Summer Love_ A Steamy Small Town Romance Anthology - Piper Rayne Page 0,53

word. Because that had been his fear. Not only that Zoey would lead Gwen into a bad situation with her contagious enthusiasm, but that she’d ruin herself, too. That she’d end up running away like his sister had, because the thought of never seeing Zoey again…

Holy shit.

That was why he was so worried. Not because of the financial implications, but because if it all went wrong and Zoey ran away with her tail between her legs, he might not ever see her again.

“Do you really have so little faith in me?” Zoey’s voice wavered. The moonlight shifted through trees shuddering in the night breeze, and he caught a glitter in her eyes. Tears or anger, he wasn’t sure which.

“It’s not that.” He shook his head, trying to make sense of this unwanted and most inconvenient revelation.

“I think it is.” She pulled away from him. “You’ve seen me stumble so many times that you believe I’m only capable of stumbling.”

“That is not true.” He reached for her, but she pushed off the bed.

She stood naked in the moonlight, mermaid hair tumbling over her shoulders and a look of utter betrayal in her eyes.

Isn’t this what you wanted? For her to see how you’d never be right together.

Only now that it was happening, it felt like a burn all through his body. It scorched him from the inside out, charring his heart and his lungs. And it hurt like nothing else.

“You’re always going to see me as destined to fail.” A tear dropped onto her cheek and she whisked it away. Then she turned and walked out of his bedroom.

“Zoey, stop.” He followed, finding her pulling her bikini bottoms back on. “Don’t be rash.”

Ugh, maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say. Her jaw clenched and she yanked her T-shirt over her bare breasts. “This was clearly a mistake. I thought that if you could see how good we were together you might…”

“Might what?”

Her lip quivered, but she stayed strong, locking her shoulders in place as she stared him straight in the eye, strong as a queen. “That you might be able to pull your head out of your arse long enough to see how much I love you.”

The words froze him in his tracks.

Sure, he knew that Zoey had crushed on him since she was a gangly, freckle-faced teenager. Sure, he knew that she was attracted to him as an adult. But love? Actual long-lasting forever love?

She stepped into her jean shorts and pulled them up over her hips, not meeting his eye as she tugged the zipper up and stuffed her feet into her Havaianas. Then she bent over to scoop up the top part of her bikini and stuffed it into the back pocket of her shorts.

“Mack, you’re a smart guy but sometimes you’re really dumb.” She shook her head and walked across the room, right to the front door, and left without a backward glance.

Zoey loved him.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. Tonight was meant to be a release of energy, a calculated lapse in his responsibility. Not love. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he swore under his breath, remembering that he’d driven Zoey here. He couldn’t let her walk home on her own.

But by the time he made it outside she was gone.

MACK: Don’t walk home alone, please. Let me drive you.

ZOEY: I’ve already texted Gwen. I’m crashing at her place.

Gwen lived on the next street over, and Mack sighed in relief. But there was a hard knot in his chest. Zoey loved him and he was afraid of losing her. Both of these things didn’t fit with his view of the world. He was supposed to be chasing a stable life, looking to settle down and make a family with someone who matched him. Not falling in love with a wild, whimsical woman who revved his engine and made him break his own rules.

But as he walked back into his house, his legs feeling heavy and stiff as though they were filled with concrete, he knew that tonight had fundamentally changed things. He could no longer deny that his feelings about Zoey were purely based on responsibility. He could no longer deny that his attraction to her was more than skin deep.

Fact was, there was a very real possibility that he loved Zoey, too. But this possibility wasn’t a green light to act. What if he messed it all up and lost two people he cared about as much as if they were his own family?

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024