“There’s a fourth good thing to add to your list.”
She thwacked him on the arm again. “I’m being serious. You’re the one who told me it’s okay to fight for myself by not being such a doormat. Now I’m telling you that it’s okay to do the same with your art, especially when someone tries to attack or take away what you’ve worked so hard to build.”
“You’ve just illustrated the third reason on my list.” For once, he was glad for a minor traffic jam so that he could turn away from the road to look into her eyes. “You’re fierce, Zara. Fierce in your determination to pursue your dreams and not let anyone get in your way. Especially,” he said with a smile, “some jerk who happens to work in the same building.”
“You’re not always a jerk,” she conceded, with a smile of her own.
“Yet another point for your list. Five reasons to fall for me so far.”
He expected another arm thwack and would have been disappointed had it not come.
“Okay,” she said as traffic picked up again, “we’ve got our how-we-met stories straight, our why-we-fell-in-looove lists, and I’m no longer dressed like I’m headed to the morgue. Anything else you think we need to check off our list before we’re good to go?”
“Only one thing left I can think of.”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s have a damn good time.”
He couldn’t see her smile, but he knew it would be just the right side of wicked as she turned off Metallica on his car stereo without asking, then found a pop station and cranked a boy band to ear-splitting levels. “The best time ever.”
CHAPTER SIX
Zara didn’t care for her pounding heart and her sweating palms as they stood at the entrance to the country club where the newly engaged couple were having their party.
She’d had a year to get over Brittany and Cameron’s relationship. Then again, now that the couple was going to make it a forever thing, Zara was in for a lifetime of family gatherings where everyone would expect her to take one for the “true love” team.
She couldn’t wait.
Not.
Zara was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t realize Rory had reached for her hand until he had it in his grasp. “I haven’t felt a palm this damp since my first middle-school dance,” he noted.
His comment had the desired effect, spurring her to give the romantic performance of a lifetime. Head held high, she walked into the building hand in hand with Rory.
She wasn’t surprised when every head turned to take in their procession. And not simply because everyone had surely been waiting for her arrival in the hopes that sparks would fly between stepsisters—but because Rory Sullivan was a truly magnificent-looking man.
Where previously it would have galled Zara to admit just how handsome he was, tonight she wanted to give a fist bump at the way everyone was swooning over him from the barest glance.
Knowing they were all watching, she leaned in to whisper in his ear, “I’m thinking some next-level touching would be good here, if it’s okay with you.”
“Definitely okay.” He put his arm around her waist and pulled her in close.
Wow. If she’d thought holding hands with Rory was a shock to her system, it had nothing on being held in his arms.
This close, she could no longer deny his impressive strength. His delicious scent. And the fact that he exuded sex appeal from the top of his head, to the tips of his toes.
Amazingly, though, the sensations coursing through her were about more than attraction or pheromones. For the first time in a very long time, she felt safe.
Like nothing could hurt her ever again as long as Rory was by her side.
When she turned her gaze to his and realized how he was looking at her, she had to wonder if he could feel it too.
Zara’s stepsister and her ex were both forgotten as she silently scrambled to corral her crazy feelings. But it felt like she was attempting to herd wild mustang horses back into their pen after finally giving them a heady taste of roaming wild and free.
An impossible task, if ever there was one.
“Well, hello there.”
Brittany’s purr broke Zara out of her careening thoughts. She’d been dreading the moment when she came face-to-face with her stepsister at her engagement party. Now, however, she was thrilled that Brittany had broken the spell Rory was casting over her, regardless of how awkward this conversation was bound to be.
Her stepsister enveloped her in an expensively perfumed embrace, during which Rory continued to hold tight to Zara’s waist, proving it was going to take far more than this to shake him free.
“I’m so glad you could come on such short notice, Z.” Brittany let Zara go, then offered her hand to Rory. “It’s lovely to meet you. I’m Brittany, and this is Cameron.” She nodded toward Zara’s ex, who was standing at Brittany’s side, looking more than a little gobsmacked by Zara’s date.
“I’m Rory Sullivan.” He gave Brittany’s hand a firm shake and then did the same with Cameron.
Zara had to stifle a smile at the slight wince on Cameron’s part when he took his hand back. Her ex’s handshake had always been a little soft. Whereas there was nothing soft about any part of Rory, especially his big woodworking hands.
“I’m glad to finally meet you both,” Rory said. “I had hoped to meet you at Zara’s last product launch, but better late than never.”
He let the subtle rebuke dangle in the air as he turned to gently stroke the back of his hand across Zara’s cheek. She allowed an instinctive shiver at his touch, figuring it would help make their ruse look completely above board.
He gazed at her, adoration in his eyes. “I’m so proud of you, baby.”
She nearly laughed. Baby was a little overkill, but since they had agreed to have fun with this tonight, she gave him her own over-the-top admiring look. “Not nearly as proud as I always am of you.”
From the corner of her eye, Zara could see both Brittany and Cameron gaping at them.
+1 for Team Zara and Rory.
Sensing that Rory was working just as hard to keep his laughter in, and that any further antics were likely to send both of them over the edge, she turned back to her stepsister and ex. “Congratulations on your engagement.”
Brittany slid her arm through Cameron’s and rested her head on his shoulder. “We knew from the start that it was true love.” She batted her eyelids at her fiancé. “Didn’t we, darling?”
He kissed her forehead. “From the first moment I set eyes on you, I knew we belonged together, my angel.”
Darling? Angel? Bile rose in Zara’s throat.
She felt Rory’s arm tighten around her as he said to Cameron, “The first time you set eyes on Brittany, weren’t you dating Zara?”
It belatedly occurred to Zara that she should have set the ground rules with Rory more carefully. No going for the jugular. No shooting poison arrows. Though she had been hurt like hell to find Brittany and Cameron cheating on her, when their parents and friends—and pretty much everyone else she knew—were immediately supportive of Brittany and Cameron’s new relationship, Zara had decided it wasn’t worth fighting a losing battle to remind everyone that she had, in fact, been there first.