like the choice in music,’ Meg said over her shoulder as Rylie pulled her away. ‘Yours?’
‘Disco,’ he said. ‘It’s my secret passion.’
She grinned. It lit up the night. And then she was gone.
Zach slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He’d put in his promised appearance, meaning he could walk away. Ruby wasn’t home so he could slink back to his bungalow and work himself late into the night till his eyes burned and his back ached and he was too exhausted to think about anything but sleep.
He could do that, but instead he decided to stay a little longer. Listen to some Bee Gees. Drink some punch. Eat a marshmallow or two. See where the night took him.
Damn fool.
Meg sat on a straw mat next to Rylie, drinking a mocktail and pretending to watch Tabitha lead a conga line around the fire, but whenever she had half a chance her eyes sought out Zach.
The moment she’d first seen him standing with the fire at his back, feet bare, watching her with the kind of intensity that took her breath away, her skin had warmed as though she’d stepped too near the flames. Even wreathed in hot-pink flowers he was the most wholly masculine creature she’d ever known.
Dark hair slicked back, clean-shaven, and wearing a pale grey linen suit, he finally appeared how he should have all along—like the kind of man her father would know by name.
That first moment when she’d been allowed to dream he might be something he was not hadn’t been fair. If she’d first seen him looking like this then maybe she would have had her guard up and have avoided this whole mess from the outset.
Who are you kidding? she thought to herself on a slow release of breath. In cargo shorts and a soft faded T-shirt he was beautiful. In a perfectly cut suit he was devastating. A woman would have to be made of far sterner stuff than she to skim past such a creation.
‘You having a good time so far?’ Rylie asked.
‘Mmm?’ Meg said, turning to Rylie with the straw of her third pineapple mocktail bitten between her front teeth.
‘I feel like we’ve barely seen you enough to make sure you’re actually relaxing as promised.’
Meg raised an eyebrow. ‘If you actually turned up to any of the scheduled events rather than leaving me to fend for myself that wouldn’t be the case.’
‘I’m here now.’
Meg bumped her friend with her shoulder. ‘So you are. And I’m glad. This is fun. Especially since Tabitha is so on form, and thankfully not trying to rope us into her insanity.’
‘Too true. And, now that I am here, is there anything you’d like to catch me up on? The weather, perhaps? Petrol prices getting you down? Anything happen in the past couple of days you’d like to let off your chest?’
She knew what Rylie was asking. And it was fair enough. They were best friends. Had been since school. Maybe she could give her a little sugar, so long as she gave nothing away about Zach or Ruby. But to do that she’d have to give too much of herself away as well. The myriad reasons why she couldn’t just throw herself at him and be done with it went deeper than even Rylie knew.
‘The weather, then,’ Meg said, tilting her head towards the heavens. ‘Look at that sky. Have you ever seen so many stars? Hasn’t this been the most beautiful night?’
Rylie paused a long moment before glancing across the fire towards the man they were both pretending not to be talking about. ‘Absolutely gorgeous.’
On a sigh Meg said, ‘You have no idea.’
A gorgeous man and a gorgeous dad. It was the second part that was making it so easy for her to fall for him, while also making it impossible for her to have him.
She’d never gone through the grieving process the doctors had warned her she might when she’d convinced them to give her the operation that would take away her chance of conceiving a child. All she’d wanted was to do whatever she could to stop her father from ever getting the chance to bully another kid again.
She was beginning to fear that was what the faint but now constant ache in her heart was—fissures that had existed in her happy facade since the morning she woke up in Recovery. Only now, as she understood fully for the first time what she’d given up, those fissures were turning into cracks big enough to split her in two.
‘Can you do me a favour?’ Meg asked.
‘Anything. Always.’
‘I don’t want to be missing any more. In the press, I mean. Dylan texted me today. Apparently the snippet Chic ran online a couple of days back has grown legs. I’d rather not be hounded by people with mobile cameras any more than usual this week.’
‘I’ll get onto my contact at Chic and give them the word,’ Rylie said. ‘Where do you want to be instead of missing?’
Here. ‘Anywhere but here.’
‘May I ask why?’
Meg tucked her chin against her shoulder and glanced at her friend. ‘I wish I could tell you, but it’s complicated.’
‘Okay, for now. I’m not so silly to think wheat-grass juice is the reason you’re glowing like you are. Tell your man he can do as he pleases, I’m looking the other way.’
Meg gave Rylie a quick hug.
Tabitha chose the perfect moment to twist her way out of the line and head on over, laughing as though she could barely draw breath.
‘You are a maniac,’ Meg said, her voice still slightly ragged.
Tabitha slumped down onto the straw mat beside them. ‘Every party we ever have from now on should be exactly like this.’
‘With nobody we know as guests and no alcohol?’ Rylie asked.
Tabitha shrugged. ‘Why not? I know the wellness class we took the first day was all about finding balance, but sometimes I think you need to let yourself go completely off balance too. It’s a yin and yang thing.’
Off balance. That was the term Meg had been reaching for to describe how Zach made her feel.
He was intensely private while her life was splashed about the papers so regularly she might as well have been living in her own reality TV programme. He saw family as something to safeguard, not to flaunt. His life was so far removed from her own as to be completely foreign.
This was a man trying so hard to be worthy of his daughter, if he knew how low she’d sunk, how desperate a measure she’d taken in order to pull herself back out into the bright lights, would he understand? Or would he think her ridiculous? Hopeless? Weak? All the things she’d been told she was by the one man who ought to have been her fiercest champion. If even her father couldn’t see the good in the real her, what hope did she have with anyone else?
He shifted in the firelight, all shadowy angles and dark good looks.
This man had given her chocolate when
