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It hardly made sense. Not to mention the fact that he’d never seen the strong female look so unsteady. He didn’t know what her true reasons were for wanting to separate from the colony, nor did he expect Tamisia to tell him.
Especially not now.
He could only hope his refusal to help her didn’t jeopardize everything at stake for the alliance.
CHAPTER 30
Brynne stood at the water’s edge on a secluded stretch of beach, watching the crystalline blue waves lap at her bare feet. Neriah had shown her to the small white stucco cottage that would be her quarters while she and Zael were on the island. According to her, Zael had his own cottage farther up on one of the hillsides, the home he kept for those rare visits he made to the colony.
Was that where he’d gone to now? She refused to think he might have gone there with beautiful Tamisia, even though the sting of his abandonment still burned in her breast.
That wounded part of her wanted to reject the idea that she had any stake on him. Zael had lived a long life before he came swaggering into hers. She couldn’t expect him to pretend he hadn’t, or that the people he’d met along the way didn’t still mean something to him.
They did mean something to him. She saw that today. For some reason, she had been deluding herself into thinking Zael was as alone and isolated as she was—that they had that in common somehow. Today she saw that despite all of his wandering, he had a home.
Here, with the colony.
She’d never had anything like that. She didn’t know how to be part of a community, a culture, a family. She had never quite fit—not anywhere. She’d never felt she belonged, not to anyplace or anyone.
Except when she was lying in Zael’s arms.
“This view has never looked better.”
The sound of his deep voice startled her. She spun around to find him strolling down onto the sand, his white linen tunic riffling in the breeze, his eyes as bright and brilliant as the water she’d been admiring a moment ago.
“I trust Neriah got you settled with everything you need.”
Everything I need except you, she thought, her pulse quickening at the sight of him.
She nodded. “I’ll be fine. You didn’t need to check on me.”
His brow furrowed as he approached. “I’m sorry for leaving you the way I did. I was concerned Tamisia might use her jealousy against the alliance if I left her standing there ignored.”
“Of course, I understand. We have to do what’s best for the alliance. After all, that’s the only reason you brought me here.”
“Is that really what you believe?” He reached out, brushing the backs of his fingers against her shoulder.
She deliberately side-stepped a pace, dodging his touch. “Careful. What if someone sees? Remember our arrangement.”
He glanced around at the palm trees and flowering bushes that hemmed the cottage in from three sides. “It’s all right. No one’s here to see us.”
Which was apparently the only reason he felt comfortable showing up.
“Did you and Sia have a nice talk?” Her spite was petulant and childish, but she couldn’t rein back the hurt.
Zael’s frown gave way to surprise, then an aggravating smirk. “You’re jealous.”
She had to bite her tongue to keep from confirming or denying it.
“You think I want her?” Zael moved closer. “You think I could ever want her when I have you?”
Sunlight haloed him, glinting off his copper-shot, golden waves. His handsome face always took her breath away, but especially now, with his sculpted lips curved in a sensual smile and those oceanic blue eyes darkening as his gaze penetrated hers.
