Page 28 of One Night at Christmas

“Bingo.”

He rolled his shoulders. “I can’t let you stay here.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I can’t—”

“I heard what you said, but when did you become the boss of me to ‘let’ me do anything?”

“Charon.”

“Don’t Charon me, Bryson. I’m serious.”

“And so am I.”

He approached her, and she nearly jumped out her seat. When he knelt beside her chair, her pulse went out of control. He grabbed her hand. She pulled away. He settled on resting a hand on her knee. She wished he’d kept the hand, damn him. His touch destroyed her resistance. The only advantage she had was that she could hide her reaction in the low lighting out there.

“I’m sorry to come off highhanded,” he said.

“Yeah, right.”

“Okay, I’m not. You know how I am. I’m not sorry for how I think. I’m sorry for pushing you where you don’t want to go. But I am pushing, Charon. You’re not staying here. It’s unsafe.”

“I can take care of us.” Her argument had gone flat. He really sounded like he cared, and it was killing her.

“No.”

“Stop!” She jumped to her feet to move away from him. “It won’t be much longer. I have money saved, and as soon as our application is approved at the apartment complex I have my eye on, we’re out of here.”

She lied. Yeah, she was looking at a particular complex, but no, she didn’t have the money for it. Morris had sucked her dry. She needed time to save up, and she would, but even this cheap motel was taking way more than she could afford to give. Maybe she should ask Bryson for a loan.

“Let me put you in a better hotel until you move.”

She licked her lips. His suggestion still sounded like he wanted to keep her. She couldn’t let pride get in the way of taking care of her daughter. She hesitated. They might not be cheating, but his wife might see the hotel on his bill and know he had no business in North Carolina. “My girlfriend will let us stay.”

He frowned. “If she was going to do that, you’d be there already and not here.”

She pressed fingers to her temple. “Janice keeps Naomi while I’m at work. We’re on different shifts, so it’s convenient. At first I wasn’t sure what I would do after I left Morris. I didn’t want to put too much on Janice by asking to stay at her place and asking her to babysit my daughter.”

He seemed to believe her. The fact was, she refused to stay with Janice. A couple years ago, she had it out with Janice’s live-in boyfriend. Now he didn’t like her, and the feeling was mu

tual. He was a decent guy but a know-it-all, and Charon couldn’t take his acting like all women were stupid. Janice might put up with it, but Charon didn’t have to.

She could have tossed her pride aside if she thought Bo would have said she could stay. Her instincts turned out to be right when Janice told her Bo said she should have stayed with her husband no matter what the problem was. God, she couldn’t stand him.

“Charon, are you listening?”

She looked up and found him standing in front of her, far too close. He ran a hand over her arm, and goose bumps broke out on her skin. She told herself to move back, but her feet refused to budge. Barely a half-foot of space stood between them, and she was tempted to lean in closer, to touch his chest and kiss his lips.

He studied her face in silence. She licked her lips. What in the world had he been saying? She wanted to ask, but she couldn’t find her voice. He was too damn close. She couldn’t think.

“You’re still beautiful,” he whispered.

That did it. She jumped away. “You have no business saying that.”

“You’re right. Charon…”

“Don’t, Bryson. Please.”

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