“A couple of weeks after you left, when I finally acknowledged that you were right. I was just being stubborn when I refused to consider your suggestions.”
She beamed up at him. “I thought it would be a good idea, but you were the one who made it work so beautifully. That was one of the most emotionally rewarding endings I’ve ever read.”
“You,” he told her with a slight lump in his throat, “are hardly objective.”
“Being crazy about you doesn’t affect my judgment about your writing,” she informed him loftily.
The lump grew until it almost choked him. When she said she was crazy about him, what did she mean, exactly? Was it only a figure of speech? An offhanded expression of casual affection? Or was it more?
Maybe he was the one who was just plain crazy.
“I’m glad you like it,” he repeated, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
She rose on tiptoe to press a kiss against his lips. “You have real talent with a love scene, Gideon McCloud.”
A surge of heat went through him. “You could say I’ve found a great source of inspiration.”
Her throaty chuckle was lost in the depths of his plundering kiss.
Having showered, applied her makeup and dressed in a comfortable peasant top and drawstring linen pants, Adrienne exited her bathroom Sunday morning prepared to spend a nice, leisurely day with Gideon.
She hadn’t expected to find him packing his suitcase, looking as though he were getting ready to leave. “What are you doing?”
He looked at her with an expression that made her chest clench. “It isn’t going to work, Adrienne.”
Her hand wasn’t quite steady when she set down the hairbrush she had been carrying on the dresser. “What isn’t going to work?”
He motioned vaguely toward the window. “I thought I could make my own place here, figure out a way to create my own space where I wouldn’t have to deal with people. In some ways, I thought I could find even more privacy in a big city where no one knows me or my family or our business. Instead I just feel smothered by the sheer numbers of people here. It’s as if I can almost feel them pressing against the walls and windows of this apartment.”
It was his vivid imagination that made him such a wonderful writer, of course. And it was his reluctant attachment to the charming little town where he had grown up that made him so intriguing.
But it was his sheer arrogance that made him the most exasperating man she had ever met.
“So you’re leaving.”
He zipped his bag. “I can change a story’s ending for you, but I can’t change who I am. I couldn’t do it for my family and, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it for you, either.”
She locked her arms over her chest, one foot beginning to tap against the carpet. “Funny. I don’t remember asking you to change anything but the ending to your story. And, if you’ll remember, even that suggestion was in response to your request for my input.”
He sighed. “Look, I’m not trying to blame you for anything. I’m the one who had to find out if I could make this work. And if it makes you feel any better, you’re the only woman I’ve ever considered changing for.”
“I suppose I should be flattered.”
He searched her face with a frown. “You’re angry.”
“That’s an understatement,” she replied through clenched teeth.
“Because I’m leaving?”
“Actually, that sounds like a very good idea right now.”
Because she really needed coffee, she turned to leave the bedroom. His hand on her arm spun her around again.
“I never said I could stay,” he reminded her.
“I never asked you to stay,” she snapped back. “Now let go of my arm.”
Instead of releasing her, he held on, looking even more confused. “So you’re angry because I considered staying? Because you didn’t want anything permanent to develop between us?”