Her Favorite Rival (25 page)

The rest of the day went smoothly enough. He managed to avoid complete humiliation by finishing in the middle of the field for his team of five players, not too bad a showing, and the sunshine and fresh air went a long way toward blowing away the smell of the hospital and keeping him awake and alert.

It helped that every now and then he caught sight of a trim, neatly dressed figure playing farther along the course. Even from a distance, he knew it was Audrey. There was something about the way she walked, the way she held herself, that he would have recognized in a crowd of millions.

He watched her from afar and wondered what had been going through her mind when she’d lied for him, and found himself grinning like a fool all over again.

He shouldn’t be. He knew he should be worried that after nearly two weeks, he wasn’t even close to moving on from their one night together. He should be busy writing off her act of charity as a gesture of comradeship from one colleague to another, instead of reading all sorts of things into it.

He didn’t care. Maybe that was because he was so tired, or maybe it was because he’d spent the night beside his sick mother, and turning his back on something—on someone—who felt as good and life-affirming and
right
as Audrey did seemed nuts.

He didn’t want to stop at one night. He didn’t want to stop, period. He wanted to see her again. Screw the consequences. He’d dotted his
I’
s and crossed his
T’
s and paid his dues. He figured he deserved something that was just for him. Something good. Something that made him happy.

They could sort out the work stuff later. Somehow. They were both intelligent, articulate adults. There had to be some way that they could negotiate a relationship without it impacting on their careers.

Relationship. Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?

He was. Big time. He knew there was no guarantee that Audrey would be prepared to risk the inevitable flak that might come their way if they embarked on something long-term. God knows, it wasn’t as though the situation at work had gotten any less tense or fraught. There was no guarantee she wanted anything more from him at all, apart from one night of scorchin’, smokin’ sex.

So be it, but he had to try. He’d regret it for the rest of his life if he let her slip through his fingers without a fight. He knew it in his bones.

As for the myriad complications that would arise the moment they decided their one night was the beginning of something more...well, they could cross those bridges when they came to them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A
UDREY
WAS
HOT
and tired by the time her team trudged the final few meters to the clubhouse. The men separated to find the bar and make phone calls, and she found a bench beneath a shade tree and drank a whole bottle of cold, cold water in one fell swoop.

Better. Much better.

Resting her elbows on the backrest of the bench, she watched the other teams straggle in. There was lots of ragging and catcalling as people compared scores, and she found herself smiling more than once at some of the slurs and jokes.

It hadn’t been too awful a day. She’d surprised herself by finishing first in her team, a minor miracle that said more about how bad her teammates were than her own skill. Still, not too shabby. And best of all, the ordeal was almost over for another year.

Her gaze caught on a tall, broad-shouldered figure among a group of men returning to the clubhouse.

Zach.

Her stomach did the familiar nervous-excited dance that it always did when he was around.

She’d spotted him from a distance midmorning and been relieved—he’d arrived in one piece, so she could put the worst-case scenarios chattering away in the back of her head to rest once and for all.

Whether he’d maintained her impulsively offered cover story was something she was yet to discover. Jenny hadn’t rushed over with a “please explain” yet so that was a good sign. She hoped.

Glad of the privacy offered by her sunglasses and the bill of her cap, she watched Zach as he approached the clubhouse.

He was dressed in slim-cut chinos and a navy polo shirt, a navy Makers baseball cap casting a shadow over his sunglasses, and he looked far hotter than any man had a right to in any of the above. But he always looked hot, no matter what he was wearing. Especially when he was wearing nothing.

We’ve had the “not helpful” chat before, right?

She batted away her inner nag. There was no harm in enjoying one of nature’s simple pleasures. Just because she was looking didn’t necessarily mean that she would be touching. She understood that Zach was out of bounds.

She knew the exact moment he spotted her—his head came up, and she felt his gaze on her, as warm and real as a caress. Any ease she’d felt fled for the hills as he abandoned his buggy and made a beeline for her. She glanced around, hoping no one else had noticed the very intent way he was homing in on her, all the while trying to quell the excited rush of awareness rocketing through her.

He was coming over to talk to her. Nothing more. She needed to calm the hell down.

“Hey,” she said when he stopped in front of her.

His shadow fell across her as he looked at her. “I owe you,” he said bluntly.

She shook her head. “No, you don’t. You’d do the same for me.”

He sat beside her on the bench. It wasn’t the longest bench in the world, and the two of them were a cozy fit. She didn’t move, though. This was the closest she’d been to him in days, and, God help her, she wanted the contact.

There would be plenty of time for her to flagellate herself for her weakness later.

He copied her posture, propping his elbows on the backrest, his gaze focused on the course, not on her. For a moment they were both silent as they pretended to be people-watching.

“I
would
do the same for you. In a pinch.” His voice was gravelly and very low.

“I know.”

“What do you think that means?”

“All this self-sacrificing behavior, you mean?”

“Yeah, that.”

“That we’re friends?”

He was silent for a long beat. “I don’t feel very friendly toward you.”

She turned her head to look at him. “Don’t you?”

“Not at all. I’ve been thinking about it, and I realized that if you and I didn’t work together, there’s no way I would have let you go the other night.”

It was such a frank, raw admission, for a moment she couldn’t think, let alone speak.

“I believe they’ve opened the bar in the clubhouse if you’re feeling a powerful urge for an out right about now,” Zach said.

She didn’t move.

She cleared her throat. “If you want another night—”

“I want more than a night. I want to take you somewhere nice for dinner. I want to go to the movies with you and get it on in the back row. I want to do the Saturday morning crossword puzzle with you in bed.”

Her heart was pounding. She was so excited and uncertain about what she was hearing, she felt a little sick.

Zach wanted to see her. To date her. To have a
relationship
with her. Or to try to have one, anyway.

He stood. She opened her mouth to protest, but he shook his head.

“I’m not going to push you. Think about it. I know it’s not exactly an easy option. Take as long as you like. You know where to find me.”

Before she could speak he was gone, striding toward the nearest group of men.

She felt shell-shocked. As though someone had stolen her center of gravity. Deep inside, she’d hoped that Zach would suggest they spend the night together again. She hadn’t for a moment considered that he might want more. It certainly hadn’t occurred to
her
to want more.

She wasn’t sure why that was. Perhaps because it had been a while since she’d had a man in her life, and it simply wasn’t the first place her mind went to.

Or maybe it was because she was a little afraid of wanting too much where Zach was concerned. It would be so easy—too easy—to fall in love with him. He was amazing in bed, he stimulated her, he challenged her, he made her laugh. When she was with him she felt more alive, as though she was her best self. Sharper. Smarter. More attractive. Sexier.

Okay. So what? So what if you start really seeing Zach and you fall in love with him? Would that be the end of the world?

It might be. If he didn’t fall in love with her in return, it would be damned awkward. And sad and hurtful and all the other things that came with a broken heart.

But that was the same risk everyone took when they started seeing someone, wasn’t it? The only difference in their case was that a love affair gone wrong had the potential to make work hell on earth in addition to casting a blight over their private lives.

And that was without considering how their burgeoning relationship might be viewed by the powers that be. While there was no official nonfraternization rule within the company, Makers was a conservative organization. She knew eyebrows would be raised, questions asked. After all, how could they possibly have fallen for each other when they were supposed to spend every living, breathing moment working for the company’s good? Especially now, when it was supposed to be all hands on deck to lift the load created by Whitman’s
rationalizing.

Granted, embarking on a proper relationship with someone was a different proposition from a one-night hookup, but she wasn’t going to kid herself—she and Zach going out together would not be viewed favorably. It simply wouldn’t.

She twisted the cap on her water bottle back and forth, torn and tempted in equal measures.

If they didn’t work together, she wouldn’t hesitate. She liked Zach more than she could remember liking a man for a long time. They were supremely sexually compatible. It was a no-brainer that she’d want to see where it might go.

But she’d worked so damned hard to get where she was. She’d started in the warehouse at Makers when she was nineteen years old. She’d studied at night to finish high school, and she’d put her hand up for every training program the company offered. By slow, painful degrees, she’d edged her way from the warehouse and into the main building, starting out in clerical support roles and ending up where she was now. Fourteen years of perseverance, sucking it up, unpaid overtime, working while she was sick...

Not for a second did she doubt that she’d earned her current role, but there was a tiny part of her that would always feel insecure about her humble beginnings. Unlike Zach, she didn’t have qualifications up the you-who to help her score another job if things went south with Makers. She had experience, and her reputation within the business—neither of which was particularly portable, she suspected. Certainly she wouldn’t want to pit it against someone like Zach in the job marketplace.

Her gaze followed Zach as he moved from one group of golfers to another. There were taller men, men with broader shoulders, men who earned more, men who had more status—but he was the man who drew her eye. He was the man who had always drawn something in her, hence her months-long battle to pretend otherwise.

Was she really prepared to turn her back on what had happened between them the other night for the sake of her career?

Her own words came to her then, like the ghost of Christmas past:
I’m the only person in the world I can rely on, and if I don’t make things happen, they don’t happen. I’m not ashamed of being ambitious.

She wasn’t. But ambition didn’t make her laugh. Ambition didn’t warm her bed or her heart. Ambition didn’t infuriate her and challenge her and make her toss and turn at night.

Work-life balance wasn’t a philosophy she’d ever aspired to—she’d been too busy proving to herself and her parents and the world that she wasn’t a screwup, that she was worth something. But maybe it was time to reassess her priorities. Maybe it was time to allow herself some comfort.

Maybe it was time to allow herself some happiness.

“Audrey. You gotta come help me out here. These guys don’t believe I got a birdie on the fourth.”

It was Terry, one of her team members. She pasted on a smile and pushed herself to her feet and pushed her thoughts into the background. This was a workday. Never let that be forgotten.

“How many witnesses do you want? I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles,” she said as she joined the men.

Over the next few hours she smiled and talked and laughed as dinner was served and joke awards presented, but she never stopped thinking about Zach’s question. How could she, when he’d offered her something she secretly wanted very badly?

The evening wound down after dessert. She said her goodbyes and good-naturedly accepted some final ribbing about the shot she’d hooked into the rough on the ninth and gathered up her jacket and keys. The lot was half-empty when she walked to her car. The dark was punctuated by the occasional laugh and the sound of engines starting. She got into her hatchback and checked her phone for messages, aware that she was stalling and not really sure why. Then she saw Zach heading toward his car and understood that she’d been waiting for him.

She watched him, as she had all night, savoring the length of his stride, the cowboy certainty of his gait. He walked like a man who knew where he was going and what he wanted when he got there.

He slipped his cap off, running his hand roughly through his hair. His profile was illuminated as he opened the driver’s door and tossed his cap inside.

He didn’t get in immediately, instead rubbing a hand up the back of his neck as though it was stiff. Then he bowed his head, his whole body very still for a handful of heartbeats.

Something sharp pierced her chest as she watched him. He looked...lonely. Isolated. And infinitely weary and worn.

She pressed her fingertips to her chest, trying to ease the sudden pain there.

After a second he seemed to shake himself, climbing into his car. The engine fired to life, the brake lights flashing red.

She reached for her phone, punching in a text message before she could check herself. After all her agonizing and weighing and considering, it came down to this: she cared about his happiness. A small but profound revelation, and it had taken witnessing that small, private moment for her to get it.