.” Her heart ached. She was turning her back on a good man.
Jonathan’s expression grew stony. “You’re going back to Adrian.”
“No.” He couldn’t figure into this. That wouldn’t be fair to Jonathan. With shaking hands, she pulled the chain over her head, let it spiral into her palm, ring first, before pressing it into his hand. She looked into his eyes, her own vision blurred. “Thank you. For loving me. But unless I do this, I’m not me anymore, and that’s not good for either of us.”
Where the hell was the mouthpiece for his regulator? Adrian tore through his tent searching for the octopus. He knew he’d put it in the same place as always—on a dive, he had to do that or things would be too easily mislaid. And this damn thing was impossible to replace out here in the back of beyond.
He walked out of the tent, calling to Toney, just as Jonathan came over the rise of the sand dunes. The set of his shoulders, the tension in his steps told Adrian Mallory had called it off. For a moment, he rejoiced.
Jonathan saw him and changed direction, straight toward him. Before Adrian could work out what was going on, the other man plowed a fist into his face. Surprise dropped Adrian to the sand. He brought his hand to his mouth to check for blood before he looked up at Jonathan.
“What did you do to her?” the older man demanded.
Adrian rose slowly, body tight, on alert now. Damn, he wouldn’t have thought the other man had it in him. His admiration for the man grew a bit more. “I didn’t touch her.”
“She’s chosen you over me. What you have to offer”—he spread his hands to include the camp with a contemptuous expression—“over what I have to offer.”
“She’s staying here?” Joy washed through him, though he struggled to hide it from the other man. The man he’d beaten.
“Don’t act like it’s a surprise.”
