It was a miracle in red. It made her feel like one herself.
He’d looked at her then for a long, heart-stopping moment, like he had nothing else to do for the rest of his life but that.
“Yes,” he’d said, his voice that low rasp that had made her body prickle with heat, her core melt, her skin flush. “It certainly fits.”
There hadn’t been time for the need she’d seen in his gaze then, the white-hot surge of desire that had made her tremble when he’d taken her hand. He’d only offered her his arm and walked with her the way he had once before on that cold, Connecticut morning, only this time, he hadn’t seemed at all drunk. Or furious.
If she’d allowed herself to think about it, she’d have said he seemed…as broken as he did determined, despite all the ground she’d foolishly thought they’d covered the night before.
I love you, he’d told her, again and again. The way he’d told her she was beautiful. And she was almost tempted to believe him, the way she had then.
But there had been no time for that, either. There had been Whitaker Industries employees and clients to meet as Chase’s wife rather than Amos’s problematic daughter. Speculation in all of those eyes she’d pretended not to notice, whispers everywhere she walked she’d pretended not to hear.
Even Chase’s intimidatingly gorgeous sister, Mattie, who didn’t look at all unhappily married to the ferocious-looking man who stood beside her, holding her waist in a protective, possessive manner.
“I can’t believe Chase didn’t invite us to your wedding,” Mattie had said with a polite smile that Zara hadn’t quite believed, though she’d dutifully returned it. “But then, the finer points of wedding etiquette seem to escape my brother, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
“A Whitaker family trait,” the alarmingly intense Nicodemus Stathis had said silkily from beside her, which had made Mattie’s smile slip into something far more intimate.
More to the point, it had saved Zara having to reply. And Chase had muttered his excuses and moved them along to the next group of people they had to meet and greet.
“She doesn’t know what happened that day,” he’d rasped, his hand tightening on her back as they’d moved away. Zara’s heart had seemed to contract in her chest. “My father wanted her to think it was an accident.”
“Someday,” Zara had said quietly, “you’re going to have to tell her the truth.”
He’d slid a dark look her way. “I can’t imagine why.”
She’d frowned at him. “Because it’s her story, too,” she’d said. “You shouldn’t have to carry the weight of it by yourself, and she shouldn’t have to stay out in the dark. It’s not fair to either one of you.”
“I can handle it,” he’d muttered.
“Chase.” She’d frowned at him, then remembered where they were and had forced her expression back to neutral. “You have a sister who would love you, I bet, if you let her. Not everyone can say that.” And she’d finally admitted the truth that had surely been obvious to the entire world, but which she’d steadfastly refused to acknowledge her whole life. “I can’t.”
Chase had looked startled. Then something much darker. And there’d been no time for him to respond as she’d been certain he’d wanted to do, because there’d been this business associate, that connection. The business of his position, which meant hers, too.
“It’s through here,” Chase’s assistant said then, opening a door and reaching out to take her glass from her. She surrendered it a beat slower than she should have. “See that archway? The board room is just inside.”
Zara murmured her thanks and walked on, feeling that cold panic again, starting from that knot in her stomach and radiating outward, because she already knew what was going to happen here, didn’t she? Maybe not the particulars, but she’d known since she’d woken up alone this morning that this was all a goodbye. A long, painful, darkly passionate goodbye.
A long time ago they’d talked about ammunition. Target practice. War. How silly of her to think that what had followed rendered all of that moot. How terribly, inexcusably foolish.
It wasn’t a surprise then, when she stepped into the magnificent glass-and-steel boardroom to find her father and sister talking quietly at one end of the long table. They fell silent as she walked inside, wearing identical frowns.
Wonderful, Zara thought, and ordered herself to smile. Even though it hurt.
Especially because it hurt.
She recognized most of the men arrayed around the table, all of them businessmen like her father, corporate and ruthless and sleek, no matter how merry the smiles they aimed her way. Not that it stopped her returning them, as if she was wholly at her ease.
And at the other end of the table stood Chase, with Nicodemus at his side. Mattie sat in one of the chairs that lined the far wall, an enigmatic curve to her mouth and her gaze on Zara.
“Excellent,” Chase said, and she heard too much foreboding in his dark voice. Too much triumph and all that must mean. “Now we can start.”
“Take a seat, Zara,” her father barked at her.
But it all felt too fraught with peril. Too portentous and strange, so Zara shook her head and folded her arms across her waist, leaning nonchalantly against the great arch.
“I’m fine right here,” she demurred.
“Let’s talk about you, Amos,” Chase suggested in a voice she’d never heard him use before. His dark blue gaze touched hers, and it was like a flare of wild blue agony. Then he turned it on her father. “I was planning to make this the cornerstone of my speech at midnight in front of all our guests and esteemed members of the press, but out of respect for your daughter, I decided to make this more private.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Amos growled in that way that still made hairs rise on the back of Zara’s neck.
“I’m talking about malfeasance,” Chase said with cold precision. And no apparent attempt to disguise his own satisfaction. “A case could even be made for moral turpitude. I’m calling a vote to have you removed as chairman of this board, Amos.”
“This is pathetic,” Amos sneered as the other board members shifted and started murmuring to each other. “Do you really think this kind of childish attack will do anything but show us all how ill suited you are for your position? Your father must be spinning in his grave.”
Beside Chase, Nicodemus shifted, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Zara thought he looked like nothing so much as a bodyguard just then—a furious and capable bodyguard, whose attention was focused solely on her father.
“Those are serious accusations, Chase,” Nicodemus said then, his rough, faintly accented voice cutting through the rising clamor in the room. “I assume you do not make them lightly.”
Amos started to snarl something else, but Chase’s voice overrode his, that cool, precise voice of his impossible not to heed.
“I do not,” he said.
Then he turned, and it took Zara a dizzying, world-tilting moment to realize that he was looking straight at her. And then in a moment, so was everyone else.
“Zara,” Chase said quietly, “why did you marry me?”
For a moment she couldn’t speak. Too many things were tearing through her head, then falling like stones through the rest of her. Ammunition, she thought. It had always been heading here. Straight here. At last, she understood.
“Tell the truth, Zara,” her father advised her in his usual, nasty way. It made her shudder.
But it was Chase she couldn’t look away from. Chase, who had said he loved her. Chase, who had called her beautiful. Chase, who she’d known better than to believe. It wasn’t until this very moment that she understood how deeply she’d wanted it all to be real.
Or how much she loved this man she knew, now, she really and truly could never have. Because he’d always been going to betray her exactly like this. There was no way this hadn’t been his plan all along. It had all been about her father and this company, never about her.<
br />
This really had been target practice.
Her father shifted in his chair, managing to transmit his usual aggression from across the long room. Chase only stared back at her, all that wild blue unreadable. And Zara felt frozen in place. As if, were she able to draw this moment out as long as possible, if she could simply stop time right here and now, all the things she’d wanted to believe before she’d walked into this room could still be true.
“Way to draw out the suspense, Pud,” she heard her sister say then, acerbic and amused. Smug.
And something inside of Zara simply broke. One moment it was there, and then it was gone, and she felt all the things in her that had frozen come back to life that quickly. Like the flip of a switch.
I’m sorry, Grams, she thought in that instant. I tried.
“I married you because my father made me marry you,” she said, and she was surprised to hear how strong and smooth she sounded. As if she was either of those things. She tilted her chin up and pressed on, ignoring everything but that heartbreak of blue that gazed back at her. “He demanded that you marry his daughter so he could control you. And by extension, this company.”
“And if I didn’t?” Chase asked softly.
“He would remove you as CEO and president.” She smiled faintly at her father’s bellow of outrage. “He was quite clear about the consequences. I believe he said he would crush you either way.”
“So help me, Zara—” Amos growled.
“I should say that, of course, I wasn’t the first choice. He meant for you to marry Ariella. She makes for a much better conspirator. I’m really only any good with books.”
Amos shot to his feet.
“This is nothing but lies,” he snapped. “The two of them cooked this up. It’s all a calculated maneuver to oust me—”
“You are ousted either way, old man,” Nicodemus told him. “Between us, Chase and I now control seventy percent of this company. How do you think that will end for you, no matter what happens here tonight?”
“And why would I tell a lie that makes me look this pitiful?” Zara interjected then, tearing her gaze from Chase’s and frowning at her father, wishing she felt as if she was seeing him for the first time—but no. He was the same man he’d always been. She simply wasn’t the same woman. She had Chase to thank for that. “You’ve never treated me with anything but contempt, yet I married a complete stranger because you ordered me to do it. Because I had some fantasy that I could prove I was a good daughter. When the truth is, there is absolutely nothing I could ever do to please you. It took a forced march up an aisle and a monthlong marriage to a man you promised to my sister first, but I get it, Dad. I finally get it.” She shifted, then looked back at Chase. For the last time, she thought, and so what if that tore her apart. She would survive that, too. Eventually. “Believe me, I get it.”
And then she turned with all the dignity she could manage, whatever shreds of grace she’d ever had at her disposal, and kept her head held high as she walked away.
No matter that she left her heart there behind her, in pieces on the boardroom floor.
* * *
Chase caught up to her as she cut through the ballroom, the fastest way to the elevators.
He’d left the shouting to Nicodemus, knowing his brother-in-law was more than capable of handling the angry crowd and the necessary vote. By the end of the night—before midnight, if he had to guess—it would all be over. Chase would take his rightful place as chairman of the board and CEO. Nicodemus would become president as well as COO. And together they would usher Whitaker Industries into its next phase, as Big Bart would have wanted.
And Chase didn’t care. His heart hurt, and he felt empty, and that didn’t change when he took her by her arm and turned her around to face him. Because her eyes were all shadow and darkness, and he thought it might cut him in two.
“How can there possibly be anything more to say?” she asked, and she didn’t sound like herself. She didn’t sound like Zara. Her voice was brittle and harsh, as cold as her gaze. “Will you deny me three more times before the crowd sings ‘Auld Lang Syne’? How biblical. Perhaps I should stone myself while we’re at it, for a truly prehistoric feel—”
“Stop,” he rasped, and there were too many people around. Too many avid gazes trained right on them, and he wasn’t sure she’d go with him if he tried to move this conversation somewhere private. In fact, he knew she wouldn’t.
He did the next best thing. He swept her into his arms and out into the middle of the dance floor.
She was stiff and furious, the hand he held in his a fist, but he didn’t let go.
“Let me explain,” he said. A low, desperate growl. “Please.”
“No need.” Her beautiful eyes were so dark as she gazed steadily back at him. “I understood all of that just fine.”
“Zara—”
“You should have told me,” she said, cutting him off, her voice less brittle but far more fierce. “There was no reason in the world you should have dropped that on me.”
But, of course, that had been deliberate, too. Because she wasn’t her sister. Because every emotion she ever had was written across her pretty face in all those shades of red. Her shock. Her humiliation when he asked the question, telling the truth before she said a word. Because she was obviously not the kind of woman who played the sorts of games everyone else in that room did.
“I see,” she said when he said nothing, and she sounded beaten then. Lost.
Chase tightened his hand at the small of her back, and he forgot where they were. He forgot everything but Zara. His beautiful, noble Zara, who he’d ruined the way he ruined everything. Just as he’d told her he would do.
“I love you,” he said because there was nothing else to say but that, no defense he could possibly offer, and she jerked as if he’d hit her. “And I warned you this would happen. This is what I do, Zara. I ruin everything I touch.”
“We both live in the past,” she said, harsh and low. “It’s all we see. Your mother, my father. The horrible things my sister told me when I was a teenager. My grandmother, who already died. It’s nothing but darkness. It’s corrosive and blinding. It’s a festering swamp.”
Around them, people were chanting, and Chase realized that he and Zara had stopped moving.
“It’s over now,” he said. “It’s done. This is the future. Here. Tonight.”
“It’s never over,” she whispered. “It’s never done. It goes on. It always goes on. It feeds on itself and consumes everything in its path. You know that as well as I do. You used it to your advantage in that boardroom.”
“That part of it is over,” he promised her. “There’s only you and me now, and we—”
“There is no we,” Zara said, very distinctive despite the clamor all around them, and despite the tears he saw well up in her eyes, making his chest feel so tight it was like some kind of pneumonia. “I like my Gothic terrors in books. I want to be able to trust the people in my life, not worry about the things they might be plotting. I want to be able to love the man who claims he loves me without worrying about his ulterior motives. I want better than this mess.”
“Zara—”
“I want better than a man who would sell me out, Chase,” she said, cutting him off as the first tear fell. “No matter why he did it.”
Then the band started playing and the crowd cheered. The new year had begun, and Chase was nothing but a ghost, like the ones that had haunted him all this time. Zara had brought him back to life. And he’d killed that, too.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t go. Not like this.”
But she only shook her head, her lips pressed tight together. Then she pulled out of his grip, and he had no choice but to let her do it. No choice in any of this, because this was his doing. Streamers and balloons poured down from above, there was kissing and singing and all the usual jubilation, and long after the crowd swallowed her up, long after she’d disappeared into the night, Chase still stood
there.
He stood there a long time. Long after she’d left him. Long after the singing had turned to harder, drunker partying. Like if he stood there long enough, if he kept his vigil, it might bring her back.
When he knew the truth was, nothing could.
* * *
Zara saw the headlights flash through the windows of her cottage, interrupting the Jane Austen comfort reading she’d been doing on her very deep and comfortable chaise in front of the fire. She lifted up her head and frowned out toward the dark January night, wondering if someone had missed the turnoff for the public beach and found their way down her private lane instead—something that happened more often in the summertime.
She heard the slam of a car door and then, moments later, heavy steps on her front porch. Then a brusque, confident hand against the thick, old, sturdy New England wood of her front door. Zara didn’t move. She stayed where she was, tucked up under a throw, scowling at the door. Maybe if she didn’t make a single sound—
“I know you’re in there, Zara,” Chase said, loud enough that she could hear both that low rasp of his voice and the dark exasperation that colored it. “If not, I’ll have to ring the fire department, as your chimney appears to be on fire.”
She found she was up and on her feet without meaning to move, and she had no idea how that happened. Or how she found herself across the room with her hand on the doorknob. She caught herself there.
It had been four days since she’d last seen Chase. Since she’d turned and left him on that dance floor, unsure even now how she’d managed to walk at all when she’d been irreparably damaged by what had happened in that boardroom. And the truth was, she was still such a fool where he was concerned. She knew it. She could feel her body readying itself for him, as if nothing had happened. Even her idiotic heart beat harder, as if he’d never broken it so deliberately. So cruelly.
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