His lips curled into a satisfied smile. “Good. That means you’ll never forget me.”
“Zach,” she murmured. “You are not the sort of man I could forget.” She laced her fingers in his hair and tugged him closer, toward her mouth—
The elevator dinged. She hesitated, shot him a faintly embarrassed smile, and pulled away. He let her go with a barely hidden groan of frustration, his eyes sliding shut for a minute, his jaw tight as he regained control. When he opened his eyes again, he expected to find Rae’s mocking, whiskey gaze on him, gloating over the way she’d ruined the line of his jeans.
But she wasn’t teasing him. She wasn’t watching him at all. She was staring at the man standing in the elevator as if she’d seen a ghost, and he was staring right back. The guy was tall and lean, with bold, handsome features, his face all shadow and light. He had thick, greying brown hair, silver glasses on his sharp nose, and slack-jawed astonishment written all over his face. His gaze flew from Rae to Zach and back again, narrow and calculating.
His identity should’ve been obvious, but it still came as a surprise when Rae set her shoulders and said with careful calm, “Hi, Kevin.”
So much for disappearing to get condoms. Zach wasn’t fucking moving from this spot.
Kevin stepped forward, then hesitated, running his tongue over his teeth. “Baby.”
Zach stiffened. But Rae gave a tight smile and breezed past it. “How’s Billie? I saw your kid last night.”
That was when Zach noticed the blue, starry bag slung over Kevin’s shoulder, the kind parents used to cart around the 10,000 things babies needed. He saw mums in Ravenswood with those bags all the time, walking together with their pushchairs or going to tummy class or whatever the fuck it was called.
Now Kevin patted the bag with a self-conscious smile and said, “Jason. He’s growing so fast.”
Zach was dying to point out that no baby should grow fast enough to be over two years old, eighteen months after a divorce, but he didn’t think Rae would appreciate that.
“He’s a handsome boy,” she said politely, but Zach knew she was lying, because all kids looked like walnuts or dried-out marshmallows until they hit 5 and got real people faces. In fact, he and Rae had discussed that phenomenon at length over breakfast. He found her hand and squeezed. As always, she knew exactly what he was thinking; she shot him a desperate, wide-eyed look that seemed to say, Please don’t make me laugh right now.
He bit his lip.
“This is Zach, by the way,” she said, bumping her shoulder into his—like Kevin might have missed a glowering, 6 foot 2 inches of human being.
“Hi,” Kevin nodded, his eyes darting to their joined hands.
Zach grunted. Rae trod on his foot. He cleared his throat and said, “Hi.”
Kevin’s smile was thin-lipped and sharp-edged as he turned back to Rae. “I’m glad you’re moving on,” he said, like he was bestowing a magnanimous blessing. Zach just about managed to stop his jaw from dropping.
“Thanks,” Rae said. “I was really worried about my cheating ex-husband’s opinion, but now you’ve said that, I can breathe easy.”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “Come on, baby. I’m trying to be nice here.”
“Good for you. Are you ever coming out of that elevator, or?”
He looked down, as if he hadn’t known he was standing right on the threshold, stopping the doors from closing. “We’re talking. Aren’t we talking?”
Rae sighed.
“I didn’t expect you to be here,” Kevin said. “I mean, I didn’t think you’d be invited.”
What the fuck? Zach stiffened, opening his mouth to tell Kevin exactly where he could shove his surprise—but Rae sank her nails into his hand in an unmistakable warning. Don’t.
Okay; so, she wanted to handle this herself. Perfectly reasonable. Totally fine with Zach. But if she could just give him a few minutes at the end of the conversation to beat her ex into a pulp, he’d really appreciate it. He tried to make that request via a combination of telepathy and speaking looks, but it didn’t seem to work. She was too busy glaring at Kevin with an intensity that should, by rights, have turned the man to dust.
“I’m a very good writer,” she clipped out, which was possibly the nicest thing Zach had ever heard her say about herself. “You of all people should know that.”
Kevin shrugged. “You are a good writer. But you have no head for business, for what’s