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Eighteen
Zara’s hands shook—from anger, from hurt, from the urgency to get the hell out of here. She couldn’t get dressed quick enough.
“You’re not leaving.”
Zara yanked a sweatshirt over her head. “If I have to walk home, I’m not staying with you another second. I refuse to be with a liar and a manipulator, with a man who claims to care for me, yet you lie about everything.”
Braden stood, grabbed a pair of boxer briefs and jerked them on before coming around the side of the bed. “There’s so much about my business I can’t share with you, Zara. We do what we have to do, and, yes, we use people, we’ve lied, we’ve cheated. But everything you and I have shared was genuine and real.”
“Real?” she cried as she turned to him, her hands propped on her hips. “How can anything be real when the trust was clearly one-sided? Do you know how hard I fought what was happening between us? I kept telling myself that we couldn’t get involved, that anything I felt for you was all superficial. Your power, your charm, everything about you drew me in, and then you went and showed me that sweet, caring side that had my guard coming down.”
Zara refused to give into the sting of tears. She blinked them away before continuing, because if he wanted honesty, he was about to get it.
“I believed everything you said to me,” she went on, her tone softening because the fight was going out of her. “I believed every touch, every promise. The fact that you sought me out to purposely use me cuts me like nobody else’s actions or words ever has. How did you plan on getting into my house once you hired me? Seduction? You succeeded. I guess this storm really played well into your hands.”
Another thought gripped her. “Shane warned me your family were liars and manipulators. I ignored him because I thought he was jealous. Looks like he might have had my best interest at heart after all.”
“Zara.”
He started to reach for her, but she stepped back, bumping into the small table her suitcase laid on. She skirted around it, never taking her eyes off him.
“Do you think I’m going to let you touch me? You did this. You destroyed something I was starting to hope for, something I’d already settled into. Damn it, Braden, I was falling for you, and you betrayed everything good that I had in my life. My self-confidence, my business, us.”
She let out a lifeless laugh at his pained expression. “There never was an us, though. There was you sneaking behind my back, using me, and then there was me being naive and hopeful.”
“Would you listen to me?”
Braden took a step forward and came within inches of her. Zara refused to back up, back down. She would put up a strong front before him if it killed her. She could collapse later in the privacy of her empty home.
“The deceit started when I hired you for who you were. I can’t deny that. And, yes, I wanted to find a way into your house by gaining your trust. But the moment I got into your house, the second I touched you intimately, something changed for me. I still wanted to find what I came for, but I also wanted you and not just in bed. You did something to me, Zara. I can’t let you go.”
He seemed so heartfelt, so genuine, yet none of that mattered because it all came down to the fact he’d lied and betrayed her.
“You have no choice,” she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest to keep more hurt from seeping into her heart. “You should’ve come clean before you took me to bed, because now all I think is you slept with me to gain my trust. You manipulated me, used my feelings.”
Zara glanced around the room and let out a sigh. Ignoring Braden, she pushed past him to gather her things from the bathroom. Her eyes darted to the garden tub where memories had been made. Never again would she be a fool over a man. She should’ve listened to her heart in the first place.
Grabbing her lotion, toothbrush, bubble bath and razor, Zara came back out and dumped it all into her suitcase. She didn’t care if anything leaked over her clothes; she had bigger issues at the moment.
With a swift jerk, she zipped up her luggage and turned back to Braden, who still hadn’t moved. “I want someone to take me home. Not you.”
The muscle in Braden’s jaw ticked as he nodded. “Ryker is still here. I’ll have him take you.”
Zara extended the handle on her suitcase and started for the door. When Braden reached for it, she shot him a look. “Don’t touch it. From here on out, I need nothing from you.”
