considering you’ve already used the word replacement in regards to me.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“That I need someone to come with me, and actually, under the circumstances you’re a better fit than my ex-fiancée.”
For a full second she could only think of one thing his statement could possibly mean. Images clicked through her mind like close-up still-shots. Tan hands on a pale, bare hip.Masculine lips on a feminine throat. Blood roared through her body, into her cheeks, making her face burn. She was sure they were the color of ripe strawberries, broadcasting her thoughts to anyone who looked at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Hannah’s smart, don’t get me wrong, but she doesn’t know this market quite like you do. Prices on stocks, maybe, but it will be nice to have you on hand to offer an opinion about marketing and flavor.”
Business. He was talking about business. And somehow, to Zack, business was more important than romance and making love on his honeymoon?
At least he was pretending it was. There was something different about his expression, a dark light behind his gray eyes. She’d seen Zack nearly every day for the past seven years. She knew his moods, his expressions as well as she knew her own.
And this was a different Zack. Well, she thought it was. For some reason, the hardness, the intensity, seemed more true than what she thought she knew of him.
Strange. But then, the whole day had been strange. Starting with the interminably long silence after the strains of the Bridal March had faded from the air and the aisle remained vacant.
All right, he’d made her mad. It wasn’t the first time. He was bullheaded and a general pain in the butt sometimes. He was also the smartest man she knew, with a cutting wit that always kept her amused. He was one of the few people who’d never doubted that her ideas were good.
If she didn’t go with him, she would spend her evenings hanging out by herself, reading and experimenting with cupcake recipes and licking the batter off the spatula. Fun, sure, but not the kind of fun she could have in Thailand.
Again, those images, erotic and explicit, assaulted her. No, that wasn’t the kind of fun she would be having in Thailand.Zack had never looked twice at her in that way and for the most part, she was fine with that. She’d had a crush on him at first, but even then she hadn’t expected anything to come of it.
And, yes, Hannah had come in and stirred up some strange feelings. Because as long as Zack had simply been there, at work every day, and available for dinner meetings and a lot of other things, it had been comfortable. Zack was in every space in her life, at work and home.
But then along came Hannah, and she took up his time, and, Clara had assumed, that he loved her. And having to share Zack’s emotion with someone else had felt. It had felt awful. And it had made her jealous, which didn’t make sense because she’d never even tried to cross the boundaries of friendship with Zack. So it wasn’t like Hannah had been encroaching on her territory or anything. But she’d been so jealous looking at Zack and Hannah she’d felt like her stomach was turning inside out, and she knew, that even if she could never have Zack, she didn’t want anyone else to have him, either.
Which was just stupid and childish. About as stupid as going with a man on his honeymoon, platonically, in place of his bride, to conduct business with him. Platonically.
She needed her head checked. She needed some sanity. Maybe the problem was that Zack did take up all the spaces in her life. Maybe it would have to change.
Just the thought of that, of pushing him away, sent a sharp dose of pain through her system. She was addicted to him.
“All right. I’ll go. Because I would rather have a paid vacation in Thailand than spend the week hanging out in the office and orchestrating the return of all your wedding presents.”
“I’m