by Holly Rayner
So she lingered, picking at her food and trying to find excuses to prolong the meal. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to justify meeting up with him again after this. Wouldn’t it just be delaying the inevitable?
Of course, I suppose we’ll have to continue seeing each other to make arrangements for the baby.
She was surprised at the wash of relief that swept over her at the thought. Meeting up with Zach to discuss their child’s needs didn’t seem like a chore or a burden. It felt like a safety net, like a tether that would prevent them from drifting too far away from one another.
In spite of everything, I guess we can’t lose each other now.
It was a good thought.
Zach set down his napkin. “Listen,” he said. “I understand what you’re saying, and I respect it, but I’m just not ready to accept it.”
“That doesn’t sound like you respect it,” Rhea pointed out.
“I can’t let you go, Rhea,” he said. “I can’t forget the way I feel about you.”
“Well, I don’t know that I can look past the things your father has done,” she said.
“Even though I didn’t do those things myself?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
That wasn’t true. It did matter. Of course it did. She believed wholeheartedly now that he hadn’t been involved in his father’s crimes. She believed that he had had no knowledge of them. And it was a relief to know that, because that knowledge meant that she didn’t have to despise him over something that had happened a long time ago. She could still love him as the father of her child and as her friend.
But she just couldn’t bring herself to trust him. Not fully. Especially not after the things he had said about understanding what his father had done. She knew Zach’s family had been poor, but they hadn’t been destitute. His father had had a job. He had been able to put food on the table and buy clothes for Zach. All right, perhaps they hadn’t had luxuries, the way Rhea’s family had, but that was no reason to stoop to theft.
I wouldn’t become a criminal if there was something my child wanted, she thought firmly. I would never put my child in the position of having to learn that I had done such a thing. That’s what Zach’s father did to him. I couldn’t do that to my child.
If Zach didn’t see eye to eye with her on something so fundamental, how could they ever be together? It would be impossible.
But he was so tempting. Even sitting across the table from him was hard. She longed to reach out to him, to rest her hand on his, to do something to dispel the almost painful chemistry that had sprung up between the two of them.
“Just spend a little more time with me,” Zach urged. “We owe it to one another to see if we can get past this, don’t we? Wouldn’t you be happy to find out that we could put it behind us?”
“I would,” she admitted. “But I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it.”
“Let me take you away,” he said. “Just for a few days.”
“Where?” she asked, in spite of herself.
“I know a place,” he said. “A really cozy little resort. You’ll love it. I can make all the arrangements. We can get away from the pressures of our lives for a few days and just deal with getting close again. Maybe we’ll discover that we can put the past behind us.”
She sighed. It was almost certainly a waste of time.
But she couldn’t resist when he looked at her like that.
“All right,” she agreed at last. “One week. You have one week to change my mind.”
Chapter 17
Rhea
“Okay, you didn’t tell me that we’d be going to Iceland,” Rhea said as the private jet taxied to a stop on the tarmac.
Zach raised his eyebrows. “Would you have come if I had told you?”
“I might have!”
His lips quirked slightly.
“Okay,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t have. I would have said that we could just as easily discuss our problems in Maryland, and that we didn’t need to fly across the ocean.”
“But this isn’t just about having a conversation,” Zach said. “I wanted us to get away for a bit. I wanted to do something that was just about you and me. While we’re here, we don’t have to worry about work, or about any other obligations we might have had back home.”
“You mean my family?”
He flushed. “Well, sure, among other things,” he said. “I know you’re under a lot of stress because of them. I know they don’t like the idea of you and me being together.”
“Can you blame them?” Rhea asked.
“No,” Zach admitted. “I understand it. I just think you should decide for yourself.”
She nodded grudgingly. “You’re probably right,” she said. “As long as I’m at home, I’ll be aware of my parents in the background of my life. I’ll be thinking about my father and wondering what he would say if he knew I was with you. It’s good that you and I are here on our own.”
A car was waiting for them, right on the tarmac. Zach led Rhea to it.
“Why do you have a private jet anyway?” Rhea asked him. “What does a caterer need with a private jet?”
“I don’t have it for work,” he admitted. “It was one of my first indulgences after I paid off the money I got from my father. I bought it to travel the world.”
“So you’ve been to Iceland before?”
“I told you we were going somewhere I knew, didn’t I?” he said.
“You did,” she said. “But where is it?”
“It’s a cute little resort just outside of Reykjavik,” he told her. “Privately owned. Doesn’t get a lot of business. We should have plenty of privacy while we’re here.”
The car wound through the Icelandic landscape. Rhea stared out the window.
“It’s nothing like I would have expected,” she admitted.
“What did you think it would be like?” Zach asked her.
“I don’t know. Icy,” she said. “It’s as green here as it is back home.”
He nodded. “That’s a common misconception. Wait until you see the views from the resort.”
The drive was short. Before long, they were pulling to a stop before a simple white building. Though its design was basic and boxy, Rhea thought there was a kind of beauty to it. She saw huge panels of glass, stretching from the floor up to the roof, every few yards.
Zach pointed. “Over there is an observatory. You can see for miles out the back.”
“That sounds amazing,” Rhea said. “We’ll have to check it out.”
They went inside. Zach approached the registration desk and spoke to the attendant on duty briefly, and Rhea waited by the window. A marble fountain trickled calmly, spilling the clearest water she had ever seen over polished stones.
Zach returned to her side. “Our rooms are ready,” he said. “Come with me.”
She felt a pang of guilt. “You didn’t need to pay for separate rooms,” she said.
He laughed. “No, you misunderstand,” he said. “It’s a suite. It sleeps six, but we can use the extra space for whatever purposes suit us.”
“You definitely didn’t need to pay for a suite,” she said.
“Trust me,” he said. “Isn’t that what this whole exercise is supposed to be about?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Well then, have a little faith,” he said. “Remember, I’ve been here before. I’ve stayed in this suite before. I know what it has to offer. I promise, you’re going to be happy with my choice.”
They came to a pale wooden door, and Zach unlocked it and threw it open.
Rhea gasped.
The far wall was made entirely of glass. Thick beige floor-to-ceiling curtains hung from the ceiling, but they had been drawn open to allow entrants to the room to gaze out at the spectacular view. Rhea hurried to the window to take it in.
“That’s all volcanic rock,” Zach said, joining her.
“But it’s green,” Rhea breathed. “It looks like a grea
t green ocean.”
“It’s overgrown with moss,” Zach explained. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” Rhea said. Her family had taken plenty of vacations growing up, but they had always visited tropical places so that her mother could lie on the beach and she and Stephen could splash in the waves. She had never seen a landscape like this one before. “And you can see so far,” she added.
“This place is famous for its views,” Zach said. “That’s the reason people come here.”
“Is that why you brought me here?” Rhea asked.
“You and I have been having trouble seeing eye to eye lately,” Zach said. “I guess I thought it might help if I could show you one of my favorite places. Maybe we’d be able to get on the same page.”
“Maybe,” Rhea agreed, unable to tear her eyes away from the view in front of her.
As beautiful as the landscape was, it was hard to imagine allowing it to distract her from what Zach’s father had done, and from the way he seemed to feel about it.
“Do you want to take a shower?” Zach asked her. “You mentioned while we were on the plane about wanting to wash up.”
“A shower sounds great,” Rhea said gratefully. Getting cleaned up would be good, and she would also benefit from having a few minutes alone to collect her thoughts.
“Go ahead,” Zach said, gesturing toward a partially open door. “I’ll order us some room service, and then we can take a nap and sleep off the jet lag.”
Rhea went into the bathroom. The shower was a walk-in, and when she turned on the water it rained down from the ceiling, not from a single shower head but from an apparatus built in above her that made her feel like she was legitimately standing in a warm rainstorm. She undressed and stepped in, letting the water wash over her and loosen the muscles in her neck and shoulders that had tightened up after hours spent sitting on a plane.
By the time she got out, feeling very refreshed, she could hear the sound of plates being moved around out in the main room. She wrapped a towel around her body and another around her hair and opened the door.
Zach glanced up at her. He was holding a covered plate in each hand. Rhea saw him take in her appearance, clad as she was in just a towel, but he quickly averted his gaze.
“I thought we could eat out on the patio,” he suggested.
“We have a patio?”
He inclined his head toward a room she hadn’t seen yet, and she followed him.
It turned out to be a bedroom, with a huge, soft-looking bed up against one wall. Opposite this was a sliding glass door that led out to a rectangular patio. Rhea stepped out and gasped in surprise yet again.
The patio didn’t lead to a lawn or a garden. Instead, it seemed to float in the air about a foot above a crystalline blue natural pool.
“The lagoon,” Zach said.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“We can take a swim later, if you’d like.”
“We’re allowed to swim in it?”
“Well, sure,” he said, smiling. “If we weren’t, there would be a railing or something around the patio. You’re supposed to swim in it.” He eyed her speculatively. “You can go in now, if you want to. I’d watch your towel for you.”
Rhea laughed in spite of herself and swatted his arm. “Don’t start.”
He grinned. “Sorry. I got some fish and vegetables. Iceland is famous for its seafood.” He held out one of the covered plates to her.
She accepted the plate, sat down on the edge of the patio, and after a brief hesitation, dipped her feet into the water. It was warm and extremely pleasant after the shower.
Zach began to eat slowly, trailing his own toes in slow circles through the water.
“I’m really glad you agreed to come here with me,” he said.
Rhea nodded. “I am too,” she said. “Thank you for talking me into it, and for bringing me.”
“Have you thought any more about… the reason we’re here?”
She sighed. “Zach, I don’t know if we should get into it right now.”
“Okay,” he said quickly. “That’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to give you the answer you want to hear,” she said.
“I know I’ve let you down,” he said.
“It isn’t just that.”
Rhea sighed. She really hadn’t wanted to have this discussion so soon after arriving. She had hoped they would be able to just enjoy this getaway for a while first, without addressing the heavy questions.
But maybe that wasn’t fair. Zach was entitled to answers.
“I just think that you and I disagree too fundamentally,” she said. “You think that what your father did was okay. I don’t. It’s not that I can’t forgive what happened in the past, but I don’t know if I can spend my life with someone who thinks there wasn’t anything wrong with it.”
“That’s not it,” Zach said. “It’s not that I don’t think there was anything wrong with it. I know it was wrong. My father was completely in the wrong, and I fully accept that. I just think the issue was complicated. I relate to what he must have been going through.”
Rhea didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem that complicated to her.
Zach raked his fingers through his hair. “The thought of being someone’s father is so new to me,” he said. “It’s just hard to believe, right now, that there’s anything on earth that I wouldn’t do for my child. Maybe those feelings will settle down. I don’t know what to expect. But what I can promise you, here and now, is that I am devoted to our child. The only thing I want is to be a good father.”
Chapter 18
Zach
The suite was large enough to host a family, so Zach gave Rhea the bedroom they’d come through to go out onto the patio and went into the adjoining one.
But he didn’t sleep. He lay on his back, thinking about everything that had happened between them, both on their journey to Iceland and since they had arrived.
She said their disagreements were too big to get past. She said they couldn’t be together. But Zach thought the evidence suggested otherwise.
This wasn’t the same woman who had refused to take his phone calls for two weeks. She was clearly pleased to see him, to be with him, even if her feelings about him were complicated.
It would have been easy enough for Zach to flatly reject what his father had done. He could have told Rhea that he had done some thinking, and that upon reflection he had realized there was no justification whatsoever for his father’s actions. He thought she would probably believe that. It seemed clear to him that she wanted to believe the two of them could reunite.
But he wouldn’t lie to her. And the truth was that he didn’t feel the way she wanted him to feel. Though his father had been wrong to steal from hers, he couldn’t deny a feeling of empathy when he thought about how it would feel to have a child of his own to protect and provide for.
I would do anything for that baby. Already. I would move mountains.
It was a miraculous feeling, unlike anything he had ever felt in his life. It was powerful. And Zach was not going to deny it.
After he had spent a few conflicted hours lying awake in bed, he heard movement next door. He hesitated for a few minutes, unsure of what to do, then rose and knocked on the door between the two bedrooms.
“Come in,” Rhea called.
Zach opened the door. Rhea was wearing what he took at first to be a bikini, but on closer inspection he realized it was simply a black bra and panties.
“What’s going on?” he asked her.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “You either?”
“No,” he admitted.
“I thought I’d take a swim,” she said.
“It’s dark outside,” he pointed out.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I like swimming at night.”
He nodded. “Can I come out with you
? I’d feel better knowing you weren’t on your own.”
She grinned. “I don’t need looking after. But yes, you can come.”
She turned away from him and went out onto the patio.
He watched her go, momentarily mesmerized by the sway of her hips, then hurried after her.
When he got outside, she was sitting on the edge with her feet in the water.
“I really can’t thank you enough for bringing me here,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like this place. It’s magical.”
“I’m glad you’re here with me,” Zach said.
“Could you ever have imagined this when we were in school together?” she asked.
“Definitely not,” he said. “I couldn’t have afforded a weekend in New York City back then, never mind something like this.”
She glanced at him. “Doesn’t that feel strange to you?”
“What?” he asked.
“Talking about money,” she said. “About what you couldn’t afford then, and what you can afford now. Knowing that the only reason you can afford these things is because your family stole from mine.”
He was quiet for a moment, thinking about it. It was a valid question.
“I guess the truth is that I’ve made my peace with that,” he said. “It’s true that the life I have now probably wouldn’t have been possible without the startup loan my father gave me. And it’s true that that money should not have been his. But I paid that loan back, the same way I would have repaid a bank loan. And I just can’t live my life feeling guilty for borrowing that money when I had no idea what the source of it was.”
“No,” Rhea agreed. “I don’t think you should feel guilty about that at all. And I don’t think you owe my family anything. I didn’t mean to suggest that. I just… find it awkward.”
“If I thought I could win your love by giving my money away, or by pretending I didn’t have it, I would do that,” Zach said.
She turned and stared at him. “Why would you do that?”
