CHAPTER 39

“Sit,” Z repeats the command in a firm voice.

“Fine.” I join him on the bench, letting him keep my hand, but looking straight ahead rather than making eye contact.

“Don’t let my muted reaction to the news about you calling off your engagement fool you,” he says. “On the inside, I was whooping it up like I won the Powerball. It’s just that I’ve been conditioned over the years to hide my real feelings from you.”

This revelation is enough to make me swivel my head to the side and lock eyes with him. “And what feelings are those exactly?”

Zane’s gaze drops to my hand, and he starts playing with the stacked ring set Topaz gave me as an early birthday gift. “Remember how you told me not to fall in love with you the first night we hung out together?”

He glances up to gauge my response, which is a nod.

“Well . . .” The corner of his mouth curves up into a sheepish half-smile. “I didn’t listen. I knew it was hopeless, but I couldn’t help myself. And the more time I spent with you, the harder I fell because you’re you, which is this amazing and irresistible combination of brains, beauty, and sass. Of course, I couldn’t share any of that with you because you were always so vocal about being averse to emotional attachments and monogamous relationships, so I repressed all my sappy, romantic feelings and told myself I was happy just being your friend, and to some extent that was true because I got a lot more of your time and affection than any of the guys you had flings with ever did. But then you flipped the script on me and got involved with Eduardo in what looked to be an actual relationship. And two seconds later, you were engaged, which I stupidly didn’t see coming. When you flashed that diamond ring in my face at Lique and announced you were marrying him, it was such a shock and so damn painful I completely shut down and that’s why I said, “Huh,” and acted like it didn’t bother me.”

“I was so mad at you for not having a reaction,” I recall. “Then, I was mad at myself for caring what you thought. I wish you’d told me then how you felt.”

He raises a dark eyebrow. “Would it have mattered? You were giddy with what I thought were your feelings for Eduardo, and you were already planning your glamorous, perks-filled life with him. I think a declaration of love from me at that point would have just freaked you out and made you distance yourself from me.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I admit, even though I’m not proud of it. “I was so intent on becoming Señora Sandoval back then, there’s nothing you could have said or done to dissuade me. It took a few months of living with the reality of what being a trophy wife meant before I started to doubt that I was cut out for that role. And you drove that point home the night of the storm when you called me out on how superficial and ultimately, unsatisfying, my relationship with Eduardo was.”

“I wasn’t sure if I was getting through to you at all, but I felt like I had to try.”

“And I fought you on it, even though I knew everything you were saying was true. I can be stubborn like that.”

“You? Stubborn? Nah.” He chuckles and so do I.

“You know,” I slide right up next to him so that our thighs are touching, “you could have just skipped all the talking and gone right to the sex since that was what convinced me you and I belong together. You made me feel something I never had before and that was an emotional connection to go along with the physical one.”

Zane grins. “And they say Latin men are the best lovers. Score one for skinny, white guys.”

“You’re not skinny. You’re lean.” I trail my fingers up his arm, then wrap them around his bicep, “with muscles in all the right places,” and give it a squeeze. “Eres el hombre más sexy que conozco,” I murmur the words just a hair’s breadth away from his lips.

“It’s so hot when you speak Spanish,” he says, the gold in his eyes glinting like embers in a fire as he cups the side of my face in his hand and runs his thumb across my lips.

He’s just about to kiss me when I realize there’s one thing we still haven’t cleared up and I pull back. “Why did you go out with that Orla chick?”

Zane sighs and drags his hand through his hair. “You looked totally panicked the morning after we had sex and I didn’t want to make you regret it by putting demands on you, so I let you go, thinking if it was meant to be, you’d come back to me. It was a risk and I really had no way of knowing if it was going to work out the way I wanted it to, but I waited and I hoped. When you texted to see if I wanted to grab a froyo like our night together had never happened and it was just friendship as usual, I just . . . I don’t know, I thought, Screw this! I can’t spend the rest of my life pining over a woman who loves another guy’s money more than me. I met Orla at the Fall Fashion Fest that night. She was smart and pretty and she was into me—”

“Hashtag hot photographer.” I stick my finger down my throat and pretend to gag.

Zane chortles. “You stalked her Instagram account?”

“I had to see who my competition was! And there you were, with your arm around her, looking like you were having the time of your life at that damn fashion show. I wanted to punch the two of you in your perfect, pale faces.”

“Aw,” he smiles as he tucks an errant strand of hair behind my ear, “you were jealous.”

“Yeah, and it wasn’t fun. I’ve never cared enough about a guy to feel possessive or territorial before. I had trouble sleeping the last few nights because every time I closed my eyes, I’d see you with British Barbie and she had her hands and lips all over you.” I shudder with revulsion as those images pop back into my head.

“My date with Orla was more G-rated than a Disney movie. In fact, I spent most of the evening talking about you. Finally, Orla said, ‘Blimey, mate, what are you doing here with me when you’re clearly arse over tits in love with this Izzy girl? Stop being a wanker and go snog her face off!’”

I guffaw. “That is the worst British accent ever! I do like the part about you snogging my face off, though.” I lean into him, moving my mouth ever so slowly toward his. I can feel his warm breath tickling my lips as my eyes drift shut and—

There’s a ghastly screech that makes us both flinch.

“Not you again.” I twist my head to the side and glower at the peacock standing a few feet away. “Can’t you see you’re interrupting a private moment?”

Z’s brow furrows. “You know this bird?”

I shrug. “We ran into each other earlier. I thought I ditched him, but he must have followed me.”

My feathered friend unleashes another ear-piercing shriek.

“Dude, what is your problem? You’re really ruining the mood here.”

The bird’s tail feathers suddenly spread out behind him like a brightly-colored fan.

Z busts out laughing. “Oh my gosh, this is too much. You’re being wooed by a peacock. First, the mating call, now the plumage display.”

“What? Why? I’m not a bird. I am . . . a . . . human,” I tell the daft peacock, thumping myself on the chest when I say the last word.

“Yeah, I think what you’re wearing,” his eyes drop to the ruffle-trimmed, cleavage-baring neckline of my silk mini, “has confused him. You do look like you could be a really hot peahen in that dress.”

I glance down. Oh, crap, he’s right. The floral print of this dress is peacock-colored, with lots of vibrant blues and greens offset by swirls of black and white.

“This bird really is gorgeous. I need to get some pictures while he’s focused on you.” Z lifts up the camera that’s still hanging around his neck, preparing to snap some shots, but I smack his hand.

“You can’t take pictures! This bird is trying to steal your woman. Do something!”

“What do you want me to do? Challenge him to a tail feather-off? In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have any of those.”

The peacock stares at me with his beady, black eyes.

“Use your camera flash on him.”

“That’ll just scare him,” Z says as he unhooks the camera from its strap and sets it down beside him on the bench. “If I’m remembering this correctly, it’s up to the peahen to select her mate, so if you want to get rid of your avian admirer, you have to let him know you’ve picked someone else.”

“Okay. I can do that. Watch this, bird.” Placing my hands on either side of Zane’s face, I pull his head toward me and eagerly capture his lips with mine, kissing him with all the emotion that’s been building up inside me since the last time we were together.

When we come up for air a few minutes later, I declare, “I choose you,” for Z’s benefit rather than the randy peacock’s, and he caresses my cheek with his thumb while moving back in for another kiss.

“Is he gone?” I whisper before our lips meet.

He steals a sideways glance. “Looks like it, but I think we should make sure he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re taken.” Wrapping his arms around me, Z draws me close, crushing my breasts up against his chest where I can feel his heart thumping and his body heat seeping through the worn cotton of his T-shirt. I cling to his shoulders as his mouth explores mine once again. This might not be our first kiss, but it is the first time we’ve displayed our feelings for each other publicly, which gives me a little thrill. I want the world to know that we’re a couple now, that he’s mine and I’m his, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer—

“We don’t need money as long as we have love, right?” I query breathlessly, looking for reassurance after detaching my now kiss-swollen lips from his. “And we won’t be cash-strapped forever. If I work hard, I can build my client list through referrals and so can you once you go solo as a photographer. You’re still planning to do that, aren’t you? Because I think you’re too talented not to, and I would totally support you. I mean, not financially, because I won’t have a steady income for God knows how long, but you could take pictures at whatever parties I’m hired to plan and hopefully we can make enough money from that to cover our living expenses. Oh, I know!” I excitedly clutch his T-shirt in my hands. “We could move in together. That way we’d only have one bill for utilities, cable, and all that other boring stuff. And you could teach me how to be thrifty because you’re good at that and I’m not.”

Z’s lips lift ever-so-slightly at the corners. “I can’t believe after all these years of you giving me grief about the crap shack, you want to move in there with me.”

“I’d sooner take up residence in a lifeguard stand on the beach,” I scoff. “No, dummy. I was talking about you moving into the bungalow with me. The nice thing about living there is that my sister is the landlord, so it’s no biggie if I can’t come up with the rent every month.”

“It’s not?” Z looks skeptical.

I shrug. “She doesn’t like it when I stiff her, but what can she do? Kick me out on the street? Ha! No way. Especially not after I saved the lives of her and her unborn child.”

“Yeah, I don’t know if giving her a ride to the hospital when she was in labor counts as saving her life.”

“It definitely does. And I plan to milk that selfless act of heroism until Isobel goes off to college.”

Z shakes his head, chuckling. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You didn’t think the love of a decent man was going to turn me into a goody two-shoes, did you?”

“Hell no! What fun would that be?” With a smirk, Zane lifts my hand to his mouth and presses his lips to the back of it. “Will you take a ride with me?”

I drop my hand to his denim-covered thigh. “What kind of ride are we talking about?” I wonder in a throaty voice. “Because my mind just went to a very naughty place.”

He blushes, which is kind of adorable. “The ride I’m talking about is in the car. There’s something I want to show you.”

“Another double entendre. If you don’t stop teasing me with those, I don’t know if I can behave myself.” I start stroking the inside of his thigh.

Z glances around nervously, but doesn’t tell me to stop. “You do realize we’re still in a public place, and there are children around, don’t you?” He gives an embarrassed, little wave to a blond tot who’s standing ten feet away, staring at us with curiosity while licking a chocolate ice cream cone that’s melting all over his hand. (His mom’s on her cell phone and not paying any attention to what’s going on.)

“They have to learn about the birds and bees sometime, and what better place than in the midst of all this nature?” Smiling wickedly, I slide my hand even further up his thigh.

“And we’re leaving!” He grabs my adventurous hand (before it reaches its destination, alas), then jumps to his feet and drags me out of the gardens.