Stormbound with a Tycoon by Shawna Delacorte Page B

with a large corporation after graduation, but it didn’t work out the way I had planned.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    She paused a moment, a frown wrinkling her forehead. “I guess you could say marriage happened, and everything I wanted got put on hold for the duration.”
    â€œYou mean your husband didn’t want you to pursue a career?” He tried to suppress the laugh, but wasn’t totally successful. “From what I’ve seen, I can’t imagine you allowing someone else to control your life so completely.”
    She angrily jerked her hand out of his grasp, turned and glared at him. “And what’s that supposed to mean? Just what is it you find so amusing?”
    He stared blankly at her. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just an observation.”
    Seeing the bewilderment in his eyes, she took a calming breath. “I’m sorry. I guess that’s sort of a touchy subject with me.”
    â€œFrom what you’ve said…first his not wanting a family and now his not wanting you to pursue any interests of your own…it sounds like the two of you had some serious problems to work out.”
    â€œWell, let’s just say that my marriage to him is a major regret in my life—one of those things I’d do differently if I had a chance to do it over again.” She looked at Dylan for a moment as she turned a thought over in her mind.
    â€œHow about you? Is there anything in your life you’d do differently if you had the chance?” It was a loaded question, and she knew it. The way he had been protecting his reasons for being at the cabin told her there was something important bothering him. Every now and then she had gotten a quick glimpse of something beneath his smooth charm. It was enough to tell her that he had a layer of vulnerability which he kept carefully hidden. She wanted to know that level.
    Justin was always telling her that she judged people too quickly and sometimes too harshly. Perhaps her brother had been right. She had predetermined that Dylan was the same type of man as her ex-husband. Possibly…just possibly…she had allowed her bad experience with marriage and the hurt that should have been relegated to the past to intrude on her impartial assessment of what was going on now. Or was she still trying to rationalize her very real attraction to Dylan Russell?
    He looked away from her, preferring to focus his gaze on the landscape. Was there something he’d do differently? It was a list so long he didn’t even know where to begin. He cautiously responded to her question, carefully choosing his words. “I imagine everyone has something they’d do differently if they had a second chance at it.”
    To his chagrin she persisted in her questioning. “What event in your life would you choose if you could do it over?”
    â€œThere are probably several things I’d elect to do differently if I had the opportunity.” He laughed nervously, anxious to turn the focus of their conversation back on her. “What about your marriage…would you have handled it differently with the same man, chosena different man or not gotten married at all? You said you wanted a family, so I imagine that would preclude your staying single.”
    She wrinkled her brow into a frown. “They say hindsight is twenty-twenty. In retrospect I wouldn’t have entered into a marriage without first finding out what he wanted from the relationship, and I would have told him what I wanted.” An edge of anger crept into her voice. “We would have discussed important issues such as children and careers.”
    She stared at him for a long moment before continuing. An uncomfortable level of anxiety began to build inside him. “In short, I’d make sure he was looking for a marriage that was an equal partnership, each having respect for the other’s opinions and goals.”
    He saw the pain in