again, and again, and again. She was amazed that when they were kissing, all her fears, her worries, even the dark clouds of guilt and grief from losing her mom, stayed away.
“Seriously, though,” he said, “what were you thinking about?”
“For the first time, I feel completely free of the whole Brittany and Cameron thing.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I am too. Especially since she just asked again if I’d help plan the wedding.”
He didn’t look surprised. “I thought as much. I take it that means you’re still considering doing it?”
“It’s going to be one of the most important days of her life,” Zara explained. “I know she must really be missing having her father here to celebrate it with her. I can’t fill his shoes, but at the very least I can be there to give her support when she needs it most.”
Rory was silent for a few moments. “I would feel the same way with any of my siblings, no matter what they had done to hurt me. And I’m amazed by how strong you are. Strong enough to support Brittany despite everything.”
“But?” She could hear the word hanging silently in the air between them.
“I hate that she hasn’t apologized to you for seeing Cameron behind your back. When I think about how she lied to you…” His hands clenched. “I wish I had been there to protect you, Zara. And I wish I could make sure she never hurts you like that again. That no one ever hurts you.”
Zara had to kiss him—he could be cocky and overbearing and had terrible taste in music. But he was also wonderful.
“I feel the same way about you,” Zara said softly. “I wish I could turn back time to protect you from the way Chelsea and her friend blamed you for her accident, when all along you had tried to be nothing but kind.”
They reached for each other’s hands at the same time.
“From here on out,” he said in a low voice that rumbled with warmth across the surface of her skin, “I promise I’m going to be there for you. No matter what.”
“Me too.” She smiled into his eyes. “You won’t be able to escape me. I’m going to be constantly hovering over you in my superhero cape.”
He leaned forward to press his lips to hers, then whispered, “Now I can’t stop thinking about how hot you’d look in a skintight superhero outfit. If I bought one online, would you wear it for me?”
She laughed as she said, “Perv,” then whacked him lightly in the gut—aka his rock-hard six-pack.
“There’s no point in pretending you don’t love it.”
“I really do,” she admitted, before forcing herself to get back to business rather than tearing his clothes off and making love to him again. “I also need at least one great picture of you wearing each frame before I can cut you loose.”
For the next two hours, they knocked out pictures of Rory in a dozen different frames. Of course, he looked fantastic in all of them. Fortunately, by the time he started to look a little weary of posing, they were done. She made them each a hazelnut latte, then quickly copied the digital photos onto her computer.
Wow. He hadn’t only given her a handful of good ones—she had her pick of great pictures.
“Anything you can use?” He had a faint foam mustache on his upper lip. Zara was glad she didn’t have to exercise restraint anymore—she leaned forward to lick it off.
“A better question is whether there will be any I can’t use.” She looked at one where they were both laughing. She doubted she had ever looked that happy before. That alive. “If the frames fly off my shelves as quickly as I think they’re going to with these photos, I’d be crazy not to beg you to model for my next set of ads.”
“Let me see what you’ve got.”
She waved him away. “There’s no time for comments from the peanut gallery.” Amazingly, he found a peanut in her office to throw at her, making her laugh as she batted it away. “You can see the pictures once I’ve put together the best ones for the ads.”
“Before this weekend, I’d have been worried about you using the ones where I’m cross-eyed. But now…”
“You’d still better be extra nice to me until the ads go live—just in case I switch the pictures out,” she joked.
“I’m more than happy to be nice to you, Zara.”
“Your mind really is always in the gutter, isn’t