by Bella Andre
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“You’re looking particularly smug this morning,” Zara noted as they drove to work together on Wednesday.
He grinned at her. “So are you.”
It had been the perfect morning. Not only had they had hot morning sex—they’d had it twice, first in bed and then in the shower.
Even better, he hadn’t yet seen any storm clouds appear in Zara’s eyes. He hoped like hell that they never returned. After battling them for half her life, Zara deserved to know only joy from here on out.
Joy that he was determined to give her in any way he possibly could, both in and out of bed.
“What’s on tap for you today?” she asked. “Still working on that secret project?”
He nodded, then deliberately diverted her attention by saying, “I don’t need to ask what you’ll be doing. I already know you’re going be filling orders all day for your new glasses line.”
“Pretty confident about the effectiveness of my new model, aren’t you?”
“I hear he’s pretty special.”
He expected her to come back with good-natured snark. Instead, she reached for his hand. “He really is.”
Rory turned into the warehouse parking lot, planning to kiss her breathless as soon as he turned off the car. That was when he saw them.
Both Brittany and Chelsea were standing outside the building. And they were talking. Though he had no idea why Chelsea was here, he had a bad feeling about it.
As soon as Zara saw her stepsister, she said, “Oh no. I forgot to call Britt back about her wedding. I wonder if that’s someone she brought along to help convince me?”
“I very much doubt they’ve met before,” Rory told her. “That’s Chelsea.”
Zara spun to face him in the passenger seat. “Chelsea? I thought she was in California.”
“I thought she was too.”
Zara undid her seat belt, and before he could stop her, she was striding toward his ex and her stepsister. “Hey, Britt, we’ll talk about your wedding in a minute.” With that, she turned to Chelsea and bared her teeth in a faint approximation of a smile. “I’m Zara. Rory’s colleague here at the warehouse. And,” she said pointedly, “his girlfriend. I’m surprised to see you here.”
Chelsea lifted her chin defiantly. “We have a few unresolved issues to discuss.”
“You sure as hell do,” Zara agreed.
Rory heeded the alarm bells ringing in his head by reaching forward to take Zara’s hand before she could deck his ex with it.
Chelsea had the same delicate look about her, as though she might blow away in a strong wind. The only difference a year had made was her California tan. A glance between his ex and Zara confirmed what Rory had finally realized this week: Only a truly strong woman like Zara could ever have rocked his world…and broken through to his stubborn heart.
He focused on his ex. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you too, Chelsea.” He had never had a chance to apologize to her, and as he’d said to Zara, he believed expressing honest remorse was important. And though he no longer believed he was fully to blame for Chelsea’s accident, he would always wish he had been kinder to her during their breakup. “Come in, and I’ll make you a cup of coffee.”
“Make it three,” Zara said after he decided it was safe to let go of her hand to unlock and open his garage-style door.
“Four,” Brittany said as she led the way into his woodshop. “If my sister is staying, I’m staying too.”
“First of all, I don’t drink caffeine,” Chelsea said to Rory. “I’d have thought we were together long enough for you to remember that.” The implied blame in her words was easily evident. “And this conversation—” Chelsea was looking at Zara and Brittany now. “—is only between me and Rory. So I would appreciate it if you would both leave.”
He almost laughed at her assumption that Zara would back off. Zara, on the other hand, actually did laugh, a sound of disbelief tinged with fury.
“Once you and your friend put that massive guilt trip on Rory’s shoulders after your accident outside the bar,” Zara said in a lethal voice, “you involved every person who loves him. Which is why I’m not going anywhere.”
“It was his fault.” Chelsea’s cheeks held two blotches of color. “I never would have hurt myself that night if he hadn’t been so cruel.”
“Cruel?” Zara took a menacing step toward Chelsea before Rory could intervene again. “How dare you say that? How dare you even think it?”
Growing up, Rory’s mother had been the ultimate protective mama bear for her seven kids. In this moment, when he should have been working to diffuse the situation, he couldn’t stop thinking what a great mother Zara would be to her kids one day. To their kids. She wouldn’t put up with anyone hurting them.
Unfortunately, while he marveled over Zara, his ex was busy baring her claws. “You think he loves you?” Chelsea was the one laughing now, a sound as bitter as nails screeching down a blackboard. “Well, let me tell you—he’s great at making you think that. Great at making sure you keep hanging on. Until one day, it’s over.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
“Chelsea—” Rory tried to get between the women, but Zara stepped around him.
“I get how much breakups can hurt. I really do.” Zara nodded at Brittany. “My sister stole my boyfriend earlier this year.”
Brittany gasped. “You and Cameron only went on a couple of dates!”
Zara turned a look on her stepsister. “We went out for two months. One-sixth of a year. Sixty days. However you want to calculate it, it was a hell of a lot more than a couple of dates.” Her point made, Zara refocused on Chelsea. “Being cheated on sucked and hurt, and I was furious with them both.”
“You were?” Brittany interjected again.
“Of course I was!” Zara told her stepsister. “Which I promise we are finally going to get into after this.” Again, she turned to Chelsea. “But even in my lowest moments, I knew lashing out at them, hurting them the way they’d hurt me, wouldn’t bring him back to me. And when I really looked at the situation—when I made myself push away the pain of betrayal and was completely honest with myself—I realized he was never going to be my right person.”
Chelsea looked at Rory, tears making her eyes glassy. “I thought you were my right person.” Her voice was smaller now. All of her looked smaller, actually.
He moved so that his back shielded Zara from Chelsea’s line of sight, then took Zara’s hands in his. “I love you,” he said softly. Then he kissed her and said, “I’ve got it from here.”
Zara stared into his eyes for a long moment before nodding. “You know where I’ll be if you need me—getting that long-overdue apology from my sister. Come on, Britt, let’s go up to my office.”
For once, Brittany looked less than wholly confident as she followed Zara out of his woodshop.
Zara was nearly out of the room when she stopped. “I’m glad you recovered from your accident, Chelsea. Really glad.”
Once Rory and Chelsea were alone, it was up to him to come clean with her in a way he never had before. “I’m sorry I did so many things wrong in our relationship. I’m sorry I didn’t know how to be honest about my feelings. If I could turn back time and do it all differently, I would. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“What’s the point in turning back time when I can see now that you never loved me? Not enough. Not the way you love her.”
He couldn’t argue with that, but he still needed Chelsea to know something. “I always cared about you. I was always your friend. And I will forever regret the part I played in your accident. I hope you can find a way to forgive me one day.”
Suddenly, she sat on one of his stools, dropping her head into her hands. “This wasn’t how this conversation was supposed to go.” Her tears started to fall in earnest. “I had this confrontation all planned out. I was going to be brave and tough and put you in your place. You were going to see that I don’t need you anymore and how
much happier I am without you.”
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that you’re happy, Chelsea. But I already knew how brave you are. And far tougher than you’ve ever given yourself credit for. I’ve always admired the way you rose above your childhood and created a new life for yourself. You never needed me.”
She lifted her head, tears spiking her eyelashes as she stared at him. He could almost see her synapses making connections, ones she’d never realized had been there all along. “Oh my God…you’re right. I did do all of that on my own. And more since then. So much more.”
He smiled at her. “I’m glad you came to see me. I’m glad we’ve finally talked.”
But she didn’t smile back. “I shouldn’t have done it,” she said, her voice trembling again. “It wasn’t fair to make you feel as though my accident was entirely your fault. I know the things Alexa said were really harsh…” She looked at him anxiously. “Will you forgive me?”
“Of course. You never even had to ask.”
She sighed. “Stop reminding me why I fell in love with you in the first place.” Then she shook her head as if to dislodge the thought while she slid off the stool. “Good luck with everything, Rory.”
And as she drove out of the lot, the guilt that Rory had been carrying around for the past year finally fell completely away. Were it not for Zara opening up his heart—and having his back, no matter what—he likely would never have been able to speak so honestly and openly with Chelsea.
Speaking of having each other’s backs…he strained his ears toward Zara’s office. There didn’t seem to be any yelling.
Though he was tempted to check on them, growing up with three sisters had taught him to tread carefully when it came to getting between women who needed to hash things out. Zara and Brittany’s heart-to-heart was long overdue.
Luckily for Brittany, Zara had the biggest heart in the world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Zara meant what she’d just said to Chelsea about not wanting to lash out at her stepsister and ruin her happiness, and also that Brittany and Cameron were far better suited. But there was another reason that she hadn’t yet admitted. The biggest reason of all.
Zara was afraid she’d lose Brittany if she confronted her.
Since the age of fifteen, her stepsister had been one of the most important people in her life. If not for Brittany, Zara might never have recovered from losing her mom. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing her stepsister too.
Only, she hadn’t given Brittany nearly enough credit, had she? Because if their relationship was as strong as Zara had always believed, then talking through a messy emotional situation wouldn’t make her stepsister run.
Plus, once Zara had seen Chelsea standing outside the warehouse—and had been unable to stop herself from jumping into the fray to protect the man she loved—she now fully understood why he so badly wanted Brittany to apologize for her behavior.
There was nothing worse than knowing someone you loved had been hurt.
She dearly hoped that Chelsea had finally seen the light and apologized to Rory. Zara knew he was hoping for the same for her from her stepsister.
So as soon as Zara shut the office door behind them, she asked the question that had been on the tip of her tongue for a year. “Why did you do it? Why couldn’t you have at least waited until we broke up to date Cameron?”
As always, Brittany didn’t have a hair out of place, nor was there a single wrinkle in her expensive dress. The look in her eyes, however, was far from self-assured. For the first time in recent memory, she looked nervous and upset. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but I swear I was just trying to show you that you deserved better, that you deserved to be a guy’s absolute number one.”
Zara folded her arms across her chest. “You’re right, that does sound completely crazy.”
“Let me explain,” Brittany begged. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with Cameron—”
“Your explanation sucks so far. But go ahead, I’m still listening.”
“At first,” Brittany continued, “my goal was to show you that any guy who didn’t put you first wasn’t worthy of you. I wanted you to hold out for a guy like Rory, who would never stray from your side, not in a million years.” Brittany scowled. “You should know that once his ex-girlfriend found out you two were an item out there, she tried to give me an earful about all the ways he had wronged her. Clearly, she wanted me to try to break you up. But I didn’t buy anything she was saying for a second.”
“Why didn’t you? You’ve only spent an hour or so with Rory, so it’s not like you know much about him at all.”
“Zara, he didn’t even look at me when you were in Camden. Or here, for that matter.”
“That’s how you knew? Because he didn’t ogle you?”
“I don’t want to sound vain—” Brittany ignored Zara’s raised eyebrows. “—but every other guy you’ve been with undressed me with his eyes the moment we met. Only Rory was different. He didn’t even seem to notice I was female. Trust me when I say that you’ve definitely found your one in a million with Rory.”
One in a million. Zara had never wanted anything more than she wanted her stepsister to be right.
“Just so I’m perfectly clear here,” Zara said as she returned her focus to their discussion, “are you saying that you betrayed me with Cameron to help me?”
“Yes.”
Zara couldn’t hold back her laughter at such a classic Brittany move. Her stepsister always wanted to be thanked for whatever she did—even stealing Zara’s boyfriend! In some strange way, though, she supposed it was nice to know that she could always count on Brittany to be Brittany.
“I don’t know what to say, Britt.”
“I do.” Her stepsister had never looked so contrite. “I’m an idiot. I can see that now. All this time, I’ve been trying to convince myself that I only had your best interests at heart, and I swear that I did…” She fell silent for a few moments. “But the truth is that I’m also really envious of you and your career and talent and style.”
Zara held up a hand. “We both know I can’t touch your style, which then puts everything else you said into question.”
“You have more style in your pinkie finger than I have in my entire body. You couldn’t pick me out of a lineup of blondes in PR—but you’ve never been afraid to be unique.” Brittany reached for Zara’s hand. “I should have found another way to show you how important you are to me.” Her eyes filled with tears. “You saved me after I lost my dad, when I thought the whole world had ended.”
“You saved me too.” Zara’s own tears had started to spill over. She wiped them away with the back of her free hand. “But honestly, Britt, there have to be a zillion better ways to show me you love me.”
“I know,” Britt said with a rueful shake of her perfect hair. “You have no idea how guilty I’ve felt all year about my misguided attempt to take care of you. So guilty that I’ve only made it worse by trying to pretend I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It wasn’t losing Cameron that hurt,” Zara told her. “What hurt most of all was worrying that I had lost you.”
“You would never lose me!” Brittany threw her arms around Zara, and it was such a relief to hold her stepsister tight. “Does this mean you forgive me?” Brittany said into her hair a few beats later.
Zara smiled at her irrepressible hope and confidence. “Of course I forgive you. Although…you aren’t the only one who didn’t tell the complete truth.”
Brittany cocked her head. “About what?”
“At your party on Saturday, Rory and I weren’t a real couple.” At Brittany’s incredulous look, she explained, “He found me freaking out over your engagement the day before, and he offered to go as my pretend date to show you that I was doing just fine.”
“But…” Brittany looked toward Rory’s workshop. “He just told you he loves you. And you were sure as heck acting like you love him too. I can’t believe that was
just an act for his ex’s benefit—or for mine.”
“It wasn’t.” Zara was glad that she could finally talk about this with her stepsister. She’d missed their heart-to-hearts this year. “Something changed for us during your engagement party. And even though none of it was supposed to be real—”
“You couldn’t keep your hands off each other.”
“Do you blame me?” But Zara needed her stepsister to know one more thing. “What we have is so much more than just chemistry. I really love him, and he really loves me.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Honestly, I’m still more than a little surprised by how everything changed so fast for us.”
“Falling in love is pretty epic, isn’t it?”
“It is.” Before she could think better of it, Zara added, “And terrifying.”
“I know the sky fell for both of us once,” Brittany said, “but we can’t live every moment worrying that it will fall again. You deserve to be happy, Z. We both do.”
It was exactly what Zara had been telling herself since joy had finally broken through. That it was okay to be happy. That it was okay to embrace contentment. That it was okay to lose herself in the delight of being with Rory. She couldn’t express just how helpful it was to hear her stepsister confirm that all of those things were true.
“I’ll do it,” Zara said abruptly. “I’ll help with your wedding.”
“Fantastic!” Brittany was grinning from ear to ear. “I actually brought my folder of ideas, if you’ve got some time to go over them now.”
“Good to know I’m not a sure thing,” Zara joked.
“You’re my sister.” Brittany gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I knew you’d agree to help. And I have a feeling it won’t be too long before I help you plan the wedding of the century to that gorgeous woodworker of yours.”
“Whoa!” Zara tried to laugh off her suddenly racing heart. “We’re only at the beginning.”