to use her as a whipping post, to throw her love back in her face. And that wasn’t okay at all.
She stood and wiped her clammy palms on her jeans. Duke stayed by her side as she crossed the room to inspect the chip in her study’s paint and the lovely new crack on her phone screen. “Real mature, McRae,” she muttered to herself. But she didn’t care about the phone. She was too busy worrying about all the other things she might have broken.
Precious, beloved things.
Duke whined and butted his head against Rae’s thigh.
She looked down, but she didn’t see him. She saw Zach’s face, the way it had crumpled when she’d laughed, then hardened as he’d turned away. As he’d protected himself.
From her.
She remembered every excuse she’d made to avoid letting him in, and she wanted to kick herself. She’d spent the last few days actively avoiding him instead of rushing to explain, nursing her own scarred-over wounds instead of healing the fresh ones she’d inflicted on him.
Her love should be worth more than that.
“Duke,” she said. “We're going for a walk.”
Chapter 16
Zach’s tall, thin, detached house really did look like the haunt of several vengeful phantoms. Rae wouldn’t be surprised to find the bones of a serial-killer-slash-cannibal hidden in the attic. A thing like that would certainly explain the creepy aura that settled over the house’s grimy, white-painted exterior like fog.
Though she’d been joking, weeks ago, when she’d refused to go to Zach’s house, it didn’t seem particularly funny now. Rae tightened her grip on Duke’s lead as they approached. The place was giving her bad vibes—or maybe that was just her heart-pounding fear that Zach would take one look at her and slam the door in her face.
She’d deserve it. And she’d take it, along with anything else he wanted to dish out. She kept remembering little moments from their weekend together, moments when the truth of his feelings had been in his eyes, and she’d turned deliberately away. She’d been so terrified to trust him, but he had trusted her. Right until the end, against all the odds, he’d quietly, steadily trusted her. And she’d hurt him in return.
She rang the bell and waited as it hummed ominously. Then the door swung open, and there he was.
If she weren’t so anxious, she’d melt at the sight of him: mouth-wateringly sexy, almost obnoxiously built, and shirtless. So thoroughly Zach, and so wonderfully familiar—except for the way his eyes widened when he saw her. And for the book in his hand.
Now Rae’s eyes widened, her throat tightening, her fingers fiddling nervously with Duke’s lead. Why the hell was Zach holding Everlee? Everything she’d planned to say flew out of her mind like a flock of startled pigeons.
Luckily, he spoke first, staring at her like she was some kind of alien. “Rae,” he said, his voice faint with surprise, hoarse with something she couldn’t quite identify. “You came. You came to the haunted serial killer house.”
She wanted to smile, but she couldn’t quite manage it, not when everything was so wrong between them. Still, she huffed out a humourless laugh and said, “Of course I did. You’re here.”
Something about him softened almost imperceptibly. He stepped back, holding the door wider, and said, “Come in. I promise there aren’t any ghosts.”
She did as he asked and was pleased when Duke followed without hesitation. Maybe the house wasn’t as haunted as it looked. Then Zach shut the door behind them and held up the book, its iridescent cover flashing in the light. She almost winced at the sight of it.
His tone painfully neutral, he said, “I really hope you’re here to tell me about this.”
She swallowed hard. Of course he’d be direct. In her mind, she’d imagined things going more smoothly: he’d wait in polite silence while she recited her perfect speech, then offer her a fortifying cup of tea. After some deliberation, he might, perhaps, possibly, forgive her and love her despite her many flaws.
In reality, they stood in his draughty old hallway while he arched a dark brow in her direction. She supposed this was to be expected; apologies shouldn’t be comfortable experiences for the one who’d done wrong.
“Yes,” she said. “I came to talk about the book, and to explain that I’m not in love with Kevin.”
“Talk,” Zach repeated slowly, his expression impassive. “As in, you want to communicate. Out loud. Explicitly. Yeah?”
She could tell, by the weight of each word as they landed, that this question