She looked down, but she didn’t see him. She saw Zach’s face, the way it had crumpled when she’d laughed, then hardened as he’d turned away. As he’d protected himself.
From her.
She remembered every excuse she’d made to avoid letting him in, and she wanted to kick herself. She’d spent the last few days actively avoiding him instead of rushing to explain, nursing her own scarred-over wounds instead of healing the fresh ones she’d inflicted on him.
Her love should be worth more than that.
“Duke,” she said. “We're going for a walk.”
Chapter 16
Zach’s tall, thin, detached house really did look like the haunt of several vengeful phantoms. Rae wouldn’t be surprised to find the bones of a serial-killer-slash-cannibal hidden in the attic. A thing like that would certainly explain the creepy aura that settled over the house’s grimy, white-painted exterior like fog.
Though she’d been joking, weeks ago, when she’d refused to go to Zach’s house, it didn’t seem particularly funny now. Rae tightened her grip on Duke’s lead as they approached. The place was giving her bad vibes—or maybe that was just her heart-pounding fear that Zach would take one look at her and slam the door in her face.
She’d deserve it. And she’d take it, along with anything else he wanted to dish out. She kept remembering little moments from their weekend together, moments when the truth of his feelings had been in his eyes, and she’d turned deliberately away. She’d been so terrified to trust him, but he had trusted her. Right until the end, against all the odds, he’d quietly, steadily trusted her. And she’d hurt him in return.
She rang the bell and waited as it hummed ominously. Then the door swung open, and there he was.
If she weren’t so anxious, she’d melt at the sight of him: mouth-wateringly sexy, almost obnoxiously built, and shirtless. So thoroughly Zach, and so wonderfully familiar—except for the way his eyes widened when he saw her. And for the book in his hand.
Now Rae’s eyes widened, her throat tightening, her fingers fiddling nervously with Duke’s lead. Why the hell was Zach holding Everlee? Everything she’d planned to say flew out of her mind like a flock of startled pigeons.
Luckily, he spoke first, staring at her like she was some kind of alien. “Rae,” he said, his voice faint with surprise, hoarse with something she couldn’t quite identify. “You came. You came to the haunted serial killer house.”
She wanted to smile, but she couldn’t quite manage it, not when everything was so wrong between them. Still, she huffed out a humourless laugh and said, “Of course I did. You’re here.”
Something about him softened almost imperceptibly. He stepped back, holding the door wider, and said, “Come in. I promise there aren’t any ghosts.”
She did as he asked and was pleased when Duke followed without hesitation. Maybe the house wasn’t as haunted as it looked. Then Zach shut the door behind them and held up the book, its iridescent cover flashing in the light. She almost winced at the sight of it.
His tone painfully neutral, he said, “I really hope you’re here to tell me about this.”
She swallowed hard. Of course he’d be direct. In her mind, she’d imagined things going more smoothly: he’d wait in polite silence while she recited her perfect speech, then offer her a fortifying cup of tea. After some deliberation, he might, perhaps, possibly, forgive her and love her despite her many flaws.
In reality, they stood in his draughty old hallway while he arched a dark brow in her direction. She supposed this was to be expected; apologies shouldn’t be comfortable experiences for the one who’d done wrong.
“Yes,” she said. “I came to talk about the book, and to explain that I’m not in love with Kevin.”
“Talk,” Zach repeated slowly, his expression impassive. “As in, you want to communicate. Out loud. Explicitly. Yeah?”
She could tell, by the weight of each word as they landed, that this question was important. She nodded. “Absolutely. All of that. So much.” Was she overselling it? Maybe, but another reassurance bubbled over. “That’s exactly what I want.”
Zach almost smiled, a flash of warmth brightening his gaze. “Okay. Good.” Then he waved the book and added without warning, “You wrote this, didn’t you?”
For a moment, Rae was speechless—but she’d promised to talk. So, she pulled herself together and said, “Yes. Yes, I did.”
On page 37, Everlee’s hero faced off a god and told it, politely but firmly, to fuck off. That was the moment Zach’s sneaking suspicions had finally solidified.
He might’ve heard echoes of Rae’s fantastic mind much earlier, only he’d been thrown off by the main characters’ clichéd personalities. Honestly, the overdone story setup could’ve been lifted from any boring, white, male fantasy of the last twenty-five years—but once shit actually started happening, he saw Rae everywhere.
Which had finally convinced him that Rae didn’t love her ex. In fact, after watching him win a coveted award for a book she’d written, she must hate the fucker. But questions still buried themselves in Zach’s chest like poisoned arrows: why was Kevin’s name on Rae’s book? Why hadn’t she told Zach the truth? And would the answers to this mystery change anything about their relationship?
Probably not, he told himself sternly. But useless hope crept into his heart, anyway.
“Come on,” he said, after fussing over a demanding Duke. “Let’s go and sit down.”
All three of them padded into the living room where Zach had spent most of his free time yesterday, devouring this book. He wasn’t the fastest reader—as much as he enjoyed it—but he was almost finished now. He supposed he could’ve stopped reading after the first fifty pages, but he hadn’t wanted to. The ghost of Rae’s voice trapped within the ink made him feel closer to her, soothing the hollow emptiness left behind by her absence.
And now she was here, completely ruining all his attempts at stoicism. When she curled up on the sofa with Duke, Zach chose the armchair, as far away as possible. His hands were hungry for her, but he didn’t trust them. He and Rae had spent one endless weekend touching each other without truth, communicating with something other than words—and look at the mess it had gotten them into. This time, she would talk, and he would listen.
She was beautiful today, from her scraped-back ponytail to the push of her tongue against her scarred cheek. As always, she hadn’t dressed properly for the harsh spring weather, but he squashed the urge to take her reddened hands. If she was cold, she could warm herself up. That wasn’t his job anymore.
She bit her lip, then said quietly, “I’ve decided it’s best to explain everything at once.”
Usually, Zach was the one explaining for other people, fixing rifts he hadn’t caused and excusing shitty behaviour. But he didn’t do that anymore, and apparently, with Rae, he didn’t need to. Suddenly, she was all too happy to chat.
Well, happy might be overstating the matter. In fact, she looked vaguely sick—but she was talking, all the same. And an irrepressible part of his mind whispered, She’s doing this for me.
“I’m not supposed to tell anyone this,” she said, “but I should’ve told you. I’m going to tell you. Even though it makes me sound weak.”
Without a second thought, he told her, “You could never be weak.”
The look she gave him seemed to say, And yet, I have been. Then she began.
“In the last years of our marriage,” she said, “Kevin was always angry. It reminded me of home. It made me nervous. The more he pushed me away, the more I wanted to please him.” She gave a wry, one-sided smile and stroked Duke absently. “But, surprise, surprise, I never could.”
Zach clamped his jaw tight, swallowing his response. No matter the circumstances, he couldn’t help but rage for her. The people she loved just kept hurting her, and it made him want to rip heads from bodies.
“I thought maybe the problem was work,” she went on. “He was behind on a deadline, and he wouldn’t le
t me help. Usually, we’d talk through ideas, and I’d smooth out choppy scenes for him, but not this time.”
“Wait,” Zach scowled. “So, he made you do his work for him?”
Rae chuckled. “No, he didn’t make me. I’d always wanted to be a writer, but agents and editors said I had no potential audience. I guess Kevin caught the writing bug from me, but he was actually successful. I wanted to help. It was fun, and I was excited for him.”
Excited. Zach thought most people would be slightly jealous, too, but not Rae. She was the type to get swept away on a wave of happiness for someone she loved—and Kevin, he could already tell, was the type to take advantage of that.
“I had all these manuscripts lying around,” Rae said softly. “His deadline got closer, his moods got worse, and I just wanted to make everything better. So, I gave him a story, told him to use the idea as a framework. I never dreamed he’d rip the whole thing word for word. Of course, there were some changes: he made the heroine a hero. Made her white. Kept a few of my side characters, replaced the rest. The book sold almost instantly. His advance was £500,000.”
Zach closed his eyes for a moment, wrestling with his fury.
Rae didn’t sound furious, though. She sounded wryly amused, like she was telling the story of some teenage mistake, distant enough to laugh about. “I didn’t read Everlee until it was published. He kept getting all these accolades for his ‘diverse’ cast, and I got curious.” She shook her head, chuckling. “Christ, that first read was a shock. When I confronted him, he wasn’t even sorry. He said my version hadn’t been marketable, and anyway, I’d given him permission—which was true, I suppose. I gave him the story. But…”
“But you trusted him,” Zach finished. “You trusted him to use it the way you intended. Not to stick his name on it and sell your words behind your back.”
“Yes,” Rae nodded. “Exactly. I told him that I wanted a divorce, and he said, ‘Good, I’m fucking Billie anyway.’”
She said the words matter-of-factly, but holy shit, that had to hurt. Badly. Even now. Zach got up, his ideas about distance and control abandoned, to sit beside her. She leaned into him without hesitation, and he told his heart to calm the fuck down as he held her close.
There was a gentle silence before he said, “I really don’t know why you won’t let me murder him.”
Rae laughed, the sound dancing through his blood. “Because I don’t think you’d enjoy prison. And because I want you here with me more than I want him dead—or otherwise injured,” she added quickly, like she was covering all her bases.
Zach couldn’t help himself; he dropped a kiss on her forehead, quick and light. She looked up at him with something like hope in her eyes, and that sparked his hope, and suddenly the room was glowing so bright he could barely see.
“The divorce was messy,” she said, “and you know I hate messy. In the end I gave him an ultimatum: give me everything I wanted—and I wanted a lot—or I’d tell the world what he’d done. And it worked. But the thing is, I was bluffing. I didn’t want to tell anyone, then or now, because I know how these things work. Most people don’t care about plagiarism or ethics as much as they care about power. Calling him out would damage me way more than it damaged him, and the drama… the drama would have made me miserable.” She rolled her lips inwards, her mouth a grim line. “I suppose you think that makes me a coward.”
Zach frowned. “No. I think the whole story is fucking awful, but you chose the path that was best for you, and that’s its own kind of bravery.”
She exhaled hard, as if she were relieved by his answer. “Yes,” she said firmly. “That’s what I think, too. Kevin agreed to my deal, and I officially gave up all rights to the content.”
“That’s fucked. That’s just… so fucked.” The unfairness of it was eating him alive, so he couldn’t imagine what it did to her.
But she shook her head, smiling slightly. “You know what? I don’t mind. Everlee is his most popular book ever, and it came from me. Every award he accepts is mine. Every accolade. Every sale. All that magic came from my head, and I can recreate it any time I want. Watching my book succeed under his name is what gave me the confidence to start writing again.”
Then her smile gained a vicious edge that made Zach want to grin. “But even if my career never touches Kevin’s, the fact is, I’m the better writer. And he knows it.” She laughed, and the sound was sheer delight. “That’s the fucking thing, Zach—people are constantly telling him, ‘Rae’s better than you!’ but he’s the only one who can hear it. And he has to smile. He has to look happy about it!” She laughed harder, and this time, Zach joined in. He couldn’t help himself. Because when she put it that way… it still wasn’t right. Not at all. But it was really fucking funny.
After a while, though, she sobered. They were leaning against each other on the sofa, his arm over her shoulders, and she nestled closer.
“Zach,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
He held his breath.
“I’m sorry about everything. That weekend—I lied to you in so many ways because I was scared. I didn’t want to trust you, I didn’t think I could, so I pushed you away. I already regretted that. I’d planned to apologise after the awards ceremony, and to tell you the truth about… about my feelings for you.”
Her feelings for him. The words felt so surreal, he almost missed the rest of her speech—almost. But not quite.
“Then,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut. “God, then I just—I fucked everything up. I panicked and I treated you like… like you were someone else. I took my own shit out on you, and I shouldn’t have. But I promise you, I never will again.” She opened her eyes, her gaze drilling into him. “Zach, I swear. I never will again.”
The words held an earth-shaking finality. He nodded slowly, the swell of hope inside him growing even further, the last of his hurt starting to ease away. “I believe you, sunshine.”
But she still wasn’t done. “I need to tell you the truth, now. I know I pretended we were nothing, but honestly, Zach, we’re everything. You’re everything. And I want to be with you, for real. Even if it terrifies me. I mean—that is—” She faltered, her gaze flitting away. “If you want to. I don’t know if you…”
“Hey.” He caught her chin, turning her to face him. Even that slight connection sent pleasure zinging up his spine. No, more than simple pleasure; this was comfort, this was faith, this was a love so deep, it must be stitched into his DNA by now. So fierce she must feel it in him, must see it in his eyes. God knew he wasn’t trying to hide it. Not anymore.
“I think you know I want to,” he said softly. Understatement of the fucking year. “If you can tell me that weekend was real, and that we’ll always be honest moving forward—yeah, I want to.”
“I promise,” she said instantly. “I’ll try, Zach. I will try so hard for you. And…” She raked her teeth over her bottom lip. “Yes. We both know that weekend was real.”
He felt himself smiling, broad and impossible to control. “I’ll try, too, sunshine. No more faking. Or pretending to be faking. Or whatever the fuck we were doing. We’re both terrible liars, anyway.”
Finally, she laughed, her hand coming to rest over his chest—over his heart. “We are, aren’t we?”
“Oh, yeah. And shitty communicators, but we’ll work on that.”
“Me, you mean.”
“No. Us. It’s always us, now. Do you trust me?”
She didn’t reply right away, and Zach told himself to relax. To wait. Then, slowly, her hand glided from his chest, up his throat, to cradle his jaw. He held his breath because this moment felt breakable, impossible, precious. Like everything was coming together. Like they could do this, and they wouldn’t let anything stop them.
She swept a thumb over his cheek. Leaned in close, until he was surrounded by her sweet, bright scent and still-cold skin. Her whisper warmed his lips. “I do. I do trust you.” Then she kissed him. It was the slightest pressure, but it lit him up
inside, crackling through him like pure power. Pulling away, she murmured, “I love you, Zach. I don’t care about anything else. I love you, and you’re mine, and if anything gets in the way of that—including me—I’ll deal with it. Quickly.” She added with a scowl.
He would’ve laughed at the vicious determination in her voice, but he was too busy floating up to cloud fucking nine. He ran his thumb over her smiling mouth, his own grin so wide it shouldn’t have fit on his face. The brightest happiness he’d ever felt flew through his blood like a rocket. He dragged her into his lap, ignoring Duke’s suspicious look, and held her so tight his arms ached.
She slid her hands into his hair and yanked him impossibly closer. Then their lips met, and everything was right again. Sheer bliss. Pure intimacy. Tender, shivering touches that ruined him utterly.
“I love you, too,” he breathed against her skin. His voice cracked as he spoke. “It’s changed me, loving you. I can’t accept bullshit anymore because you’ve given me so fucking much. You make me feel…” He broke off. “You make me feel like myself.”
She blinked rapidly, her words choked by unshed tears. “That’s what you deserve. That’s how it should be. And the way you look at me—I want to be worthy of that. Of you. I promise, I will be.”
“You already are.” He kissed her cheek, her throat, the curve where her neck met her shoulder. Again and again, so she’d never forget, never be afraid. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“Zach,” she murmured, soft and longing. He looked up to find her lashes fluttering, her eyes turned midnight. He wanted to make them darker still. Wanted to feel her come apart for him, to make love honestly and to have her do the same.
He held her, and stood, and carried her to bed.
Zach’s sheets smelled like him. By the time he laid her gently on top of them, Rae was shaking, overwhelmed by need and by breathless relief. He must’ve sensed how surreal this all seemed to her, because he lay by her side and whispered gentle reassurance in her ear until she could believe that this was it. This was her life. This was her love. It really could be so simple, and so good.
That Kind of Guy: Ravenswood Book 3 Page 20