super-hot core, it couldn’t have made her any more frantic.
Zeke.
Had the air been sucked out of her lungs? Her body? The very room itself? It certainly felt like it. She couldn’t breathe, let alone speak, and it was all she could do to keep her mouth clamped shut rather than open and close it like a fish caught out in one of the rock pools out on the sands.
How she managed to stand—to face him—she would never know. Yet suddenly she was on her feet, her fingers braced against the cold, flat wood of her desk to stop the dizziness from winning out. She certainly had no idea how she managed to respond to him.
‘True?’
Thank goodness for the open window, which let her suck in deep lungsful of sea air—its salty, tangy taste dancing obliviously on her tongue—as she tried to quell the wave of nausea that crested in her chest.
Damn it if Zeke didn’t look every last bit as commanding, and dangerous, and male, as she remembered. His hair was longer now. At least, longer than the close-to-the-scalp cut he’d sported as a Special Forces soldier back then. Enough that she might actually be able to feel it between her fingers.
If she wanted to. Which she didn’t. Of course she didn’t...because that would be pathetic.
Desperately, urgently, Antonia reminded herself of that last night, five years ago. He’d been telling her for months that he didn’t love her, that he’d never loved her, but that had been the night when she’d finally believed him. Because it hadn’t been the words that had convinced her, rather it had been that hard, disgusted look in his cold eyes as they’d bored into her without a trace of softness or love behind them.
Even now, at the mere memory, a pain shot through her heart as though it were folding in on itself.
And then she looked into Zeke’s face and suddenly her heart kicked out again, straightening itself out and pounding so loudly within her chest that she was afraid it could be heard.
He was a few years older, maybe, but that face was just as sharp, and masculine, and devastating as it had always been. Those cool blue eyes could still pierce through any soul, and that strong jawline, which she had traced countless times over the years, still housed a mouth that had been her undoing more times than she cared to remember.
Without warning, desire zipped through her, horrifying and thrilling all at the same time. His beaten-up leathers moulded to every broad, muscled inch of him, reminding her of a time when—as teenagers—they had raced the length and breadth of the country on that prized motorbike of his.
Suddenly, she felt like that adoring kid again.
Had she really been so naïve as to believe that the mere passage of time would mean she would no longer be attracted to the man? Had she really told herself that she would be immune?
She’d convinced herself of it, yet now the mere idea that she wouldn’t be affected by him was laughable.
Even his silence was dark. Edgy. Lasting only a beat but feeling like an eternity.
‘That you’re back.’
Another moment of silence. So thick and heavy that she almost imagined she could wear it as a cloak. Maybe one that could chase out the sudden chill that had pervaded her very bones.
Almost against her own volition, Tia let her eyes track lower. Her heart kicked up yet another gear as she fought to control the shallow breaths that jostled inside. Zeke had once been the epitome of a deadly, dangerous, ruinous barracuda.
Something she didn’t care to identify pooled low in her belly at the memory of the SBS man with a body that had always defied belief and was worthy of any Rodin or Polycleitus sculpture.
If she didn’t know better, she might have thought that nothing had changed. He looked as fit, as honed, as lethal, as ever. And her fingers practically itched to reach out and test it for herself.
Discreetly, she moved her arms behind her back and balled her fists into each other.
And then, finally, she let her gaze travel lower. Down the snug, black motorcycle leathers, which did little to disguise impossibly muscular thighs, and down...
She froze.
For a moment, the fluttering receded as a wave of nausea threatened to close over her head. She couldn’t tear her gaze away, couldn’t even breathe. Like a swimmer caught in a riptide, fighting to stay focussed and keep their head above the surface.
What had he been saying? Asking her?
Think. Think!
Slowly, so slowly, her brain kicked back into gear. Something about her being back...?
Her tongue took a moment to work loose again.
‘It’s true,’ she confirmed stiffly.
And perhaps needlessly. After all, it was self-evident, wasn’t it? Or maybe Zeke was simply giving her the opportunity to rethink her decision and get out of there. Out of Delburn Bay. Out of his corner of the country. Out of his life.
Just as she’d done the last time he’d commanded it.
And if it weren’t for Seth, then maybe she would have done just that.
‘Although, I’d hardly say I’m back.’ She licked her dry lips even as she silently berated herself for such an outward show of nervousness. ‘I’m far enough up the coast from Westlake.’
‘I think you can call that back—’ his voice was like a hot cocoa river running through her, and warming her, even as she tried to fight it ‘—given that it’s the closest you’ve been to coming home in around fifteen years.’
Coming home. It sounded so...easy, when dropped from Zeke’s lips, and suddenly the realisation terrified her. It meant that home wasn’t Westlake where she’d grown up, or Delburn Bay where her father had moved to. Home was where Seth was.
But it was also where Zeke was.
And that absolutely, positively, was not acceptable.
‘I disagree,’ she lied, aware that folding her arms across her chest was a defensive, negative gesture, yet wholly unable to stop herself.
‘No, you don’t. You might be here, but you desperately wanted to come all the way to Westlake. You just couldn’t bring yourself. It’s obvious. You were never very good at lying to me, Tia.’
God, she’d made a monumental mistake coming back here.
It was too soon. She wasn’t ready.
‘I’m not lying,’ she lied, desperation reverberating through every syllable.
Zeke’s mouth curled up at one corner, making it seem as if that were actually a bad thing. But she had to concede that he had a point. Which only made it all the more ironic that he’d never realised she’d told him the biggest lie of all.
Before she could answer, he moved into the room—or
