"I'm sorry," she breathed, her voice small and wounded as she scrambled to put distance between them. "I didn't mean to—I thought—" The words tumbled out in a rush of embarrassment and self-recrimination, each one cutting deeper than the last. "You're right, of course. This is inappropriate. I shouldn't have presumed—"
She moved to extract herself completely from his embrace, her cheeks burning with shame that felt like acid under her skin. The kiss that had felt like coming home now tasted like humiliation. How could she have been so foolish? How could she have mistaken his physical response for something deeper when his heart belonged to another woman entirely? When if continued she could only reduce to nothing more than a convenient arrangement, a warm body to share his bed and raise his child?
