Tess has agreed to look after both Megan and Jack for a few hours, so Zoe and I can finally unwind. It’s been a long, difficult week, and at last, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.

I take Zoe out to dinner—somewhere low-key, with a few quiet, dark corners to get lost in. We sit at a booth at the back of the restaurant.

As soon as I sink into the fraying red leather, all my stress melts away. I don’t realize how tense my muscles have been until they begin to relax. The constant, dull headache that I’ve had for days finally starts to ebb away.

I smile at Zoe. “I told you she’s a fighter.”

“You told me.”

We raise our glasses of lemonade to Laura. We’re not drinking tonight. I’m picking up the kids from Tess later.

“I feel kind of guilty going out,” Zoe confesses.

“Why? We’re celebrating Laura’s first step on the road to recovery.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am that’s she’s on the mend. My heart stopped when I heard she’d had the accident. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath since Thursday.”

“Now you can breathe.”

“Yes.” She lets out a long, low breath, then grins. “It feels good to breathe.”

“Interesting place you picked for tonight.”

“I didn’t want to dress up,” Zoe tells me. “After this week, I just wanted to go somewhere I could disappear for a while.”

“We didn’t have to come out.”

“No. Having a change of scenery is nice. The empty apartment has been haunting me this week. I couldn’t stop thinking about Laura and dreading the worst. Maybe I’ll finally be able to sleep again.”

“You could have stayed at Laura’s. You didn’t have to be alone.”

“You know why I wouldn’t.”

“And now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Now that Laura’s on the mend, does it mean we can get back on track?”

Zoe looks surprised. She clears her throat, tapping her fingers on the edge of her glass. “I know she’s awake, but it still doesn’t feel right to focus on anything else.”

“I don’t want to miss our chance.”

I wonder if I’m fucking up again. It seems that my priorities are never in the right place. My timing is always wrong.

I care about Laura, and I’ll be there for her kids. I want nothing more than for her to get better and come home. That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten all about Zoe.

The more time I spend with her, the more I want her. She’s effortlessly brilliant. She’s steady, sure and calm in an emergency. Since Laura’s accident, I’ve appreciated her lack of judgment—even when I’ve been making mistakes left, right and center.

“I don’t want to miss it either,” she says at last. “But we have to tread carefully. We’re still responsible for Megan and Jack. We can’t get carried away in some romance that leaves them behind. I’m serious about that.”

“I understand.”

She smiles at me, and then the waiter brings our orders. We both have a burger and fries. The taste reminds me of our teenage years. We used to pick up burgers on our way to the beach and suck down Cokes on the shore.

“The taste of burgers always takes me back to East End Beach.”

“I remember. The summer I was sixteen, I gained seven pounds. I was eating fries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“Where’d that go? You’re all muscle now.”

“I’m on my feet all day at work.”

“How’s it going?”

I make a face. “Things have been on hold. Laura comes first.”

“Do you need some help?”

She smiles. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course, I would.”

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that. Are you any good with wreaths?”

“Wreaths aren’t my forte, but I’ll give anything a shot.”

Zoe’s smile grows. She’s looking over at me with eyes full of affection. I’m not sure she’s ever looked at me like that before. Annoyance, yes. Desire, sure. But affection? That’s something new.

After dinner, Zoe asks how much time we have before we have to pick up the kids. I check my cell; my Rolex is still in a drawer at Laura’s house, banned as a symbol of my apparent ego.

“A couple hours.”

“Do you want to come back to mine?”

“Yes.”

I drive to Zoe’s apartment, and we head upstairs. As soon as the door is shut, things pick up from where they were the night before Laura’s accident. We tear off each other’s clothes like we’re making up for lost time.

Zoe grabs my hand and pulls me after her toward the bedroom. She’s not wearing any special underwear tonight—I haven’t seen her silky black robe since our first meeting. She’s only wearing an old cotton bra and panties. It tells me she wasn’t expecting to go to bed with me tonight. Zoe always has her priorities in order.

In the bedroom, Zoe drops down onto the bed, beckoning me.

She’s laid out before me: gorgeous. Her body is slim and toned, but womanly. My eyes follow the rise and fall of full breasts; they trace the line of her slender navel, and they travel down her long, delicious legs.

My cock grows hard. Zoe turns me on like no other woman ever has. Her allure is natural, yet magnetic.

I move toward her. She grins up at me. She’s a vixen. Her flaming hair tumbles over her shoulders, framing her angelic face. She lowers her head and looks up at me with those emerald eyes from under her thick lashes. She bites down on her lower lip.

Everything she does is an invitation. Her body is calling to me. My body answers.

I slip my fingers into her panties and seek out her clit. I rub her, first soft and then harder. Slow, and then fast.

She lets out low, soft breaths dripping with pleasure. The sight of her arching back and fingers grasping at the bedsheets drives me wild.

I rub her wet clit until her toes begin to curl, then she comes, letting out a blissful moan. “Fuck me, Tom.”

I enter her and move back and forth with long, hard strokes. Zoe’s breathless cries fill me with wild lust. I pound into her harder.

Zoe wraps her hands around my neck and pulls my face down into a kiss. Our tongues brush against each other as I move inside her, faster and harder as we draw nearer. Zoe gets close to her second orgasm. I feel her body shuddering beneath me.

I thrust into her deeper; she locks me in another kiss. Our lips are pressed against each other when I come. We kiss afterward.

We cannot let each other go. We hold onto each other, exchanging kisses and running our hands over each other’s bodies. We’ve waited so long.

My cell starts to bleep. “Shit, it’s my alarm.”

Zoe sits up. “You have to get the kids?”

“I’m sorry. Tess can only have them until ten. It’s nine-thirty.”

“Oh. You better pick them up then.”

I pull Zoe towards me and kiss her head. “I’m sorry.”

Her face is filled with disappointment. Her blissful expression has turned into one of abandonment, but I know I have to go. The kids come first.