CHAPTER ONE
Zara Mirren couldn’t stop laughing. It was either that or cry. Or, better yet, not give a damn what her stepsister and ex-boyfriend did.
Like, say, get engaged.
Zara poured herself another glass of bubbly. So what if it was just before nine in the morning in Bar Harbor, Maine? It would soon be five p.m. in Helsinki, and that was good enough for her.
She gulped her second drink so quickly that the bubbles barely had time to fizz on her tongue. Normally, she wasn’t much of a drinker and would have nursed a glass of Prosecco for a good hour. Today, however, she was glad to be a lightweight. The sooner she got flat-out drunk, the better.
“Celebrating something?”
Zara looked up to see Rory Sullivan leaning against the door frame of the communal kitchen. In his white T-shirt and well-worn jeans, he resembled a modern-day James Dean.
It was just her luck that Rory would be here bright and early on a Friday morning to find her drowning her sorrows in a leftover bottle of bubbly from the open house their artists’ collective had held the previous weekend.
Together with six other makers, Zara and Rory rented space in a converted warehouse a few miles outside of downtown. Zara got along well with everyone else in the building. Only Rory drove her crazy.
She was pretty sure she drove him even crazier.
Smiling at the thought, she topped up her glass, then brought it to her lips for another long glug. After she’d emptied it, she replied, “It’s another day in paradise. What’s not to celebrate?”
Still leaning against the door frame, he looked out the window. “Blue skies and sunshine are definitely nice after all the rain we’ve been having,” he agreed before turning his gaze back to her. “Why don’t we go take a walk and enjoy it?”
She snorted her response to this ridiculous question—the two of them had never willingly spent time alone together, unless they were arguing. The gesture knocked her glasses slightly askew, but she didn’t bother to right her specs. She was okay with everything going a little blurry today. “No, thanks.” She refilled her glass, lifting it toward him in a quasi-toast. “I’m happy here.”
He moved closer, and unfortunately, she wasn’t drunk enough yet not to notice how good he smelled. Like fresh cedar wood. During the year she’d been working here, she’d found that no matter how sweaty he got while working in his furniture workshop, he never smelled bad. What’s more, his work was always brilliant.
Damn him.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and pulled a chair up to the table. “Care to share what you’re so over the moon about?”
She got the sense he was choosing his words carefully, something he’d never done with her. With everyone else, he was charm personified. But when the two of them were talking—sparring, more likely—he took great pleasure in acting the devil.
And if more often than not, he made her want to laugh…well, she wasn’t about to admit that anytime soon.
Perhaps if her head hadn’t started to feel like it was going to lift up off her neck and float away, she might have been able to come up with a brilliant answer to his question. Instead, she found her mouth shaping the words, “My news is going to make your day.”
He gave her a small smile, one that made her stomach feel fluttery. No, that had to be due to the Prosecco. Still, it didn’t help that he was sitting close enough for her to see the flecks of green in his blue eyes.
“I can’t wait to hear it,” he said.
Again, it seemed wisest to take another drink before speaking. When she put the empty glass down, it wobbled on its base and started to tip. Before she could get her hand to obey her brain’s instructions to reach for it, Rory had righted the glass.
“My stepsister just got engaged,” she said. He raised an eyebrow, obviously waiting for her to explain why this wasn’t fantastic news. “To my ex-boyfriend.” His other eyebrow went up, but he remained silent, as though he knew instinctively that wasn’t the end of the story. “I found them in bed together a year ago.”
That was when she had decided to leave Camden and move to Bar Harbor. Camden was too small a town—she kept running into the happy couple in the grocery store, and the coffee shop, and while filling her car with gas. Two weeks after she’d discovered their affair, she’d packed up her things and headed north.
Rory didn’t look like he pitied her, thankfully, though he did note, “That sucks.”
It did. Of course it did. But Zara had been down similar roads with her stepsister for fifteen years now, albeit on a less grand scale. She didn’t blame Brittany for being beautiful and fashionable and irresistible to all men everywhere. Instead, Zara tried to tell herself she was grateful that Brittany had helped her see Cameron’s true colors before she got in too deep. Now her stepsister was stuck with him. Good riddance.
Besides, she’d been through far worse things than this. Her stepsister and her ex getting married would be a walk in the park compared to the loss of her mom when she was fourteen.
Zara shrugged. “They’re good together. Better than he and I ever were. It’s no big deal.” At least, it wouldn’t be once she’d had more to drink.
She reached for the bottle and turned it upside down over her glass. Her aim was no longer great, however, and were it not for the fact that the bottle was nearly empty, she would have drenched the table. She put it down and swiped her fingers through the small pool of sweet bubbles, licked them off, then held up her phone and waved it at Rory.
“I got her text a few minutes before you showed up.” She squinted at the screen, rereading her stepsister’s words. “There’s a party too. Just a small gathering.” Zara almost laughed again. Nothing Brittany did was small. Apart from her waistline.
“When is it?”
Zara rested her chin on her hands. She couldn’t remember the last time her head had felt so heavy, like it was twice as big as it should be. What had Rory just asked? Oh yeah, the party details. “Tomorrow. They’re so excited, she said they can’t wait to celebrate with everyone.” Her stepsister had sent a selfie of Cameron kissing her while she held up a massive diamond ring to the camera.
“Tomorrow works for me,” Rory told her.
Zara’s eyes had been closing, but when his words finally sank into her brain, she goggled at him. “What do your Saturday plans have to do with me?”
“I’m free to go with you.”
Had he lost his mind? “I didn’t ask you to go with me.”
He reached for the roll of paper towels on the counter behind him, his T-shirt riding up to expose a couple of inches of tanned skin, along with abdominal muscles that only made her goggle more.
Gently, he lifted her arms, wiped up the Prosecco puddle beneath them, then said, “Going with me has got to be better than going alone.”
On any normal day, she would have scoffed at that statement. But on one that had begun so awfully, she found herself seriously considering his proposition. She stared at him. “I suppose some people might think you’re attractive.”
That got a low laugh out of him. “I’ve had my share of compliments over the years.”
She rolled her eyes at his fake modesty. “And you’re not at all egotistical.” Her words dripped sarcasm.