The Borrowed Ring
He touched her face. “That's all you're going to ask?”
“Would you answer me if I asked more?”
His mouth quirked in what might have been an attempt at a smile. “Probably not.”
“That's what I thought.”
He leaned over to kiss her again. “Thank you for making it easier.”
“You still owe me,” she whispered.
He rested his forehead against hers for a moment. “I know.”
And then he straightened, speaking more briskly. “I've got to go. Someone will be here soon—someone who'll take you to safety. I want you to go straight back to Dallas the minute you get the chance. Promise me that.”
“I promise.”
She saw his shoulders relax and knew that she had just set his mind at ease. Apparently he trusted her word as much as she trusted his.
He would never have to know how much that promise had cost her. How much she wanted to beg him to let her stay with him.
It was partly because she was afraid she would put him in danger if she remained that she agreed to leave. And partly because she couldn't bear it if he told her that he wasn't even tempted to ask her to stay.
Holding the sheets to her chest, she rose on one elbow to watch him walk toward the bedroom doorway. Already she saw him taking on the tough, hardened persona of the man Judson Drake knew as Daniel Andreas. It was something in the way he walked, the way he carried himself.
“Daniel?”
He paused in the doorway, looking over his shoulder, impatience in his eyes. But his voice was still indulgent when he asked, “What is it?”
“I just want you to know I'm in love with you.”
She had the minor satisfaction of seeing his impressive control slip then and knowing she had done something few people ever could. She had caught Daniel Andreas completely off guard. “B.J., I—”
“Go play your power games, Daniel,” she said gently. “I'm not asking you for anything. I just needed to say it one time out loud.”
He'd gotten his expression back under control now. His white-knuckle grip on the doorjamb was the only sign that he was still reeling from her admission. “Take care of yourself, B.J.”
“You do the same.”
He drew a deep, painful-sounding breath. “I always have,” he said. And then he was gone.
Hearing the sitting room door close behind him, B.J. finally gave in to the tears she had refused to shed in front of him.
Though they were wrinkled from wearing them a few hours the day before, B.J. donned her own clothes again. Nothing went into her tote bag except the things she had brought with her; she wanted nothing that came from Drake's resort.
It was so quiet in the rooms with Daniel gone. It felt oddly as though they were already unoccupied, despite the clothes that hung in the closets and the other personal items scattered around.
She could almost hear the echo of her declaration of love hanging in the still air.
It still amazed her that she had found the courage to say those words to Daniel. Because she hadn't expected to hear them in return, it hadn't hurt—at least, not too badly—that he'd left without commenting on them.
She wasn't sorry that she had told him. Daniel hadn't been given nearly enough love in his lifetime. Just once she had wanted him to know that sometimes love came as a gift, without any expectations or encumbrances. And even if he didn't feel it in return, maybe it would mean something to him someday that she had found him worthy of her love.
Someone knocked at the door just as she was finishing buttoning her shirt. Daniel certainly hadn't given her much warning, she thought with a pang in her heart.
Carrying her tote bag with her, she crossed the sitting room and opened the door. A stocky-looking man in the resort service uniform stood on the other side. Not exactly what she'd been expecting. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Andreas?”