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‘I’m to have ground rules?’ She smiled a little too tightly, but Zeke ignored her.
‘I always hear them having a lot of fun, and then you can get him into bed before you come down. Besides, some of my senior instructors usually dine over here so that they can brief me on the day’s events.’
Of course they did. Because work always came first with Zeke. It was one of the qualities that had drawn her to his young self. But it was also one of the ways he’d kept himself closed off from her—even if she’d never appreciated it at the time.
* * *
Zeke was deep in conversation with one of the instructors when Tia made her way down the stairs a couple of hours later, yet he was aware of her presence before he even saw her. Tiny hairs on his body standing to attention, as though the entire aura of the room had changed just by her approaching it.
And then she walked in looking like any single one of his fantasies over the last few years despite the fact that she was in nothing more dressed up than a light grey, soft cashmere jumper over a pair of charcoal trousers and those things he was pretty sure they called ballet pumps on her feet.
Her hair was piled up on her head as though she’d thrown it up there having only just got out of bed. A fact that was belied by the faint mandarin scent of shower gel as she glided gracefully up to him.
How he wished he could dismiss the others now and just have the evening with this arresting creature, as every part of him screamed mine.
‘Gentlemen, I don’t believe you’ve met Dr Antonia Farringdale before.’
‘I most certainly have not had that pleasure.’
Zane. He might have known his old marine buddy wouldn’t be able to resist her and as ridiculous, as schoolyard, as it was Zeke couldn’t help himself—he took a tiny step forward, so subtle it looked simply as though he were shifting his weight from one foot to the other, but enough that his shoulder was tilted towards the newcomer.
The sense of possessiveness that charged through him caught him off guard. He wondered what a body language expert might make of it. He didn’t desire Tia. He couldn’t possibly. Not after she’d lied to him. Denied him, all these years.
He tried to hold onto the fury, the rage, that had almost overtaken him two nights ago when he’d found out that he had a son. A son. And yet he found he couldn’t. That initial rage had waned the instant she’d left his house in Westlake that first day. All her words, her admissions, rolling around his head.
He hadn’t wanted to understand her excuses, let alone believe them, and yet even then he’d known that he didn’t matter.
Only Seth mattered.
And feuding parents would be the last thing the four-year-old boy would need.
Yet if it was only about Seth, and not about Tia, then why was it he still couldn’t quite bring himself to relinquish his defensive stance as he introduced her to the room? Starting with his old buddy.
‘Tia, allow me to introduce Zane, otherwise known as William Zane. One of the other Zs in Z-Black.’
‘William.’ Tia smiled and the openness and brilliance of it almost knocked Zeke for six.
How had he forgotten how powerful that smile of hers could be?
He ignored the voice that told him that he hadn’t forgotten. Not for a moment.
‘Zane, please,’ his buddy corrected, beaming back.
Making Zeke uncharacteristically long to punch him in the mouth.
‘Zane.’ Tia inclined her head. ‘You guys have got a great place here.’
‘Thanks. We’re kinda proud of it.’
‘It pays the bills.’ Zeke grinned, though it turned into more of an uncomfortable baring of teeth. ‘Shall we finish introductions and then eat?’
He’d like to have thought that his companions didn’t notice—possibly the others didn’t—but Zane and Tia eyed him a fraction too long.
A fraction too intently. Then the moment passed, and the evening unfolded relatively easily after that, with the meal passing smoothly and the conversation covering the day’s events, as it always did.
But for once, Zeke couldn’t concentrate.
He felt completely out of control, watching her eat, straining to hear her own soft conversations. Especially those with Zane, a lothario by his buddy’s own admission.
