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.
