OF ALL THE PLANES he’d flown since that first flight with Philip, the Cessna Caravan was his favorite. As a bush pilot, he’d flown at both ends of the temperature spectrum, first in Australia where he’d spent a short time flying for a company that served remote Aboriginal communities, then in Alaska where the sheer versatility and performance of the aircraft had enabled him to fly across 92,000 square miles of isolated Arctic wilderness that included the oil-rich Prudhoe Bay. He’d flown everyone from physician’s assistants on search-and-rescue missions, to a school volleyball team competing in a high school athletic program. They all had one thing in common. They needed a skilled pilot and a reliable plane that could land anywhere.

When it had come to setting up his own business, Zach had known which plane he wanted. He’d chosen the Amphibian so that he could land on any terrain, and opted for an interior luxurious enough to satisfy the pickiest billionaire.

Philip Law had taught him many things, one of which was the importance of a thorough preflight check.

Given that flying was still the single thing he loved most in the world, he figured it made sense to make sure the plane wasn’t likely to fall out of the sky.

He started at the nose of the aircraft, checking the battery and fuel control unit. The sun beat down on him and he wiped his forearm across his brow before moving on to the exhaust stack, the P3 pneumatic bleed air lines and the orange cockpit heat hoses. In this aircraft the engine-fire detection loop went around the exhaust stack and the P3 bleed air lines, so he made sure there were no cracks in the exhaust or loose connections that were likely to trigger the engine fire light and set off earsplitting alarms in the cockpit.

He moved through his checks, swift but thorough, and gave the cowling door a gentle punch with his fist to make sure it wasn’t going to pop open after takeoff.

Because he was on top of the aircraft, he saw the car approach and pull up.

A glimpse of rich gold in the driver’s seat told him Emily was driving and he watched as the two women hugged, displaying an emotional connection far outside the scope of his own experience. The visible demonstration of affection did nothing to warm the cold, dark place inside him.

He had no doubt that their friendship was deep and genuine. He also knew that true friendship required trust and a leap of faith, which was why his relationships only ever skimmed the surface.

It wasn’t just that he didn’t trust anyone. He knew he couldn’t be trusted.

And Brittany knew that, too.

She’d handed him her heart, and he’d dropped it.

He watched as she stepped out of the car.

Her hair shone in the sunlight and an oversize pair of dark glasses covered her eyes. She’d replaced her trademark shorts with a pair of skinny jeans and her favorite hiking boots with pretty canvas flats.

Wondering what the hell had possessed him to offer to fly her to the mainland, Zach turned back to the aircraft, finished his check and then joined her on the tarmac.

“Philip gave me the message that you’d changed your mind.” And he’d done it with a knowing look that Zach had chosen to ignore.

“I decided you were right.” She adjusted the glasses on her nose. “There was no reason at all for me to turn down your kind offer.”

It hadn’t been a kind offer. It had been a— What had it been?

A salve to his guilt?

He had no idea, but he was beginning to wish he’d kept his mouth shut.

As she stepped towards the plane, he caught the light scent of her perfume. His senses spun and desire ripped through him. As someone who rarely had a problem controlling his feelings, it was irritating to discover that lusting after someone wasn’t something you could turn off.

He gritted his teeth, pushed down the surge of awareness and watched as Brittany strolled around the plane and then stood with her hands on her hips and her head tilted to one side. “Is this a good moment to tell you that the nose is crooked?”

The sunlight added polish to her hair and her skin, and the breeze played with a loose strand, whipping it across her face.

She was arresting rather than pretty, her body honed to an impressive level of fitness from a life spent outdoors. But what really drew him wasn’t the dip of her waist or the curve of her mouth, it was the energy that pulsed from her, the sense of optimism that sent a thousand volts of positivity into the surrounding air. She was the type of person who assumed the toast would always land buttered-side up. He’d heard her described as “the girl next door” and had never really understood that because she was nothing like the neighbors he’d had growing up.

All he knew was that she was sexy as hell.

He wanted to bury himself in her. He wanted to take her, right there and then, like the animal he was fairly sure he was.

Instead he reached for a cloth and wiped his hands, focusing on the small things to try to distract from the feelings that were driving him crazy. “That’s normal.” His voice was surprisingly level given the fact that his willpower was stretched to breaking point. “The engine is canted down three degrees and to the right five degrees. Helps minimize propeller effects during power-ups.”

He prayed she wasn’t going to start talking to him about thrust or propulsion or he’d be in serious trouble.

The corner of her mouth dimpled into a smile. “I have no idea what any of that means.”

“Do you want me to explain?”

“No. This is your domain. I’ve never been a nervous flyer but if I knew the details, that might change. We should probably go, shouldn’t we? I don’t want to be late for my appointment.” She was talking a little too fast, the fingers on her good hand fiddling with the strap of her purse.

Recognizing the gesture, Zach frowned. He saw the same thing in passengers used to flying first-class in a jumbo jet, where most of the time they forgot they were even in the air. A small plane was a different experience and, for some, an unnerving one. “You don’t need to be anxious.”

“Why would I be anxious? You don’t scare me, Zach. You never did.”

He watched her for a long moment, absorbing the implications behind her answer. “I was talking about the plane.”

“Oh.” She captured a wayward strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear, exposing the streak of pink on her cheek. “The answer is still no. I’m fine. I know you’re a good pilot. And it’s not as if it’s my first time.”

He wished she hadn’t used those exact words.

He remembered her first time.

Judging from the deepening color in her cheeks, she did, too.

She mumbled something unintelligible and then turned and climbed the steps into the plane leaving him wondering if it was safe to be standing this close to a tank of aviation fuel.

The way he was feeling right now, the aircraft was likely to ignite.

He followed her up the steps and saw her fumbling to fasten the belt without damaging her injured wrist. Her teeth were clamped on her lip as she focused on getting it done. She didn’t want his help and he didn’t want to give it.

He didn’t trust himself to be that close to her.

He was sure that both of them were relieved when the belt clicked home.

Wordless, he handed her a headset and settled himself in the cockpit, grateful for the routines and discipline that distracted him from the woman seated behind him.

The takeoff was smooth and the flight short and uneventful.

Once in the air, Zach forgot about his passenger. For a short flight like this one he chose not to switch on the autopilot, preferring to hand-fly the airplane. That strategy had kept him alive in icy conditions in Alaska, where he’d discovered the autopilot could mask cues. He listened to the airplane, drew on training, experience and sheer gut instinct. And he loved every moment. That part had never changed. His love for flying hadn’t reduced since that first time Philip had taken him up. If anything, it had deepened.

Twenty minutes later, he landed and checked on his passenger, only to find her asleep.

“Brittany.” He said her name, got no response and braced his hands on the arms of her seat. “Brittany.” This time he said it louder and she stirred, her eyes opening slowly, as if her eyelids were too heavy to lift.

Her eyes were bronze, flecked with gold lights, and they were focused on him. The look in them was one he remembered. It was the way she’d always looked at him in those first moments of waking.

Trusting.

The look was gone in an instant.

“Get away.” She pushed at his chest with her good hand. “You’re invading my personal space.”

“Yeah, well, there was no waking you.” He straightened, telling himself it was a good thing the trust had gone.

Expecting people to let you down was a much safer way to live a life.

“I have jet lag, that’s all.” She reached for her purse. “Will you be here when I come back?”

“You think I’m planning on leaving you stranded?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Defenseless against that accusation, Zach simply looked at her. “I’ll be here. Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, thank you. What will you do while you wait? Do you have someone else to fly?”

“Just you. Today is quiet.” He’d made sure he kept the day clear, just in case she’d changed her mind about accepting his offer. The fact that he’d turned down a potentially lucrative job flying a family to their lodge up in the mountains was information he didn’t intend to share. He’d told himself he owed her this favor. “I have things I can do.”

IT WAS A LONG time before Brittany reappeared, and when she did she looked irritated and visibly upset.

After several hours of trying to cure an acute case of sexual arousal by working on the plane, Zach’s mood wasn’t the sunniest, either.

“How was it?”

“I was hoping he’d say the plaster could come off in a couple of weeks, but he seems to think it needs to stay on a while longer if I want to regain full function of my wrist and not have problems in the future.” And she was obviously deeply unhappy about that decision.

“What did they say at the hospital in Greece? You had surgery?”

“Yes. They decided it was necessary because I’m young and need full movement of my wrist.” She climbed into the airplane and slumped into the nearest seat. “I’m starting to wish I’d paid more attention to where I was putting my feet.”

“What happened? You tripped and put your hand out to save yourself?”

“Yes. I wish I’d fallen on my face. At least I would have had two hands to work with. It’s driving me crazy. I’m bored out of my skull and I’ve only been home a few days.”

“What do you need to do that you can’t do at the moment?”

“Everything. I can’t even take my kayak out, which is one of the things I love doing when I’m home. I can’t ride my bike.” She frowned. “Actually maybe I could ride my bike. I don’t need two hands for that, right?”

He suspected this might be one of those instances where she wasn’t really asking for his opinion. “The trails are uneven. If you fall, it’s going to take longer to heal.”

“So what am I expected to do for the next month? Just sit around watching TV? I’ll die of boredom. And why did I never learn to do things with my left hand? I burned scrambled eggs this morning. How can anyone burn scrambled eggs?”

“Plenty of folk do that when they have both hands in use.” Risking his life, he reached forward to help her with her seat belt, and the backs of his fingers brushed against her abdomen. She tensed and her eyes met his.

In that brief unguarded moment he saw everything she was hiding. All the emotions simmering right there just beneath the surface.

And he knew she wasn’t indifferent.

Knew that everything he’d seen since he’d flown her to the island that first day had been an act.

“Brittany—”

“I’m really tired and it hasn’t been a great day so far. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to go home now.” Her voice was husky and she turned her head away, staring out the window.

He stared at her profile, seeing the clenched jaw and the glaze of misery in those golden eyes.

Knowing that he was the last person who should criticize someone for trying to hide their feelings he straightened and returned to the front of the airplane.

He’d disciplined himself right from the start never to allow emotions access to the cockpit. He flew with his head and his instincts engaged, knowing that plenty of accidents had occurred when the pilot was distracted.

He told himself that today was no different.

He might have dropped Brittany ten days into their marriage, but he wasn’t about to dump her into the ocean.

And if she was upset, well, she had her friends to talk to.

She didn’t need him.

WHY THE HELL hadn’t she taken the ferry?

Her head ached and her wrist throbbed, but the feeling that bothered her most of all was the butterfly flutter of awareness in her stomach that refused to die.

It was a feeling she associated with her teenage years, along with the heady excitement of first love and the shivery recklessness that was part of youth.

She didn’t expect to feel it now, years later, when she was older and supposedly wiser.

Too wise to be distracted by a strikingly handsome face and a body made of hard honed muscle and sinuous strength.

Remembering Sky’s suggestion that they should just have sex, she ran her good hand over her face and closed her eyes.

The more she tried not to think about it, the more she found herself thinking of nothing else. She could imagine herself sliding her hands under his shirt, tracing skin pulled taut over the brutal swell of hard muscle. She could feel the coarseness of chest hair grazing her naked flesh, the graze of his jaw as he dragged his mouth down her body. She could feel the slow stroke of his hands, the skill of his mouth …

Shit.

She opened her eyes.

She wasn’t going to feel any of that.

She wasn’t going to be the sort of woman who repeated her mistakes.

He’d been her first lover. She’d been eager, but clueless, following his lead in everything. It had felt like the biggest adventure of her life. She’d had relationships since, but nothing that had matched the physical intimacy she’d shared with Zach.

What would it be like now?

With a groan, she opened her eyes and stared out the window.

That was one question she was never going to be able to answer.

No way.

She wasn’t going there.

The moment they landed, she ripped off the headset, dived into her bag for her phone and called Emily.

The call went to voice mail and she decided to wait a few minutes and call back instead of leaving a message.

Zach strolled out of the cockpit. “Something wrong?”

“No. But I’m supposed to be calling Emily when we land, and her phone is going to voice mail.”

“I’ll take you home.” He gave her a long look that made her wonder if somewhere on his sophisticated instrument panel was a device that scanned her thoughts.

Presumably not, or the aircraft would have been filled with ringing alarms and flashing red lights.

“I’ll get a cab.” She fumbled with her seat belt, stood up and caught her foot in the strap of her purse in her haste to get away from him. Without her right hand to save her she would have fallen, but Zach shot out his arm and caught her around the waist.

She fell against him, her good hand planted in the middle of his chest and her thighs pressed against the hardness of his.

It was as if fate were trying to torture her.

She heard him mutter something under his breath, felt the strength of his arm and the warmth and pressure of his hand on the dip of her waist. In that instant there was no space between them. With anyone else she would have laughed it off as nothing more than an embarrassingly clumsy moment, but Zach wasn’t just anyone and she was a million miles from laughing. It was impossible not to notice that her body fitted against his perfectly. They molded together as if they’d been designed to custom fit and she felt a dizzy excitement she’d only ever felt when she was near him. Desire ran through her like liquid fire, sexual heat so intense she was afraid she might burn up right there and then. If the fuel tanks were full, it was likely she’d take the airplane with her. She had no idea how something so wrong could feel so right.

“Sorry. Clumsy seems to be my middle name.” Without meeting his eyes, she eased away from him and stooped to pick up her bag. Her legs were liquid. So were her insides.

She didn’t dare look at him. She didn’t need to know if he was feeling what she was feeling.

What she needed was to get out of here as fast as possible.

She called Emily again as she walked down the steps to the tarmac, the phone almost slipping from her fingers as she willed her friend to answer.

Pick up, pick up, pick up.

The phone went to voice mail again.

“My car is parked here.” His tone was level. If he’d felt what she had felt, then he wasn’t showing it. “I just need a few minutes and then I’ll take you.”

“No need. I’ll call Pete.” Pete drove one of the island cabs and Brittany had known him since she was a child.

“The ferry just docked. Pete will be busy. I can get you home faster.”

There was no logical reason why a woman who was supposedly indifferent to him would refuse.

Ten minutes, she told herself. Ten minutes, and she wouldn’t invite him in.

“Thanks. I’ll wait by the car while you do whatever it is you need to do.”

She waited, bathed in sunshine and her own sinful thoughts.

When he finally joined her, she noticed that he’d slid on sunglasses.

She did the same.

She didn’t look at him.

He didn’t look at her.

Neither of them spoke during the short journey to Shell Bay, but the silence created more tension than words would have done.

By the time Zach pulled up outside her cottage, Brittany was contemplating plunging fully clothed into the Atlantic to cool off.

“Goodbye, Zach. Thank you.” She was out of the car the moment it stopped, running for the sanctuary of Castaway Cottage.

ZACH GRIPPED THE WHEEL. Ahead of him waves crashed onto the rocks that guarded the soft curve of Shell Bay, and to his right lay the cottage.

And Brittany.

She’d closed the door in his face, and that was after she’d done just about everything to try to avoid being in the car with him.

Ignoring the part of his brain that said this was a bad idea, he walked up to the door of the cottage. He didn’t bother knocking because he knew she wouldn’t answer. Instead he took a chance that she hadn’t locked the door.

She hadn’t, and he stepped into the hall just as she emerged from the kitchen to investigate the noise.

Her eyes widened. “More breaking and entering?”

“You can’t break through something that isn’t locked.” In the back of his mind he knew he needed to address her lax approach to security, but right now he had other things on his mind.

“What do you want, Zach?”

“I want you to say whatever it is that’s on your mind instead of behaving as if you’re auditioning for cheerleader of the year.”

The faint flicker in her eyes told him he’d scored a direct hit. “I don’t have anything on my mind. What could I possibly have to say to you after all this time?”

“Plenty, I would have thought, given the note I left on your pillow.” He still remembered lying awake in a blind panic and then scrabbling in her bag to find a pen, something to write with. He couldn’t remember exactly which words he’d used, but he knew they weren’t Shakespeare.

“The message in the note was clear enough.”

“And you don’t have anything you want to say about it?”

“I had plenty I could have said to you at the time, but that was ten years ago. I don’t have feelings about something that happened so long ago.”

“I don’t believe you. I’d say you have plenty of feelings. In fact I’d say you have so many feelings you don’t know what to do with them.” He saw the brief flash of her eyes, shards of anger that dazzled before she masked it.

“You should go now, Zach.”

Zach decided that he hated polite conversation almost as much as he hated cocktails and social media.

“I’m not leaving until we’ve dealt with this.” He moved closer to her and Brittany backed away until her shoulders made contact with the wall.

“It’s ironic that when I wanted you to stay, you couldn’t wait to leave, and now when I can’t wait for you to leave, it’s impossible to get rid of you.”

For some bizarre reason it made him feel better to hear her finally speaking the truth. “I know I deserve that.”

“Oh, you deserve a hell of a lot more than that, Zach. You want me to tell you how I really feel? Right now I hate you.” Her eyes blazed and her chest rose and fell. “I hate you and I want you to get the hell out of my house.”

He was standing so close he could almost feel the heat coming from her.

Their relationship had always been intensely physical. Long stretches of simmering promise interspersed with wild moments of sexual oblivion.

“You don’t hate me. I think you want to hate me, but you don’t and that’s driving you crazy.” He cupped her jaw, lifting her face to his. “You hate the fact you still feel something.” He could feel the softness of her skin and the rapid pounding of her pulse beneath his fingers.

“What I feel is regret that I ever got involved with you in the first place. Goodbye, Zach.”

If he’d been paying attention to the words he would have left, but there were other forces at work. Deeper, darker forces that sparked something on an elemental level.

“You don’t feel anything?” He caged her, planting an arm on either side of her to prevent her escape.

“That’s right. Sorry if that bruises your ego, and now you need to—”

He flattened her to the wall and brought his mouth down on hers. The feel of her lips brought a groan to the back of his throat. She tasted soft and sweet, like strawberries dipped in sugar. And then the sweetness turned darker, more wicked and the explosion of heat consumed him. He’d expected to prove a point, but ended up slaking a hunger, filling a need.

Sex was a skill of his. He’d learned all the moves, knew how to touch, how to give maximum pleasure to his partner. He treated sex like an athletic workout, a sequence of calculated physical moves culminating in mutual satisfaction. For Zach, there was never an emotional element. He was well aware that there were women who had wanted him to fall in love with them. Women who had hoped to be the one to cure him of whatever defect stopped him from truly engaging with another human being. They’d never succeeded.

As a young child he’d learned to switch off feelings and then as an adult had discovered he had no idea how to switch them on again.

He’d married Brittany because it had felt like the right thing to do, and he had swiftly discovered that it wasn’t.

Like everyone else, she’d wanted something he wasn’t capable of giving. Disappointing people, letting them down, had been a feature of his life. Up until the point where he had married Brittany, it had never bothered him. He figured that people’s expectations were their own and if they chose to pin them on him, then it wasn’t his fault if their worst predictions came true. With Brittany, it had been different. Her naive and unquestioning belief in him had almost suffocated him.

He’d known from the start that he was going to let her down.

That part had been inevitable.

This, he thought, as he focused all his expertise on her mouth, this was all he’d ever been capable of giving.

He waited for her to slap his face, or at least push him away, do any of the things he’d been waiting for her to do since the day he’d flown her back to the island. Part of him would even have welcomed it. He’d take real honest emotion any day over this bland coating of indifference she’d painted over her feelings. He wanted her anger as if fury might be a salve for his own guilt.

What he got was her desire, as raw and real as his own. Her mouth opened under his, and he felt the moist tip of her tongue touch his in erotic invitation.

The kiss rocketed out of control so fast it almost unbalanced him. It should have been all about technique, a less-than-subtle way of proving a point, but somehow Brittany had shifted the balance of power. Her arms came up and locked around his neck, her head angled to one side as she pressed against him.

Never in a million years would he have described himself as sensitive or gentle, but he usually made an attempt to keep things one step up from animal, if only because reading his partner’s physical needs was one of his skills.

Not this time.

This time his response was primal and overwhelming. He devoured her mouth, flattened her back against the wall and cupped her breast in his hand. He felt her nipple peak under the deliberate brush of his fingers, felt the race of her heart against his palm and the movement of her chest as she pressed against him.

She moaned against his mouth and he clamped his hand behind her head and held her there, trapped, captive, locking her against him in an exchange of sparks, fire and raw lust.

He felt her good hand go to the front of his shirt and drag him closer still, until every part of them was touching and the only thing separating them was a thin layer of clothing.

Still it wasn’t enough.

He planted his hand against the wall to steady himself, using the other to haul her close so that her lean body was welded against the hardness of his. Her response was to hook her leg around his waist and drive the soft parts of herself against the thickened length of him. Only the fabric of his jeans and hers stopped him being inside her.

“Holy shit.” He felt the restless grind of her hips and anchored them with his hands. He was hard and throbbing, his breaths coming in ragged pants as he felt her fingers go to the snap of his jeans.

That blatant move cut through any doubts he might have had.

She fumbled, moaned in frustration and he slid his hand from her breast to her jeans, stripping them off with a speed that would have raised eyebrows in some circles. Removing clothes had never given him problems. He might not have a college degree, but he knew a thousand ways to get a woman naked.

He pushed her jeans down her thighs and lifted her. Without detaching her mouth from his, she kicked off the trousers and wrapped her legs around his waist, supple as a gymnast.

Supporting her with one arm, freeing himself was more of a problem but he managed it, dealt with the ribbon of cotton that masqueraded as her underwear and provided the final barrier between them, and felt the delicious heat of delicate flesh.

Her mouth was hot on his, her legs wrapped so tightly around him that for the first time in his life he almost forgot the condom he always carried. He was seconds away from breaking a lifetime rule when some deeply ingrained sense of self-preservation made him dig it out of his pocket.

He paused long enough to ensure there would be at least one consequence he wouldn’t have to face and then lowered his forehead to hers. Their gazes locked. Her breath came in rapid pants and her eyes, those rich, tiger-gold eyes that challenged him at every turn, were bright with need.

“Yes.” She murmured the word against his mouth. “God, yes.”

He felt her angle her body to his and then he thrust and there was nothing but the heat.

He felt her stretch, her body welcoming the invasion of his. She tensed slightly, slick and tight against the solid fullness of his erection, and he closed his hands around her thighs, holding himself still, giving her time to adjust. Held like this, she was helpless. His. He’d discovered sex earlier than most and for years it had been the only place where he had control. He had an armory of moves at his disposal, and he’d learned to use them.

As a result, bed was the one place in the world where he managed to please a woman.

Her gasp turned to a sob and he swallowed it, licking into her mouth as he drove deeper, surging into her until they were joined so deeply, he could feel every tiny ripple and movement of her body. Desire consumed him, hot waves of pleasure swamping thought and reason. Neither of them paused to question whether it was a good idea. Neither of them hesitated or tried to pull back. It was a raw, primitive and utterly basic slaking of sexual need.

He felt her hand slide into his hair while the other, the one restricted by the cast, lay useless against his shoulder. He felt the urgency of her mouth on his as he surged into her with slow, relentless rhythm designed to drive them both insane.

He clamped the smooth curve of her bottom, and felt her hand slide to the hard muscle of his shoulder. If she’d had long nails he would have been lacerated, and still they kissed, crazily, frantically, as if it were the only way of sustaining life. They kissed right the way through to the screaming peak of pleasure that slammed into them with the force of an express train. Feeling her tighten around him like a silken vice, Zach groaned deep in his throat and gave himself up to the wild pulsating force of his own release.

It took a moment for his head to clear and for him to emerge from the dizzying fog of arousal.

He lowered her but didn’t release her, and she didn’t release him, either. Her good hand stayed on his shoulder for support while the other lay limp by her side.

She struggled for breath, her head turned away from him.

Finally his brain cleared and he realized two things: that he was still fully clothed and that she was naked from the waist down. At some point he’d managed to rip her thong and it lay on the floor, a seductive wisp and an accusation. Destruction of property. Another crime to add to the many.

He wondered if he could plead insanity.

Words were never his strong point, and right now he didn’t have a clue which ones to use or which order to use them in.

“Brittany—”

“Sex and screwing up,” she said. “The two things you were always good at.” Her eyes lifted to his and he felt a rush of emotion he couldn’t identify.

He’d wanted the truth and she’d given it to him, but somehow hearing it didn’t bring him the relief he’d anticipated.

“And flying.” His voice sounded raw. “Don’t forget flying.”

“Damn you.” She pushed at his chest with her good hand. “Damn you, Zach. I— You have to leave.”

He wondered how the hell she expected him to leave when he’d managed to create a situation a thousand times more complicated than the one he’d hoped to fix. “No.”

“I’m begging you.”

He was about to refuse again when he saw the glisten of moisture in her eyes. It floored him more than a punch from her fist would have done.

He’d made plenty of women cry in his time. It was another thing he was good at. What he wasn’t good at was fixing it, usually because fixing it required some sort of promise he wasn’t prepared to make. Because he never made promises, he figured he was free to walk away without a stain on his conscience.

Except that one time of course, when he hadn’t just made a promise, he’d made it in public in a way that was legal and binding.

His entire body was tense.

Over the years he’d wondered about her reaction to what he’d done.

He’d imagined her storming with anger and punching holes in the wall.

The one thing he hadn’t allowed himself to imagine was her crying.

It was something he’d never seen. He’d seen her furious, those tiger eyes sending lightning shards of anger towards the source of her annoyance, and he’d seen her doubled over in helpless laughter.

He’d never seen this.

He lifted his hand to pull her close but he had no words of comfort for this situation.

How did you comfort someone when you were the cause of their misery?

All he could do was remove himself, but his legs refused to take him in any direction, not even towards the exit.

“Don’t cry.” His teeth were gritted and his entire body ached with the willpower required to not touch her. “Hell, Brittany, hit me. Yell at me. Anything, but don’t cry.”

“Get out, Zach.” Her voice cracked. “Get the hell out of here.”

And finally, perhaps because of her tone or maybe because the moisture in her eyes was brimming like a river about to burst its banks, his body unfroze itself and his legs obliged long enough to walk him through her door.