Captured by You (One Night of Passion 1.60)
“I don’t have unlimited financial resources like you do,” she said slowly, as if she were explaining things to a child.
“I told you, it doesn’t matter. I do.”
She shook her head and gave a mirthless bark of laughter. “Do you really think I’d just drop everything and leave my entire life here?”
“I thought you said you’d always wanted to see the world,” he said, suddenly looking grim.
“I do, but—”
“Is it me, then? You don’t want to go with me?”
“No!” she exclaimed before she could censor herself. She paused, her breasts heaving against his chest, willing him to understand with her eyes. “I’d love to travel around the world with you. It’d be . . . incredible.”
His expression softened. He stroked her cheek. “I’m glad we agree on that, at least. So there’s no problem.”
She closed her eyes briefly in frustration and rolled away from him, hating the absence of his smooth, warm skin.
“There is a problem, Chance. I refuse to live off you financially. I’m not going to even consider a crazy proposition like that when I know I don’t have the money to do it.”
He sat up abruptly as she began to dress.
“I told you that I have plenty of money—”
“I’m not living off you, Chance. I’m not going to be some kind of kept woman,” she said abruptly, cutting him off. She regretted her harshness immediately when she looked into his eyes. Longing flooded her, so potent it stole her breath for a moment. She fastened her bra and pulled her blouse around her as she tried to recover her voice. He still hadn’t moved when she turned to face him.
“You’re the adventurer, Chance. I’m just a small-town girl with a small-town life. This is where I belong,” she said, blinking back tears.
“Your life is as large as you want it to be,” he said somberly.
She gave him a tremulous smile. “I didn’t set the boundaries of my life. They were just given to me. You’re the one who was born into a world without any limits. And it should be that way,” she said, her gaze on him warm . . . loving. “You’re the last person on the face of this earth who belongs in a tiny world, Chance Hathoway.”
“So that’s it?” he asked after a tense moment. “You’re refusing to come with me?”
“I can’t,” she repeated, her longing making her sound desperate.
“I’m falling for you,” he said starkly. “I think I might have fallen good and hard from the first second I saw you walk out of that lake. Don’t bring this to a halt before it’s really had a chance to get started, Sherona.”
“I’m not purposefully halting anything. It’s just that I belong here, and you . . . don’t. We both know that.”
His face looked set and grim as he stood up and grabbed his clothing.
Chapter Ten
He left town the next morning. To say that Sherona was miserable was a blatant understatement. They’d spent the night together, touching and making love almost constantly, as if they wanted to store up a deposit of caresses and murmured words and ecstasy to last them a lifetime.
Which is perhaps precisely what they were doing, Sherona thought presently as she opened up the diner.
She let the door close behind her. For a few seconds, she just stood in the dim diner and stared. She could maneuver around the thirty-by-fifty-foot space blindfolded. This place was where she’d seen her parents working side by side with congenial familiarity, where she’d first learned the value of hard work and prepared meals for thousands of people.
These walls held her entire world, and she’d always been comforted by that knowledge.
She wasn’t sure whether to thank Chance or curse him for making her feel suddenly imprisoned by the confines of Vulture’s Canyon.
Later that night, after she’d exhausted herself at the diner and returned home, she checked her e-mail. Her attention was immediately caught by Chance’s address. They’d exchanged e-mail addresses, but she hadn’t expected him to be in contact so soon.
She opened the message and read:
I’m not going to make it easy for you to forget. Look for one of these every day. I miss you like hell already.