"I..."
"Invite me in." His fingers were tight on the wheel; his entire body tense as a drawn spring.
"No." All through the journey, she had been thinking as well. He was potent, a very handsome man and she had never been with anyone like him. Sophisticated and experienced. She was in over her head.
He turned to her just then, a faintly cynical expression on his face. "We want each other."
She nodded in agreement. "That might be the case and I'm sure you're accustomed to getting what you want."
"This has nothing to do with entitlement." He drew in a calming breath, or tried to. He was tense and the thirty-minute drive had done nothing to quell his desire. It was pouring through him like molten lava. Not only that, but her essence, the scent of her, filled the car.
"I have to go. There's... I have work to finish up." She drew in a deep breath. "Thanks for the generous gift. I really should not accept it..."
"You're saying goodbye?"
She met his eyes squarely. "I have to. This is not going to work. I'm not the type to enter into a fling. I have never done casual sex, ever."
I have never had sex before. She added silently. "I've worked too hard to be good and have no intention of throwing it all away for a few nights of pleasure." She took another breath. "So, yes, this is goodbye. I'm sorry."
"Are you?"
"Yes," she said with genuine regret. "I happen to like you. Now could you please open..."
"Have dinner with me."
Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back. "You know that's not going to happen."
"Give me something." He was aware that he was practically begging and this was new to him.
"I can't. Like I said, I've worked too hard to be good..." She gasped when his hand snaked out to wrap around her arm.
"You keep saying that. You've worked too hard to be good. What exactly do you mean by that?"
"Nothing," she muttered.
"I'm not letting you go until you explain," he told her in an implacable tone.
Seeing the determination stamped on his face, she shrugged and tried to find the best way to say it without sounding ridiculous.
"I was involved in an accident when I was seventeen." Her eyes drifted from his face to somewhere over his left shoulder, expression pensive. "I... I was bad." She bit her lip. "I was acting out. My dad had left when I was fifteen without a word of explanation. I blamed my mom and started running with a group of girls who did not believe in authority. We engaged in fights and were constantly being hauled into the principal's office. My mother was working two jobs just to make ends meet."
She tried to pull away, but he would not allow it. "I didn't understand that she was going through hell. Her husband left and she had to try and do whatever she could all by herself. I never knew, never tried to understand." She blinked at the tears.
"Then one night we went to a party. It was way across town in an area that wasn't fit for girls our age. There was drinking and..." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I never touched the hard stuff, just weed, but the others indulged. Sharma was driving. We were all drinking; we had filched beers from the party and were having a whale of a time. She ran a red light and went right under a truck."
"I was in the back seat and managed to slide down to the ground. The EMTs and doctors said that was what saved my life. The others..." She shook her head. "They perished. Died on impact. They had to cut me out of the vehicle. I escaped with cuts and bruises and several cracked ribs."
"I was in the hospital for two weeks without realizing what had happened to my friends. When they told me..." She swallowed again. "When they told me and when I saw my mother for the first time since the accident, I wanted to die. So, after sinking into depression that lasted a month, I woke up one morning and decided to turn my life around." She turned her gaze back to his. "I decided to be good to make up for the bad things I did. The shoplifting and everything else. Now you understand why I could never be with someone like you."
He remained silent during the discourse, his heart pounding, his mind reeling. None of that had shown up in the report. Yes, he had known about the accident that had almost claimed her life, but not the rest of it.
"That's why you volunteer at all these shelters." His voice was soft with understanding.
"And teach Sunday school." A smile touched her lips. "It started out as a sort of penance, something to right the wrongs, but I found out that I liked it."
"Your mother? She died?"
Catherine nodded, the pain still evident. "Two years ago, from an aneurysm. She worked so hard. And for all of the grief that I put her through, she never gave up on me. I wanted to make herproud. I think I did and that's what has been sustaining me since she passed."