Even as York pulled back, he wouldn't find himself going very far. For someone who had just made it clear she wanted him to leave, Carolina's grip on his arm didn't seem to be going anywhere.

Or maybe York didn't get to say something like that and then just walk away.

"No. I'm not." Her head shook for emphasis, heavy swathe of hair shifting into her eyes. Carolina didn't look at him, then, even as she stayed where she was. Maybe she had been, once. Her temper, now diverted, seemed to drain away. "I should have been," and oh, how she'd tried, and failed and failed and failed again, "but I wasn't." And the fact he had thought otherwise - still thought otherwise - simply made the weight of that much worse.