She felt horrible. It had never been her intention to offend or hurt Charles, just to state the fact that she missed many things about her time. The sad look on his face nearly broke her heart. Sighing heavily, she realized, while she did miss those things, she was developing feelings for Charles, which would get in the way of her going home to all of that. Never in her life had she met a man so attentive, so sweet or polite. Was it because of his upbringing and the time period of his birth, or was it just him? For the first time, she had doubts about the life she'd pictured for so long. Her father's cutting remarks echoed through her mind. If he hadn't been so cruel to her, would her outlook have been different? Would her life have been more balanced? Achieving her goal of financial independence had been the driving force behind her ambition for so long, she'd excluded the possibility of anything else. Had she missed out on a special relationship with a man in the past because of it?
