AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She shrugged. “Faith doesn’t need to know.”
It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “You and Faith tell each other everything.”
“Not when it comes to me sleeping with you, we don’t.” Leah made a little “go on” gesture. “Next.”
“Wait, you never told Faith? About before?”
She pulled a horrified face. “No-ooooooo.”
“Why not?”
“Because you were gone. And she went with you. By the time she came back, I didn’t think there was much to tell. You were clearly not coming back. She had enough to deal with.” She hitched a shoulder. “Besides, I was fine. Back then I knew what I was asking for. Just like I do now.”
She sounded so certain. And there wasn’t even a trace of doubt in her eyes. But for some reason he didn’t quite believe her. Which meant the only choice he had was to say “no.”
“I’m sorry. I think we need to keep this simple, so no.”
He thought she’d flinch. Maybe get mad. But instead her eyes just widened briefly, then narrowed. Her chin came up.
“If that’s what you want,” she said and then moved around him to walk away.
On Sunday night, Leah sat on the Harpers’ beach, staring at the sinking sun and the path of gold the light painted over the water, and wondered if maybe she could just start swimming toward the horizon and find a boat out there to carry her off somewhere exotic. Exotic and one hundred percent free of Zach Harper.
She dug her fingers into the sand, curling them hard to dig in. She’d just spent the best part of an hour swimming in the surf and the breeze was enough to chill her as she sat there, wrapped in a towel, hair still wet but her stupid stupid body still burned with a heat that would probably give the sun a run for its money.
It was downright embarrassing. Or horrifying might be the better word. The past three days had been both those things. She had no one to blame but herself for that, of course. She’d been the one who’d marched right on up to Zach and propositioned him. It appeared to be a habit of hers. One she was never ever going to indulge again. The first time she’d done it, she’d half-expected him to say “no,” and he’d surprised her with “yes.” This time, it hadn’t really crossed her mind that the reverse might happen, but it had. He’d said “no” and she’d left.
And then, because she wasn’t going to compound her mistake by letting it ruin the other thing she wanted from him—a big fat producing credit—she’d spent fifteen hours a day with him, doing her best to convince him, and herself, that she’d never asked and that nothing had changed. She’d been so goddamn friendly and professional that it made her teeth ache.
The trouble was that her teeth weren’t the only things aching. Her body, it seemed, didn’t care about humiliating rejections. It still wanted him. A little bit more every time he opened his damn mouth and sang. He wasn’t singing to her. But her body didn’t give a damn about that either. He opened his mouth and that voice rolled over her and all she wanted to do was roll over for him. Gah.
So much for his stupid theory that whatever it was between them would wear off. It wasn’t. It was getting worse. At least, for her it was. And, if she was honest, she thought it might be for him too. She’d caught him looking at her more than once. Caught him being careful to leave a little more space than a man who was completely indifferent to her might leave, stepping away if he noticed he’d gotten too close. Which seemed to happen quite often. They drifted toward each other without thinking. Then one of them would notice and pull away, and they’d both go back to pretending everything was perfectly normal until they drifted in again. It was a ridiculous dance that had wound her tighter and tighter with every repeat of its steps. Until she’d been driven here to the beach to try and work off some of the excess energy driving her crazy. It hadn’t worked.
But he’d turned her down and she wasn’t going to be the one to ask again.
She’d rather die of frustration. Or you know, flee the island. Whatever worked.
The sun was slipping lower and her stomach rumbled suddenly. If she couldn’t have Zach, then maybe the answer was to do some good old-fashioned comfort eating.
She dropped the towel briefly to reach for her big-ass bag and then performed some gymnastics after wrapping the towel back around herself to ditch her bikini and put her underwear, bra, and dress back on. There was no view of this particular part of the beach from the big house and there was no light on at Mina’s cottage, which meant Mina was probably with Will, but she was damned if she was going to risk Zach suddenly strolling down the beach path to find her half naked.
Armor—or clothes at least—back in place, she marched back up the path. When she reached the edge of the gardens, she hesitated. The most direct route to the spot on the long drive where she’d left her bike earlier went past Zach’s guesthouse. She’d been a wimp and gone the long way around earlier after she biked over from the studio an hour after Zach had left for the day. But now she was hungry and well, screw it. If she was supposed to be acting like she was perfectly fine with how things were between her and Zach, then there was no reason to avoid walking past the damn guesthouse.
Except, when she got there, Zach was sitting on the front step, a beer in his hand. His brows shot up when he saw her.
“Been for a swim?” he called.
She nodded, tightening her grip on her bag, determined to just keep walking. But then he held out a beer.
“How about a beer?” he asked. He reached down beside his feet and drew a bottle out from a pack she hadn’t noticed before at his feet. Held it out to her.
It was a perfectly casual question. No reason why she wouldn’t have a beer with him at the end of a long few days of hard work. Unless she had a problem with him. Which she did. But she couldn’t let him see that.
She bit back the curses that rose on her tongue and walked over, taking the proffered beer then retreating a few steps back. She dumped her bag on the ground and opened the beer, trying not to think about how they were now standing in almost exactly the same position as they had been a few days ago.
“How was the water?” Zach said, after a moment.
She shrugged. “Nice. No swell though, if you were thinking of going down later.”
