One Night in Paradise (7 page)

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.

Z
ACK’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.