Her Favorite Rival (30 page)

He looked surprised when he answered. “Audrey.”

“You said if I needed anything, I should call you.”

“I did.”

“Okay. I need you to take me to bed and not ask any questions. Can you do that?”

He was silent as his gaze scanned her face. “Yes. Of course.”

She felt the press of tears again and she blinked rapidly to dispel them. “Thank you.”

“Come here.”

He held his arms open and she walked into them. He kissed her temple, then her forehead, and she lifted her head so he could access her mouth.

It didn’t take long for desire, sweet and sharp and demanding, to replace the shaky feeling inside her. She pushed Zach inside his house and shut the door before tugging at the tie on her dress.

He frowned slightly, and she could feel his concern, but she pressed kisses to his neck and slid her hand into the waistband of his jeans.

“Take me to bed,” she whispered against his skin. “Make me forget my name for a little while.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

E
VEN
THOUGH
EVERYTHING
in him wanted to ensure that Audrey was okay, that there wasn’t some guy he needed to pound into hamburger or some other act of vengeance he needed to wreak on her behalf, Zach honored his promise and led her into his bedroom.

He didn’t turn on the light, instinctively knowing that the dark was more comforting. He helped her slip her dress off and unzip her boots, then he shed his own clothes and joined her on the bed.

His mind might be preoccupied, but his body knew what it was doing, and soon there was only the silk of her skin beneath his hands as he made love to her. She was silent and intense, her body quivering with need, and he wrapped his arms around her as he slid inside her. She clung to him, the two of them rocking in a shared rhythm. He knew when she was close and he stroked her to climax, quickly following her. When he kissed her temple afterward he tasted the salt of tears and never wanted to let her go.

She fell asleep almost immediately, curled against his body, and he ached for her, wanted to right the wrong that had caused her so much pain. Whatever it was. Whoever it was.

That she had come to him, that she’d chosen him to trust with her hurt, filled him with a fierce sense of gratitude. He wanted to make this woman happy. He wanted to protect her from the world’s harshest blows. He wanted to cherish her.

So much so that it was a little scary. He refused to be scared, though. Audrey was the woman he’d been waiting his whole life to meet. Strong and vulnerable, courageous, clever, kind, generous... He could go on.

And she’d come to him in her hour of need.

She stirred after half an hour, pushing away from him. He let her go, then rolled out of bed and went into the kitchen. He poured a glass of water and headed to the bedroom. At the last minute he detoured to the bathroom and grabbed a box of tissues, too.

He didn’t turn on the light, setting both items on the bedside table before climbing into bed.

“Water,” he said, passing the glass to her.

“Thank you.”

She drank, then set down the glass. He lifted his arm, silently inviting her closer, and she rested her head on his chest and fitted her body along his.

“Sorry,” she said after a moment.

“For?”

“Using you as a sex aid.”

He laughed. “Was that what that was?”

“Not really. I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”

He knew that feeling only too well. “Want to talk about it?”

She shifted her head slightly, as though the question made her uneasy. Just when he thought she wasn’t going to answer, she spoke.

“My sister apologized to me tonight.”

He listened in silence as she poured it out—her sister’s confession, her mother’s unfulfilled ambitions, the endless pressure and lonely negligence of her childhood. He dropped a kiss onto her head when she told him about running away with her boyfriend, Johnny, at sixteen, and the scraping-by existence they’d lived together on the streets.

It was a life he was only too familiar with, for other reasons. He’d spent more than his fair share of nights in shelters with his mother when he was a teen, and he’d known dozens of desperate junkies over the years. He had a fair idea the things she’d faced, the dangers she’d survived.

He felt himself getting angry when she described her disgraced return to the fold, her parents’ relief and then angry laying of blame and guilt.

“I decided a long time ago that they simply didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand them. When I was a kid, my favorite fantasy was to pretend that I was adopted, because it explained so well why I didn’t fit with their idea of who I should be, and why they didn’t fit with my idea of who they should be,” she said. “Hearing my sister say out loud that she is the favorite, something that I’ve always tried to convince myself wasn’t true, and, when I failed, chastised myself for being a whiny-little-bitch, poor-me loser...I can’t explain how it made me feel.
Validated
is the best word I can come up with. As though all the feelings and moments and memories of not quite measuring up weren’t figments of my imagination. That it wasn’t about me having a jaundiced view or being jealous of perfect Leah or sulky because I was the eldest and she was the baby. It really happened. It was real.

“Now I feel kind of liberated, but I also have this spot in my chest—” she tapped it with her fingers “—that aches for that sad, messed-up little kid who could never do anything right.”

He ached, too. And he didn’t know what to say to her to take away her pain. That he’d like to burn her parents to the ground was a given, but it wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t change the past, and it wouldn’t heal her. It seemed to him that she’d done a pretty amazing job of doing that for herself.

“I don’t want to blow smoke up the skirt you’re not wearing,” he said when she’d fallen silent, “but I hope it’s occurred to you that it takes a will of iron to rise above the kind of shit you’re talking about. To get to where you are, all on your own. Not because of your parents, but despite them. Do you have any idea how exceptional that makes you, Audrey Mathews? How gutsy and brave and determined?”

“Don’t. You’ll make me cry again.”

“Then cry. I’ve got you.”

She did then, a little, and he rubbed circles on her back and passed her tissues and listened some more as she tried to make sense of the thoughts and feelings churning around inside her.

She fell silent after a while, and they sat with their own thoughts.

“You’re a really good listener,” she said.

“It’s an art form.”

She propped herself up on her elbow so she could see his face. “You’re joking, but it is. You didn’t try to fix anything, you simply let me bleat to my heart’s content.”

“Can’t fix a lot of what makes the world suck.” He shrugged. “Being able to have a good bleat about it seems like the bare minimum in my book.”

“I like your book, Zachary Black.”

“Excellent. I have another chapter for you to get familiar with. Roll onto your stomach.”

“Is this about to get perverse?”

“Only if you want it to.”

He started rubbing her shoulders and neck and she gave a low groan.

“Sweet Lord, you have good hands.”

He set himself to massaging the tension out of her body, working his way down her back to her sacrum and glutes before finally arriving at her feet. He’d forgotten about their conversation at Al’s regarding her foot fetish, but she almost levitated when he started digging his thumbs into the ball of her foot.

“Oh, God. Don’t ever stop doing that,” she groaned into the pillow.

Eventually she fell silent, and he knew she was drifting toward sleep. He pulled the covers up to her shoulders and stretched out alongside her.

Never would he have imagined that he’d be grateful a woman had chosen him as her first port of call in an emotional crisis. Yet he was, profoundly so.

She trusted him. Lying in the dark, she’d spilled her secrets and trusted him not to judge her. He hoped he’d risen to the occasion. He hoped she’d come to him again if she was hurting. He hoped she’d turn to him for everything, because he was wild about her.

Crazy, wild, devoted. Maybe even a little sexually obsessed.

Rolling onto his side, he rested his lips and nose against the nape of her neck and inhaled the soft scent of her skin. Being careful not to wake her, he slid his arm around her body.

Then and only then did he let himself fall asleep. Holding the woman that he was crazy, head-over-heels in love with.

* * *

T
HE
BED
WAS
empty when Audrey woke. She sent out a searching hand for Zach’s warm chest or back and met with cool sheets. Sitting up, she pushed hair out of eyes that felt sore and gritty from too much crying.

Last night had been...messy. Not her finest hour. She was still a little astonished that she’d not only allowed herself to take solace from Zach on a physical level, but that she’d spilled all her inner turmoil out for him to see, too.

Not her usual deal with men. With anyone, really. But Zach was not the usual kind of man. She already knew that, of course, but he continued to reveal new aspects of himself that hammered home that notion.

He was special. Very special.

He was also an excellent masseur.

She flexed her feet, remembering the firm pressure of his thumbs in her instep last night. Heaven.

“You’re awake. Great.”

Zach entered holding a glass of orange juice and a plate heaped with toast. “No bacon or eggs, sorry, but I thought Vegemite toast might get us through.” He was wearing only a pair of navy boxer briefs, and she noticed he had the newspaper tucked under his arm.

“I love Vegemite toast.”

“I sensed as much. I have an instinct for these things. Plus there was nothing else to offer you.”

“Always helps narrow down the options.”

He passed her the juice and set the plate on the sheets beside her before plumping his pillow and settling onto the bed.

“Would I be wildly wrong if I guessed that’s the crossword?” she asked.

“It is. Do you want to be in charge of the pen or will I do it?”

He offered her the pen. She didn’t take it.

“I have a confession to make. That night when you talked about doing the crossword puzzle with me...I don’t want you to feel as though you’ve embarked on this thing under false pretenses, but I probably should have told you that I’m really bad at them. I’d almost go so far as to say I am crossword-impaired.”

He smiled. “I’ll be in charge of the pen, then.”

“I’m serious. I totally suck.”

“I believe you, don’t worry. I, on the other hand, am pretty freakin’ awesome. If I do say so myself. So I think this’ll even out okay.”

He reached for a piece of toast, and after a moment’s hesitation she did the same. He read out the first question, and she surprised herself by guessing the answer. Half an hour later, the bed was full of crumbs and the crossword puzzle was finished.

“That was fun,” she said, surprised.

“Guess what else is fun?” He rolled toward her.

They made love, then showered and dressed and went to collect fresh clothes for her before Zach took her to Maling Road in Canterbury for lunch. Afterward, they inspected the antiques and other specialty shops along the quaint Victorian shopping strip. Zach bought her a pretty notepad with her name on it and she reciprocated by getting him an antique letter opener with an embossed leather handle.

“I should go shopping with you more often,” he said as they made their way back to the car.

That night, they went to the movies before going to her apartment.

Sunday was equally relaxed and fun. More than once Audrey had to pinch herself at how easily she and Zach fitted into one another’s grooves. But they’d established many times how much they had in common, so maybe it wasn’t too surprising.

That first weekend set the pattern for the next month. They worked late, scrupulously sticking to their work-is-work rule even when they were the only people left in the building apart from the cleaners. Then they went to her place or his, only occasionally missing an evening when one of them had an interstate trip or an early meeting. Once, they both flew into Sydney for a store visitation and bent their rules enough to make good use of the spa bath in Audrey’s hotel room that night.

They ate out some nights, got takeaway others, and every now and then cooked a meal together, just to prove to each other that they could.

Life was good. And not only because of Zach, although he constituted the majority of the goodness. Audrey had dinner with her sister a week or so after their first attempt, and this time they talked of things other than family, including touching on her sister’s love life, with her sister revealing that there was a special guy she’d like Audrey to meet one day. Audrey discovered that her sister had a sly sense of humor while being surprisingly naive about some things, which made her very easy to tease.

It seemed to Audrey that there was a chance for them to become friends if they wanted to take it, and all signs pointed in that direction.

The only black spot on the horizon was the increasing guilt she felt about keeping her relationship with Zach on the down-low with Megan. It was impossible to keep the happiness she felt from flowing over into her work life, and even though Megan was brimming with her own happiness and preoccupied with baby plans, she had noticed. Who wouldn’t, when there was precious little to be thrilled about given their workloads and the flatlining morale among many of the staff? Megan kept joking that she wanted to know what vitamins Audrey was taking, and every time she brought it up, Audrey had to stop herself from blurting out the truth.

Nearly four weeks to the day after her tearful gut-spill on Zach’s shoulder, Audrey waited until they’d finished the Saturday morning crossword—now one of her favorite pastimes simply because Zach enjoyed it so much—to raise the subject.

“So. About work,” she said.

“What about work?” He folded the paper and set it on the bedside table.