One Night: Exotic Fantasies

One Night in Paradise

Maisey Yates

Pirate Tycoon, Forbidden Baby

Janette Kenny

Prince Nadir’s Secret Heir

Michelle Conder

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

One Night in Paradise

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Pirate Tycoon, Forbidden Baby

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Prince Nadir’s Secret Heir

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Copyright

One Night In Paradise

MAISEY YATES was an avid Mills & Boon Modern Romance reader before she began to write them. She still can’t quite believe she’s lucky enough to get to create her very own sexy alpha heroes and feisty heroines. Seeing her name on one of those lovely covers is a dream come true.

Maisey lives with her handsome, wonderful, nappy-changing husband and three small children across the street from her extremely supportive parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of Southern Oregon, USA. She enjoys the contrast of living in a place where you might wake up to find a bear on your back porch and then heading into the home office to write stories that take place in exotic urban locales.

To my very best friend, who I happened to bemarried to. Haven, I love you.

CHAPTER ONE

CLARA Davis looked at the uneaten cake, still as pristine and pink as the bride had demanded, sitting on its pedestal. A very precarious pedestal that had taken a whole lot of skill to balance and get set up. Not to mention have delivered to the coast-side hotel that sat twenty miles away from her San Francisco kitchen.

Everything would have been perfect. The cake, the setting, the groom, well, he was beyond perfect, as usual. And everyone who had been invited had come.

There had been one key person missing, though. The bride had decided to skip the event. And without her, it made it sort of tricky to continue.

Clara eyed the cake and considered taking a slice for herself. She’d worked hard on it. No sense letting it go to waste.

She sighed. The cake wouldn’t make the knot in her stomach go away. It wouldn’t ease any of the sadness she felt. Nothing had been able to shake that feeling, not since the groom, who was now officially jilted, had announced the engagement in the first place.

Though, ironically, watching him get stood up at the altar hadn’t made her feel any better. But how could it? She didn’t like seeing Zack hurt. He was her business partner—more than that, he was her best friend. And also, yeah, the man who kept her awake some nights with the kinds of fantasies that did not bear rehashing in the light of day.

But secret fantasies aside, she hadn’t really wanted the wedding to fall apart. Well, not this close to the actual ceremony. Or maybe she had wanted it. Maybe a small part of her had hoped this would be the outcome.

Maybe that was why she’d agreed to bake the cake. To stand by and watch Zack bind himself to another woman for the rest of his life. There wasn’t really another sane reason for it.

She blew out a breath and walked out of the kitchen and into the massive, empty reception hall. Her heart hit hard against her breastbone when she saw Zack Parsons, coffee mogul, business genius and abandoned groom, standing near the window, looking out at the beach, the sun casting an orange glow on his face and bleeding onto the pristine white of his tuxedo shirt.

He looked different, for just a moment. Leaner. Harder than she was used to seeing him. His tie was draped over his shoulders, his jacket a black puddle by his feet. He was leaning against the window, bracing himself on his forearm.

It shouldn’t really shock her that after being left at the altar he looked stronger in a strange way.

“Hey,” she said, her voice sounding too loud. Stupid in the empty room.

He turned, his gray eyes locking with hers, and she stopped breathing for a moment. He truly was the most beautiful man on the planet. Seven years of working with him on a daily basis should have taken some of the impact away. And some days she was able to ignore it, or at least sublimate it. But then there were other days when it hit her with the force of ten tons of bricks.

Today was one of those days.

“What kind of cake did I buy, Clara?” he asked, pushing off from the window and stuffing his hand into his pocket.

She forced herself to breathe. “The bottom tier was vanilla, with raspberry filling, per Hannah’s instructions. And there was pink fondant. Which I hand-painted, by the way. But the vanilla cake in the middle was soaked in bourbon and honey. And not a single walnut on the whole cake. Because I know what you like.”

“Good. Have someone wrap up the middle tier and send it to my house. And they can send Hannah her tier, too.”

“You don’t have to do that. You can throw it out.”

“It’s edible. Why would I throw it out?”

“Uh … because it was your wedding cake. For a wedding that didn’t happen. For most people it might … take the sweet out of it.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Cake is cake.”

She put her hand on her hip and affected a haughty expression, hoping to force a slight smile. “My cake is more than mere cake, but I get your point.”

“We’ve made a fortune off your cakes, I’m aware of how spectacular they are.”

“I know. But I can make a new cake. I can make a cake that says Condolences on Your Canceled Nuptials. We could put a man on top of it sitting in a recliner, watching sports on his flat-screen television, with no bride in sight.”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly and she felt a small bubbly sensation in her chest. As though a weight had just been removed.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“That could be a new thing we offer in the shops, Zack,” she said, knowing business was his favorite topic, aborted wedding or no. “Little cupcakes for sad occasions.”

“I’m not all that sad.”

“You aren’t?”

“I’m not heartbroken, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Clara frowned. “But you got left at the altar. Public humiliation is … well, it’s never fun. I had something like that happen in high school when I got stood up by my date at a dance. People pointed and laughed. I was humiliated. It was all very Carrie. Without the pig’s blood or the mass murder.”

“Not the highlight of my life, Clara, I’ll admit.” He swallowed. “Not the lowest point, either. I would have preferred for her to leave me before I was standing at the altar, with the preacher, in a tux, in front of nearly a thousand people, but I’m not exactly devastated.”

“That’s … well, that’s good.” Except it was sort of scary to know that he could be abandoned just before taking his vows and respond to it with an eerie calm. She reacted more strongly to a recipe that didn’t pan out the way she wanted it to.

But then, Zack was always the one with the zenlike composure. When they’d first met, over a cupcake of all things, she’d been impressed by that right away. That and his beautiful eyes, but that was a different story.

She’d been working at a small bakery in the Mission District in San Francisco, and he’d been scoping out a new location for his local chain of coffee shops. He’d bought one of her peanut-butter-banana cupcakes, her experiment du jour. His reaction, like all of Zack’s reactions, hadn’t been overly demonstrative. But there had been a glint in his eye, a hint of that hard steel that lay just beneath the outer calm.

And he’d come back the next day, and the next. She’d never entertained, not for a moment, the idea that he’d been coming in to see her. It had been all about the cupcakes.

And then he’d offered her twice the money to come and work in his flagship shop, making the treats of her choice in his gorgeous, state-of-the-art kitchen. It had been the start of everything for her. At eighteen it had been a major break, and had allowed her to get out of her parents’ house, something she’d been desperate to do.

In the years since, it had been a whole lot more than that.

Roasted’s ten thousandth location had just opened, their first in Japan, and it was being hailed a massive success. Conceptualizing the treats for that shop had been a fun challenge, just like every new international location had been.

She and Zack hadn’t had a life since Roasted had really started to take off, nothing that went beyond coffee and confections, anyway. Of course, Zack was the backbone of the company, the man who got it done, the man who had seen it become a worldwide phenomenon.

They had drinks, coffee beans and mass-produced versions of her cupcakes and other goodies in all the major grocery chains in the U.S. Roasted was a household name. Because Zack was willing to sacrifice everything in his personal life to see it happen.

Hannah had been his only major concession to having a personal life, and that relationship had only started in the past year. And now Zack had lost her.

But he wasn’t devastated. Apparently. She was probably more devastated than he was. Again, cake related.

“I didn’t love her,” he said.

Clara blinked. “You didn’t … love her?”

“I cared about her. She was going to make a perfectly acceptable wife. But it wasn’t like I was passionately head over heels for her or anything.”

“Then why … why were you marrying her?”

“Because it was time for me to get married. I’m thirty. Roasted has achieved the level of success I was hoping for, and there comes a point where it’s the logical step. I reached that point, Hannah had, too.”

“Apparently she hadn’t.”

He gave her a hard glare. “Apparently.”

“Do you know why? Have you talked to her?”

“She can come and talk to me when she’s ready.”

Zack would have laughed at the expression on Clara’s face if he’d found anything remotely funny about the situation. The headlines would be unkind, and with so many media-hungry witnesses to the event, mostly on the absent bride’s side, there would be plenty of people salivating to get their name in print by offering their version of the wedding of the century that wasn’t.

Clara was too soft. Her brown eyes were all dewy looking, as though she were ready to cry on his behalf, her petite hands clasped in front of her, her shoulders slumped. She was more dressed up than he was used to seeing her. Her lush, and no he wasn’t blind so of course he’d noticed, curves complemented, though not really displayed, by a dress that could only be characterized as nice, if a bit matronly.

She did that, dressed much older than she needed to, her thick auburn hair always pulled back into a low bun. Because she had to have her hair up to bake, and it had become a habit. But sometimes he wished she’d just let her hair down. And, because he was a man, sometimes he wished she wouldn’t go to so much trouble to conceal her curves, either.

Although, in reality, her style of dress suited him. They worked together every day, and he had no business having an opinion on her physical appearance. His interest was purely for aesthetic purposes. Like opting for a room with a nice view.

That aside, Clara was all emotion and big hand gestures. There was nothing contained about her.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“I know. I believe you,” she said.

“No, you don’t. Or you don’t want to believe me because your more romantic sensibilities can’t handle the fact that my heart isn’t broken.”

“Well, you ought to love the person you’re going to marry, Zack.”

“Why? Give me a good reason why. So that I could be more broken up about today? So that I could be more suitably wounded if she had shown up, and we had said our vows, when ten years on the marriage fell on the wrong side of the divorce statistics? I don’t see the point in that.”

“Well, I don’t see the point at all.”

“And I didn’t ask.”

“You never do.”

“The secret to my success.” His tone came out a bit harsher than he intended and Clara’s expression reflected it. “You’ll survive this,” he said drily. “Breaking up is hard to do.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I’m not so breakable. Tell me, any big word on the Japan location go up online while I was busy getting my photo taken?”

“All good. Some of the pictures I’ve been seeing are showing that it’s absolutely slammed. And everything seems to be going over huge.”

“Good. That means the likelihood of expanding further there is good.” He sat down in one of the vacant, linen-covered chairs. They had pink bows. Also Hannah’s choice. He put his hands on the tabletop, moving his mind away from the fiasco of a wedding day and getting it back on business. “How are things going with our designer cupcakes?”

“Um … well, I was pretty busy getting the wedding cake together.” Clara felt like her head was spinning from the abrupt subject change.

Zack was in full business mode, sitting at the trussed up wedding-party table like it was the pared-down bamboo desk he had in his office at Roasted’s corporate headquarters.

“And?”

“I have a few ideas. But these are pretty labor-intensive recipes and they really aren’t practical for the retail line, or even for most of the stores.”

“Cupcakes are labor intensive?”

She shot him a deadly look. “Why don’t you try baking a simple batch and tell me how it goes?”

“No, thanks. I stick to my strengths, and none of them happen to involve baking.”

“Then trust me, they’re labor intensive.”

“That’s fine. My goal is to start doing a few boutique-style shops in some more affluent areas. We’ll have bigger kitchens so that we’ll have the capability to do more on-site baking.”

“That could work. We’ll have to have a more highly trained staff.”

“That’s fine. I’m talking about a few locations in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, London, that sort of thing. It will be more like the flagship store. A bit more personalized.”

“I really like the idea, not that you’d care if I didn’t.”

“I am the boss.”

“I know. I’m just the Vice President of Confections,” she said, bringing up a joke they’d started in the early days of the company.

A smile touched his lips again and her heart expanded. “A big job.”

“It is,” she said. “And you don’t pay me enough.”

“Yes, I do.”

She gave him a look. One she knew was less than scary, but she tried. “Anyway, go on.”

“I had made an appointment to speak to a man who owns a large portion of farmland in Thailand. Small clusters of coffee and tea. All of his plants receive a very high level of care and that’s making for extremely good quality roasts and brews. My goal is to set up a deal with him so we can get some limited-editions blends. We’ll sell them in select locations, and have them available for order online.”

Her mind skipped over all the details he’d just laid out, latching on to just one thing. “Weren’t you going to Thailand on your honeymoon?”

“That was the plan.”

Clara couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open. “You were going to do business on your honeymoon?”

“Hannah had some work to do, as well. Time doesn’t stop just because you get married.”

“No wonder she left you at the altar.” She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“You did, and that’s fine. Unlike you, Hannah had no romantic illusions, you can trust me on that. Her reasons for not showing up today may very well have had something to do with a Wall Street crisis. There’s actually a good chance she’s at her apartment, in her wedding gown, screaming obscenities at her computer screen watching the cost of grain go down.”

She had to concede that the scenario was almost plausible. Hannah was all icy cool composure, and generally nice and polite, until someone crossed her in the corporate world. Clara had overheard the other woman’s phone conversations become seriously cutthroat in tense business situations. Threats of removal of tender body parts had crossed her lips without hesitation.

She admired her for it. For the the intense way she went after what she wanted. She’d done it with Zack. It had been sort of awe inspiring to watch. Mostly it had been awe-inspiringly depressing. Because Clara wasn’t cutthroat, or intense. And she hadn’t been brave enough to pursue what she really wanted. She’d never been brave enough to pursue Zack.

“I doubt that’s what happened,” Clara said, even though she couldn’t be certain.

“There was a reason I asked how the designer-cupcake thing was going.”

“Oh.” Back to business.

“I was trying to make sure you didn’t feel swamped by the amount of work you have to do.”

“No. Creating recipes is the best part of my job. I’ve been having fun with this one. I’ve actually done most of the experimental baking and tasting with our panel, and I have a few standout favorites, plus some that need to be improved. And then I’ll have to narrow down the selection, because it just won’t be feasible to have too many different kinds on the menu at once.”

“So that was the long, detailed version of you telling me you aren’t too busy at the moment?”

She shot him a deadly look. Jilted or not, he didn’t need to be a jerk. “No, I’m not too busy.”

“Good, because everything was set for me to head to Chiang Mai tonight.”

“And you need me to make sure everything is running smoothly at corporate?” That wasn’t usually the role she fulfilled. She wasn’t an administrator, not even close.

“No, I want you to get packed, because you’re coming with me.”

Her stomach honestly felt like it plummeted, squeezing as it made its way down into her toes. “You’re not serious. You’re not actually asking me to come on your honeymoon with you?”

“The trip is booked. I have appointments made. I’m not canceling the honeymoon just because my bride neglected to show up.” He looked at her, like he had thousands of times, but this time felt … It felt different. The inspection seemed closer somehow, his gray eyes more assessing, more intimate. She swallowed hard and tried to ignore the fact that her heart seemed to be trying to claw its way out of her chest. “I think you’ll make a more than fitting replacement.”

CHAPTER TWO

IF he had physically hit her he couldn’t have possibly hurt her worse. A replacement? The consolation prize. The stand-in for tall, lean, angular Hannah who possessed the cheekbones of a goddess. Not that Clara had noticed, or compared.

Well, she had. And in some ways, on some days, the fact they were so different made it easier because there was no question of what the other woman had that she didn’t.

But she had never, never put herself in the position of trying to vie for Zack’s attention, not in that way. Because she’d known that she would be the consolation prize if he ever did decide to look in her direction. And she’d decided that was one thing she couldn’t do to herself. The one thing worse than watching the man who meant the world to her tie himself to another woman. Being the one he’d settled for.

And now Zack was shoving her into that position. It made her want to gag.

“I’m not a replacement for anyone, Zack. And if you’re suggesting I am, then I think we’ve become a little bit too comfortable with each other.”

She turned and walked out of the reception hall. She left the cake. She didn’t care about the cake. The staff of the hotel could have it for an early, sugary breakfast when they came in tomorrow morning.

She breezed through the hall and out the front doors, into the damp, salty air. It had been a cool day, but now, with the sun dipping down below the horizon, the air coming in off of the bay was downright chilly. Which was good, because now, if anyone saw her lip tremble a little bit, she could blame the cold.

She didn’t want to be emotional, not over something that wasn’t even intentional, and with Zack, she knew it wasn’t. Zack wasn’t mean, more than that; he simply wasn’t all that emotional, so he never assumed that anyone else was.

Everything was so surface to Zack. Nothing seemed to get under his skin. Nothing seemed to throw him off, even for a moment. Not even a canceled wedding.

Anyway, she’d had enough intentional digs taken at her in her life to know that things could get far too dramatic if she didn’t make people have to work at hurting her feelings.

But since her feelings for Zack were a constant jumble, her reactions to anything involving him were always strong. Most of the time, though, she managed to keep that fact hidden from Zack. A lot of the time, she kept the extent of her feelings hidden from herself.

“Clara.”

She turned and saw him standing just behind her. She didn’t say anything. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and fixed him with her best glare.

“You’re the second woman to abandon me today.”

Her face flooded with prickly heat. “See, that comparison is not very flattering, considering you’ve already used the word replacement in regards to me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“That I need someone to come with me, and actually, under the circumstances you’re a better fit than my ex-fiancée.”

For a full second she could only think of one thing his statement could possibly mean. Images clicked through her mind like close-up still-shots. Tan hands on a pale, bare hip. Masculine lips on a feminine throat. Blood roared through her body, into her cheeks, making her face burn. She was sure they were the color of ripe strawberries, broadcasting her thoughts to anyone who looked at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Hannah’s smart, don’t get me wrong, but she doesn’t know this market quite like you do. Prices on stocks, maybe, but it will be nice to have you on hand to offer an opinion about marketing and flavor.”

Business. He was talking about business. And somehow, to Zack, business was more important than romance and making love on his honeymoon?

At least he was pretending it was. There was something different about his expression, a dark light behind his gray eyes. She’d seen Zack nearly every day for the past seven years. She knew his moods, his expressions as well as she knew her own.

And this was a different Zack. Well, she thought it was. For some reason, the hardness, the intensity, seemed more true than what she thought she knew of him.

Strange. But then, the whole day had been strange. Starting with the interminably long silence after the strains of the Bridal March had faded from the air and the aisle remained vacant.

All right, he’d made her mad. It wasn’t the first time. He was bullheaded and a general pain in the butt sometimes. He was also the smartest man she knew, with a cutting wit that always kept her amused. He was one of the few people who’d never doubted that her ideas were good.

If she didn’t go with him, she would spend her evenings hanging out by herself, reading and experimenting with cupcake recipes and licking the batter off the spatula. Fun, sure, but not the kind of fun she could have in Thailand.

Again, those images, erotic and explicit, assaulted her. No, that wasn’t the kind of fun she would be having in Thailand. Zack had never looked twice at her in that way and for the most part, she was fine with that. She’d had a crush on him at first, but even then she hadn’t expected anything to come of it.

And, yes, Hannah had come in and stirred up some strange feelings. Because as long as Zack had simply been there, at work every day, and available for dinner meetings and a lot of other things, it had been comfortable. Zack was in every space in her life, at work and home.

But then along came Hannah, and she took up his time, and, Clara had assumed, that he loved her. And having to share Zack’s emotion with someone else had felt. It had felt awful. And it had made her jealous, which didn’t make sense because she’d never even tried to cross the boundaries of friendship with Zack. So it wasn’t like Hannah had been encroaching on her territory or anything. But she’d been so jealous looking at Zack and Hannah she’d felt like her stomach was turning inside out, and she knew, that even if she could never have Zack, she didn’t want anyone else to have him, either.

Which was just stupid and childish. About as stupid as going with a man on his honeymoon, platonically, in place of his bride, to conduct business with him. Platonically.

She needed her head checked. She needed some sanity. Maybe the problem was that Zack did take up all the spaces in her life. Maybe it would have to change.

Just the thought of that, of pushing him away, sent a sharp dose of pain through her system. She was addicted to him.

“All right. I’ll go. Because I would rather have a paid vacation in Thailand than spend the week hanging out in the office and orchestrating the return of all your wedding presents.”

“I’m not returning my wedding presents.”

“You can’t keep them, Zack.”

“Of course I can. I might need a food processor someday. What does a food processor do?”

“I’ll teach you sometime. Anyway, yes, I’ll go with you.”

The corner of his lip curved up into a wicked smile that made her stomach tighten in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “Excellent. Looks like I won’t be spending my wedding night alone, after all.”

It probably wasn’t nice of him to tease Clara. But he liked the way her cheeks turned pink when he slipped an innuendo into the conversation. And frankly, he was in need of amusement after the day he’d had.

But amusement hadn’t been his primary goal when he’d given her the wedding-night line out in front of the hotel. He’d been trying to atone for his ill-spoken remark about her being a replacement. In truth, he had more fun with Clara than he did with Hannah. It wasn’t as though he disliked Hannah; quite the opposite. But he hadn’t been marrying Hannah for the company.

She’d needed a husband to help her climb the corporate ladder, a little testosterone to help her out in a male-dominated field. And a wife … well, a wife like her was a convenience for a lot of reasons.

But Clara was not his wife. In a lot of ways, she was better. And he hadn’t intended to hurt her feelings. She’d been quiet on the ride from the hotel back to her town house by the bay, and once they’d gotten inside to her place she’d dashed into her bedroom to pack a few things “real quick” which, in his experience with women meant … not quick at all.

He sat in her white leather chair, the one that faced her tiny television. Not state of the art at all, nothing like his place. The home theater had been one of his first major purchases when Roasted had become solvent. Clara’s had been an industrial-grade mixer for her kitchen. That was where all her high-tech gear was. She had a stove with more settings than his stereo system.

“Ready.” He looked up and his stomach clenched.

Clara was standing at the end of the hallway, large, pink leather bag draped over her shoulder, dark jeans conforming to the curve of her hips, and a black knit top outlining the contours of her very generous breasts. He hadn’t gotten married today, so he was going to allow himself a longer look than he ever did. He’d noticed her body before, but he’d never allowed himself to really look at her as a man looked at a woman. He didn’t know why he was letting himself do it now. A treat in exchange for the day, maybe. Or exhaustion making him sloppy with his rules.

Clara was an employee. Clara was a friend. Clara was not a possible lover, and normally that meant no looking at her like she could be.

But tonight wasn’t normal. Not by a long stretch.

“Good.” He stood up and tried to keep his interest in her body sublimated. But he was just a man. A man who had been celibate for a very long time. A man who had been expecting a reprieve on that and had been sadly disappointed.

“Are we taking the company jet?” She smiled, her perfectly shaped brow raised.

She really was beautiful, and not just her curves. He didn’t stop to notice her looks very often. She was like … not furniture, but a fixture for sure. Someone who was always there, every day, no matter what. And when someone was always there, you didn’t stop and look at them very often.

But he was looking at her now. Her face was a little bit round, her skin pale and soft. Her eyes, dark brown and wide, were fringed with dark lashes, surprising given her auburn hair color. And her lips … full and soft looking, a very delicate shade of pink.

Looking at her features was a nice distraction, especially since he was about to make her very, very angry. Normally he didn’t care for other people’s feelings. Not enough to lose any sleep over. He was in command of his world, and he didn’t question his decisions.

But Clara was different. She’d always been different.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you yet.” And it might have been wise to save it until she was safely on the plane. And had had a glass or two of champagne.

“What’s that?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

“I was supposed to get married today.”

Her eyes became glittering, deadly slits. “Right.”

“I was meant to be going on my honeymoon with my wife. And now, here I find myself jilted. No bride. Barely any pride to speak of.”

She arched her brow, her mouth twisted into a sour expression. “What, Zack?”

“I need you to come with me. As more than my friend. Not really more than my friend, but more as far as Amudee is concerned.”

She shook her head and let her pink bag slip off of her shoulder and onto the hardwood floor. “That’s … that’s insane! Who would believe you’d hooked up with someone else already?”

“Everyone, Clara. I’m a man who, as far as the public is concerned, is in the throes of heartbreak. Everyone knows about our business relationship. About our friendship. Is it so insane to think that, after suffering heartbreak, I looked to my closest friend and found so much more?”

Oh, it was sick. It really was. To hear him saying something that was … that was so close to her real-life fantasies it was painful to listen to the words fall from his lips. “No. No, I am not playing this game. That’s ridiculous, Zack. Go on your own.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Look, my pride will survive. But if I show up alone, and without my wife, looking the part of lonely loser who couldn’t hold on to his woman … well, who wants to cut a business deal with that guy?”

“So offer him more money,” she hissed.

“That’s the thing with Amudee. Money isn’t the main objective. If I could throw a bigger check at him, I would. But it’s not only about that. It’s about people, the kind of people he wants to do business with, and for the most part, I am that man. I care deeply about fair trade, about the work he has going on there in Thailand. I have to look like I call the shots in my own life, and I will not let an inconsequential hiccup like Hannah’s cold feet affect that.”

She shook her head. “No. Zack just …”

“If I lose the deal because of this …”

“I’m fired? I doubt it. And I can’t imagine him passing this up just because you aren’t getting married now.”

“This growing project is a huge thing for him, his life’s work. He’s poured his entire fortune into this. He has high principles, and, yes, a lot of it does have to do with bringing money into Northern Thailand, for the people that live there, but he won’t go into something if he doesn’t feel one hundred percent about it. I can’t afford to let it slip to ninety-nine percent. And if you tip the deal over, then I need you.”

“So buy your beans from someone else,” she said. “Someone who doesn’t care what your personal life looks like.”

“There is no one else. Not with a product like this. He understands the foundation I’ve built Roasted on. That it’s always been my goal to find small, family run farms to support. He’s a philanthropist and what he’s done is give different families in the north of Thailand their own plots to cultivate their own crops. Tea and coffee is being grown there, of the highest quality. And I want the best—I don’t want to settle for second.”

Clara bent and picked her bag up from the floor. She really hated what Zack was proposing. Not just because she didn’t exactly relish the idea of lying to someone for a week; there was that, but also because the idea of playing the part of his lover for a week made her feel sick.

She’d done a good job, a damn good job, of pretending that all she felt for Zack was friendship, with a very successful working relationship thrown into the mix. She’d pretended, not just for him, but for herself.

Because she didn’t want to desire a man who was so out of her league. A man who dated women who were her polar opposites in looks and personality. Women who were tall and thin, blonde and as cool and in control at all times as he was.

Wanting Zack was a pipe dream of the highest order.

Yes, it had been harder to ignore those sneaky, forbidden feelings when his engagement was announced, but she’d still done it. She’d baked his wedding cake, for heaven’s sake.

But this, this was one ask too many. Even for him. To go to a romantic setting, pretend she was experiencing her deepest fantasy, all for show, just seemed too masochistic.

And yet, it was hard to say no to him, too. Not when, as much as it galled to be asked to do this, it would give her this sort of strange, out of time, experience with him.

And definitely not when the whole thing was such a big deal to the future of Roasted. Her wagon was well and truly hitched to the company, and in order for her to succeed, the company had to succeed.

Her wagon was hitched to more than the company, if she was honest. It was Zack. Zack and his wicked smiles, Zack and that indefinable thing he possessed that made her want to care for him, even though he never let her.

Zack was the reason she didn’t date. Not because, as a boss he kept her so busy with work, though she’d pretended that was it for a long, long time. It was Zack the man. Because her feelings for him were more than just complicated. And she was … she was a doormat.

She’d baked the man’s wedding cake. And then what had she thought would happen? She was going to stay at Roasted, after Zack married? Play Aunt Clara to his kids? Watch while he had this whole life while she died a virgin with nothing but her convection oven for company?

Sick. It was sick.

And now she was really going with him to Chiang Mai to play the part she knew he’d never really consider her for?

She needed to get a life.

She was right. What she’d thought earlier at the hotel had been right. A moment of clarity. It wasn’t healthy to have him in everything. He was her boss, her best friend. He filled her work and personal hours, and even when he wasn’t around, he was in her thoughts. Zack had dates, he had a life that didn’t include her and she … didn’t. She couldn’t do it anymore.

“If I do this. If I do this, then it’s going to be the last thing I do at Roasted.” She thought about the bakery, the one she’d been dreaming of for the past few months. The one she’d drawn up plans for. It had been in her mind ever since Zack and Hannah got engaged. Just a mere fantasy of escaping that painful reality at first, but now … now she thought she needed to make it happen.

She needed to make some boundaries. Have something that was hers. Just hers.

“What?” he asked, his dark brows locking together.

“If I go with you and play arm candy then I’m done. It’s not … it’s not the first time I’ve thought of this.” It wasn’t. When he’d come into the office with Hannah and announced that the whole thing was official, well, she’d just about handed in her resignation then and there.

But of course his smile and his innate Zack-ness had stopped her. Because in her mind, it was better to have crumbs from him than everything from someone else. Because he was so enmeshed in her life, so a part of her routine. Her first thought in the morning, her constant companion throughout the day. And it was his face she saw when she drifted off to sleep.

He was everything.

And the real truth of the situation was that while Zack cared for her, and even loved her, possibly like some sort of younger sister figure, she wasn’t everything to him. And he didn’t want her the way she wanted him.

“What the hell?” he asked.

“I’m. I’m having a revelation, hold on.”

“Could you not?”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m. I’m sorry, Zack. This really has been. It’s been brewing for a while and I know it wasn’t the best day or the best way to say it, but … it does have to be said.”

“Why?”

“Because. Because it’s eating my life!” The words exploded from her. “And if that isn’t made completely obvious by the fact that I’m agreeing to drop everything at the spur-of-the-moment to fly to Asia to go on your honeymoon in place of your fiancée and pretend to be your new girlfriend … well … I can’t help you.”

“No. No, I don’t agree.”

“And what, Zack? You can’t force me to stay at my job.”

He looked like he was searching for some loophole that would in fact give him that authority.

“I need a good severance, too. I want to open my own bakery.”

“The hell you will!” he said, his voice hard, harsher than she’d ever heard.

“The hell I won’t,” she returned, keeping her own voice steady, though, how she managed, she wasn’t sure.

“Non-compete.”

“What?”

“You signed a non-compete.”

“A bakery would not compete with Roasted, not really,” she said, planting her hands on her hips.

“It could, on a technicality, especially as we’d likely share a very similar desserts menu, seeing as you planned all of mine.”

“I’m not talking about a worldwide bakery chain, I’m talking … I want to open one up that I run myself. Here in San Francisco. Something personal, something me. Something that would give me a chance to have a life.”

“No.”

It was shocking, Zack’s transformation from unaffected, jilted groom, to this. She would have expected this kind of reaction from Hannah not showing up to the wedding, not to her asking to quit the business. Where was his control? Zack always had control. Always.

Except now.

“Then I won’t go with you. And I get the feeling that a female companion is a bit more important than you let on. I know you too well for you to hide it from me.”

His gray eyes glittered in the dim light of her apartment. “There is some competition. Sand Dollar Coffee is competing for the chance to get these same roasts, and Mr. Amudee, traditionalist he is, is very likely to give preference to their CEO. They were just there for a week in the villa, Martin Cole, his wife and their four children. Mr. Amudee was charmed.”

“So you do need me. You need me to give you an edge. To make sure Amudee knows you’re a macho man who can have his way with whomever, whenever. We’re friends, Zack. I don’t know why it has to be like this..”

“You were the one leveraging,” he bit out.

“Because I can’t do this anymore. The beck-and-call thing. I need more. You were getting married, you should get that.”

“You want to get married?”

Her stomach tightened. “Not necessarily. But I don’t even have a hope of it as long as I’m working sixty-hour weeks. And since I don’t believe in practical arrangements, like the one you and Hannah have, that will keep me from having a successful relationship.”

“Fine,” he said, the word stiff. “But you stay on until the deal with Amudee is done. Got it? I’ll need you to be around, at the business, my assumed lover, until the ink is dry on the contract.”

It was cold and mercenary. And it was tempting. Tempting to play the part. To immerse herself in it for a while. Just thinking about it made her stomach tighten, made her shiver.

No. You can’t forget. This is just a game to him. More business. “Yes. I won’t let you down. If I say I’m going to do something, I’ll do it.”

“I know.”

“And when it’s over?”

“You can open your bakery. I’ll make sure you’re compensated for your time here.”

Clara stuck out her hand, her heart cracking in her chest. “Then I think we have a deal.”

CHAPTER THREE

ZACK was in a fouler mood than he’d been when the double doors of the hotel’s wedding hall had opened to reveal, not his bride, but a very panicked wedding coordinator who was hissing into her headset.

He leaned back in his seat on his private plane and stared at the amber liquid in the tumbler on his tray. Turbulence was bouncing the alcohol around, sending the strong aroma into the air. He wasn’t tempted to take a drink. He didn’t drink, it was just that his flight attendant had heard about the disaster and assumed he might be in need.

He looked across the wide aisle at Clara, who was, sitting on a leather love seat in the living-room-style plane cabin, staring fixedly at her touch-screen phone.

“Good book?” he asked.

Her head snapped up. “How did you know I was reading?”

“Because you always read.”

“Books make better company than surly bosses.”

“Do they make better company than bitchy employees? If so, perhaps I should read more.”

She looked at him, her expression bland. “I wouldn’t know.”

“No. You wouldn’t. Look, I gave you what you asked for.”

“After a big ugly fight.”

“Because I don’t want to lose you.”

A strange expression flashed in her brown eyes. “Right.”

“You’ve been here since the very early days of Roasted, and you’ve been key to the success of the company, of course I don’t want to lose you.”

She looked back down at her phone. “Well, I can’t live my entire life to make you happy.”

He frowned. “That’s not how it’s been, is it?”

“No,” she said, her tone grudging. She put her phone down and stretched her legs out in front of her and her arms straight over her head, back arching, thrusting her breasts forward. His body hardened, his blood rushing through his veins hotter and faster.

That was a direct result of the fact that he was supposed to break his long bout with celibacy tonight, on this very plane, and it wasn’t happening now. Still, his body hadn’t caught up with his mind yet. Damned inconvenient considering he was now fixating on his friend’s breasts. Breasts that he was not supposed to fixate on. Basically two of the only breasts on earth that were off-limits to him.

More inconvenient, considering they were about to spend the week in Chiang Mai in a very secluded and gorgeous honeymoon villa. Even more when you considered that she was leaving the company soon after.

Well, that wasn’t happening. He would make sure of that. He would offer her whatever he had to offer to get her to stay, and until then he would simply nod whenever she brought it up.

He wasn’t sure how he would convince her, only that he would. He’d successfully stolen her away from her bakery job back when he’d only had a handful of coffee shops to his name. He had no doubt he could do an even better job of keeping her now that he had so many resources at his disposal. He could give her whatever she wanted, more freedom, more time off. And she was his friend. She wouldn’t leave him.

She was just mad about the whole fake fiancée thing. But she would get over it. She always did. It wasn’t the first time he’d made her mad. Likely it wouldn’t be the last. But that was just how it was. She wouldn’t really leave him.

He was a master negotiator. And he didn’t lose. He was good at keeping control, of his life and of his business.

“The property we’re staying on is supposed to be amazing. It borders a Chiang Mai, and there’s a spa right on site. It’s more of a resort than anything else, but you have to be invited to stay there by the owner. Very exclusive.” He got nothing but silence in response.

“They have unicorns, I hear,” he continued, “with golden hooves. You’ll love it.”

He heard her try to stifle a very reluctant snicker.

He leaned in and looked at her face, at the faint shadows marring the pale skin beneath her eyes. “Are you tired?” he asked.

She leaned back in the chair. “You have no idea.”

“There’s a bedroom.” His blood jumped in his veins again, like the kick-start on a motorcycle. “You could lay down for a while if you want.”

“How long have we got?”

“Ten more hours.”

“Oh, yeah, I need sleep.” She stood up and did another little stretch move that accentuated her breasts.

Clara needed more than sleep. She needed to get out of the tiny, enclosed space with Zack and all of his hot, male pheromones that were wreaking havoc on her good sense. If she had any at all to wreak havoc on. Well, she did have some. She’d used it to ask for her out.

For a little bit of a chance to move on and forward with her life. Because Zack hadn’t married Hannah today, which was fine and good, but he would marry someone. He’d decided to, and when Zack put his mind to something, he did it. That meant it would happen, sometime in the very near future, she imagined, now that she knew love wasn’t necessarily on the docket. Heck, if he smiled just right at the flight attendant they would probably be engaged by the time they landed in Thailand. And then she could sleep in the guest room in the villa.

She snorted.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“The scariest word known to man when issued from the lips of a woman.”

Her lip curled voluntarily at his statement. “Sexist.”

“I prefer realist, but you’re free to call it as you see it.”

“So tell me this, Zack.”

“What?” he asked, one dark eyebrow arched.

“I assume you’ll attempt marriage again.”

“If I find the right woman.”

“And by that, you don’t mean the woman you love?”

Something in Zack’s posture changed, subtle but obvious to her, his shoulders straightening, his muscles tensing beneath his expertly tailored shirt. His eyes changed, too. There was something dark there, haunted, something she’d never seen before, not this clearly. She’d felt it before, an intensity lurking beneath his cool exterior, but she’d never seen it so plainly.

It was almost frightening in its intensity, transforming a man she’d seen every day for seven years into a cold stranger.

“I don’t do love, Clara. Ever.” He turned his focus to the newspaper that was folded on his lap. “Good night.”

Clara turned toward the bedroom, exhaustion burrowing beneath her skin, down into her bones. Yesterday, everything had been the way it had always been. It had sucked; it had been heading in a direction she hadn’t liked, but for the most part, it had been the same.

Today everything felt different. Most of it was her fault. And even though she wouldn’t change it, she hated it.

“We just landed.”

Clara sat up and pushed the wild mass of auburn curls out of her eyes. She blinked a few times and Zack’s face came into focus. For a moment, she didn’t do anything. She didn’t move, she didn’t breathe, she just concentrated on his face being the first thing she saw.

She’d never woken up next to a man before. And, yeah, this wasn’t really waking up next to a man in the traditional sense. And he was more leaning over than next to her. But it was a really nice thought, and it was a very nice sight first thing in the morning. If it was even morning. She had no idea.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“It’s 10:00 p.m. local time.”

She flopped backward. “Oh, no. Why did you let me sleep?”

“I tried to wake you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did, you were out.”

She felt a strange sort of disappointment curling in her stomach. She wished, well, part of her did, that he had woken her up. She swallowed hard. Her throat felt like it was lined with cotton. It was far too easy to think of a lot of very interesting ways he might have woken her up.

No. Bad.

“I’m going to be a wreck.”

“Sorry.”

“I take it you didn’t sleep?” She looked down and realized she was still wearing her jeans.

“No. But then, I don’t sleep all that much.”

That didn’t surprise her. She’d never really quizzed him on his sleeping habits, but honestly, he just didn’t seem like the kind of man who could sleep at all. He had too much energy and drive to stop even for a moment. Whenever she’d thought of him in bed … well, it hadn’t been images of him sleeping plaguing her.

“We’re at the airport?” she asked, peering out one of the windows, confused by how dark it was outside.

“Don’t know if I’d say airport so much as landing strip. We’re on Mr. Amudee’s property. It backs the city, but there’s a lot of forest in between his land and civilization.”

“Oh.”

“There’s a car waiting for us, and your luggage, such as it was, is already loaded in it.”

She stood and her breasts nearly brushed his chest. She’d misjudged the distance. Her breath caught in her throat and nearly choked her.

Zack didn’t seem affected at all. He just smiled at her, one of his wicked smiles, all of the ghosts she’d glimpsed in his gray eyes before she’d gone to sleep were banished now, leaving behind nothing but the glint that was so familiar to her.

“I didn’t have—” she had to take in another breath because being so close to him had kind of sucked the other one out of her “—that much time to pack. Otherwise I could have had just as many bags as your high-maintenance ladies.”

“You aren’t like the women I date. You aren’t high maintenance. I like that about you.” He turned and headed out the bedroom and she followed him, her chest suddenly feeling tight.

What he meant was, she wasn’t beautiful. Not like the women he dated. The women who were all high-fashion planes and angles. And cheekbones.

Her mother was like that. Her sister, too. Tall and leggy with hip bones that were more prominent than their breasts. And that was the look that walked runways. The look that was fashionable, especially in southern California.

And she just didn’t have the look. She had curves. An abundance of them. If any of the chi-chi boutiques had bras with her cup size, they were very often too small around, meant for women who’d gone under the knife to give them what nature had bestowed upon her so liberally. And her stomach was a little bit round, not concave or rippling. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen her ribs.

Standing next to the women in her family just made her feel … inadequate. And wide. And short. She’d tried to subsist on cabbage and water like her mother and sister, but frankly, she’d felt like garbage and had decided a long time ago that feeling healthy beat being fifteen pounds lighter.

Of course, that decision didn’t erase a lifetime of insecurity. And that insecurity wasn’t all down to weight, either.

“Great. Glad to be so … easy.”

The door to the plane was standing open, and a staircase had been lowered to the tarmac. Zack stood and waited for her to go in front of him. She passed him without looking, trying not to show the knockout effect the slight scent of his cologne had on her as she moved by him.

“I wouldn’t call you easy,” he said.

She stopped, third stair from the top, and whipped around to look at him. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Not what I meant, either,” he said, his expression overly innocent.

“Yeah. Right. Are you determined to drive me absolutely insane for this whole trip?” She continued down the steps and hopped onto the tarmac, the night air balmy and thick with mist, blowing across her cheeks and leaving its moist handprint behind.

“We are supposed to be a couple.”

“Fair enough.”

She was reluctant to get into the glossy black town car that was parked right by the plane. Because she’d only just gotten Zack-free air, and she didn’t really relish the thought of getting right back into a tight, enclosed space with him.

She needed to be able to breathe. To think. And she couldn’t do it when he was around.

That realization alone reinforced her crazy, spur-of-the-moment decision to move on with her life, and away from Roasted.

The idea made her slightly sick and more than a little bit sad. Roasted had been her life since Zack had hired her on. The day-to-day of it, the constant push to invent more and more goodies, to push the flavor profiles, to push her creativity … there would never be anything else like it.

But she needed to stand on her own feet. To move on with life. She’d gone from her parents to Zack, and while she didn’t feel familial about Zack in any way, he represented comfort and safety. And other stuff that wasn’t comforting or safe. But being with him, like she was, wasn’t pushing her to move forward.

So she was pushing herself. It was uncomfortable, but that was the way it worked. She hoped it would work.

He opened the door to the town car for her and she slid inside, and he came in just behind her. “So, do you and your boyfriends have fights?”

He must know she never had boyfriends. The odd disastrous date that never went past the front door. Emphasis on the odd, since half the men picked her up while she happened to be in the flagship store. And, in her experience, men who picked you up at ten in the morning in coffeehouses were a bit strange.

“How many long-term relationships have I had, Zack?”

“Well, Pete was around a lot until he moved for work.”

“Pete? He was a friend from high school. And I was not his type, if you catch my drift.”

“You weren’t blonde?”

“Or male.”

“Oh.”

“Point being, I haven’t done a lot of long-term.” Any, but whatever. “And if I’m ever going to … move on, go into that phase of life then I need to be less consumed with work.”

A muscled in his jaw ticked. “But you won’t make this kind of money running your own bakery.”

“I know. But I have a decent amount of money. How much do I need? How much do you need?”

There was a pause. Zack’s hand curled into a fist on the leather seat, then relaxed. “More. Just … a bit more.”

“And then you’re never done.”

“But if not for that then what am I working for?”

She swallowed. “A good question. Good and scary. Though I suppose adding a wife will add … something. When you find a new prospect, that is. Did Hannah have an equally efficient and driven sister, by chance?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

She snapped her fingers. “Darn.”

“Don’t lose sleep over it.”

“I won’t be sleeping tonight, anyway. Because you didn’t wake me up on the plane.” She couldn’t resist the jab.

“Because you sleep like a rock and snore like a walrus.”

“Might be why my relationships aren’t long-term,” she said drily. Not that any man had ever heard her snore but she was so not admitting to that.

“I doubt that.”

“Do you?”

His eyes locked with hers and something changed in the air. It seemed to crackle. Like a spark on dry leaves. It was strange. It was breathtaking, and electrifying, and she never wanted it to end.

“Why?” she asked, pressing. Desperate to hear more. A little bit afraid of hearing more, too.

“Because a little bit of snoring wouldn’t deter a man who’d had the pleasure of sharing your bed.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and looked out the window, and into the inky-black jungle. She felt dizzy. She felt … hot.

“Well, thanks,” she said.

He chuckled, low and rich like the best chocolate ganache. Just as bad for her to indulge in as the naughty treat, too. “You seem uncomfortable with the compliment.”

“You and I don’t talk about things like that.”

“Only because it hadn’t come up.”

“Do you snore?” she asked.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Then your lack of long-term relationships doesn’t really make sense at all.”

He arched one dark brow. “Was that a compliment?”

“More a commentary on the transient nature of your love life.”

“I’m wounded.”

She winced. “Well, maybe in light of all that happened today it wasn’t the best thing to say.”

“You’ve never pulled punches before, don’t start now.”

“I don’t know any other way to be.”

“Now that may account for your own short-term relationships.”

She whipped around to face him and her heart stalled. He was looking at her like she was a particularly interesting treat. One he might like to taste.

The car stopped and she nearly breathed a prayer of thanks out loud. She needed distance. She needed it desperately.

“Well,” Zack said, opening the door. “Time to go and have a look at our honeymoon suite.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE honeymoon villa was the epitome of romance. The anterior wall of the courtyard was surrounded by dense, green trees, clinging vines and flowers covering most of the stone wall, adding color, a sense that nature ruled here, not man. There was a keypad on the gate and Zack entered a code in; a reminder that the man very much had his fingerprints all over the property.

“Nice,” she said, as the gates swung open and revealed an open courtyard area. The villa itself was white and clean. Intricate spires, carved from wood and capped in gold, adorned the roof of the house, rising up to meet the thick canopy of teak trees.

“Mr. Amudee had planned on giving Hannah and I a few days of wedded bliss prior to meeting with me, so he made sure I had the code, and that everything in the home would be stocked and ready.”

Clara tried not to think about Zack and Hannah, using the love nest for its intended purpose. More than that, she tried not to think of her and Zack using it for its intended purpose.

She really did try. There was no point in allowing those fantasies. Those fantasies had led to nothing more than dateless Friday nights and lack of sleep.

“Well, that was … thoughtful of him.”

“It was. I believe he has some activities planned for us, too.”

Oh, great. She was going to be trapped in happy-couple-honeymoon-activity hell.

She followed Zack through the vast courtyard and to the wide, ornately carved double doors at the front of the villa. She touched one of the flower blossoms etched into the hard surface. “These are gorgeous. I wonder if I could mimic the design with frosting.”

“I will happily be a part of that experiment.” He pushed open the doors and stood, waiting for her to go in before him.

“You do seem to hang around a lot more when I’m practicing my baking skills.”

“I don’t know how.”

“I could teach you,” she said. “Maybe sometimes after I can teach you how to use a food processor.”

“I think I’ll pass. Anyway, I’m a bachelor. Have pity on me. I wasn’t supposed to be a bachelor after today, but I am, and now I still need my best friend to cook for me.”

“And probably do your laundry.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

Basically he wanted her to be his wife with none of the perks. She nearly said so, but that would sound too much like she wanted the perks, and even if a part of her did, she’d rather parade naked through the Castro District than confess it.

“I’m not doing your laundry.”

Zack closed the door behind them and a shock of awareness hit her, low and strong in her stomach. She felt so very alone with Zack all of a sudden that she could hardly breathe. And it wasn’t as though she’d never been alone with him. She had been. Hundreds of times. Late nights in the office, at her apartment cooking, at his luxury penthouse watching a movie.

But this wasn’t San Francisco. It wasn’t their offices; it wasn’t one of their apartments. It felt like another world entirely and that was … dangerous.

She looked up at the tall, peaked ceilings, at the intricately carved vines and flowers that cascaded from wooden rafters. Swaths of fabric were the only dividers between rooms, gauzy and sexy, providing the illusion of privacy without actually giving any at all.

And in the middle of it all was Zack. He filled the space, not just with his breadth and height, but with his presence. With the unique scent that was so utterly Zack mingling with the heavy perfume of plumeria. Familiar and exotic all at once.

This was like one of her late-night fantasies. Like a scene she’d only ever allowed herself to indulge in when she was shrouded in the darkness of her room. And now, those fantasies were coming back to bite her.

Because they were mingling with reality. This was real. And in reality, Zack didn’t want her like she wanted him. But in her fantasies he did. There, he touched her like a lover, his eyes locked with hers, his lips.

She needed her head checked.

“I have a housekeeper, anyway. I was teasing,” he said.

“I know.” She hoped she didn’t look as flushed as she felt.

“I don’t think you did. I think you were about to bite my head off.” He looked … amused. Damn him.

“Is there food?”

His lips curved into a half smile. “I can check.”

He wandered out of the main living area, in search of the kitchen, she imagined, and she took the opportunity to breathe in air that didn’t smell of Zack. Air that didn’t make her stomach twist.

She walked the opposite direction of Zack, through one of the fabric-covered doorways and stopped. It was the bedroom. The bed was up on a raised platform, a duvet in deep red spread over it. Cream colored fabric with delicate gold vines woven throughout hung from the ceiling, shielding the bed. It was obvious that it wasn’t a bed made for one, or for sleeping.

She swallowed heavily, her eyes glued to the center of the room.

She heard footsteps behind her and turned. “I found food.”

“Good,” she said, trying to ignore the fast-paced beating of her heart. Zack and the bed in one room was enough to make her feel like her head might explode. “There is. I mean, this isn’t the only bedroom is it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I set dinner out on the balcony, if you want to join me.”

“Don’t you want to go to bed?” she asked, then immediately regretted the way the words had come out. Heat flooded her face, and she was certain there was a very blatant blush staining her cheeks. “I mean … well, you know what I mean. That wasn’t. I meant you. By yourself. Because I slept and I know you didn’t.”

“At least let me buy you dinner first, Clara,” he said, his mouth curved in amusement, his eyes glittering with the same heat she’d noticed earlier. It made her uncomfortable. And jittery. And a little bit excited.

She laughed, a kind of nervous, fake sound. “Of course.”

Zack ignored the jolt of arousal that shot through his veins. For a moment at least, he and Clara had both been thinking the same thing. And it had involved that bed. That bed that was far too tempting, even for a man who prided himself on having absolute control at all times.

Things with Clara had always been easy. No, he’d never been blind to her beauty, but their relationship had never been marked by moments of heavy sexual tension. Not until today.

And knowing that, even for a moment, she’d shared in the temptation, well, that made it all worse. Or better. No, definitely worse, because in his life, he valued boundaries. Everything and everyone had a place and a purpose. Clara had a place. It was not in his bed.

Or this bed.

It was important that his life stay focused like that. Controlled. That nothing crossed over. He’d been rigid in that, uncompromising, for the past fourteen years.

“This way, beautiful,” he said, clenching his hand into a fist to keep from putting it on Clara’s lower back. He would have done it before. But suddenly it seemed like far too risky of a maneuver.

Clara shot him a look that was pure Clara, his friend, and it made the knot in his chest ease slightly. Though it didn’t do much for the heat coursing through his veins.

He was questioning why he’d thought bringing her was a good idea. And he never questioned his decisions. Not anymore. Because he thought everything through before he acted. Not thinking, letting anything go before reason, was a recipe for disaster.

And bringing Clara had been the logical choice. At least until thirty seconds ago.

He moved in front of her, under the guise of leading her to the deck, but really just so he wouldn’t let himself look at her butt while she walked. Occasionally he allowed himself the indulgence of looking at her curves. Harmless enough. He was human, a man, and she was a beautiful woman. But it seemed less harmless after a moment like that.

“This is really nice,” she said when they were outside.

Her words were true, banal and safe. He’d set the table and turned on the string of lanterns that were hung above the table. A moderate effort, but he had wanted it to be nice. Now it felt strangely intimate.

He couldn’t remember the last time a dinner date had seemed intimate. He couldn’t even remember the last time that word had seemed applicable to something in his life. Very often, sex didn’t even seem all that intimate to him.

Of course, it had been so long since he’d had sex maybe that wasn’t true. That was likely half of his problem now.

Clara wandered to the railing and leaned over the edge, tossing her glossy copper curls over her shoulder and sniffing the air. Or maybe the sex wasn’t the problem. Because being alone with Hannah hadn’t made him feel this way. And there were days when the scent of Clara’s perfume hitting him when she walked past made his stomach tighten.

But he ignored that. He was good at ignoring it.

“What are you doing?”

“It smells amazing out here. Like when you bake bread and the air is heavy with it. Only it’s flowers instead of flour.” She turned to him and smiled, the familiar glitter back in her eyes.

The knot inside him eased even more.

“I would never have thought of it that way.” He pulled her chair out and nodded toward it and she walked over to the table and took her seat.

He sat across from her, ladling reheated Tom Yum Ka into her bowl and then into his. She smiled at him, the slight dimple in her rounded cheeks deepening as she did.

Things seemed to have stabilized, even if her sweet grin did have an impact on his stomach.

“So, tell me more about this deal with Mr. Amudee.”

He put his forearm on the table and leaned forward. “I think we covered most of it. Although, another reason it’s nice to have you here is your palate. I’d like you to taste the different roasts and come up with pairings for them. It would be particularly nice to have in our boutique locations.”

“Pairings!” Her eyes glittered. “I love it.”

“Good coffee or tea really is just as complex as good wine. There are just as many flavor variations.”

“I know, Zack,” she said.

“Of course you do. You appreciate good coffee. It’s one reason we get along so well.”

Clara took another bite of her soup and let the ginger sit on her tongue, enjoying the zip of spice that hurt just enough to take her mind off the weird reaction she was having to Zack. Yes, being attracted to him was nothing new.

But this was different. The attraction she felt at home was like a sleeper agent. It attacked her when she least expected it. In dreams. When she was looking at other men and contemplating accepting a date. It wasn’t usually this shaky, limb-weakening thing that made her feel tongue-tied and exposed in his presence. Maybe it was the feeling of utter seclusion. Or maybe it was because she knew just what that big bed was here for, what he’d been planning on doing with it.

“That and I bake you cupcakes,” she said, swallowing the tart and spicy soup.

“There is that.” Zack looked toward the railing of the deck, off into trees, the look in his eyes distant, cold suddenly. “Tell me about your bakery.”

“The one I hope to have?”

“Yes. And the life you’re going to put with it.”

Her chest constricted. “It will be small. I’ll have regular menu items and daily specials. I’ll have more time to make fancy little treats with a lot of decorations. I’ll have a hand in everything instead of just conceptualizing and farming the instructions out to hordes of employees.”

“And that’s important to you?”

“It’s how we started. Me in the flagship store, you going back and forth between your—What did you have when I met you? Fifteen stores up and down the West Coast? It was fun.”

“Yes, but now we have money.”

She nodded. “We do. And it’s great. You’ve done this incredible thing, Zack. The growth has been … amazing. Way beyond what I imagined.”

“Not beyond what I imagined.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “It was always the plan. Planning is key. It’s when you don’t plan, when you drift, that’s when things are a surprise. Good or bad.”

“You didn’t plan for Hannah to opt out of the wedding.”

“I didn’t plan for you to leave Roasted, either. Sometimes other people come in and mess with your plans,” he said, his dark eyebrows locked together.

“This doesn’t mean I won’t see you anymore,” she said. Though she probably shouldn’t. But the thought of that made her chest feel like there was a hole in it. Still, she’d baked the man’s wedding cake. She was such a pushover, such a hopeless case, it was obscene. It had to end.

She didn’t want it to. But if she didn’t see him at work every day … it would be a start.

“I know you’ll still see me,” he said, his mouth curving. “You’d have withdrawals otherwise.”

If only that weren’t true. “Right. Can’t live without you, Zack.” She felt her throat get tight. Stupid. So stupid. But Zack really did mean the world to her, and she had a very strong suspicion that her statement was nothing but the truth. He had offered her support when no one else in her life had. He still did.

She regretted saying she wanted to leave Roasted. Regretted it with everything in her. But she couldn’t change her mind. The reasoning behind the decision was still sound. And she really would still see him. He just wouldn’t fill up her whole world anymore. She couldn’t let feelings for him, feelings that would never be returned, hold her back for the rest of her life.

Zack’s arm twitched and he reached into his pocket. “Phone vibrated,” he said. He pulled out his smart phone and unlocked the screen, a strange expression on his face. “Hannah texted me.”

“Really?”

“She’s really sorry about the wedding.”

“Oh, good,” Clara snorted. The weird jealousy and protectiveness were back together again. She was still righteously angry at Hannah for what she’d done, even while she was relieved.

“She met someone else.”

“What?”

“Yes.” He looked up, his expression neutral. “She’s in love apparently.”

“And she’s texting this to you?”

He shrugged. “It fits our relationship.”

“No, it doesn’t. Love or not, you still had a relationship.”

“We weren’t sleeping together.”

Clara felt her stomach free fall down into her toes. “What?” That didn’t even make sense. Hannah was a goddess. A sex bomb that had been detonated in the middle of her life, making her feel inadequate and inexperienced.

And he hadn’t slept with her? She’d assumed—imagined even, in sadly graphic detail—that half of the meetings in his office had been rousing desk-sex sessions. And … they hadn’t been? So much angst. So much stomach curling angst exerted over … nothing, it turned out.

“Why?” she asked, her voice several notches higher than usual.

“Hannah’s kind of traditional. Because we weren’t in love … well, she needed love or marriage. We were going to have marriage.”

“Hmm. Well, then maybe texting is appropriate. I don’t understand how you were going to marry this woman.”

“Marriage is a business agreement, like anything else, Clara. You decide if you can fulfill the obligations and if they’ll be advantageous to you. Then you sign or you don’t.”

“Cynical.”

“True.”

“Then why bother to get married? I don’t understand.”

He shrugged. “Because it’s the thing to do. Marriage offers stability, companionship. It’s logical.”

“Good grief, Spock. Logical. That’s not why people get married.” She snorted again. “Did your parents have a horrible divorce or something?”

Zack shook his head. “No.”

“You never talk about your family.”

He looked down at his soup. “Not on accident.”

“Well, I figured. That’s why I never ask.”

“This isn’t never asking.”

She looked at him, at the side of his head. He wouldn’t look at her. “We’ve known each other for seven years, Zack.”

“And I’m sure I don’t know everything about you, either. But I know what counts. I know that you lick the mixer. Even if it’s got batter with raw eggs on it.”

She laughed. “Tell anyone that and I’ll ruin you.”

“I have no doubt. I also know that you like stupid comedies.”

“And I know that you put on football games and never end up watching them. You’re just in it for the snacks.”

He smiled, his gray eyes meeting hers. “See? You know the real truth.”

Except there was something in the way he said it, a strange undertone, that told her she didn’t. She wasn’t sure how she’d missed it before. But she had. Now it seemed blatant, obvious. Zack had a way of presenting such a calm, easy front. In business, she knew it was to disarm, that no matter how easygoing he appeared, he was the man in charge. No question.

Now she wondered how much of the easy act in his personal life was just that. An act.

His eyes lingered on her face for a moment, and she suddenly became acutely conscious of her lips. And how dry they were. She stuck out the tip of her tongue and moistened them, the action taking an undertone she hadn’t intended when she’d begun.

This week was going to kill her. Eventually the tension would get too heavy and she would be crushed beneath the weight of it. There was no possible way she could endure any more.

“I’m really tired,” she said, the lie so blatant and obvious it was embarrassing.

To Zack’s credit, he didn’t call her on it. “The inner sanctum is all yours. I’ll make do with the couch.”

She wasn’t going to feel bad about that for a second. “All right, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Maybe by morning some of the surrealism of the whole day would have worn off. Maybe by morning she wouldn’t feel choked by the attraction she felt to Zack.

Maybe, but not likely.

CHAPTER FIVE

“MR. Amudee has extended an invitation for you and me to have a private tour of the forest land.”

Zack strode into the kitchen area and Clara sucked coffee down into her lungs. He was wearing jeans, only jeans, low on his lean hips, his chest bare and muscular and far too tempting. She could lean right in and.

“Coffee for me?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. Sure.” She picked up the carafe and poured some coffee into a bright blue mug. “It’s the shade-grown Chiang Mai Morning Blend. Really good. Strong but bright, a bit of citrus.”

“I love it when you talk coffee to me,” he said, lifting the mug to his lips, a wicked grin curving his mouth.

There was something borderline domestic about the scene. Although, nothing truly domestic could have such a dangerous, arousing edge to it, she was certain. And Zack, shirtless, had all of those things.

“All right, tell me about the tour,” she said, looking very hard into her coffee mug.

“Very romantic. For the newly engaged.”

Her stomach tightened. “Great.”

“I hope you brought a swimsuit.”

Oh, good. Zack in a swimsuit. With her in a swimsuit. That was going to help things get back on comfortable footing. She looked at Zack, at the easy expression on his handsome face. The ridiculous thing was, the footing was perfectly comfortable for him. Her little hell of sexual frustration was one hundred percent private. All her own. Zack wasn’t remotely ruffled.

Typical.

“Yes, I brought a swimsuit.”

“Good. I’ll meet you back here in twenty minutes.”

“Right.” Unfortunately it would take longer than twenty minutes to plot an escape. So that meant Zack and swimsuits.

She tried to ignore the small, eternally optimistic part of her that whispered it might be a good thing.

Clara tugged at her brilliant pink sarong and made sure the knot was secure at her breasts before stepping out into the courtyard, where Zack was standing already.

“Ready. What’s the deal? Give.”

“You have to wait and see,” he said, moving behind her, placing his hand low on her back as he led her to the gate and out onto a narrow path that wound through a thick canopy of trees and opened on an expansive green lawn.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked, stopping, her eyes widening.

There were two elephants in the field, one equipped with a harness that had small, cushioned seats on top. He was large enough he looked like he could comfortably seat at least four.

“Elephant rides are a big tourist draw in Chiang Mai,” Zack said, the corner of his mouth lifting. “And I’ve never done it before, so I thought I would take advantage of the offer.”

“First time for you?” she asked. She’d intended it as a joke, but it hit a bit to close to that sexual undercurrent they’d been dealing with since they left San Francisco.

A slow smile spread across his face. “Just for the elephant ride.”

“Right. Got it.” She was sure she was turning pink.

“You?”

She just about choked. “The elephant?”

“What else would I have been asking about?”

Her virginity. Except, no he wouldn’t have been asking about that. It wasn’t like she had a neon sign on her forehead that blinked red and said Virgin on it. Unless she did. Maybe he could tell.

She really hoped he couldn’t tell.

“Yes, first time on an elephant,” she said drily, aiming for cool humor. She wasn’t sure she made her mark, but it was a valiant effort.

“Mr. Parsons.” There was a man in white linen pants and a loose white shirt approaching them, his hand raised in greeting. “Ms. Davis, I believe,” he said, stopping in front of her, his dark eyes glittering with warmth.

“Yes,” Clara said, extending her hand. He bent his head and dropped a kiss on it, smiling, the skin around his eyes wrinkling with the motion.

“Isra Amudee. Pleasure.” He straightened and shook Zack’s hand. “Very glad you could make it. Especially after what happened.”

Zack put his arm around Clara’s waist and Clara tried to ignore the jolt of heat that raced through her. “Really, it didn’t take me long to discover it wasn’t a problem. Clara … well, I’ve known her for a long time. I don’t really know how I missed what was right in front of me.”

Mr. Amudee’s smile widened. “A new wedding in your future, then?”

Zack stiffened. “Naturally. Actually I’ve already asked.”

“And she’s accepted?” Amudee looked at her and Clara felt her stomach bottom out.

Zack tightened his hold on her. “Yes,” she said, her throat sandpaper dry. “Of course.”

“And you, I bet, will have the good sense to show up. Now, I’ll leave you to the elephants. I have to go and take a walk around the grounds. But I’ll see you later on.”

Clara watched Amudee walk away and tried to ignore the buzzing in her head as the man who was with the elephants introduced himself in English as Joe. He explained how the ride would work, that the elephant knew the route through the forrest and up to a waterfall, and she wouldn’t deviate from that.

“They’re trained. Very well. Safe. You’ll be riding Anong.” Joe indicated the elephant who was harnessed up. “And I’ll follow on Mali. Just as a precaution.”

He tapped Anong on her back leg and she bent low, making it easy for them to climb up onto the seat. Zack went first, then leaned forward and extended his hand, helping her up onto the bench.

“Seat belts,” he said, raising one eyebrow as he fastened the long leather strap over both of their laps.

“Comforting,” she said, a tingle of nerves and excitement running through her.

“Ready?” their guide called to them.

“I have no idea,” she whispered to Zack.

“Ready,” Zack said.

The elephant rose up, the sharp pitch forward and to the left a shock. She lurched to the side and took hold of Zack’s arm while Anong finished getting to her feet, each movement throwing them in a different direction.

“I think I’m good now,” she whispered, her fingers still wrapped, clawlike around Zack’s arm.

“Just relax, he said this is a path she takes all the time. New for us, but not new for her.”

She didn’t actually want to know the answer to the question, but she asked it anyway. “Accustomed to calming the nerves of the inexperienced?”

“No. I don’t mess around with women who need comforting in the bedroom. That’s not what I’m there for.”

She felt a heavy blush spread over her cheeks. “I guess not.”

She was alternately relieved and disappointed by that bit of news. Relieved, because she didn’t really like to think of her friend as some crass seducer of innocents, and she really couldn’t picture him in that role, anyway.

If he was the big bad wolf, it would be because the woman he was with wanted to play Little Red Riding Hood.

But it was disappointing, too, because that pushed her even farther outside the box that Zack’s “ideal woman” resided in.

Ideal bedmate.

Sure, maybe it was more that than any sort of romantic ideal, but she would like to just fit the requirements for that. Well, really, being the woman he was sleeping with was very far away from what she actually wanted, but it would be a start.

A wonderful, sexual, amazing start.

She jerked her thoughts back to the present, not hard to do with the pitch-and-roll gait of the elephant rivaling a storm-tossed boat. It was a smooth, fluid sort of motion, but it was a very big motion, to match the size of the animal.

It also wasn’t hard to do when she remembered that, as far as their host was concerned, she and Zack were now engaged.

“A tangled web, isn’t it, Parsons?” she asked.

“What was I supposed to say?” he countered. “Ah, no, this is just my best friend that I brought along for a roll in the hay.”

“The truth might have worked. He seems like a nice man.”

“Look, it’s done. I’m sure his assumption works even more in my favor, in favor of the deal, and that’s all that really matters, right? We know where we stand. It’s not like it changes anything between us.”

She felt like the air had been knocked out of her. “No. Of course not.”

They moved through the meadow and down into the trees, onto a well-worn path that took them along a slow-moving river, the banks covered in greenery, bright pink flowers glowing from the dark, lush foliage.

She tried to keep her focus on the view, but her mind kept wandering back to Zack, to his solid, steady heat, so close to her. It would be easy to just melt into him, to stop fighting so hard for a moment and give in to the need to touch him.

But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Nothing had changed between them, after all. His words.

There was a reason she’d never made any sort of attempt to change their relationship from friends to more-than-friends. The biggest one being that she didn’t want to jeopardize the most stable relationship she had, the one closest to it being unable to stomach the thought of being rejected by him.

Of having him confirm that everything her mother said about her was true. Of having her know, for certain, that a man really wouldn’t want her because she just wasn’t all that pretty. Her mother had made sure she’d known men would still sleep with her, because of course, men would sleep with anyone. But she wasn’t the sort of woman a man would want for a wife. Not the type of woman a man could be proud to take to events.

Not like her sister. Gorgeous, perfect Lucy who was, in all unfairness, smart and actually quite sweet along with being slender, blonde and generally elegant.

Lucy actually would have looked more like Hannah’s sister than like her sister.

A sobering thought, indeed.

She should make sure Zack never met her sister.

The sound of running water grew louder and they rounded a curve in the path and came into a clearing that curved around a still, jade pool. At least twenty fine steams were trickling down moss-covered rocks, meeting at the center and falling into the pool as one heavy rush of water.

Anong the elephant stopped at the edge of the pool, dropping slowly down to her knees, the ground rising up a bit faster than Clara would have like. She leaned into Zack, clinging to the sleeve of his T-shirt as Anong settled.

“All right?” he asked.

She looked at where her hand was, and slowly uncurled her fingers, releasing her hold on him. “Sorry,” she said.

He smiled, that simple expression enough to melt her insides. He was so sexy. Time and exposure, familiarity, didn’t change it. Didn’t lessen it.

Just another reason for her to leave Roasted. If exposure didn’t do it, distance might.

Zack moved away from her, dismounting their ride first and waited for her at the side of their living chariot, his hand outstretched. She leaned forward and took it, letting his muscles propel her gently to the ground. Her feet hit just in front of his, her breasts close to touching his chest, the heat from him enticing her, taunting her.

“Do you want me to wait for you?” their guide asked.

Zack shook his head. “We’ll walk back. Thank you for the ride. It was an experience.”

He nodded and whistled a signal to Anong, who rose slowly and turned, going back with her owner and friend. She watched them round the corner, a smile on her lips. Yesterday, she was at a beachside hotel in San Francisco, expecting to lose half of her heart as Zack married another woman.

Today she was with him on his honeymoon. Riding elephants.

“An experience,” Zack said, turning to face the water.

“It was fun,” she said.

“Not relaxing exactly.”

“No,” she said, laughing. “Not in the least.”

“Mr. Amudee informed me by phone this morning that this is a safe place to swim. Clean. They don’t let the elephants up here and the waterfall keeps it all moving.”

She made a face. “Good to know. I liked the elephants, don’t really want to share a swimming hole with them. It looks pristine,” she said, moving to the edge, looking down into the clear pool. She could see rocks covered in moss along the bottom, small fish darting around, only leaving the cover of their hiding places for a few moments before swimming behind something else. “Perfect.”

Zack tugged his black shirt over his head, leaving him in nothing more than a pair of very low-cut white board shorts that, when wet, she had no doubt would cling to some very interesting places.

Her mind was a filthy place lately. And the sad thing was, it was hard to regret. Because it was so enjoyable.

“Swimming?”

“No.” She shook her head and gripped her sarong.

“Why?”

“It looks cold.”

He put his hands on his lean hips and sighed, the motion making his ab muscles ripple in a very enticing fashion. “It’s so hot and muggy out here it could be snowmelt and it would feel good. And I guarantee you it’s not snowmelt.”

“It just looks … cold.” Lame. So lame. But she didn’t really want to strip down to her swimsuit in front of him, not when he looked so amazing in his. She was. There was too much of her for a start. She was so very conscious of that. Of the fact that she had hips and breasts, and that she could pinch fat on her stomach.

Zack’s girlfriends had hip bones and abs that were just as cut as his.

“Ridiculous.” He walked over to her and scooped her up in his arms, her heart climbing up into her throat as he did. His arms were tight and strong around her, masculine. Lifting her seemed effortless. His large hands cupped her thigh and her shoulder, his heat spreading through her like warm, sticky honey, thick and sweet.

She realized what was happening a little bit too late, because sexual attraction had short-circuited her brain. She put her hand flat on his chest, another bolt of awareness shocking her even as Zack took two big steps off the bank and down into the water.

The hot and cold burst through her, her body still warm from his touch on the inside, the water freezing her skin.

“Zack!”

He looked down at her, smiling. She sputtered and clung to his shoulders, his arms still wrapped tightly around her. His skin was slick now, so sexy, and it took everything in her arsenal of willpower to keep from sliding her palms down from their perch on his shoulders and flattening them against his amazing, perfect pecs.

She wanted to. She wanted to press her lips to the hollow of his throat, lick the water drops that were clinging to his neck.

She wiggled against him and managed to extricate herself from his grasp. Fleeing temptation.

She walked up to the shallow part of the pool, her pink sarong limp and heavy now, clinging to her curves like a second skin. She untied it and looped it over a tree branch. There was no point in it now.

She felt exposed in her black one-piece. It was pretty modest by some suit standards, but anything that tight tended to make her feel a bit exposed.

“Well, that’s one way to get me in the water. Brute force,” she sniffed, walking back to the water and sinking into the depths quickly, desperate for the covering it would provide.

“Brute?” Zack swam to where she was, treading water, his eyes glinting with amusement.

“Uh … yeah. You took advantage of me.”

He paddled closer, his face a whisper from hers. “I didn’t take advantage of you. If I had, you’d have known it, that’s for sure.”

Strangely, with her body half submerged in water, her throat suddenly felt bone-dry. “I feel um … taken advantage … You … picked me up and threw me in and I’m … wet.”

His expression changed, his eyes darkening. “Interesting.”

“Oh, pffft.” She dunked her head, letting the cold water envelop her, pull the stinging heat from her cheeks. She paddled toward the waterfall, away from Zack. Away from certain mortification and temptation.

She surfaced again and looked back at Zack, still treading water where she’d left him.

Nice, Clara. Next time just tell him straight up that you’re hot for him and would like to jump him, if that’s all right with him.

She pulled a face for her own benefit and climbed up one of the mossy rocks that sat beneath the slow flowing falls, water trickling down, mist hovering above the surface of the cool, plant-covered stones.

She pulled her knees to her chest and looked up, squinting at the sunlight pouring through the thick canopy of trees.

“You’re like a jungle fairy.”

She looked down into the water and saw Zack, his hair wet and glistening.

“You’re startling me,” she said. More with his statement than with his presence, but she didn’t intend to elaborate.

He planted his palms flat on the rocks and hoisted himself up, the muscles in his shoulders rolling and shifting with the motion. He sat next to her, the heat from his body a welcome respite from the cold. But that was about all it was a respite from. Because mostly he just made her feel edgy.

And happy. He made her so happy that it hurt. Just being with him made everything seem right. Like a missing part of herself was finally in place. Like some of her insecurities and inadequacies didn’t matter so much.

And that was just stupid. Not to mention scary. Because it was an illusion. He would never be with her in the way she wanted, and watching him marry another woman, give someone else everything she longed for, that would turn her happiness into the bitterest pain.

The kind she wasn’t sure she could withstand.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

She turned sharply to look at him, her heart in her throat. “What?”

“Just stating a fact.”

“It’s not one you typically state. About me, I mean.”

He put his hand out and brushed a water drop from her cheek with his thumb, the motion sending an electric shock through her body, heat pooling in her stomach and radiating from there to her limbs.

“Well, I thought it needed to be said.”

It was so tantalizingly close to what she wanted. But to him it was simply an empty compliment, or maybe he even meant it. But not in the way she would. He didn’t mean she was beautiful in the same way she found him beautiful. The way that made her body warm and her heart flutter.

“Thanks for that. You aren’t so bad, either.” She tried to sound casual. Light. Like a friend. Like she was supposed to sound.

He smiled and lifted his arm, curling his fist in, showing off his very, very impressive biceps.

“You’re shameless,” she said, somehow managing to laugh around her stubborn heart, still lodged firmly in her throat.

“Sorry.”

“About as sorry as you are for dumping me in the water?”

“Yeah. About.” He leaned in, his arm curving around her waist and everything slowed down for a moment. He tightened his hold on her, his face so close.

And then they were falling.

She shrieked just before they hit the water. And surfaced with a loud curse, unreasonable anger mingling with disappointment. “Zack! You jackass!”

She moved to him and planted her hands on his shoulders, attempting to dunk him beneath the water. He put his hands on her waist and held her still in front of him, her movements impotent against his strength.

“You can touch bottom here, can’t you?” she asked, her feet hovering above the sandy floor of the pool while Zack seemed firmly rooted.

“Maybe.”

His hands slipped down, resting on her hips, the heat from his touch cutting through the icy chill in the water. He kept one hand there, the other sliding around to her back, his fingers drifting upward, skimming the line of her spine.

She shivered, but she wasn’t cold. And he didn’t let go.

His eyes were locked with hers, the head there matching the heat he was spreading over her skin. Her hands were still on his shoulders. And since he’d just moved his hands, it seemed … somehow it seemed right to move hers.

Her heart thundered in her chest as she slid her hands down, palms skimming his chest hair, the firm muscles beneath, as she rested them against his chest. She could hardly breathe. Her chest, her stomach, every last muscle, was too tightly wound.

His fingers flexed, the blunt tips digging into her flesh. His hands were rough, strong, everything she’d ever imagined and so much more.

Zack loosened his hold, a muscle in his jaw jerking. She pulled away from him, the water freezing where his hands had been.

“We should go,” Zack said, his words abrupt.

“I … We haven’t been here very long.” She felt muddled, as though the mist from the waterfall had wrapped itself around her, making everything seem fuzzy.

And she was glad. Because she had a feeling that when the reality of what had just happened, of how stupid she’d been, hit, it was going to hit hard.

“Yes, but I have some things to take care of before tonight. We have dinner reservations at the restaurant down in the main part of the resort.”

He reversed direction and swam to shore, walking out of the pool, his muscular legs fighting against the water pressure, his swim trunks conforming to his body. A hard pang hit her in the stomach when she looked and saw the outline of his erection. Had she really gotten him hot? Was that about her?

He turned away from her and pulled his shirt on.

And was the arousal why they were leaving now?

So he felt something. Even if he was running from it. Something that was at least physical.

Her hart hammered, echoing in her head, making her temples pulse.

Maybe she did matter to him, like that, at least a little bit? Maybe. Yes, she knew men were excited by women but this had to be personal. It had to be about her, at least a little bit. Did he think she was sexy?

She followed him to shore, scrambling onto the sandy ground, her feet picking up grains of dirt, clinging to her toes. She shook her foot out, grateful to have something else to concentrate on for a moment.

She looked back up and saw Zack, his eyes on her, his jaw locked tight.

She swallowed hard and grabbed her sarong. “So we’re having dinner out tonight?”

“Yes,” he bit out. “I have to go and pick up a package down in town and then I’ll meet you back up at the villa. The car will be by around seven.”

“Okay.” She wished she could come up with something better than the bland, one-word answer, but she just couldn’t.

Something had changed. The air around them seemed tight, the way Zack looked at her new and strange. And for the first time, she felt power in her beauty, in her body.

And she wondered if maybe he could want her. If she could be the sort of woman he wanted.

Maybe tonight she would actually try.

It was criminal. The dress that Clara was wearing should be illegal. She certainly shouldn’t be allowed out in public. It was tight, like that black, second-skin swimsuit, accentuating curves that, until this afternoon, he hadn’t realized were quite so … lush.

Breasts that were round and perfect, firm looking. They would overflow in his hands. And her hips were incredible, nothing like the androgynous, straight up-and-down supermodels that were so in style. Not even like Hannah, whose image he was having trouble conjuring up.

Today, at the river, with her body pressed against his, wet and slick, soft and feminine, he’d had a reaction he really hadn’t counted on. He hadn’t counted on touching her like he had, either. Exploring the elegant line of her back. Holding her to him. It had been a big mistake.

Getting out of the water, in front of his best friend, sporting an erection inspired by her, hadn’t really been his idea of a good time.

He put his hand in his pocket, let his fingers close around the velvet box that was nestled there. The one that Hannah had had rush delivered to the resort. Because it was the right thing to do, or so she’d said. He hadn’t really cared whether he got the engagement ring back or not. But he could use it.

The thing with Amudee, his assumption, had been unexpected. But Zack was good at reading people and the older man’s delight at the thought had been so obvious, there had been no way he would disappoint him. Not with so much riding on things going well this week.

His other plans had all gone to hell. He wasn’t sending this one there with the rest of them.

“What exactly is that?” he asked. They were in the car, being driven up to the main area of the resort, and being closed in with her when she looked like that and smelled, well, she smelled sweet enough to taste, was a bit of torture.

“What?” she asked.

“What you’re wearing.”

Her cheeks colored. “A dress.”

“But do you … call it something?”

“A dress,” she said again, her voice low now, dangerous.

“It’s a nice dress.”

She looked straight ahead. “Thank you.”

The car stopped in front of an open, wooden building that had all the lights on despite the late hour. There were people sitting at a bar, musicians set down in the center of the seating area, and dancers out on the grass, candles balanced on their hands as they moved in time with the music.

He opened his door and Clara just sat, her posture stiff. “What?”

“Now I’m not sure if I should go back and change.”

“I don’t even want to understand women,” he said.

“Why?”

“You just changed into that dress, so clearly you thought it was a good choice, and now you want to change back?”

“Because there must be something wrong with what I’m wearing. Although, you didn’t seem to have a problem with my bathing suit, and it showed a lot more than this.” She put a hand on her stomach. “It’s too tight.”

His body hardened. “Trust me, it’s not. Every man in the bar is going to give himself whiplash when you walk by.”

She frowned. “Really?”

She looked … mystified. Doubtful.

“Did you not look at yourself in the mirror?” he asked, completely incredulous that she somehow didn’t see what he did. That she didn’t realize how appealing a dress that was basically a second skin was to a man. It showed every bit of her shape, while still concealing the details. Made him feel desperate to see everything, the tease nearly unbearable.

She looked away from him. “That’s the trouble, I did, and I chose to wear it anyway.”

“What makes you think it doesn’t look good?”

“You reacted … funny.”

“Because I’m not used to seeing so much of you. But what I can see is certainly good.”

“Really?”

He took a lock of her silky hair between his thumb and forefinger. A mistake. It was so soft. Like he imagined the rest of her would be. “Didn’t I tell you any man would put up with your snoring for the pleasure of having you sleep with him?”

His eyes dropped to her mouth and he felt an uncomfortable shock of sensation when, for the second time in the past hour, she stuck her pink tongue out and slicked it across her lips, leaving them looking glossy and oddly kissable.

Clara felt like there was someone sitting on her chest, keeping her from breathing. The knot of insecurity that had tied up her stomach was changing into something else, something dangerous. A strand of hope she had no business feeling. A kind of feminine pride that didn’t make sense.

Zack was a charmer. He could charm the white gloves off a spinster, and what he was saying to her was no different. Empty charm that had no real weight behind it. It was easy to say that some other man would like to share her bed. It didn’t mean he did. Or that anyone he even knew would.

All right, in reality, she knew how men were about sex. If she was willing to put out they wouldn’t care if she had a pinch of extra flesh around her middle, but that wasn’t really the issue. She didn’t want to be a second choice. Second best.

She was even second-guessing the physical reaction Zack had had to her down at the river. Because that could simply be a man overdue for sex. Nothing more. She’d made it personal because she’d been desperate for it. But in reality, he was supposed to be here, with his wife, having lots and lots of sex, and he wasn’t. But she doubted he’d forgotten.

She was tired of being in the shadow of someone else. Even tonight, she was the consolation prize for Zack. Rather than spending the night with Hannah, he was with her, watching traditional dancing instead of having hot, sweaty, wedding night sex. Ah, yes, all fine and good for him to say those things to her, but he wasn’t really backing it up.

She forced a smile. “You did. All right, let’s go … drink or something.”

He chuckled. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

They both got out of the car and walked over to an alcove, shrouded in misty fabric, like everything in the whole resort property. It was designed for people to take advantage of the perceived privacy. It was an invitation to some sort of heady, fantastic sin. Traditional values her fanny.

She sat down on one of the cushions, positioned in front of a low table. Zack sat next to her, so close she could feel the heat radiating off his body.

“So what about my comment spawned the dress edition of twenty questions?” he asked.

“I don’t usually wear things that are this tight, so you … your reaction made me think it looked. You’ve met my mother, right?” She changed tactics.

“Yes.”

“She’s like a model. And my sister … well, she takes after my mom. I take after my dad.”

“Something wrong with that?”

“Well, I’m just not … not everything Lucy is. And my mother let me know that. Let me know that I was second best in nearly every way. She didn’t just get beauty, she had a perfect gradepoint average without even trying. I was just average. I liked school, but I didn’t excel at it. The only thing I’ve ever excelled at is baking, which in my mother’s estimation contributes to my weight issues.”

Zack swore and Clara jumped. “Weight issues? You don’t have weight issues.”

“I did. More than I do now, I mean. It was a whole … thing in high school. Remember, I mentioned the time my date stood me up?”

He nodded and she continued on, hating to dredge up the memory. “Asking me was a joke in the first place, not that I had any idea, of course. And I was supposed to meet him by the stage in the gym, which is where the dance was, and he walked up with his real date, and the guys doing the lights knew to put a spotlight on me right then. And I was all chubby and wrapped up in this silly, tight pink dress that was just so … shiny. That stays with you. Sometimes, for no reason, I still feel like the girl under the spotlight, with everyone looking at all my flaws.”

He swore sharply. “That’s bull. That’s … kids are stupid and that’s high school.” He swallowed. “It’s not real life. None of us stay the same as we were back then.” His words ended sounding rough, hard.

“Maybe not. Still, even though I’ve sort of … slimmed out as I’ve grown up, as far as my mom is concerned, since I’m not six feet tall and runway ready, I’m not perfect. I have her genes, too, after all,” she said, echoing a sentiment she’d heard so many times. “And that means I could be much thinner if I tried.”

“Let me tell you something about women’s bodies, Clara, and I know you are a woman, but I’m still going to claim the greater expertise. Men like women’s bodies, and there isn’t only one kind to like, that’s part of the fun. Beauty isn’t just one thing.”

She tried to ignore the warm, glowy feeling that was spreading through her. “I know that. I mean, part of me knows that. But it’s hard to let go of the second-best thing.”

“Better than feeling like you’re above everyone else,” he said slowly. “Like nothing can touch you because you’re just so damn perfect life wouldn’t dare.”

“I don’t know if Lucy feels that way, my mother might but.” She trailed off when she noticed the look on his face. There was something, just for a moment, etched there that was so cold, so utterly filled with despair that it reached inside her and twisted her heart.

“Zack …”

He shook his head. “Nothing, Clara. Just leave it.” The dancers had cleared the area out on the lawn and there were couples moving out into the lit circles, holding each other close, looking at each other with a kind of longing that made Clara ache with jealousy. “Care to dance before dinner is served?”

Yes and no. She felt a bit too fragile to be so close to him, and yet a part of her wanted it more than she wanted air. Just like in the water today, she’d wanted to run and cling at the same time. She was never sure which desire would win out.

He offered his hand and she took it, his fingers curling around hers, warm and masculine. He helped her up from her seat and drew her to him, his expression still strange, foreign more than familiar. He looked leaner, more dangerous. Which was strange, because even though Zack was her friend, she always felt an edge of danger around him, a little bit of unrest. Probably because she was so attracted to him that just looking at him made her shiver with longing.

“Just a warning,” he said, as they made their way out onto the grass. “People will probably stare. But that’s because you look good, amazing even. And you certainly aren’t second to any woman here.”

“Flatterer.”

“No, I’m not, and I think we both know that.”

“Okay, I suppose that’s true,” she said, kicking her shoes off and enjoying the feeling of the grass under her feet. Although, losing the little lift her shoes provided put her eyes level with Zack’s chest.

He pulled her to him, his hand on her waist. She fought the urge to melt into him, to rest her head on his chest. This wasn’t that kind of dance; theirs wasn’t that kind of relationship. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to pretend. It was easy, with the heat of his body so close to hers, to imagine that tonight might end differently. To imagine that he saw her as a woman.

Not just in the way that he’d referenced, that vague, sweet, but generic talk about women and their figures. But that he would desire her body specifically. She kept her eyes open, fixed on his throat. She knew him so well, that even looking there she knew just who she was with. And she didn’t want to shut that reality out by closing her eyes. She wanted to watch, relish.

For a moment reality seemed suspended. There wasn’t time, there wasn’t a fiancée, one more suited to Zack than she was, looming in the background. There was only her and Zack, the heat of the night air, the strains from the stringed instruments weaving around them, creating a sensual, exotic rhythm that she wanted to embrace completely.

She loved him so much.

That hit her hard in the chest. The final, concrete acknowledgment of what she’d probably always known. A moment that was completely lacking in denial for once. She loved Zack. With her entire heart, with everything in her. And she was in his arms now.

But not in the way she wanted to be. She breathed in deeply, smelling flowers, rain and Zack. Her lungs burned, her stomach aching. She wished it was real. So much that it hurt, down to her bones.

Maybe, just for a moment, she could pretend that it was real. That this was romance. That he held her because he wanted her. Because after this, after the fake engagement, after the ink was dry on the contracts, there would be no more chances to pretend.

She would go her way, and she would leave Zack behind. Why couldn’t she ignore it now? Just for now.

She didn’t want the song to end, wished the notes would linger in the air forever, an excuse to stay in his arms. But it ended. And that was why she shouldn’t have said yes to the dance in the first place. Playing games wouldn’t come close to giving her what she wanted with Zack. It just made her aware of how far she was from having what she really wanted.

He took her hand and pulled her away from the other dancing couples, and for one heart-stopping moment, she thought he might lean in and kiss her. His lips were close to hers, his breath hot, fanning across her cheek. Her body felt too tight, her skin too hot. She needed something. Needed him.

“I have something for you,” he said. “For tomorrow.”

“I like presents,” she said, trying to keep her voice from sounding too shaky. Too needy. Too honest. “It’s not a food processor, is it?”

He chuckled, a low, sexy sound that reverberated through her. “I told you, I’m keeping my food processor.”

She tried to breathe. “All right then, I can’t guess.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. Everything slowed down for a moment, but unlike before, when the gauzy, frothy film of fantasy had covered it all, this was stark reality. She shook her head even before he opened it, but he didn’t seem to notice.

He popped the top on it and revealed a huge ring, glittering gold and diamonds. She sucked in a sharp breath. Such a perfect ring. Gorgeous. Extravagant. Familiar. The ring he’d given to Hannah. The exact same ring. The ring for the woman who was supposed to be here. The ring for the woman he should have danced with, the woman he would have kissed, made love to.

A well of pain, deep, unreasonable and no less intense for it, opened up in her, threatened to consume her. What a joke. A cheap trick. And the worst part was that she’d played it on herself. Letting herself pretend that he’d wanted her at the river, playing like he wanted her in his arms tonight.

Letting hope exist in her, along with the futile, ridiculous love she felt for him. Ridiculous, because for half a second, her breath had caught when she’d seen the ring, and she’d forgotten it was fake.

“No,” she said.

“Clara …”

“I don’t …” She was horrified to feel wetness on her cheeks, tears falling she hadn’t even realized were building. She backed away from him, hitting her shoulder against one of the bar area’s supporting pillars. But she didn’t stop. “I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t sorry. She was angry. She was hurt. Ravaged to her soul. Maybe it had been ignorant of her not to think all the way to the ring. To think that the farce wouldn’t include that. Of course it would. Zack didn’t cut corners and he didn’t forget details. So of course he wouldn’t forget something as essential to an engagement as a ring.

But it hurt. To see him, impossibly gorgeous and, in so many ways, everything she’d always dreamed of, offering her a ring, a ring he’d already given to another woman, as part of a lie, it killed something inside her.

Maybe it was just the fact that it pulled her deepest, most secret fantasy out of her and laid it bare. And made it into a joke. Designed to show her that there was no way he would ever consider her. Not with any real seriousness. That she was nothing more than a replacement for the woman he’d intended to have here with him.

That she was interchangeable.

She was hopeless. She needed a friend to tell her what a head case she was. To tell her to get over him. To take her out to pie and tell her she could do better, have better.

But Zack should have been that person. He was her best friend. He was the one she talked to. The one she confided in. And she couldn’t confide this, couldn’t tell him that he’d just shredded her heart. Couldn’t tell him she was hopelessly in love with a man she couldn’t have, because he was the man.

The crushing loneliness that thought brought on, the pain, was overwhelming.

Her stomach twisted. “I have to. I’m sorry.”

She turned away from him, walking quickly across the lawn, back to into the lobby area to find a car, an elephant, whatever would get her back to the villa the fastest.

She was running and she knew it. From him. From her hurt. And from the moment she knew would come, the one where she’d have to explain to him just why looking at the ring had made her cry.

It was an explanation she never wanted to give. Because the only man she could ever confide her pain in, was also the one man she could never tell. Because he was the man who’d caused it.

CHAPTER SIX

ZACK’S heart pounded as he scanned the villa’s courtyard. It was too dark to see anything, but he was sure this was where she was. Unless she’d called the car service and asked them to come and get her, which, if Clara was really upset, he wouldn’t put past her. She could be on the next plane back to the States.

His plane.

Which, he had a suspicion he might deserve.

There was a narrow path that led from the main area of the courtyard into an alcove surrounded by flowering plants and trees. And he was willing to bet that, if she was still in the villa, she’d gone there.

He was right. She was sitting on the stone bench, her knees pulled up to her chest. She was simply staring, her cheeks glistening in the moonlight. The sight made him ache.

He was all about control, all about living life with as few entanglements and attachments as possible. But Clara was his exception. She had been from the moment he’d met her.

She was the one person who could alter his emotions without his say so. Make him happy if he really wanted to be angry. Make his gut feel wrenched with her tears.

“Are you okay?”

She dropped her knees and put her feet on the ground, straightening. “I’m sorry. That was stupid. I overreacted.”

He moved to the bench and crouched down in front of it, in front of her. “What did I do?”

“I was just … I told you, it was an overreaction. It was nothing, really.” She sucked in a breath that ended on a hiccup and his heart twisted. “I can’t really … explain it.”

The confusion he felt was nearly as frustrating as the pain he felt over hurting her. He didn’t really understand exactly what he’d done, but not understanding it didn’t make it go away.

Without thinking, he lifted his hand and curved it around her neck, stroking her tender skin with his thumb. It was a gesture meant to comfort her, because he’d upset her somehow, for the second time in forty-eight hours, and he hated to upset her. She meant too much to him.

But something in the touch changed. He wasn’t sure exactly when it tipped over from being comfort to being a caress, he wasn’t sure how her skin beneath his fingers transformed from something everyday to something silky, tempting.

She looked at him, her eyes glistening, the expression in them angry. Angry and hot. And that heat licked through him, reached down into his gut and squeezed him tight.

It was close to what he’d felt down at the river, but magnified, her anger feeding the flame that burned between them. And he couldn’t walk away from it. Not this time.

Without thought, without reason or planning, without stopping to think of possible consequences, he leaned in and closed the space between them, his lips meeting hers. First kisses were for tasting, testing. They were a question.

At least historically for him they had been. This kiss wasn’t.

Something roared through him, filling him, a kind of desperation he’d never felt before. He didn’t ask, he took. He didn’t taste, he devoured. The hunger in him was too ravenous to do anything else, so sudden he had no chance to sublimate it. He wrapped his arms around her, and she clung to his shoulders, her lips parting beneath his.

He growled and thrust his tongue against hers, his body shuddering as his world reduced to the slick friction, to the warmth of her lips on his.

Clara was powerless to do anything but cling to Zack. Powerless to give anything less than every bit of passion and desire that was pouring through her. To do anything but devour him, giving in to the hunger that had lived in her, gnawed at her for the past seven years.

This was heaven. And it was hell. Everything she’d longed for, still off-limits to her for the same reasons it always had been. Except for right now, for some reason, it was as though a ban had been lifted. For this one moment, a moment out of time. A moment that she needed more than she needed air.

His lips, firm and sure, were everything she’d ever dreamed they might be, his hands, heavy and hot on her back even more arousing than she’d thought possible.

This was why there had been no one else. Because the idea of Zack had always been more enticing than the reality of any other man. And the reality of Zack far surpassed any fantasy she’d ever had. Maybe any fantasy any woman had ever had.

She slid from the bench and onto the stone-covered ground, gripping the front of his shirt, their knees touching. He pulled her closer, bringing her breasts against his hard, muscular chest. She arched into him, craving more. Craving everything. All of him.

When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers, his breathing shallow, unsteady, loud in the otherwise silent night.

She didn’t know what to say. She was afraid that he would try to say something first. Something that would ruin it. A joke. Or maybe he’d even be angry. Or he’d say it was a mistake. All valid reactions, but she didn’t want any of them. She didn’t want to deal with anything. She simply wanted to focus on the pounding of her heart, the swollen, tingly feeling in her lips. On all the really good, fizzy little sensations that were popping in her veins like champagne.

Zack let out a gust of air. “Damn.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. Of all the reactions she’d expected, and dreaded, that hadn’t been it. That he would allow an honest reaction, and that his reaction would match hers, hadn’t seemed likely.

“Yeah,” she said.

He braced his hand on the bench behind her and pulled himself up, then extended his hand to her. She gripped it and let him help her to her feet. She brushed some dried leaves from her knees, ignoring the slight prickle of pain and indents of small twigs left behind on her skin.

Her eyes caught his and held, and all of the good exciting feelings that had been swirling through her dissolved. The cushion of fantasy yanked from under her, there was nothing but cold, hard reality. She’d kissed Zack. More than kissed, she’d attacked him.

And there was nowhere for it to go from that point. If she leaned in again, if she kissed him again, then what? They might go to bed together. And where would that leave her after? Where would it leave them?

No, he hadn’t slept with Hannah, but he’d slept with other beautiful women. Lots of them. She’d met a good number of them. And she was … she was inexperienced, unglamorous. And she was here as a replacement. If something happened between them now, on a night that was meant to be his wedding night with another woman, she would always feel like she’d been second.

He was a man, and the pump was well and truly primed. He’d been promised sex after what had been a lengthy bout of not having sex, so of course he was hot for it. But he was hot for it. Not for her.

He’d never kissed her before tonight. That, if nothing else, cemented the point.

She wasn’t going to cry again. She wasn’t going to let him know how vulnerable she was to him. Wasn’t going to let him know how bad it hurt to pull away now.

“This has been a bit of a crazy day,” she said.

“I can’t argue with that.”

“Sorry. About this.” She gestured to the bench. “All of it. I don’t … I don’t really know what that was about.”

The flash of relief she saw in Zack’s eyes made her heart twist. She would finish now. Make sure he’d never want to talk about it again.

“I mean … how do you feel?” She’d said the magic feel word. Zack didn’t like to talk about how he felt. Not in a way that went any deeper than happy, or angry, or hungry.

“Fine. Good, in fact. Kissing a beautiful woman is never a bad thing.”

She felt heat creep into her cheeks. She shouldn’t respond to the compliment. It was empty, an attempt to smooth things over. But it affected her, and she couldn’t stop it from making her stomach curl in traitorous satisfaction.

“I might say the same. Not the woman part but the. You get it.”

“I did something wrong. With the ring. I’m sorry. I’m not hitting them out of the park with you today, am I?”

“I don’t think either of us is at our best right now,” she said. That at least was true. Of course, she hadn’t been her best since the engagement announcement. Her safe little world had been chucked off-kilter in that moment and she’d felt out of balance ever since.

“Probably need sleep.”

She forced a laugh. “You probably do. I got that extra sleep on the plane, remember?”

“But you should sleep again. Otherwise you’ll be off for even longer.”

She did feel tired suddenly. And not a normal tired, an all-consuming sort of tired that went all the way down into her bones. “Yeah. You’re right. I can sleep on the couch tonight.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch again. After being left at the altar, sleeping alone in the honeymoon bed is just a bit depressing, don’t you think?”

For a moment, she thought about inviting him to join her. To play the vixen for once. To say to hell with all of her insecurities and just be the woman she wished she could be.

But she didn’t.

“Yeah, maybe a little.” She swallowed and stuck her hand out. “I’ll take that ring though.”

“You sure?”

“I told you, I was being stupid. Emotional girl moment. The kind specifically designed to boggle the minds of men. Actually, a little secret for you, they occasionally boggle our minds, too. So, ring, give.”

She held her hand out and he took it in his, turning it over so her palm was facing down. He took the ring box out of his pocket and took the ring out of its pink silk nest, holding it up for a moment before sliding it on to her ring finger.

She looked down at it, then curled her fingers into a fist, trying to force a smile.

“Looks good,” he said.

“It’s a diamond, it can’t look anything else,” she said, trying to sound breezy and unaffected. Both things she wasn’t.

“Perfect. And now we’re ready for tomorrow. I hope you brought shoes you can walk in.”

“Of course I did.”

“That’s right. I forgot.”

“Forgot what?” she asked.

“That you’re different. Come on, let’s go try to get some sleep.”

She followed him out of the courtyard, trying to leave everything behind them, all the needs, desires, pain, back in the alcove. But his words kept repeating in her head, and she could still feel his kiss on her lips.

And she felt different. Like a completely different woman than the one who had walked into the garden with tears streaming down her face.

One kiss shouldn’t have that kind of power. But that kiss had. She felt changed. She felt a a tiny bit destroyed, and a little bit stronger. And she wasn’t sure she would take it back. Even if she could.

Sleep had been a joke. An elusive thing that had never even come close to happening. Zack looked at the tie he’d brought with him for meetings with Mr. Amudee, and decided against putting it on. Not twice in one week.

He left two buttons undone on his crisp white shirt and pushed the sleeves halfway up his forearms. That should be good enough. They were spending the day looking at where the coffee and tea plants were grown.

Maybe spending the day outdoors would clear his head. Would lift the heavy fog of arousal that had plagued him since the kiss. Not just the kiss, since that strange, tense moment at the lake before the kiss.

But the kiss. A few more minutes and he would have had her flat on her back on the stone bench with more than half of her clothes stripped from her gorgeous curves.

He bit down hard, his teeth grinding together. He shouldn’t be thinking of her curves. But he was.

“Zack?”

The sound of her voice hit him like a kick in the gut.

“Here,” he said, sliding his belt through the loops on his pants and fastening the buckle as she walked around the corner, into the bedroom. Her pale cheeks colored slightly when she saw him.

“How did you sleep?” she asked.

“Great,” he lied. “Thanks for letting me use the room to get ready.”

“Yeah, no problem. I got up pretty early. Wandered around in the garden. There are so many flowers here.”

And she’d put a few different varieties in her hair. It was silly. And it was cute. She had a way of making that work for her.

“I didn’t know you liked flowers so much.”

She shrugged. “I always have some on my kitchen table.”

She did, now that he thought about it. He wondered if anyone ever bought them for her. He wondered why he’d never really stopped to notice before. Why he’d never bought her any.

Because, bosses don’t buy employees flowers. And friends don’t buy friends flowers.

Friends also didn’t kiss each other like he and Clara had done last night. His pulse jump-started at the thought, his blood rushing south. He tightened his hands into fists and tried to will his body back under control.

“Ready to go?” he asked, his voice curt because it was taking every last bit of his willpower to keep his desire for her leashed.

She frowned slightly. “Yeah. Ready.”

“Good. Remember, you’re my fiancée, and we’ve been very suddenly overcome by love that can no longer be denied.”

One side of her mouth quirked up. “Is that the story?”

“Yes. That’s the story. As Amudee created it, so he’ll believe it. He’s the one who assumed.”

“A romantic, I suppose. Either that or he just thinks you move fast.”

“I’m decisive. And we’ve known each other for years.” He studied her face for a moment, dark almost almond-shaped eyes, pale skin, clear and smooth. Perfection. Her lips were pink and full and, now he knew, made for kissing. And he had to wonder how he’d known her for so long and never really looked at her.

Because if he had he would have realized. He would have had to realize, that she was the most gorgeous woman. Exquisite. Curved, just as a woman should be, in all the right places. Beautiful without fuss or pretension.

“Yes, we have,” she said slowly, those liquid brown eyes locked with his.

“So it stands to reason that after Hannah decided not to go through with things …”

“Right.”

The air between them seemed thicker now, that dangerous edge sharpening. Now that he knew what it was like to touch her, to feel her soft lips beneath his, well, now it was a lot harder to ignore.

“So let’s go, then,” he said.

“Right,” she said again.

He moved to her and slid his arm around her waist. It was more slender than he’d imagined it might be. “We have to do things like this,” he said, his voice getting rougher as her hips brushed against his.

She nodded, her eyes on his face. On his lips. She would be the death of him.

“Lovely to see you again, Ms. Davis,” Mr. Amudee said, inclining his head. “And with a ring, I see.”

Her heart rate kicked up several notches.

“Oh. Yes. Zack … made it official last night. It’s lovely to see you, too.” She touched the ring on her finger and Zack tightened his hold around her waist. She nearly stopped breathing, her accelerated heart rate lurching to a halt with it. From the moment they’d arrived at Mr. Amudee’s house, he had put his arm around her and kept it there. She’d assumed she would get used to it, to the warm weight of his touch. But she wasn’t getting used to it. If anything, she was getting more jittery, more aroused with each passing second.

The sun was hot on the wide, open veranda that overlooked rows of coffee trees with flat glossy leaves and bright red coffee cherries. But Zack’s touch was the thing that was making her melt.

“I had not met the other woman you intended to marry, Zack, but I must say that comparing the photos of the first one, to Ms. Davis, I find I prefer Ms. Davis.”

Clara’s heart bumped against her chest. “That’s kind of you to say.” She knew her face had to be beet-red, it was hot, that was for sure. Because it was nice of him to say, but there was no way it could be true.

There was no comparison between her and Hannah. Hannah was … well, sex bomb came to mind yet again.

“Not kind,” Isra said. “Just the truth. I was married, a long time ago, to the most wonderful woman. I have a good judge of character. Unfortunately I was too busy to see just how wonderful she was. Don’t make that mistake.”

Zack cleared his throat. “Clara is also very knowledgable about our product. I know we’ll both enjoy getting a look at the growing process today. And we’re both excited about the tasting.”

Back to business. Zack was good at that. Thank God one of them was.

“I’m excited to share it with you. Come this way.” They followed him down the stairs that led to the lush, green garden filled with fragrant foliage. He moved quickly for a man his age, his movements sharp and precise as he explained where each plant was in the growing stage, and which family was leasing which segment of the farmland, and how the soil and amount of shade would affect the flavor of each type of coffee, even before it was roasted.

The tea was grown in a more remote segment of the farm and required walking up into the rolling hills, where the leaves were in the process of being harvested.

“A lot depends on when you pick them,” Mr. Amudee said, bending and plucking a small, tender-looking cluster of leaves. “Smell. Very delicate.”

He handed the leaves to Zack and he did as instructed. Then he held them out for Clara. She bent and took in the light fragrance. She looked up and her eyes clashed with Zack’s and her heart beat double time.

“And this will be … what sort of tea will it be?” she asked, anything to get her mind off Zack and his eyes.

“White tea,” Zack said. “Am I right?”

Mr. Amudee inclined his head. “Right. Ready to go and taste?”

Her eyes met Zack’s again, the word tasting bringing to mind something new and different entirely. Something heady and sexual.

She swallowed hard.

“Yes, I think we are,” Zack said slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.

And she wondered if he’d been thinking the exact same thing she was. And if he was thinking the same thing, if he wanted to kiss her again, she wasn’t sure what she would do.

No, that was a lie. She was sure. She would kiss him again. Like nothing else mattered. Like there was no future and no consequences. Because she’d had enough of not getting what she wanted out of life. Quite enough.

She looked at Zack again and she wondered if she’d only imagined that momentary flash of heat. Because his eyes were cool again, his expression neutral.

She tried to convince herself that it was better that way.

Clara spent the next few days carefully avoiding Zack. It was easier than expected, given the cozy living situation. But during the day he had meetings with Mr. Amudee and when she wasn’t needed, she took advantage of all the vacation-type things that were available in the resort.

There was a spa down in the hotel, and also some incredible restaurants. Her favorite retreat was up on the roof of the villa that gave her a view of the mountains, and the small town that was only a short walk away, the golden rooftops reflecting the sunlight like fire in the late afternoon. It was the perfect view for yoga, which kept her mind focused and relaxed at the same time.

She even managed to forget about the kiss. Mostly. As long as she made a concerted effort not to think of it. And as long as she didn’t get into bed before she was ready to fall asleep instantly. Lying awake for any length of time was a recipe for disaster. And for replaying that moment. Over and over again.

Clara took a deep breath and tried to focus on the scenery, on the sky as it lightened. Orange fading into a pale pink, then to purple as the sun rose from behind the sloping hills. She would focus on that. Not Zack. Because that door was clearly closed. He hadn’t touched her again, unless it was absolutely necessary, since the night in the garden. Since the kiss that had scorched her inside and out.

The kiss that didn’t even seem to be a vague memory to him.

“Got plans for today?”

She turned and her heart lodged itself in her throat. Zack strode onto the roof in nothing more than a pair of low-slung jeans, his chest, broad and muscular, sprinkled with the perfect amount of chest hair, was streaked with dirt and glistening with sweat.

She had to remind herself to breathe when he came closer. And she had to remind herself not to stare at his abs, bunching and shifting as he moved.

“Do I.” She blinked and looked up at his face. “What?”

“Do you have plans? You’ve been busy. Remarkably so for someone on vacation.”

“Well, down in the village they have these neat classes for tourists. Weaving and things like that. And one of the restaurants in the hotel has a culinary school.”

“I thought you wanted to relax.”

“Cooking is relaxing for me.” And it had been conducive to avoiding him. “Anyway, now I can make you some killer Pad Thai when we get back home.”

“Well, I support that.”

“What are you doing up so early?”

“Working. Before the sun had a chance to get over the mountains and scorch me. Part of the deal. I need to understand where it all comes from. How important the work is to the families. I’m really pleased we’re going to be part of this process.”

“Me, too,” she said. Although, she wouldn’t be. Not once everything was in place. This was it for her.

“I’m going up to Doi Suthep, to see the temple. I thought you might want to come with me.”

She did. Not just to see the temple, although that was of major interest to her, but to spend some time with him. It was that whole inconvenient paradox of being in love with her best friend again. She wanted to avoid him, because she felt conflicted over the kiss. She wanted to be with him, confide in him, because she felt conflicted, too.

“I …”

“Are you avoiding me?” he asked, hands on his lean hips. “Well, I know you’re avoiding me, but I guess I don’t know why. Does this have to do with you leaving Roasted?”

“No!”

“Then what the hell is your problem?”

Hot, reckless anger flooded her. “My problem? Are you serious? You asked me to come here, and play fiancée, and I have. I don’t have a problem.”

“When you aren’t avoiding me.”

“I have done exactly what you asked me to do,” she said. “I have played the part of charming, simpering fiancée, I’ve worn this ring on my finger, and you can’t, for one second see why that might not be … something I want to do. And then you kiss me. Kiss me like … like you really are on your honeymoon, and you want to know what my problem is?”

He looped his arm around her waist and drew her to him, his eyes blazing. She braced herself against him, her palms flat on his bare chest. “I think I do know what your problem is. I think you’re avoiding me because of the kiss. Because you’re afraid it will happen again. Or because you want it to happen again.”

She shook her head slightly. “N-no. I haven’t even thought about it again.”

“Liar.” He dipped his head so that his lips hovered just above hers. “You want this.”

She did. She really did. She wanted his lips on hers. His hands on her body. She wanted everything. “You arrogant bastard,” she said, her voice trembling. “How dare you?”

“How dare I what? Say that you want it again? We both know you do.”

His lips were so close to hers and it was tempting, so tempting, to angle her head so that they met. So that she could taste him again. Have a moment of stolen pleasure again.

“You do want it,” he said again, his voice rough, strained.

“So?” she whispered.

“What?”

“So what if I do?” she said, finding strength in her voice. “What then, Zack? We’ll kiss? Sleep together? And then what? Nothing. You and I both know there won’t be anything after that. We’ll just ruin what we do have.”

He released his hold on her and took a step back, letting his hands fall to his sides. “Sorry.”

“You’ve been apologizing to me a lot lately,” she said, her voice trembling. “You don’t need to do that.”

He nodded. “I’m going to take a quick shower.”

“Not going to the temple?”

He smiled ruefully. “Still am. And you can come if you want. Provided you’ve worked the tantrum out of your system.”

“That was your tantrum, Parsons, not mine.”

“Maybe.” He tightened his jaw, his hands curling into fists. “Just tense I suppose. Coming with me or not?”

She hesitated. Because she did want to go, but things weren’t … easy with him at the moment. And the scariest thing was she wasn’t sure she wanted them to be easy again. She was sort of liking this new, scary dynamic between them. The one that made him touch her like she did something to him. Like he was losing control.

“I’ll be good. I promise,” he added.

She laughed, a fake, tremulous sound. “I wasn’t worried.”

Zack wasn’t the one who worried her. She hesitated because she wasn’t sure she trusted herself to behave.

“I was,” he said, turning away from her and walking back into the house. She watched him the whole way, the muscles on his back, the dent just above the waistline of his jeans, and his perfect, tight butt.

She let out a slow, shaky breath. Yeah, it was definitely herself she didn’t trust.

The temple at Doi Suthep was crowded with tourists, spiritual pilgrims and locals. Clara and Zack walked up the redbrick staircase, the handrails fashioned into guardian dragons with slithering bodies and fierce faces.

They were silent for the three-hundred-step trek up to the temple, Clara keeping a safe distance between them, in spite of the crush of people all around them. She was mad at him.

And fair enough, he’d been a jerk earlier. That was sexual frustration. Sexual frustration combined with the desire to give in to the need to kiss her again. To do more than kiss her.

Damn.

He could still remember the first time he’d seen Clara. She was working behind the counter at a bakery, flour on her cheeks. She was cute. Not the kind of woman he was normally attracted to. But she’d fascinated him. Utterly and completely. It had turned out she’d made great cupcakes, too. And that she was smart and funny. That it felt good to be with her.

The emotional connection to her, when he’d been lacking a connection with anyone for years, had been shocking, instant, and had immediately found him shoving his attraction to her away.

A friendship with her was fine. Anything else … he didn’t have room for it. Anything else would go beyond the boundaries he’d set for himself. And he needed his boundaries. His control. He valued it above everything else.

Just another reason he’d intended to marry Hannah. Marriage brought stability, a sort of controlled existence that attracted him. One woman in his bed, in his life.

And now that that had gone to hell, it seemed his feelings for Clara were headed in the same direction. He’d done with her, for seven years now, what he did with everything in his life. She had a place. She was his friend. She didn’t move out of that place in his mind.

His body was suddenly thinking differently. He’d made a mistake. He’d allowed himself too much freedom. He’d indulged his desire to look at her body. To touch her soft skin when they’d gone swimming. And that night, he’d given in to the temptation to allow her to feature in his fantasies. To find release with her image in his mind.

He’d allowed himself to cross the line in his mind, and that was where control started. He knew better. Yet it was hard to regret. Because wanting her was such a tantalizing experience. Just feeling desire for her was a pleasure on its own.

Her sweet, short, sundress was not helping matters. Though, thankfully she’d had to purchase a pair of silk pants to wear beneath it before they could head up toward the temple.

Still, even with her legs covered, there was that bright, gorgeous smile that had been plastered on her face since they’d arrived. She was all breathy sighs and sounds of pleasure over the sights and sounds. It was the sweetest torture.

“Incredible,” she breathed, her voice soft, sensual in a way. Enough to make his body ache.

“Yes,” he agreed. Mostly, he was looking at her, and not the immense, gold-laden temple.

He forced himself to look away from Clara. To keep his focus on the gilded statues, the bright, fragrant offerings of flowers, fresh fruit and cakes left in front of the different alters that were placed throughout the courtyard. A large, dome-shaped building covered entirely in gold reflected the sun, the air bright, thick with smoke from burning incense.

Monks in bright orange robes wove through the crowds, talking, laughing, offering blessing.

It was incredible. And still nowhere near as interesting as the woman next to him.

“Have you been enjoying yourself here?” he asked.

“More or less,” she said, looking at him from the corner of her eye, color creeping into her cheeks. Probably not the smartest question to ask. Why was he struggling with his words and actions? That never happened to him. Not anymore.

“The less would be me being a jerk and planting my lips on you, right?” Might as well go for honesty. Clara was the only person in his life who rated that. He didn’t want to violate it.

She blew out a breath. “Um … mostly the being a jerk. You’re a pretty good kisser, it turns out.”

“So you didn’t mind that?”

“Not as much as I should have.” Her words escaped in a rush.

“Glad to know I’m not the only one,” he said, forcing the words out.

“Not sure it helps anything.” She walked ahead of him, straying beneath the overhang of a curled roof, her eyes on the murals painted on the walls of the temple.

“Maybe not.” He leaned in, pretending to examine the same image she was.

“So … is there a solution?” She put her hand on the wall, tracing the painting of a white elephant with her finger.

He covered her hands with his, his heart pounding, his hand shaking like he was a teenage virgin. “Let me see.”

He leaned in, his mouth brushing hers. He went slow this time, asking the question, as he should have done the first time he’d kissed her. She didn’t move, not into him or away from him. He angled his head and deepened the kiss and he felt her soften beneath him, her lips parting beneath his, her breath catching, sharp and sweet when the tip of his tongue met hers.

He pulled away, his eyes on hers.

She released a breath. “How do you feel?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

She looked up. “The roof didn’t fall in.”

“No,” he said, following her gaze. “It didn’t.”

She leaned into him, her elbow jabbing his side, a shy smile on her face. “Good to know anyway.”

“Glad it comforts you.”

She laughed, her cheeks turning pink, betraying the fact that she wasn’t unaffected. “Comfort may not be the right word.”

He looked around the teeming common area, at the completely unfamiliar surroundings. And he found he wanted to pretend that the feelings he was having for Clara were unfamiliar, too.

But he couldn’t. Because they had been there, for a long time, lurking beneath the surface. Ignored. Unwanted. But there.

“No. Comfort is definitely not the right word.”

They’d spent most of the day at the temple, then taken a car back to Chiang Mai where they’d wandered the streets buying food from vendors, and watching decorations go up on every market stall for a festival that was happening in the evening.

Now, with the event coming close, the streets were packed tight with people, carrying street food, flower arrangements with candles in the center, talking, laughing. It was dark out, the sun long gone behind the mountains, but the air was still thick, warm and fragrant. There was music, noise and movement everywhere. The smell of frying food mixed with the perfume of flowers and the dry, stale scent of dust clung to the air, filled her senses.

It almost helped block out Zack. But not quite. No matter just how much it filled up her senses, it couldn’t erase Zack. The imprint of his kiss. It had been different than the first one. Tender. Achingly sexy.

It had made her want more. Not simply in a sexual way, but in an emotional way. It didn’t bear thinking about. Still, she knew she would.

She kept an eye on the food stalls, passing more exotic fare, like anything with six legs or more, for something a bit more vanilla. Maybe food would help keep her mind off things. At least temporarily.

“I definitely don’t need this,” she said, stopping to buy battered, fried bananas from the nearest food stall.

“But you bought it,” he said, breaking a piece off the banana and putting it in his mouth.

“Well, that’s because sweets are my area of expertise. You’re here for the beans and tea leaves, I’m here for the pairing, right? This is research. It’s for work. I need to capture the new and exotic flavor profiles Chiang Mai has to offer,” she said, trying to sound official. “Maybe I can write off the calories?”

They dodged a bicycle deliveryman and crossed the busy, bustling street, moving away from the stalls and toward the river that ran through the city. “You don’t need to worry about it. You’re perfect like you are.”

She looked down at the bag of sweets. “You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and looked at the lanterns that were strung from tree to tree, glowing overhead. “We should do this more. At home.”

“Eat?”

“No. Go do things. Mostly we work, and sometimes I feed you at my house, or we watch a movie at yours. Well, we do go out to lunch sometimes, but on workdays, so it doesn’t count.”

“We’re busy.”

“We’re workaholics.”

Zack frowned and stopped walking. He extended his hand and took a lock of her hair between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing it idly. “Is that why you’re leaving me?”

She looked up at him. “I’m not leaving you. I’m leaving the company.” And she was counting on that to put some natural and healthy distance between them. Roasted had brought them together, and because they got along so well, after spending the day at work together, half of the time it felt natural to simply go and have dinner together. Watch bad reality TV together. Once they weren’t involved in the same business it would only be natural they would drift apart. And with any luck, it would only feel like she was missing her right arm for a couple of years.

“What do you need? I’ll give it to you.”

“You’re missing the point, Zack. It’s about having something of my own.”

“Roasted isn’t enough for you? You’ve been there from the beginning, more or less. You’ve helped me make it what it is.”

“No. I just bake cupcakes. And there are a lot of people who can do my job.”

“But they aren’t you.”

She closed her eyes and let the compliment wash over her. She’d say this for Zack; he gave her more than most anyone else in her life ever had, including her family. But it was still just a crumb of what she wanted.

“No,” she said, “some of them are even better.”

She wove through the crowd to the edge of the waterfront. People were kneeling down and putting the flower arrangements with their lit candles into the stream. The crowd standing on the other side of the waterfront was lighting candles inside tall, rice paper lanterns, the orange spreading to the inky night, casting color and light all around.

Zack was behind her, she could sense it without even turning around. “I’m glad we came tonight,” she said.

Zack swept his fingers through Clara’s hair, moving it over her shoulder, exposing her neck. He didn’t normally touch her like that, but tonight, he found he couldn’t help himself. Things were tense between them. The kiss at the temple certainly hadn’t helped diffuse it.

He wondered if most of the tension had started in the bedroom back in the villa. That moment when they’d both looked at the bed and had that same, illicit thought.

If it had started there, they might be able to finish it there.

Temptation, pure and strong, lit him on fire from the inside out. She turned, and his heart slammed hard against his rib cage, blood rushing south of his belt, every muscle tensing. He could feel the energy change between them, like a wire that had been connecting them, unseen and unfelt for years had suddenly come alive with high-voltage electricity. He knew she felt it, too.

“We broke things, didn’t we?” she whispered.

It was like she read his thoughts, which, truly, was nothing new. But inconvenient now, since his thoughts had a lot to do with what it might be like to see her naked.

“Because of the kisses?”

She nodded once. “I can’t forget them.”

“I can’t, either. I’m not sure if I want to.”

She took a deep breath. “That’s just what I was thinking earlier.”

“Was it?”

“Yes. I should want to forget it, we both should. So we can get things back to where they’re supposed to be but …”

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, soft again. “Do you think we could break it worse than we already have? Or is the damage done?”

“I have no idea.”

Everything in him screamed to step back. Because this was an unknown. A move that would affect his life, his daily life, and he couldn’t see the way it would end. And that just wasn’t how he did things. Not since that night when he’d been sixteen and he’d acted unthinkingly, impulsively, and ruined everything.

He wasn’t that person anymore. He’d made sure of it. If he didn’t walk away from Clara now, from the temptation she presented, if he didn’t plan it out and look at all the angles, he was opening them both up to potential fallout.

He stepped forward and kissed her again. Deepening the kiss this time, letting the blood that was roaring in his ears drown out conscious thought.

Clara knew she should stop this. Stop the madness before it went too far. It already had gone too far. It had gone too far the moment she agreed to come. Because the desire for this, for the week to turn into this, had been there. Of course, she’d never imagined that Zack would—could—want her.

The breaking of things wasn’t just down to the kiss. It was the day at the river, the intense moment on the balcony. The fact that she’d realized she was deeply, madly, irrevocably in love with a man who was just supposed to be her friend.

He kissed the tip of her nose, then her cheeks. “Zack,” she whispered.

“Clara.”

“Are we trying to see if we can break things worse?”

“Actually, I’m not thinking at all. Not about anything beyond what I feel right now.”

“What is it you feel?” she asked, echoing what she’d said after they’d kissed.

“I want you.”

She hesitated, her heart squeezing tight. “Do you want me? Or do you want to have sex?”

He looked at her for a long time, the glow of flames across the river reflected in his eyes. “I want you, Clara Davis. I have never slept with one woman when I wanted another one, and I would never start the practice with you. When I have you, I won’t be thinking of anyone else. I’ll only have room for you.”

His words trickled through her, balm on her soul. Exactly the right words.

The real question was, did she want to accept a physical relationship when it was only part of what she wanted?

You only have part of what you want now. A very small part.

“Just for tonight,” she said, hating that she had to say it, but knowing she did. Because she knew for certain that there could be no romantic future for them. She loved him, she was certain of it now. She had for a long time, possibly for most of the seven years she’d known him. It had been a slow thing, working its way into her system bit by bit. With every smile, every touch.

And he didn’t love her. Looking at him now, the light in his eyes, that wasn’t anything deeper than lust. But if that was all she could have, she would take that. Right now, she would take it, and she wouldn’t think about the wisdom of it, or the consequences.

Because she was staring hard into a Zack-free future, and she would rather have all of him tonight, and carry the memory with her, than be nothing more than his trusty sidekick forever, standing by watching while he married another woman. Watching him make a life with someone else, someone he didn’t even love, while her heart splintered into tiny pieces with every beat.

“One night,” she repeated. “Here. Away from reality. Away from work and home. Because. We can’t keep going on like this. It can’t be healthy.”

The people around them started cheering and she looked around them, saw the paper lanterns start to rise up above them, filling the air with thousands of floating, ethereal lights.

“Just one night,” he said, his voice rough. “One night to explore this.” He touched her cheek. “To satisfy us both. Is that really what you want?”

“I want you. So much.”

He kissed her without preliminaries this time, her body pressed against hers, his erection thick and hard against her stomach as his mouth teased and tormented her in the most delicious way. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the heat coursing between them. When they parted she felt like she was floating up with the lanterns.

One night. The proposition made her heart ache, and pound faster. It excited her and terrified her. She didn’t know what she was thinking. But one thing she did know: he wanted her. He wasn’t faking the physical reaction she’d felt pressed against her.

The very thought of Zack, perfect, sexy Zack wanting her, was intoxicating. Empowering. She wanted to revel in the feeling. One night. To find out if her fantasies were all she’d built them up to be. One night to have the man of her dreams.

One night to make a memory that she would carry with her for the rest of her life.

CHAPTER SEVEN

BACK at the villa, Clara started to question some of the bravado she’d felt down in the city. It was one thing to know, for a moment, in public, fully dressed, that Zack was attracted to her. It was another to suddenly forget a lifetime’s insecurity. To wonder if it would be Hannah on his mind.

They were in the bedroom. And her eyes were fixed on the bed, that invitation to decadence, to passion unlike anything she’d ever known. With the man she loved.

She sucked in a breath. She wasn’t going to worry about how attracted he was to her, where she ranked with his other lovers. This night was for her. It was the culmination of every fantasy, every longing she’d had since Zack had walked into the bakery she worked at seven years ago and offered her a job.

He pulled her to him and kissed her. Hungry. Wild. She felt it, too, an uncontrollable, uncivilized need that had no place anywhere else in her life. No one had ever made her feel like this. No one had ever made her want to forget every convention, every rule, and just follow her body’s most untamed needs.

But Zack did.

“I want you,” she said, her voice breaking as they parted. She had to say it. Because it had been building in her for so long and now she felt like she was going to burst with it.

“I want you, too. I’ve thought of this before,” Zack said, unbuttoning his shirt as he spoke, revealing that gorgeous, toned chest. “Of what it might be like to see you.”

“To … to see me?”

“Naked,” he said.

“You have?” she asked, her voice trembling now, because she’d hoped, maybe naively, that he would want the lights off. She didn’t want him to see her. Touch, yes. Taste, sure. But see?

“Of course I have. I’ve tried not to think about it too hard. Because you work for me. Because you’re my friend. And it’s not good to picture friends or employees naked. In my life, everything has a place, and yours was never supposed to be in my bed. And I was never supposed to imagine you naked. But I have anyway sometimes.”

“I have a hard time believing that.”

“Why?” He shrugged his shirt off and let it fall to the floor, then his hands went to his belt and her breath stuck in her throat.

“Because I’m … average.”

He chuckled, his hands freezing on the belt buckle. “Damn your mother for making you believe that garbage.” He took a step toward her and put his hand on her cheek, his thumb sliding gently across her face. “You are exquisite. You have such perfect skin. Smooth. Soft. And your body.” He put his other hand on her waist. “I thought of you last night. Of this. Of how beautiful you would look.”

Reflexively she pulled back slightly.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m not … What was Hannah? A size two? I’m … I’m not a size two.”

“Beauty isn’t a size. I don’t care what the number on the tag of your dresses says. I don’t care what your sister looked like, or what your mother thought you should look like. I know what I see. You have the kind of curves other women envy.” He reached around and caught the tab on her summer dress with his thumb and forefinger and tugged it down partway.

Her hands shook, her body trembling inside and out. She felt like she was back beneath the spotlight again. Just waiting to have all of her flaws put out there for everyone to ridicule.

“Wait,” she said.

His hands stilled. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Please. Can were turn the lights off?”

There was only one lamp on. It wasn’t terribly bright in the room, but she still felt exposed already, with the zipper barely open across the top part of her back. She felt awkward. Unexceptional. Especially faced with all of Zack’s perfection. He didn’t have an ounce of spare flesh, every muscle perfectly defined as though he were carved from granite.

He put his hands on her hips and pulled her to him. She could feel his erection again, hard and hot against her. “You are perfect.” He moved his hands around to her back, to her bottom, cupping her. She gasped. She’d never been this intimate with a man. She wondered if she should be more or less nervous that it was Zack she was finally taking the step with.

No one had seen her naked, not since she was in diapers. She didn’t even change in public locker rooms. She would hide in bathroom stalls, needing the coverage of four walls and a door. And Zack wanted.

“Please.”

“Let me see you first.” Her eyes met his and she drew in an unsteady breath. “It’s me, Clara.”

“I know,” she said.

“When you’re ready.”

She took a breath and turned away from him, catching the zipper and tugging it down the rest of the way, letting her dress fall to the floor. Zack moved behind her, his arm curving around her, his palm pressed flat against her stomach.

He swept her hair to the side and pressed a kiss to her neck. “As I said. Perfection.”

He turned her slowly, keeping his arms around her, holding her against him, his hard body acting as a shield. Cocooned in his arms, she didn’t feel quite so naked.

She looked at his eyes, so familiar, yet different at the same time. Zack’s eyes, filled with a kind of raw lust she’d never had directed at her before. Not by him, not by any man. The enormity of the moment hit her then. She was about to be with Zack. About to make love to him.

She started shaking then, her hands, her entire body, from the inside out. He wrapped his arms around her and held her against him. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m okay.”

“Why are you shaking?” She couldn’t answer. “Be honest,” he said.

“Because it’s you.”

He tilted his head to the side and kissed her. She closed her eyes determined to do nothing more than luxuriate in the moment. The heat of his mouth, the slide of his tongue. She was going to believe, in this moment, that she could be the woman he wanted.

He reached around and unhooked her bra. He pulled back from her for a moment so he could remove it the rest of the way, leaving her exposed to his hungry gaze. “I said you were perfection, but I didn’t know just how true that was.”

A hot flush spread over her entire body, heating her. Embarrassment battling with desire.

He cupped her breasts, sliding his thumbs over her nipples. And that was when desire won. She shook with pleasure, her stomach tightening, her internal muscles pulsing, her body ready, demanding, more of him. Demanding climax. She was close to finding it, with just the touch of his hands. Maybe it was because in her mind she had found pleasure with him so many times, in reality, it was effortless to get close to the peak.

A hoarse sound caught in her throat and she felt herself go over the edge. She gripped his forearms, her fingernails digging into his flesh. As soon as the numbing pleasure washed away, embarrassment crashed in on her. She couldn’t believe she’d come so quickly. Telling in so many ways. She hadn’t realized just how impossible it would be to keep secrets when they were like this, hadn’t realized just how intimate it would be.

“I …” She looked at his face, and his expression stole the words from her lips. A look of pure masculine satisfaction, combined with total arousal. The embarrassment dissolved. She reached forward and put her hands on his belt buckle, undoing it and pulling his belt from the loops.

He pulled her to him again, kissing her like a starving man. She reached between them and undid the closure on his pants, pushing them down his hips, along with his underwear. She felt his bare flesh against her for the first time, so impossibly hot and hard.

She wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed. She wasn’t sure why, only that she wanted to. That she wanted to touch him, taste him, everywhere. To make him feel half of what he’d made her feel.

So this would be about him, a little bit. But mostly, she was just going to enjoy having the man she’d dreamed of having for so long, completely available to her. For tonight, he was hers.

He put his hand on her thigh and pulled her leg up over his hip. She held on to his shoulders and he curled his fingers around her other thigh, lifting her off the ground and walking her to the bed, up the step, laying her down on the soft mattress, his body over hers, making her feel small. Feminine. Beautiful.

He dipped his head and slid the tip of his tongue around the edge of one of her nipples. She arched into him and he sucked the tip into his mouth, his eyes never leaving hers.

“You’re so sensitive there,” he said, his voice sounding different, strained. “I love it.”

“I like it, too,” she said. It was the first time she’d ever really liked her body.

He tugged her panties down her thighs and she helped kick them off of the bed. “I stand by what I said earlier. Perfection.” He kissed her ribs, just beneath her breasts, down to her belly button. “Designed to take pleasure. For me to give you pleasure. Exquisite.” He moved lower, his lips teasing the tender skin. He parted her thighs and slid his tongue over her clitoris. White heat shot through her body, a deep, intense pleasure tightening her muscles. She gripped the sheets, trying to hold herself to the bed.

He slid one finger inside her and she thought she might explode. Then another finger joined the first and a slight stinging sensation cut through the pleasure. She held her breath for a moment and waited for it to fade. It would. She knew it would. And all the better if he took care of it this way.

He worked his fingers in and out of her body, each time, the discomfort lessened. And he didn’t seem to notice. Which was fine by her.

“I can’t wait anymore,” he said, his voice rough, broken.

“I don’t think I can wait, either.”

He moved up so that the head of his erection was testing the entrance to her body, his arms bracketing hers, his biceps trembling slightly. He was as undone as she was. It was such a wonderful, incredible feeling. It made her truly believe that she was beautiful.

He pushed into her partway then pulled out completely, swearing sharply.

“What?” she asked, hoping it had nothing to do with her virginity. Because she couldn’t stop. Not now.

“Condoms,” he said, his hands unsteady as he opened the drawer to the bedside table. He opened the box and pulled out a packet, getting the condom out and rolling it on to his length quickly.

“Oh. Good.” She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it. She should have. But there were so many things filling her head. So many emotions. She’d almost forgotten the most important thing.

Then he was back, poised over her, ready to enter her.

He slid back in as far as he’d already been, then pressed in the rest of the way. It was tight, but it wasn’t painful, the evidence of her virginity likely dealt with earlier.

He flexed his hips, his pelvis pressing against her clitoris at exactly the right angle, the sensation of him being inside her as her muscles clenched tight around him so incredible she couldn’t stop the moan of pleasure from escaping her lips.

She gripped his tight, muscular butt, so much more perfect than she’d even imagined. Everything so much more perfect than she’d imagined.

She wrapped her legs around his calves and held him to her, moving in rhythm with his thrusts, the pleasure building low in her stomach, emotion swelling in her chest, threatening to overflow. It came to a head, pushing her until she was certain that unless she found release, she would break apart into tiny little pieces beneath the weight of the pressure inside of her.

Then she was falling apart, splintering, release, pleasure, love, pouring through the cracks, filling her, washing through her. She dug her fingernails into his back, squeezing her eyes closed tight. She didn’t even try to stop the sharp cry that was climbing her throat, couldn’t feel embarrassed that she was arching and moving against him with no control at all.

Because he was right with her, his entire body trembling, his fist gripping the comforter by her head, a low, intense growl rumbling in his chest as he found his own release.

He lay above her, his breathing harsh, his heart pounding so hard she could hear it. And she was pretty sure he could hear hers, too.

“Wow,” she said.

He moved to the side, withdrawing from her body, one arm resting on her body. He was watching her closely, like he wanted to ask her something. Or like he thought he should but didn’t want to.

“You’ve never been careful about what you said to me before,” she said. “Don’t start now.”

He huffed a laugh. “Clara …”

“Actually I changed my mind,” she said. “We have one night. Why talk about anything?”

Something in his expression changed, hardened. “I think that’s a good idea.” He rolled to his side and stood up. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He went into the bathroom and came back out a moment later.

“What do you propose we do, if we aren’t going to talk?”

She got up on her knees and went to the edge of the bed, wrapping her arms around his neck, uncharacteristic boldness surging through her. “I’m sure we can think of a few things.”

This was her night to have all of the man she loved. And she wasn’t going to miss out on a single experience.

Morning came too quickly, light breaking through the gauzy curtain that surrounded the bed, bringing reality in with the sunbeams.

She didn’t want the night to end. She didn’t want to face reality. She’d felt like a princess last night; beautiful, desired. She’d felt like her dream was in her grasp. And this morning she felt like she’d turned back into a pumpkin. Reality sucked.

She looked at the man sleeping next to her, the only man she’d ever really wanted. The only man she’d ever loved.

And today, she would have to get up and forget that last night had happened. She would have to consign it to the “perfect memories” bin along with other things she pulled out when she was feeling lonely, or when things weren’t going well.

The thought made her whole body hurt.

“I arranged to have the plane leave in an hour or so,” he said, his eyes still closed.

“Okay,” she said, swallowing thickly and sliding out of the bed, clutching the sheet tightly to her breasts, desperate to cover herself now, in the light of day. It was one thing to feel sexy, to be all right with her nudity when he was looking at her like he was starving and she was a delicacy. A lot less easy when he seemed … uninterested.

“I’m going to take a shower real quick.”

He made a noise that might have been a form of consent, but she didn’t ask for confirmation before beating a hasty retreat to the bathroom. She turned the water on and sat on the closed toilet lid, letting the tears fall down her cheeks, hoping the sound of the water hitting the tile would drown out the sound of her sobs.

Zack sat up, a curse on his lips. Last night … last night had been an aberration. A hot, amazing aberration, maybe, but it could never happen again. He had been careless. He’d nearly forgotten to use a condom. And she’d been a virgin.

If he’d thought about it, if he’d thought at all, he would have guessed that. He knew her well enough to have picked up on how nervous she was, to understand what that meant. He also knew her well enough to know she wasn’t really a one-night-stand woman. She was sensitive, emotional. Sweet.

His stomach twisted, nausea overtaking him, spreading through his limbs. She probably wasn’t on birth control, and there was a possibility that in that moment, when he’d been inside of her without protection, that he’d made a very big mistake.

No, he knew he’d made a mistake. He hit his fist on the top of the nightstand and stood, stalking through the room collecting his clothes. Had he learned nothing? Was he as stupid now as he’d been fourteen years ago?

His heart froze for a moment, the events of what sometimes felt like a past life, playing through his head from start to finish. Like a horror film he couldn’t pause.

No. He’d worked way too hard to leave that person behind. That boy, who had been so irresponsible. Who had caused so much damage.

Last night he’d lost control. With Clara, of all people. She shouldn’t have tempted him like that. But she had. She’d made him shake like he was the virgin.

It couldn’t happen again. It wouldn’t. He might have lost his control for a moment, but he wouldn’t do it again.

Clara appeared a few moments later, her face scrubbed fresh and pink, her hair wet and wavy. She was dressed, a fitted T-shirt and jeans meaningless now since he’d already seen her naked and his mind was doing a very good job of envisioning her as she’d been last night.

All pale skin and soft curves. Pure perfection. Better than he’d ever imagined.

“Hey,” she said, trying to smile and not quite managing it.

“Are you all right?” he asked. He’d never slept with a virgin before, but that was only part of the foreign, first-time feeling he was dealing with. The other part of that was because it was Clara. And the rest was because of his carelessness.

Carelessness that had to be addressed.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Are you on birth control?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes. “No.”

He tried to get a handle on the gnawing panic in his gut. Condoms were reliable. He knew that. But there was the matter of his impatience, of his entering her, even briefly, without protection. He swore. “Why not?”

“What?” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I’m sorry, was I supposed to start taking the pill just in case you invited me on your honeymoon and we hooked up? I was a virgin, you jackass.”

“I know,” he shouted, not sure why he was shouting, only that his blood was pumping too fast through his veins and his heart was threatening to thunder out of his chest. “I know,” he said again, softer this time.

“You used a condom,” she said, her cheeks flushing pink.

“Yes, I did, eventually. There’s a chance that kind of carelessness could have gotten you pregnant. It’s not a big chance, but there is a chance.”

“I … I seriously doubt that I’m pregnant. Well, obviously I’m not pregnant yet since things take a while to travel and … well, that’s high-school health, you know all that.”

“But there’s a chance. I’m usually more careful.”

“Zack, I think you’re overreacting.”

“Is that what you think, Clara?” he asked, his voice deadly calm. “You think I’m overreacting because you think it can’t happen. But then, you’ve never been pregnant, obviously. And I have gotten a woman pregnant, so I think I might be a bit more in touch with that reality than you are. Do you know what it’s like? To know that everything in your life is going to have to change because for one moment you were so utterly selfish and consumed with one moment of pleasure that you didn’t think about anything else?”

Clara’s heart was in her throat. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. It was like a shield had been torn away from Zack, like his armor had dissolved, crumbled around his feet, leaving nothing but the man he was beneath his facade. A facade she hadn’t realized was there.

This was the man she’d seen glimpses of. The reason for the darkness that she saw in his eyes sometimes. And she was afraid to hear the rest. But she had to.

His chest rose and fell sharply. “I was sixteen. And I was more interested in getting some than thinking about using a condom. Turns out you can get someone pregnant after just one time, regardless of the idiot rumors floating around the high school saying otherwise.”

She didn’t ask him what happened. She didn’t interrupt the break. She just let his silence fill the room, and she felt his pain. Felt it in her, through her. She didn’t have to know what happened to know that it was bad. Devastating. To know that knowing it was going to change her. The way it had changed Zack.

“I didn’t want a baby, but we were having one. She wanted it. I didn’t want him,” he said. “But I got a job so that I could pay for the doctor bills. So I could help her raise him. Because at least I knew that I should do the right thing.” A muscle in his jaw jerked. “He came too early. And by the time I realized how badly I did want him, it was too late. By the time I realized that a baby can very quickly mean everything in the world to you, he was gone.”

She tried to hold back the sob that was rising inside her. His face was blank now, void of emotion, flat. Like he was reading a story in a newspaper, not telling her about his life.

“Another reason Hannah was so perfect for me,” he said. “She didn’t want kids.”

“You don’t. You don’t want kids?”

“I had one, Clara. I would never … I will never put myself through something like that again. I nearly died with him. I don’t make the same mistakes twice. I’m always careful now.”

Except last night, he wasn’t as careful as he usually was, obviously. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Or what it might mean. And right now, she wished they had never slept together. Because she wanted to comfort him as a friend. To tell him how much her heart ached for him. But she wasn’t sure if it was her place now. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. What he expected. What he would allow.

Because now she saw just how much he had always hidden from her. She saw a stranger. She wondered if it was even possible that this man, hard and angry, was the same man she’d seen every day for the past seven years.

“How did you … how did you cope with it?”

“I don’t need to talk about it, Clara. I don’t talk about it, ever. This isn’t an invitation for you to psychoanalyze me. But now you know why I insist on being careful. That’s the important part of the story. And you’ll tell me, if you’re pregnant.”

“I’ll let you know,” she said. “But I’m sure everything will be fine.”

He turned away from her and shrugged his shirt on.

“Everything will be fine,” she repeated. That assurance was just for her. And she wasn’t certain she believed it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE plane ride back to San Francisco was a study in torture. Zack was hardly speaking to her and she felt battered from the inside out. Her body was a little bit sore from her first time, and her heart felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry.

Zack was acting overly composed. His focus on work, not on her. Not on the revelation that had passed between them, both in bed and out.

She didn’t feel like the same person. She felt changed. She wasn’t sure if Zack was the same person, either. Or maybe he was; maybe it was just that she saw him better now.

“I think I’ll probably take a couple days off,” she said, looking over at Zack who was engrossed in his laptop screen. “Recover. From the jet lag.”

“Fine.”

The chill in his response made her shiver. “And I’m thinking of buying a pony.”

“You don’t have anywhere to keep one,” he said drily, still not looking up.

“Just a small one. For the rooftop garden.”

He did look up this time. “Your neighbors would complain.”

“I don’t like my neighbors.” That earned her a slight smile. “So, what’s the plan when we get back to civilization?”

“With any luck, things can go back to normal.”

Two questions flitted through her mind. Luck for who? And, what’s normal? She didn’t voice either of them. “Okay.”

“I still need you there, at Roasted, until Amudee signs off on the deal.”

“Right.” She looked down at her hand. The ring was still there. “You’ll want this back, I assume.” She pulled the ring off and got up, walking over to his seat and depositing it on the desk in front of him. “Since we won’t need it.”

A relief. Wearing another woman’s ring made her feel weighted down.

“No. We won’t.” His eyes met hers and held. She felt heat prickle down her arms, her nipples tightening as a flash of arousal hit her.

“Great. I’ll um … I’m going to try to sleep.”

As she drifted off in the plane’s bedroom, she tried not to be disappointed that Zack didn’t join her.

“Amudee is coming here.”

Clara looked up and saw Zack. For the first time since they’d landed in San Francisco three days earlier. She’d taken a couple of days to get over her jet lag, and had sneaked around the office yesterday like a cat burglar, trying to get work done without encountering him.

Because ultimately, avoiding him was simply easier than trying to juggle all the emotions she felt when she saw him. Cowardly? Yes, yes, it was. But she felt a bit yellow-bellied after all that had happened between them, and she was wallowing in it.

“What?”

“He’s coming here to see how we run our operation. He wants to talk to employees, to see where we work. If we truly do conduct business in an ethical manner.”

Zack reached into his pocket and took out an overly familiar velvet box. He set it on the edge of her desk, his expression grim. “And now it continues. And every single person working in the this office has to believe it, too.”

“Zack this can’t. It has to end.”

“It will. After. And you can take as much money as you need for a start-up. You can have my blessing, hell, you can have free Roasted coffee for the first five years. But I want this deal to go through.”

“Ironic that you’re trying to convince him of your business ethics by using a lie,” she said, annoyance spiking inside her.

“Odd that it’s necessary, too, don’t you think?”

“He’s a nice man.”

“And a romantic, it seems. He loves you. He wants to make sure he sees us together as a couple again while he’s here.”

“Tangled web,” she snapped, putting her pencil down on the desk.

“Isn’t it?”

The air between them seemed to crackle, everything slowing for a moment, the silence so tense and brittle she was certain she could splinter it into tiny pieces if she spoke.

“Put it on,” he said, looking at the ring.

“I gave it back,” she said tightly.

“Clara, I need you to do this for me.”

She fought the urge to make a rude gesture with a different finger than the one meant for a ring and grabbed the box, opened the lid and slid the ring on. “There.”

“Come on.”

“What?”

“We have to make an announcement.”

“Zack …”

“We’re going to see this through, right? Then you can leave. Whatever you need to do, you can go do it, but finish this with me.”

“Fine.” She stood up and rounded the desk, he wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her to him. Heat exploded in her, stronger than she remembered, more arousing than anything had a right to be.

Instantly she was assaulted by images of their night together. His mouth, his hands, the way it had felt when he was over her, in her. It was torture. She clenched her hands into fists and the heavy ring band bit into her fingers.

There was a small group of employees who worked on her floor, their desks clustered in the center of the room. Roasted’s office had a social atmosphere, which Zack had always believed made for optimum creativity. Because Zack was a great boss, the kind who made everyone feel appreciated, all the time.

And he never, ever showed the dark, tortured side of himself she’d seen in Chiang Mai. He never showed the intense, sexual side of himself, either. But she’d seen it. She’d felt it.

“Clara and I have an announcement to make.”

Ten heads instantly popped up, eyes trained on her and Zack. Her heart started pounding, her palms sweating. It was one thing to lie to a man she’d never met before. A thing she hated. But it was really quite another to lie to people she worked with every day. People who she considered her friends.

“We’re getting married,” he said.

“Pay up.” Cynthia, a woman with gray hair and pronounced smile lines turned to Jess, a twenty-something computer whiz who did their online marketing.

Jess swore and took his wallet out.

“What is this?” Clara asked.

“Congratulations,” Cynthia said, beaming. “We had bets placed on this. I bet you would get married. Most everyone changed sides when Mr. Parsons got engaged to someone else. But I held out. And now I’m collecting.”

“Unbelievable,” Clara muttered. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this revelation, either. A little bit flattered that people believed it was possible.

“Clearly I’m not giving people enough work to do,” Zack said.

“Kiss her!” This from Jess, who undoubtedly considered it a consolation prize.

Everything inside Clara seized up, her muscles locking tight. Zack looked down at her, his fingers brushing her jaw. He dipped his head and kissed her. A perfectly appropriate kiss to give her in front of his employees. Nothing scandalous or overly sexual. But it grabbed hold of her world and shook it completely. Shook her.

When he lifted his head there was a smattering of applause. “Feel free to spread the news,” Zack said, lacing his fingers through hers and leading her toward his office.

He closed the door tightly behind him, taking long strides to the far window that overlooked the bay, his back turned to her.

“Good show,” she said icily.

He looked over his shoulder. “You could have been a little less stiff,” he said.

“You.” She strode across the room, embracing the anger, unrest and desire that was rioting through her. “You.” She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and stretched up onto her toes, kissing him with every last ounce of passion and frustration that she felt.

He locked his arm around her waist and drew her up tight against his body, his erection hard and hot against her. He spun them around and backed her against the wall, pressing her against the hard surface, his lips hungry as he tasted her, feasted on her.

She wrapped her arms around him, sifted her fingers through his thick brown hair, holding him to her as she returned each stroke and thrust of his tongue. The days of not touching him, thinking of him and denying herself the pleasure of even seeing in him, crashed in on her, fueled her desperation.

She growled in frustration, needing more, faster. Now. She pushed his jacket down his arms and onto the floor, grabbing the knot on his tie and tugging it down as he put his hands on her thighs and pushed the hem of her skirt up. She wrapped one leg around his calf and arched against him.

He tore his mouth away from hers and put his palm flat on the wall behind them, a short, sharp curse punctuated by heavy breaths escaped his lips.

The full horror of what she’d done hit her all at once, like getting a bucket of freezing water dumped in her face. She echoed his choice of swear word and ducked beneath his arm, leaning forward and bracing herself on his desk.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” she said.

“For more than one reason.”

“Why don’t you list them?” she said sharply.

“Fine. I’ll list them. We said one night. And that kind of kiss doesn’t stop at just a kiss. The second reason is that you mean more to me than this,” he said.

“Than what?”

“Than an angry make out session against a wall. Than you sneaking around, avoiding me, because we slept together. You mean more to me than sex.”

That cut. And maybe it shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t separate having sex with Zack from the emotions she felt for him. She loved him; sex had been an expression of that. Being joined to him, intimate with him, it had been everything.

But not to him. To him, the sex was separate from the feeling.

“Great. But I apparently don’t mean so much to you that you won’t use me as a pretend fiancée.” Her argument was thin, because frankly, if her feelings for him were platonic, the engagement thing would be nothing big at all.

But her feelings weren’t platonic. Not even close.

“Then leave, Clara. If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. I’m not holding you hostage. But understand this. I will likely lose the deal with Amudee, and then I won’t be able to get the product I need to start the boutique stores. And my search for an acceptable product will continue. It will cost everyone time and money, lots of it. That’s just stating a fact—it’s not emotional blackmail or anything else you might be tempted to accuse me of.”

Clara looked at his face, at the familiar planes and angles. The mouth she’d seen smile so many times, the lips she’d kissed just now. She knew him differently now than she had a week ago. She knew his body, she knew his loss. And as hard as it would have been for her to walk away then, it was impossible now. Impossible to leave him when she’d promised she would see this through.

“I’ll do it. I’ll play the part, I’ll keep playing the part, I mean. But I didn’t expect for it to go this far.”

“I know. But we had a deal.” He probably thought she meant the farce, but she was thinking of the sex. Or maybe he knew what she was really talking about and he was content to leave it ambiguous, just like she was.

“When the ink is dry on the agreement, it can be finished. You gave me your word,” he said.

“That’s low, Zack,” she said, sucking in a deep breath, trying to make her lungs expand.

“It’s true. I’ve been there for you when you needed me. I held your hair while you …”

“I know. Food poisoning. Please don’t bring that up.” It was right up there with her high-school humiliation. Zack watching her vomit. But he had taken care of her. There hadn’t been anyone else. Truly, they were the key players in each other’s lives. They were there for each other, at work and at home.

“My point is, I’ve helped you. Help me. I’m asking you as a friend, not your boss. Your friend.”

She gritted her teeth, raw emotion, so intense she couldn’t identify it, flooded her. She swung her arms back and forth, trying to ease the nervous energy surging through her limbs. “So when does Mr. Amudee get here?”

“Soon. He’ll be in the office tomorrow morning, so it would be good if we came in together.”

If they spent the night with each other, it would be even easier for them to commute to Roasted together, but she didn’t say that. And she wouldn’t. One night, that was all it was supposed to be and that was all it would be. Make-out sessions against the wall would be immediately stricken from record and forgotten. Completely.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“We should probably leave together, too,” he said.

“Probably.” That would mean an evening waiting around for him to leave. “I’m going to go down to the kitchens and fiddle around with some recipes.”

“I’ll see you down there.”

“See you then.” Hopefully a little baking therapy would clear her mind. Because if not, they were both in trouble.

By the time Zack made it down to the kitchen he didn’t have a handle on his libido or his temper. He’d figured a couple of hours separation for him and Clara would be a good idea, but it hadn’t accomplished anything on his end.

No, he wouldn’t feel satisfied until he was in bed with her again. Or just against the wall. That was why he had stopped kissing her, though. He didn’t have a condom.

As an adult he hadn’t had all that many lovers, mostly because he believed in taking things slowly, and making sure everything was completely safe. He liked for the woman to be on the pill, and he still used condoms, every time.

Already with Clara he’d been lax, skipping steps he hadn’t since high school, and then he’d been ready to forgo any sort of protection in his office so that he could be with her again. In her. Because the truth of the matter was, he hadn’t stopped thinking about how amazing that night had been since they’d arrived back in California. Not even close.

He’d dreamed of it, or rather, fantasized about it since sleep had eluded him. And when he hadn’t been thinking about making love with her, he’d been replaying the moment he’d told her about his son. Over and over again.

He never talked about Jake. Ever. Not since he’d died, still in the hospital he’d never had a chance to leave, only a couple of days old. Sarah had never wanted to talk about it, and they hadn’t had a romantic relationship at that point, anyway.

His parents … they had been horrified that their star football-playing son was going to give it all up to raise a child. If anything, they’d been relieved.

That day had changed everything. He’d been nothing more than a spoiled brat. An only child, destined to skate through college on a football scholarship. He’d taken everything, the adoration of the girls at his school, the free passes the teachers had given him, as his due.

But when Jake was born, he’d felt the weight of purpose. And when he died, it hadn’t gone away. He hadn’t fit anymore. In one blinding, clear moment he saw everything he’d done that was wrong, selfish, careless. He saw how his stupidity had cost everyone so much.

And he’d left. Left who he was. Left everyone he knew. And every day that passed was one day farther away from that awful day in the hospital. That day that had felt like someone reaching into his chest and yanking his emotions out, twisting them, distorting them.

He had never wanted to feel that way again. Ever. Even more importantly, he’d never wanted to have anything unplanned happen ever again. He wanted control. To plan, to consider the cost of his actions. To be in charge of his life.

He wasn’t sure why he’d told Clara about it. Although she had asked why the birth-control lapse was such a big deal to him. But then, a few of his girlfriends had wanted to know why he used every method he could think of to prevent pregnancy. It had cost him relationships since the women involved had taken it as a sign of just how much he didn’t want to be with them.

And while it was true he hadn’t been looking for forever, his reasoning hadn’t quite been what they’d assumed. Still, he hadn’t felt compelled to tell them the story. Maybe it was because Clara was … Clara. She was the one person who had been in his life with any regularity for the past decade.

And now he’d likely screwed it up by sleeping with her. Or by kissing her. Or maybe he’d screwed it up the moment he’d asked her to play fiancée and go on his honeymoon.

He pushed open the stainless-steel double doors that led to the baking facility and saw Clara, bending down and looking in one of the ovens.

He took the opportunity to enjoy the view, the way her skirt hugged the round curve of her butt. It was a crime that she’d been made to feel insecure about those curves. He flashed back to the heady moments in his office, when he’d had her skirt pushed up around her hips, when he’d been ready to.

She straightened and turned, her brown eyes widening. “Oh! I didn’t know you were here.”

“Just walked in. What did you make me?”

“I think you’ll like them. I have some cooling. I’m going to pass them out at lunch hour tomorrow.”

“No walnuts?”

“None. They’re Orange Cream. Don’t look at me like that, they’ll be good.” She handed him a vaguely orange cupcake with white frosting, coated in bright orange sugar crystals.

“It has orange zest in the cake, and there’s a Bavarian cream in the center. And the frosting is buttercream.”

“All things I like.” He took a bite, relishing the burst of sweet citrus and cream. She really was a genius. She’d hooked him with her cupcake-making skills the first time he’d met her, and he’d known then he had to have her for his company. That with her, his line of baked goods would be a massive success. And they had been.

And now she was leaving him.

“Good,” he said, even though now he was having a hard time swallowing the bite.

“See? I told you.”

“And I told you you wouldn’t be easily replaced. You’re the best at what you do.”

She smiled, a sort of funny smile that almost made her look sad. “I do bake a mean cupcake. I’m glad you like them.”

He wasn’t going to ask her what was wrong. Because he wasn’t sure if he could fix it, and he was afraid he might be the cause of it. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, ready. Oh, wait.” She stopped and moved toward him, her eyes fixed on his mouth. His entire body was hot and hard instantly. Ready for her touch, her kiss. She extended her hand and put her thumb on the corner of his mouth. “You had some frosting there,” she said, her tone as sweet as her cupcakes, her eyes filled with a knowing, sexual expression that told him she was tormenting him, and she knew it. It was going to be an interesting few weeks.

CHAPTER NINE

“I’M not going to bite you.”

Clara glared at Zack from her position in the passenger side of his sporty little two-seater. She was clinging to the door handle, her shoulder smashed against the window. As much space between them as was humanly possible in the tiny metal cage.

The first words that bubbled up were well that’s a shame. But she held them back, because she was not going to flirt with him. Was not. And she was going to forget about that lapse in the kitchen when she’d wiped the frosting from his mouth. She hadn’t licked it off and that had been her first inclination, so really, her self-control was pretty rock solid.

“I know,” she said. Much more innocuous than an invitation to bite her, that was for sure.

“Then stop clinging to the door handle like you’re planning on jumping out when there’s a lull in traffic.”

She laughed, somehow, even though most of her felt anything but amused by the entire situation. “I’m not, I promise.” She relaxed her hold on the door.

“Good.” They pulled down into the underground parking lot of Roasted and into the spot that was second closest to the elevator. He’d given her the closest spot years ago. Some sort of chivalrous gesture, silly, but at the time she’d loved it.

He put the car in Park and killed the engine, getting out and closing the door behind him. She watched him straighten his shirt collar through the window. He hated ties. He didn’t wear them unless he had to. It was sexier when he didn’t, in her opinion. It showed a little bit of his sculpted chest, a bit of dark hair. Of course, it was sexier when he didn’t wear a shirt at all.

She felt the door give behind her and she squeaked, tightening her hold on the handle. Zack had opened it, just a bit, and was looking down at her, the expression on his face wicked.

“Are you going to sit in there all day? Because we have a meeting,” he said.

“Creep,” she said, no venom in her tone.

He winked and darn it all, it made her stomach turn over. “Only during business hours.”

She released her hold on the door and he opened it the rest of the way, waiting for her to get out before pushing the up button on the lift. When they got in and the door closed, the easy moment evaporated.

The tension was back, and so thick she could hardly breathe. Judging by the sharp pitch of his chest when he drew in a breath, he felt the same. It made her feel better. Slightly.

“So, when is he coming in?”

“Soon,” Zack said, his eyes fixed on the doors.

“Oh.”

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Clara nearly sagged with relief as she scurried out of the elevator, eager to get back into non-shared air space.

When she and Zack walked into the main reception area the employees milling around, scavenging on last night’s baking efforts stopped and clapped for them. She ducked her head and offered a smile and finger wave. She didn’t know if Zack made a reciprocal gesture or not. She was far too busy not dying of humiliation.

The gleaming, golden elevator doors that would take them up to their offices were just up ahead. She made a dash for it, and Zack got in behind her, the doors sliding closed.

“So many elevators,” she said.

“Is that a problem?”

“Not at all,” she said.

Two interminable minutes later they were on the floor that housed both of their offices. “I have work to do,” she said, heading toward her own office. A little sanctuary would not go amiss.

“No time, Amudee is in the building. My office.”

He put his hand on the small of her back and directed her into his office, closing the door behind them. A horrible, hot, tantalizing sense of déjà vu hit her. Their eyes clashed and held, his all steel heat and temptation. He took a step toward her just as the intercom on his desk phone went on.

“Mr. Parsons? Mr. Amudee is here to see you.”

Zack leaned back and punched a button on the phone. “Send him in.”

She wished she were relieved. She wasn’t. She was just disappointed that she hadn’t gotten to experience the conclusion of Zack’s step forward. Of what he might have intended to do.

Zack’s office door opened and the reason for their charade walked in, looking as personable and cheerful as ever, the lines by his dark eyes deepening as he smiled. “Good to see you again. Zack, I stopped by one of your locations here in the city on my way in, I was very impressed.”

“Thank you, Mr. Amudee,” Zack said, his charm turned on and dialed up several notches.

She watched Zack work, a sense of awe overtaking her. He was good, and she knew that, but seeing him in action was always incredible. He was smart and he was savvy. And the best part was, he really was a man of ethical business practices.

That, she knew, was the thing that made working with Amudee so important to him. Because he didn’t just want to import coffee and tea from any farm. He didn’t want to get involved in a share-cropping situation. He didn’t want anyone being taken advantage of so that he could turn a profit.

Unfortunately Amudee seemed just as picky about who he did business with. And when money wasn’t the be all and end all … you couldn’t just throw dollars at it to solve everything. Dollars Zack had. It was the fiancée he’d found himself short of.

She toyed with the ring on her finger, her secondhand ring. The one that had belonged to Hannah. She would be a happy woman the moment she could get it off her finger and keep it off, that was for sure.

“So, dinner tonight, then?” Zack said. “Clara?” he prompted.

“Oh, yes. Tonight. Dinner.”

“And as for today, I’d be happy to give you a tour of the corporate office. You can see how we run things here.”

Mr. Amudee nodded in approval and started to head out the office door with Zack. “So,” she said, “I think I’ll go to my office and get some work done then.”

“Great.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek before walking out of the room.

She knew it was an empty gesture, all part of the show. But it still made her feel like she was floating to her office instead of walking. And no matter how much she tried to tell herself not to think about it, her cheek burned for the rest of the morning.

“What is this?”

When Zack had seen Clara’s number flash onto his cell-phone screen, he’d heard her sweet hello before he’d even answered. So being greeted by a venomous hiss was an unexpected, unpleasant surprise.

“What is what, Clara? I’m currently battling traffic on North Point so I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“This dress. This … Do you even call it a dress? I mean it’s short and slinky and I think the neckline is designed to show skin all the way down to a woman’s belly button.”

“I saw it, and I liked it, so I had my PA send it over.”

“I agreed to a lot when I agreed to play fiancée, but I did not,” she growled and paused for a moment before continuing, “agree to stuff myself into a gown that has all the give of saran wrap like a Vienna sausage!”

“I like the visual, but your attitude needs work.”

“Your head needs work,” she shot back.

“Wear the dress.” He hung up the phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat before maneuvering his car against the curb in front of Clara’s apartment.

He didn’t bother to wait for the elevator. He took the stairs two at a time and knocked on her door, beneath the pretty, pink flowery wreath thing she had hung there. A clever ruse to make people think the owner of the apartment was sweetness and light when, at the moment, she was spitting flame and sulfur.

The door jerked open and he met Clara’s glittering brown eyes. And then he looked down and all of the blood in his body roared south.

She was right about the dress. A deep scarlet, it would draw the eye of everyone in the restaurant. And while it didn’t show her belly button, it did put her amazing cleavage on display. The soft, rounded curves of her breasts were accentuated by the sweetheart neckline, the pleating in the waist showing off just how tiny she was, before her hips flared out, the fabric conforming to that gorgeous, hourglass shape of hers.

“I am not going out in this.”

“It’s too late for you to change,” he said, barely able to force himself to raise his eyes to her face. He had to admit, the dress was counterproductive as when it came to trying to put Clara back into the proper compartment she was meant to be in in his life, he didn’t want her to change.

He wanted to look at her in that dress for as long as he could. And then, he wanted to lower the zipper on the back of it and watch it slither down her body. He wanted to see her again, soft, naked and begging him to take her.

“Zack …”

“Do you have something against looking sexy?”

“What? No.”

“Then what’s the problem? If it honestly offends your modesty in some way, fine, change. But otherwise, you look …”

“Like I’m trying too hard?”

He took a step and she backed away from the door, letting him into the apartment. He shouldn’t touch her. Not even an innocent gesture. Because with the thoughts that were running through his brain, nothing could be innocent.

He did anyway, and he ignored the voice in his head telling him to stay in control. He was in control. He could touch her without doing more. He was the master of his body, of his emotions.

He put his finger on her jaw, traced the line of it down her neck, to her exposed collarbone.

“You look effortless. As though bringing men to their knees is something you do every day of the week without breaking a sweat. You look like the kind of woman who can have anyone or anything she wants.”

“I … I … well, I don’t appreciate you dressing me,” she said. “It’s demeaning.”

“I don’t know if it was demeaning, but selfish, perhaps.”

“Selfish?”

“Because I’m enjoying looking at you so much.”

She bent down and picked up a black shawl from the couch, looping it over her arms before grabbing a black clutch purse from the little side table. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

She breezed out the door ahead of him, clearly resigned to wearing the dress.

“Probably not,” he said, his tone light.

“But you did anyway,” she said, turning to face him.

“I did. There are a lot of things I shouldn’t have said or done over the past couple of weeks, and yet, it seems I’ve said and done them all.”

“I haven’t,” she said, turning away from him again and heading down the stairs, eager to avoid being in an elevator with him, he imagined.

“Oh, really?”

“Mmm. I have been virtuous. I’ve wanted to say and do many things in the past week that I haven’t.”

“Why do I feel disappointed by that news?”

“I don’t know. You shouldn’t be,” she said, her stilettos clicking and echoing in the stairwell. “You should be thankful.” She pushed open the exterior door and they both walked out into the cool evening air.

“I find I’m not.”

“I can’t help you there.”

Something hot and reckless sparked in him. She must have noticed because she backed away from him until she bumped against his car. That was a picture, Clara, in scarlet silk, leaning against his black sports car. The fantasies that were rolling through his mind should be illegal.

“I wish you could,” he said, taking a step toward her.

She shook her head. “There’s no help for either of us.”

“I’m starting to think that might be true.”

He wanted to kiss the red off her lips. He wanted to take her back upstairs and do something about the unbearable ache that had settled in his body more than a week ago and hadn’t released him since.

“Let’s go. We have a dinner date,” he said, his voice curt, harsher than he’d intended.

She nodded and went around to the passenger side and he let out a long, slow breath, trying to ease the tension in his body.

Being with her once hadn’t helped at all. One night hadn’t been enough.

But there wouldn’t be another night. There would be no point to it.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.