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His heart hammered. “Please tell me. Say it and get it over with.”
“The client is Black Crescent.”
The blood drained from Zane’s face so fast that it made him sick. This couldn’t possibly be happening. No. Absolutely not. How could what was starting to work out perfectly take such a nightmarish turn? “You’re working for Black Crescent.” He sat up a little straighter in bed. “You, quite possibly the most decent and upstanding person I know, are working for the most evil and vile company imaginable. You’re working for the devil. Why would you do that?” With every word out of his mouth, his disgust grew. “Why would you even entertain the idea?”
“Zane, come on. Isn’t that all a little overdramatic?”
Zane had been trying to keep himself in check, but that word pissed him off. He’d had it lobbed at him before, and he disliked it greatly. He threw back the covers and scrambled out of bed, plucking his underwear from the floor and putting them back on. He was so full of anger right now it felt like it might bubble up out the top of his head. He had to move to keep his mind straight. And he couldn’t be naked in bed with Allison anymore. “Is that why you said all of that stuff to me on the island about letting it go? Is that why you were being so secretive about your work calls?” He ran his hand through his hair, pacing back and forth across his bedroom floor. “Does that Ryan guy work for BC? No wonder I had a bad feeling about him.”
“Ryan is a candidate to take Joshua Lowell’s place.”
Zane’s stomach turned. “So the guy you were talking to while we were on the island is going to be the new Josh Lowell? That’s just awesome.” He sincerely hoped the sarcasm was hitting home for her. He didn’t want to be a jerk again, but he needed her to understand how hurt he was right now.
“Maybe. He’s just interviewing right now. Actually, you should meet him. He’s a really nice guy. I think you would like him. I think you would like all of the people who are interviewing for the job.”
Zane made a point of looking at her as though she’d lost her mind. He didn’t want to ask the question out loud, but he wasn’t afraid to suggest it by other means. This entire line of thinking was so off base.
“Honestly,” she continued. “I think you would really like Josh if you got to know him. In a lot of ways, he’s just as much a victim of his dad as you are. None of what happened was your fault, but it wasn’t his fault, either.”
And to think, Zane had been so sure that Allison understood him. Now he knew that he was wrong. So very wrong. “That’s okay. I think I’ll skip the part of this scenario where you whip up some dream of Josh Lowell and me becoming best friends. I realize that it’s your special talent to come up with fantasies.”
“That’s really mean. And completely uncalled for.”
“It’s the truth.”
Allison grumbled under her breath. “You know what, Zane? Screw you. That’s not what I was suggesting. All I’m saying is that I think you need to take a deep breath, try to take a step back and look at this from my perspective. You can’t undo what happened, okay? You need to let it go. I’m sorry, but you do. At some point, you’re going to have to get over this or you’re just going to be stuck forever.”
Zane disliked a lot of things, but he despised it when anyone told him to get over Black Crescent. His entire life had been ground into the dirt by the greed of the Lowell family. He and his parents had been treated like they were nothing, taken for their family fortune and cast aside, with absolutely zero repercussions for those who committed the crime. That injustice sat in the depths of his belly every day. He couldn’t “just get over it.” It was impossible. “I’m not talking about this anymore. You were there for the fallout. You know how badly I was hurt. You saw it firsthand. I not only shouldn’t have to explain it to you, I won’t.”
“I’m sure you’re going to say this is just a cliché, but every black cloud has a silver lining. If Vernon Lowell hadn’t taken off with that money, you and I never would have met. You and Scott wouldn’t have the friendship you have today. Black Crescent isn’t all bad. I wish that you could see that.”
“And I wish you could see why that is beside the point.” He scanned her face, desperate for some sign of the Allison he so adored. Right now, it was hard to imagine he’d dared to think about the future with her. How could he have been so stupid? “I think you should go home.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Allison whipped back the comforter and grabbed her dress from the floor where it had landed earlier. She threaded her arms through it, wrapped it around her body and zipped it. “You drove me here. I’m not using a ride app this time of night. I’ve heard too many scary stories about women ending up with creepy drivers.”
Zane plucked his pants from the floor and fished his car keys out of the pocket. “Take my car. I’ll get it back from you later.” He tossed them to her.
She caught them, staring down at her hand for a moment. “Oh, right. Zane Patterson, the golden boy, the super successful entrepreneur, has an entire garage full of cars. He has them to spare.”
“That’s right. That’s me. Mr. Perfect.” Right now, he felt as far from that as he’d quite possibly ever felt. If that was what Allison truly thought, she’d lost it. So had his mom, for that matter.
“Goodbye, Zane. I’ll let myself out.” She pivoted on her heel and headed for the bedroom door.
“Youknewthis was going to happen, Allison. You knew this would be my reaction. Nothing about the conversation we just had should come as any surprise. And you knew it the whole time we were on the island, didn’t you?”
She stopped in the doorway and turned back to him. “I’d foolishly hoped for a better outcome.”
“You don’t understand what this is like for me.”
She shook her head with a pitying look in her eyes. “I do understand it, Zane. And I don’t know what I have to do to convince you of that.”
Twelve
Scott bellowed at the guest room door. “Zane Patterson, I know you’re in there. Get out here. You have some explaining to do.”
