by Maisey Yates
He only looked at her, his expression neutral.
“I’m done with it, Zack,” she said, pulling the ring, the ring that wasn’t hers, from her finger. “All of it.”
She put the ring on his desk and backed away, her heart thundering, each beat causing it to splinter.
“We have a deal,” he bit out.
“You’ll figure it out. If that’s the only reason you don’t want me to go … if that’s all that’s supposed to keep me here. I can’t.”
Zack stood, his gray eyes suddenly fierce. “So, you’re just going to walk out, throw away our friendship over a meaningless fling?”
“No. It’s not the fling, Zack, it’s the fact that you think it’s meaningless. The fact that I’ve realized exactly where I rate as far as you’re concerned.”
“What do you want?” he exploded. “Why is what we have suddenly not good enough for you?”
“Because I realized how little I was accepting. That everything was about you. I’m just willing to take whatever you give me, whether it’s a spot in your bed or a job baking your wedding cake and it’s … sick. I can’t keep doing this to myself.” She turned to go and he rounded the desk, gripping her arm tightly.
“I’ll ask you again,” he said, his voice rough. “What do you want? I’ll give it to you. Don’t leave.”
“So I can wait around for you to decide you want to try a loveless marriage again? So I can bake you another cake? Maybe I’ll help the bride pick out her dress this time, because, hey, I’m always here to do whatever you need done, right?”
“Does it bother you? The thought of another woman marrying me? Then you marry me.” He reached behind him and took the ring off the desk, holding it out to her, his hand shaking. “Marry me. And stay.”
She recoiled, her stomach tight, like she’d just been punched. “For what purpose, Zack? So I can be the wife you don’t love? Your stand-in for Hannah, different woman, same ring. Doesn’t matter, right? You’re still doing it. You’re trying to keep me from leaving, trying to keep control. You’ll even marry me to keep it. That’s not what I want.”
He took her hand in his, opened it, tried to hand her the ring. She pulled back. “Don’t,” she said, her voice breaking. “Don’t. I’m going to clean my desk out now.”
“Clara.”
Zack watched as she turned away from him and walked out his office door, closing it sharply behind her. Everything was deathly silent without her there, his breath too loud in the enclosed space. The ring too heavy.
Had he truly done that? Offered her Hannah’s ring? Begged her to marry him just so she would stay?
He had. She had gone anyway and there had been nothing he could do to make her stay. All of his control, all of his planning, hadn’t fixed it. He had lost the one person in his life who had given things meaning.
He’d been pretending, from the moment he’d met Clara, that she was only his friend. Only one thing. Because he’d known she could very easily become everything. How had he not realized that she’d been everything from day one?
Pain crashed through him, a sense of loss so great it stole the breath from his lungs.
His chest pitched sharply, his body unable to take in air.
He dropped the ring and it fell to the floor, rolling underneath his desk. He left it. It didn’t matter.
He’d just broken the only thing in his life that did matter.
Control. She spoke of his control, how he tried to control her, keep her in his life on his terms. And she was right. Because he’d known instinctively that if he ever let go of that control she would take over.
She had. His control was shattered now, laying around his feet in a million broken pieces he would never be able to reclaim.
And if finding it again meant losing Clara, he didn’t want it, anyway.
He hadn’t chosen to lose his son, it had been a tragedy, one that had painted his life from that moment forward. He’d let Clara leave, because he’d been too afraid to give. Too afraid to let his barriers down.
Because he’d been certain he couldn’t live with the kind of pain love would bring, not again. But now he was certain he couldn’t live without it. Without Clara. He loved her so much his entire being ached with it.
And if he had to lay down every bit of pride, every last vestige of control and protection to have her back, he would.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CLARA had looked at nine buildings in the space of four hours. She’d hated them all. The idea of having her own bakery … it had been so great before. But she realized now that when she pictured it, when she saw the image of a shop filled with people enjoying her cupcakes, Zack was there. At a table that she knew, in her imagination, anyway, was the one he sat at every day.
And she would come and sit with him when she took a break. And ask him what his favorite confection was. How his day had been. If he’d run in to any mimes. Because in her mind, in her heart, she’d never truly thought he would be gone from her life altogether.
The truth was, a life without him had been impossible to imagine.
In the three days since she’d walked out of Zack’s office, it had changed. She didn’t have a vision when she viewed the potential bakery locations. She saw nothing more than brick and wood. There were no visions. No warmth.
There was no Zack.
When he’d handed her the ring … the temptation to say yes had been there, and it had sickened her. That she would continue to be the void filler in Zack’s life, while she let him be her everything. It was wrong. And she knew it.
Still, a part of her wished she could go back and say yes. She despised that part of herself.
She sighed and walked up the narrow staircase that led to her apartment. She hadn’t taken the elevator in three days, either. Because it reminded her of the elevator rides with Zack, the ones rife with sexual tension. It was almost funny now.
Almost. She’d discovered a broken heart made it mostly impossible to find things funny.
When she reached her floor she walked slowly down the hall. She was exhausted, but going back to her apartment wasn’t a restful thought. Because he was everywhere there. Memories of him. On her couch, in the kitchen, most recently, in her bed.
She stopped midway down the hall, her eyes locking on the small pink and brown box placed in front of her door. She eyed it for a moment before making her way to it, kneeling down and lifting the lid.
Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the contents. Cupcakes.
The ugliest cupcakes she’d ever seen. The frosting was a garish orange, the cake a sort of sickly pale gray. There was a note tucked into the side and she took it out and unfolded it.
I know I said I don’t bake. I did, though. For you. Because it means something to you and I wanted to try it. It made me feel close to you to do it. Please don’t eat them, they’re terrible. I miss you.
Zack
She traced the letters with her fingertips, his handwriting so familiar. So dear to her. The note was scattered, funny. Sweet. She could hear him reading it to her.
A tear slipped down her cheek. “I miss you, too,” she said. “But I couldn’t let things stay the same.”
“Don’t cry. I know they’re awful, but they aren’t that bad are they?”
Clara looked up and saw Zack standing in the doorway of the elevator. He looked tired, the lines around his mouth deeper.
She wiped her cheeks. “They’re pretty bad.”
“Almost as bad as their creator.” He took a step toward her. “I’m sorry. About the other day. About the past few weeks.”
“Zack can we not do this? I don’t think. I don’t think I can.”
“Well, I can’t walk away. I won’t. So if you don’t mind me camping out here in front of your door until you’re ready, then I can wait.”
Clara crossed her arms beneath her breasts, curling her hands into fists, trying to disguise that she was shaking, trembling from head to toe. “What is it?”
&nbs
p; “I told Amudee that I lied.”
“And?”
“We still have a deal, but not based on how he feels about me as a human being. More about my corporate track record.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because I had to clean this up. I used you. I didn’t want to gain anything from that.”
Clara tried to smile. “I appreciate that, Zack, but …”
“I’m not finished.”
She blinked and tried not to cry. She wasn’t ready for this. Wasn’t ready for him to try to repair their friendship, not when she needed more.
“You were right. About me,” he continued. “I have been trying to control everything in my life, including you. Because I felt like there was safety in control. I felt like it was responsible, and I never wanted to deal with the consequences of a lack of control again.”
He took a step toward her, put his hand on her cheek, and her heart stopped. “Clara, from the moment I met you I felt a connection with you. And I had to make a very quick decision about where to put you in my life. It was conscious. It was controlled. So I decided you would be my friend, my employee, but never anything more. Because I think part of me knew that if I let you, you could mean everything to me. If I didn’t keep you in your place you would fill my life, every part of me. That I would love you. But then in Chiang Mai, being near you like that, I couldn’t deny it anymore. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t want you. And we gave in. I lost control. So then, I thought maybe if I put you in that same place in my head I put my lovers, I could have you in my bed, without risking anything more. Without things getting deeper.”
Clara’s entire body trembled as she looked up at Zack, as she watched his face, so tired and sad. Mirroring her own, she knew.
“But they got deeper,” he said, his voice rough. “And I couldn’t stop it. Then I tried to reset things, and that didn’t work, either. Not just because you told me where to stick it, which I absolutely deserved, but because things changed too much. Because knowing what it is to be skin to skin with you, has changed me. And it terrified me to admit that, even to myself.”
“Zack …”
“You have every right to be angry at me. To hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“That’s good, because it makes this next part easier. Because as terrified as I was the first time we kissed, I’m even more afraid now.” He took a deep breath, his nerves visible, his control absent. “You’re right, Clara Davis, you do make me tremble. You have been my friend, my partner, my lover. I want you to be all of those things to me for the rest of my life. I’ll understand if you don’t want the same from me. But no matter what, you have to know that I love you.”
Clara felt dizzy, her fingertips numb. “You … you love me?”
“With everything. After we made love at my house, the last time, I felt like I could breathe again for the first time in fourteen years. For the first time since I lost Jake, I felt something real, something bigger than myself. Do you have any idea how much that scared me? But I realized something, the other day as I was reaching for a bottle of alcohol, to drink away the pain for the first time in fourteen years. That love can make you strong. I’ve always thought of it going hand in hand with loss, with weakness. But being with you … it makes me better. That’s just one reason I love you so much. One of the reasons I had to tell you. Because all of my control, all of my pride, was just to cover up how scared I was. How weak I was. You’ve made me stronger. You’ve made me stop hiding.”
A sob worked its way up her throat. “Zack, I thought I knew you. For seven years I thought I knew you. I thought you were this suave, together guy who had an unshakable calm that I really, really envied. And then I found out how broken you were, how messed up. I loved you before. I loved that guy I thought I knew. His jokes, his company, everything.”
She pressed on, her voice cracking. “But do you want to know something? I love this man more.” She stepped forward and put her palm flat on his chest, her hand unsteady. “Because this is you, and this is real. And I know you’ve been hurt. I know you’ve hurt in ways I can’t imagine. And I know you aren’t perfect. But you’re perfect for me.”
And then he was kissing her, his lips hot and hungry on hers. Her chest expanded, love, hope, filling every fiber of her body. When they parted, they were both breathing hard.
“Do you really love me?” he asked, wiping away tears she hadn’t realized were on her cheeks.
“From the moment I met you.”
“What a fool I was.”
“I wouldn’t trade the time, Zack. I wouldn’t give back those years of friendship, not for anything. They made us who we are. They made us right for each other.”
“I don’t know if you can ever know how much your friendship has meant to me, how much your love means to me now. You’re the only person I’ve shared myself with in so long, the only person I’ve wanted to share with. Without you … there would have been nothing in my life but work. You brought color, flavor.”
“Cupcakes.”
“That, too. And as you can see, I need someone to provide them for me because I’m useless at doing it myself. You make my life worth living, Clara. You make me better.”
“I can say the same for you. I never felt beautiful, never felt special, until you.”
“You’re all those things. Never doubt it.”
“I never will again.”
“I have something for you,” he said.
She smiled through a sheen of tears. “I love presents.”
“I know.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box. This one wasn’t black and velvet. It was pink silk with orange blossoms. “Because you like flowers. And pink.” This was for her. Only for Clara.
“I do,” she said, opening the lid with shaking fingers. The ring inside was an antique style, a round diamond in the center and smaller diamonds encircling the band.
“It reminded me of you,” he said. “Mostly just because it’s beautiful. And so are you.”
She laughed through new tears and held her hand out. “That’s so lame, Zack.”
“I know. It is. It’s really lame. I make bad jokes sometimes, but you know that. You know everything there is to know about me, and if you can do that and love me anyway, I consider myself the luckiest man on earth.”
“I do,” she whispered. “Put it on me.”
He took the ring out of the box and got on his knee in front of her. “Will you marry me? Clara Davis, will you be my wife, in every way. Will you understand that you are first for me, in every way. Will you love me, and let me love you?”
She wiped a tear away that was sliding down her cheek. “I will.”
“And will you bake me cupcakes for as long as we both shall live?”
A watery laugh escaped her lips. “Without a walnut in sight.”
He stood and kissed her on the lips. “I love you. As my friend, my future wife, my everything.”
“I love you, too.” She kissed him again.
“Would you mind if I stayed the night with you?” he asked, his lips hovering near hers.
“One night only?” she said, turning to him.
“No. It would never be enough. I want you every night for the rest of our lives, does that work for you?”
“Yes, Zack. I think a lifetime sounds about right.”
EPILOGUE
CLARA Parsons looked at the mostly uneaten cake. Three tiers of blue frosting that had been perfectly smooth just a few hours earlier, before two, chubby hands had taken some fistfuls out of the side.
“That was the most extravagant cake I’ve ever seen at a one-year-old’s birthday party,” Zack said, looking down at the crumbs all over the kitchen floor. “And I don’t think Colton ate half of it. He mostly just spread it around.”
“That’s what kids do, Zack.”
“He’s asleep. I think we put him in a sugar coma. Anyway, you only get one first birthday, I suppose. You might as well live it up.”
>
Clara looked at the cake again. “This reminds me of another cake I made that didn’t really get eaten. A wedding cake.”
“I’m still very thankful that one didn’t end up being used for its intended purpose.”
“Oh, so am I. Because then we wouldn’t have had our wedding cake, or our wedding.”
“Or our son,” Zack said.
“So, all things considered, it was a pretty important uneaten cake.”
Zack advanced on her and pulled her up against his body, resting his forehead against hers. Her heart stopped for a moment, like it always did when she looked at him. Like it had from the moment she’d first met him.
“A lot has changed since that day,” he said, dropping a kiss on her lips.
“A whole lot,” she agreed.
“Do you know what’s stayed the same?”
“What’s that?”
“You’re still my best friend.”
She kissed him, deeper this time, love expanding her chest. “You’re my best friend, too.”
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
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