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He wouldn’t have made the sexual sacrifice for anyone but her.
Her eyes flew open as he gently set her back on her feet and pulled her skirt down before doing up his pants.
“Zach? What are you doing?”
He had a hell of a time keeping his voice steady. “We need to go.”
She was looking at him like he’d lost his mind as he grabbed her purse from the counter, told the dogs not to cause any trouble, and dragged her out to his car. And maybe he had lost it, purposefully stopping just before the big finale like that.
Only, tonight, something bigger was at stake than getting off with a beautiful woman.
Heather’s heart was on the line, and he was going to make damned sure it remained in one piece, no matter what her father tried to pull.
* * *
Heather was going to kill Zach. Her parents had already seen her once today looking like she’d just stepped out of his bed. This was almost worse, this persistent wanting that buzzed through her, making it virtually impossible to not only appreciate the glass of fine red wine from his brother’s winery, but to nurse her frustration at her parents for acting the same way they always did.
She narrowed her eyes across the table as her father stroked her mother’s hand and gazed at her as if he were the luckiest guy in the world. Anyone looking at them would think he was the most devoted husband on the planet.
God, it all was so false. So fake. It made her want to—
“Too bad we didn’t have enough time to finish what we started at your house,” Zach murmured, his breath hitting her on the spot just below her earlobe that instantly melted her every time he came near it.
She couldn’t decide if she wanted to kick him under the table to get him to stop...or if there was some reason she could invent to pull him into a dark hallway and make him finish what they’d started.
Still, even though she was practically jumping out of her skin from wanting him, once she’d calmed down a bit during the short drive to the restaurant, she’d finally figured out what he was doing.
And she couldn’t help but adore him for his brilliant distraction technique.
“So,” her mother said as she beamed at the two of them, “your father and I are dying to know how you met.”
Thank God, that was an easy one. “Zach lost his puppy—”
“—and Heather found it.”
“Aren’t they adorable, the way they finish each other’s sentences. Just like we do, sweetheart,” she said to her husband.
Heather suddenly wanted to puke.
Zach slid his hand up her thigh beneath the tablecloth, to a spot that was much too high for public comfort.
“No,” he said in an easy tone. “We’re nothing like the two of you.” He grinned at Heather. “You hated me on sight. Didn’t you?”
She couldn’t explain why Zach’s honesty made her so happy. Especially when it was guaranteed to upset her parents. But oh, how she loved what he’d said.
No, we’re nothing like the two of you.
She wanted to grab him and kiss him in front of the whole world for that alone.
“It’s true. He was yelling at the puppy, so I tried to take Cuddles away from him.”
“Cuddles?” Her father laughed with faint derision. “That’s some name for a dog.”
Rather than rise to the implied challenge to his masculinity, Zach simply refilled the wine glasses and said, “I still owe your daughter for saving Cuddles.”
Her mother looked confused. “If it all started off so badly, I don’t understand how the two of you started dating, then?”
Heather hated lying. She’d grown up in a liar’s house, after all.
“We’re just friends.” It was the truth, although, unlike the night at his sister’s apartment, she decided to leave off the with benefits part.
“Just friends?” Her mother looked between the two of them. “But today when we dropped by your building—”
Her mother didn’t have to finish her sentence for it to be abundantly clear that she’d assumed since they had been having sex in Heather’s office that they were an item.
Just as she’d known it would, Heather felt the evening begin to crash in around her. But then, Zach slid his hand higher up her thigh and said, “Our dogs can’t stand to be apart. It was love at first sight for the two of them.” His eyes held hers a moment too long. “Which means Heather is stuck with me. Aren’t you?”
Her father’s frown would have normally made her feel like garbage. Any other time she would have felt sick at the fact that after all he’d done, it still mattered to her what he thought.
But yet again, Zach somehow managed to turn everything inside out and upside down. Enough that she found herself smiling in the face of barely averted disaster.
“It really was love at first sight for Cuddles and Atlas.” She raised an eyebrow at Zach. “Fortunately, you’ve grown on me since that first day at your garage.”
Her mother tried to nod as if it all made sense, and her father was still glowering at Zach, but when the waiter came to tell them the specials, she found it surprisingly easy to tune them all out.
Brilliant man that Zach was, he made sure the feel of his fingers on her skin, the way he was playing with the hair lying between her shoulder blades, kept her focus more on him than on anything her parents were doing during dinner. And as he purposefully steered the conversation to his famous siblings, and his mother practically lost her mind at learning he was Smith Sullivan’s brother, she was amazed to realize that Zach had come through for her in a way no other man ever had.
