clung to her resolve. “No.”
“I could beg and embarrass you.”
Grace refused to react. “You mean embarrass yourself. And surely there are other women here you can try to charm the pants off other than me.”
He laughed and she hated that a few people looked in their direction. “Is that what you think I’m doing, Grace? Trying to get your pants off?”
She cast him a sharp look. “Try your best, Hot Tub.”
He grinned at her attempt to antagonize. But she knew he would win out. She’d called him the ridiculous name for a decade because he’d installed a huge spa bath at the house he’d built and her brother teased that it was to impress women. She hadn’t liked the idea then. and she liked it even less now.
“Are you throwing down the gauntlet, Grace?”
“Not at all.” She managed to pull away and put some space between them. “I’m…tired,” she said and shook her head. “Too tired to play games.”
“Then tell me what’s going on with you. If you do I might be inclined to leave you alone.”
Exasperated by his persistent badgering, Grace threw up her hands. “So, what do you want to know?”
His gaze narrowed. “Why you’ve come back for so long this time?”
“Because this is my home.”
He clearly didn’t believe that for a second. “Last I heard New York was your home, Grace. Crystal Point was the place you couldn’t get away from fast enough.”
It was a direct hit. She knew what he meant. Her career was the reason she’d left Crystal Point—the reason she’d put an end to their relationship all those years ago. She’d been overwhelmed, crowded, hemmed in…everything she didn’t want to be. Leaving had been her salvation. And her career had panned out exactly as she’d dreamed it would. Until the car wreck that had changed her life.
Grace’s back stiffened. “You know why I left. I wanted…I wanted…”
“Bright lights, big city.”
She stilled. Quiet stretched between them, like brittle elastic. The music seemed to fade and Grace experienced a strange tightening behind her ribs. “It was never that simple.”
“Yes, it was, Grace.” His voice was velvet-smooth, his expression unreadable. “You knew what you wanted. What you didn’t. And who you didn’t.”
She looked into his eyes. It sounded so black-and-white. But nothing was simple anymore. And she didn’t have the courage to admit the truth—that she’d gone to New York to make her parents proud and become everything they’d hoped she would become…or that now she’d come home to save her life.
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