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Page 21
"You don't have to worry," she assured him. "It isn't a permanent condition. I'll get over it. I'm sure I'll get over it. Eventually."
"I hope not," he said softly. "I hope to God you never get over it."
Zoe stood there for a moment, wide-eyed, staring. The sick, panicky fluttering in her chest took on a different character. Excitement. Fear. A wild impossible hope.
"I'm in love with you, too." He reached out and gently, slowly, enfolded her in his arms. "I'm madly, passionately, completely in love with you. And I'm quite sure I'm never going to get over it as long as I live."
"Never?" she breathed, almost … almost allowing herself to believe it might be true. Might be possible.
"Never," he vowed, and bent his head to kiss her.
And Zoe let herself believe it. Just for that moment. She parted her lips and accepted his kiss and let herself believe. And when he raised his head…
"Are you sure it's not just the sex?" she asked.
"Not just the sex?"
"Making us feel this way. Sex scrambles your mind. It makes you stupid and sappy and sentimental."
He smiled into her hair and cuddled her closer. "What's wrong with stupid and sappy and sentimental?"
"It doesn't last."
He drew back a bit to look down at her. "What makes you think it doesn't last?"
"Experience."
He grinned wolfishly. "You didn't have any experience before me."
"My mother's experience. She's been married six times, and she's had I don't know how many affairs. She's always falling in love and thinking this guy is the guy. Only he never is. Or he is for just a little while. And then she falls out of love. Until the next time. She'd already been married and divorced four times by the time she was my age."
"And how many times have you been married and divorced?"
"That's not the point. I've been very careful not to let myself get intimately involved with anyone."
"Until me."
"Until you," she agreed.
"So you've already broken your mother's pattern, then, haven't you?"
The way Zoe's eyes widened it was clear she'd never looked at it in quite that light. "Yes," she said slowly. "Yes, I guess I have."
"Well, then." He cocked an eyebrow at her. "What's the problem?"
"It can't be that easy."
"I don't see why not."
"What about the debutante?"
"What debutante?"
"Alicia."
Reed just shook his head. "She doesn't glitter."
"She doesn't what?"
"She doesn't glitter." He flicked one of her dangling earrings with his fingertip, setting it to swaying and sparkling in the light, then tenderly cupped his hands around her face and tilted it up to his. "I've always had a weakness for the ones that glitter," he said, and kissed her.
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