At some point before morning slid into
afternoon then into another angst-filled evening, he picked her up and took her
back into their suite and ordered a tray of food brought up.
They ate, showered, and got back into
bed. There he curled her back into his front and with his arms tightly around
her, he drifted off to sleep.
The sound of his groan woke her.
Turning, she held her breath as another groan squeezed through his parted lips.
Zach wasn’t caught in a nightmare. But
whatever he was dreaming about was vivid enough to evoke a spirited response.
He smiled then frowned.
One hand raised as if he was waving,
then dropped heavily back down.
Abruptly he turned away from her.
“Fa…”
She raised her hand to touch him but he
moved again, turning to face her once more.
The blissful smile on his face trapped
her breath in her lungs. Again he raised his hand. This time, his fingers moved
in a gentle undulation, as if he was touching something…or
someone
.
The pain that ripped through her was as
irrational as it was impossible to dismiss.
“Zach.” As selfish as it sounded, she
didn’t want him trapped in a dream with someone else when she was right here
next to him.
His head jerked but he didn’t wake.
“Farrah,” he said on a long sigh.
“Farrah.”
Bethany froze, but her brain buzzed
with a hundred thousand thoughts.
Farrah
.
She frowned. The name sounded familiar.
It was unique enough that she didn’t think she’d misunderstood it.
Farrah
.
She sucked in a breath as the memory of
where she’d seen it blazed in her mind. Ice and a tsunami of foreboding overwhelmed
her.
Sliding out of bed, she quickly donned
a discarded T-shirt and left the room. It was too early for any of the staff to
be up, which was a blessing. She didn’t want anyone witnessing her slide into
despair and insanity.
She opened the French doors and stepped
out onto the terrace.
The sight of the shallow and deep pools
surrounding the house caused her anxiety to escalate. Forcing it aside, she
skirted the building until she reached the long slab of pavement that dissected
the shallow pool.
Heart thumping, she fixed her gaze on
her target and walked along the pavement to the structure she’d seen Zach
emerge from last night.
Up close, she noticed that the rocks
had been smoothed into similar oblong shapes. She also saw the thick,
multi-colored candle burning to one side, sending the scent of jasmine and
eucalyptus into the thin night air.
Her heart rose and fell, her pulse frantically
racing as she took a final step closer.
There, inscribed on the largest stone,
was the name she’d just heard on the lips of the man she loved. The man whom
she’d dared to think could one day belong to her as surely her heart belonged
to him.
Farrah
.
“Bethany.” Her name was a low
imploration.
And a hard command.
She whirled.
Zach stood behind her, clad only in the
boxers he’d hastily pulled on.
He was so beautiful in the moonlight,
so utterly breathtaking. And, she realized with a cold stab of reality, so
utterly out of her reach. Still she couldn’t look away, couldn’t deny her heart
one last chance to stop the shattering she knew was coming. “What is this
place?” she asked.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes
intensely forbidding. “Don’t ask, Bethany. Please.”
“I can’t
not
,” she replied.
His chest rose and fell in a shaky
exhalation. And he waited.
“Who is Farrah, Zach?” she asked,
although in her heart of hearts, she knew she must be a former lover.
Or more
.
Bethany remembered seeing her name in a
newspaper in Paris. But lumped in together with a bunch of other names, she had
no way of knowing its significance.
Well, she was about to find out.
“Farrah was my wife. We were married
for one day. Then I killed her.”
Thank
you so much for reading HIGH.
Find
out how Zach and Bethany’s story concludes in HIGHER, coming in early 2014.
In
the meantime, if you’d like to stay in touch, you can find me on Twitter
–
@zcoxbooks
or on Facebook –
Zara
Cox Writer
Alternatively,
to join my newsletter list, you can email me –
[email protected]
I’d
love to hear from you.
Happy
reading!
xxx
First
and foremost my profuse and heartfelt thanks to my friend and writing buddy,
Kitty French. You pushed and prodded and generally didn’t stop being
enthusiastic about me writing this story. I adore you almost as much as Mr.
Savage does. Kitty, thank you!
I
also wouldn’t have gotten very far in my writing journey without some very
special writing friends, namely The Minxes of Romance. You ladies are sisters
in the truest sense and I’d be lost without you.
To
Kate, for reading my dirty, dirty draft and doing what you do best - asking
some savvy questions that made me think, reassess and plough forward. You rock,
my friend!
And
last, but not least, to my husband, Tony, for being my most supportive,
incredibly patient rock, and for bringing me coffee and chocolate when I pulled
all-nighters for this and all my writing projects. I love you.
Edited
by Sarah Barbour
Cover
by Angela Oltmann
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Zara
Cox has been writing for almost twenty-five years but it wasn’t until seven years
ago that she decided to share her love of writing sexy, gritty stories with
anyone besides her close family (the over 18s anyway!).
The
Indigo Lounge Series is Zara's next step in her erotic romance-writing journey
and she hopes you’ll take the journey with her.