“Absolutely.” Her eyes were laughing when she opened them. “I like silk blouses, French champagne and lobster with warm butter sauce.” She sighed as she sat back, wondering if Hunter had any emotional attachment to the last piece of fudge. “I especially enjoy them after I’ve worked all week to justify having them.”

He understood that, perhaps too well. She wasn’t a woman who wanted to be taken care of, nor was he a man who believed anyone should have a free ride. But what future was there in a relationship when two people couldn’t acclimate to each other’s lifestyle? He’d never imposed his on anyone else, nor would be permit anyone to sway him from his own. And yet, now that he felt the clock ticking the hours away, the days away, he wondered if it would be as simple to go back, alone, as he’d once expected it to be.

“You enjoy living in the city?” he asked casually.

“Of course.” It wasn’t possible to tell him that she hated the thought of going back, alone, to what she’d always thought was perfect for her. “My apartment’s twenty minutes from the magazine.”

“Convenient.” And practical, he mused. It seemed she would always choose the practical, even if she had a whim for the fanciful. He opened the canteen and drank. When he passed it to Lee, she accepted. She’d learned to make a number of adjustments.

“I suppose you work at home.”

“Yes.”

She touched a hand absently to one of the flowers in her hair. “That takes discipline. I think most people need the structure of an office away from their living space to accomplish anything.”

“You wouldn’t.”

She looked over then, wishing they could talk about more personal things without bringing on that quiet sense of panic. Better that they talked of work or the weather, or of nothing at all. “No?”

“You’d drive yourself harder than any supervisor or time clock.” He bit into an apple slice. “If you put your mind to it, you’d have that manuscript finished within a month.”

Restlessly, she moved her shoulders. “If I worked eight hours a day, without any other obligations.”

“The story’s your only obligation.”

She held back a sigh. She didn’t want to argue or even debate, not when they had so little time left together. Yet if they didn’t discuss her work, she might not be able to prevent herself from talking about her feelings. That was a circle without any meeting point.

“Hunter, as a writer, you can feel that way about a book. I suppose you have to. I have a job, a career that demands blocks of time and a great deal of my attention. I can’t simply put that into hiatus while I speculate on my chances of getting a manuscript published.”

“You’re afraid to risk it.”