by Douglas, Michelle; Gordon, Lucy; Pembroke, Sophie; Hardy, Kate
The worst part was she did know that. Had known it even then. But she hadn’t been able to take the risk.
‘Perhaps. But, successful as you are now, I bet it wasn’t like that to start with. You’d have had to struggle, work every hour there was, take risks with your money, your reputation.’ She could see from his face it was true. ‘And what did you think I’d be doing while you were doing that? I wanted to go to university, Zeke. I had my place—all ready and waiting. I didn’t want to give that up to keep house for you while you chased your dream.’
‘I wouldn’t... It wouldn’t have been like that.’
‘Wouldn’t it?’
‘No.’ He sounded firmer this time. ‘Look, I can’t change the past, and I can’t say what would have happened. But, Thea, you know me. Knew me, at least. And you have to know I would never have asked you to give up your dreams for mine.’
‘Sorry...’ the waitress said, lowering their plates to the table. ‘I didn’t mean to... Enjoy!’
She scampered off towards the kitchen and Thea wondered how much she’d heard. How much she was now retelling to the restaurant staff.
Zeke hadn’t even looked at his lunch. ‘Tell me you know that, Thea. I wouldn’t have done that.’
Thea loaded pasta onto her fork. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t. Not intentionally. But it happens.’ She’d seen it happen to too many friends, after they got married or when they started a family. At eighteen, she didn’t think she’d have had the self-awareness to fight it.
‘What about now, then?’ Zeke asked, still looking a little shaken. ‘Do you really think it will be different with Flynn?’
‘Yes,’ Thea said, without hesitation. She knew about business—knew what she needed to do there. Her marriage with Flynn would only enhance that. She wouldn’t give it up just to be someone’s wife. ‘We’ve talked about it. About our future. We both know what we’re getting into.’
Had it all written down in legalese, ready to be signed along with the marriage register.
Their conversation on the terrace the night before came back to her and she felt a jangle of nerves and excitement when she thought about what she’d agreed to now. Maybe that—a family—would be what she needed to make the whole thing feel real. She knew it was what Flynn wanted, after all. She frowned. But they hadn’t spoken yet about what would happen then. Would he expect her to stay at home and look after the kids? If so, they had a problem.
Mentally, she added the topic to the list of honeymoon discussions to have. They had time. They hadn’t even had sex yet, for heaven’s sake.
The thought was almost amusing—especially sitting here with her fiancé’s brother, a guy she had actually slept with. Lost her virginity to, in fact. Along with my heart.
Was that why none of the others had stuck? She had wondered sometimes, usually late at night, if Zeke had broken something inside her. If, when he’d left, he’d taken something with him she could never get back. But now he was here and she’d decided she was better off without whatever it was he’d taken. Better off choosing a sensible, planned sort of relationship. Maybe it didn’t burn with the same intensity, but she stood a better chance of making it out without injury.
She might not have been able to fulfil the role her father had hoped she would, after her mother’s death. Maybe she hadn’t been a great hostess or housekeeper, or able to help Helena in the way a mother would have. But those were never supposed to be her roles, anyway. Not in her father’s household. This time she’d found her own role. Her own place in her own new family. And she wasn’t giving that up.
She couldn’t. Not when she risked returning to that empty, yawning loneliness that had followed Zeke’s departure. With Zeke gone, Helena sent away for months, her father locked in his study and Isabella taking over everything Thea had thought was her responsibility...the isolation had been unbearable. As if the world had shifted in the wake of that horrible night and when it had settled there’d been no room for Thea any more. Nowhere she felt comfortable, at home.
And she’d been looking for it ever since. University hadn’t provided it, and the holidays at home, with Helena floating around the huge house like a ghost, certainly hadn’t. Working her way up at Morrison-Ashton, proving she wasn’t just there because of her father, that had helped. But a corner office wasn’t a home, however hard she worked.
Flynn...their marriage, their family...he could be. And Thea couldn’t let Zeke, or anyone, make her question that.
She watched Zeke, digging into his pappardelle and wondered why it was he’d really come back. Not for her—he’d made that much clear. So what was he trying to achieve?
‘Zeke?’
He looked up from his bowl, eyes still unhappy. ‘Yeah?’
‘Why did you come back? Really? I mean, I know it wasn’t just for my wedding. So why now?’
With a sigh, Zeke dropped his fork into his bowl and sat back. ‘Because...because it was time. Because I’m done trying to win against my father. I’m done caring what he thinks or expects or wants. I’m ready to move on from everything that happened eight years ago.’
‘Including me?’
‘Including you.’
Thea took a breath, held it, and let it out. After this week they’d be done with each other for good. She’d be married, and the past wouldn’t matter any more. It felt...strange. Like an ache in a phantom limb. But she felt lighter, too, at the idea that everything could be put behind them at last.
Except, of course, she had one more thing to do before she could let him go.
Her gaze dropped down to her bowl as guilt pinged in her middle. This might be the one thing she could do to make sure Zeke never came back. But it was also one more step towards earning her place as an Ashton. And that meant it was worth it.
* * *
The way Thea’s body relaxed visibly at his words left Zeke tenser than ever. Was she that relieved to be finally rid of even the memory of him? Or, like him, was she just so tired of lugging it all around every day? Was she happy to have the path clear for her happy-ever-after with Flynn? Or just settling for the safety of a sensible business marriage?
He’d ask...except those kind of questions—and caring about the answers—didn’t exactly sound like leaving her behind.
One more day. He’d make sure she got down the aisle, said ‘I do’, and rode off into the sunset. Then his new life, whatever it turned out to be, could begin.
‘Before you leave us all behind completely, though...’ Thea said.
Zeke’s jaw clenched. There was always one more thing with Thea.
‘I need to talk to you about something.’
A hollow opened up inside him. This was it. Whatever reason Thea had for dragging him out to buy a stupid gift for his brother, he was about to find it out. And suddenly he didn’t want to know. If he had to leave her behind for ever he wanted to have this last day. Wanted to leave believing that she’d honestly wanted to spend time with him before he went. For the sake of everything they’d had once and knew they could never have again. Was that so much to ask?
Apparently so.
‘I spoke to your father this morning,’ Thea said, and Zeke’s happy bubble of obliviousness popped.
‘Did you, now?’ He should have known that. Should have guessed, at least. He’d let himself get side-tracked by the experience of being with Thea again, and now he was about to get blindsided. Another reason why being around Thea Morrison was bad for his wellbeing.
‘He wanted me to talk to you about—’
‘About me selling This Minute to Morrison-Ashton,’ Zeke finished for her. It wasn’t as if his father had any other thoughts in relation to him.
‘Yes.’
One simple word and the hollow inside him collapsed in on itself, like a punch to the gut folding him over.
‘No,’ he said, a
nd let the anger start to fill him out again.
How could she ask? After everything they’d been to each other, everything they’d once had...how did she even dare?
His skin felt too hot and his head pounded with the betrayal. He knew exactly why she was doing it. To make sure he left. To make sure her perfect world went back to the way she thought it should be. To buy her place in his family, at his brother’s side.
Because Morrison-Ashton and their families had always mattered more to her than he had. And he should have remembered that.
Thea pulled the face she’d always used to pull when he’d been annoying her by being deliberately difficult. He’d missed that face until now. Now it just reminded him how little his feelings mattered to her.
‘Zeke—’
‘I’m not selling you my company, Thea.’ He bit the words out, holding in the ones he really wanted to say. He wasn’t that boy any more—the one who lost control from just being near her. This was business, not love. Not any more.
‘Your father is willing to match whatever Glasshouse are offering...’
‘I don’t care.’ Just business, he reminded himself.
‘And even if you don’t want to take up a position within Morrison-Ashton we could still look at share options.’
‘I said no.’ The rage built again, and he flexed his hand against his thigh to keep it from shaking.
‘Our digital media team are putting together a—’
‘Dammit, Thea!’ Plates rattled as Zeke slammed his fist down on the table and the restaurant fell silent. ‘Will you just listen to me for once?’
‘Don’t shout, Zeke,’ Thea said, suddenly pale. ‘People are looking.’
‘Let them look.’ He didn’t care. Why should he? He’d be out of here tomorrow. ‘Because I’m going to shout until you start listening to me.’
Thea’s face turned stony. Dropping her fork into her bowl, she pulled out her purse and left several notes on the table. Then she stood, picked up her bag, and walked out of the restaurant.
The rage faded the moment she was out of his sight and he was Zeke Ashton the adult again. The man he’d worked so hard to become, only to lose him the moment she prodded at a sore spot.
Picking up his bottle of beer, Zeke considered his options. Then he drained the beer, dropped another couple of notes onto the stack and followed her, as he’d always known he would.
So had she known, it seemed, which irritated him more than it should have. Thea stood leaning against the wall of the restaurant, waiting for him.
‘I left a very decent tip,’ he said, watching her, waiting to see which way she’d jump. ‘It seemed only fair since we walked out without finishing our meals.’
‘Yelling suppresses the appetite.’ Thea pushed away from the wall.
‘It seemed the only way to get you to listen to me.’
Turning to face him, she smiled with obviously feigned interest. ‘I’m listening.’
Suddenly his words felt petty, unnecessary. But he said them anyway. ‘I will not sell This Minute to Morrison-Ashton.’
She gave a sharp nod. ‘So you’ve mentioned. Now, if that’s all, I want to go back to the villa.’
‘What about Flynn’s present?’ Zeke asked, matching her stride as she headed for the car at speed.
‘It can wait.’
‘The wedding’s tomorrow. I think you’re pretty much out of time on this one.’
Thea opened the car door and slid into her seat. ‘So I’ll give him a spectacular honeymoon present instead.’
Zeke didn’t want to think about what she might come up with for that. Except he already had a pretty good idea.
‘Like the present you gave me for my twenty-first?’ he asked, and watched Thea flush the same bright red as her car as she started the engine.
‘You have to stop that,’ she said, pulling away from the kerb.
‘Stop what?’ he asked, just to make her say it.
She glared at him. ‘Look. I’m getting married tomorrow. So all this reminiscing about the good old days is getting kind of inappropriate, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Zeke watched her as she drove, hands firm on the wheel, shoulders far more tense than they had been on the drive in. He was getting to her. And for some reason he really didn’t want to stop. ‘I think the question is whether Flynn thinks it’s inappropriate.’
‘Flynn doesn’t know.’
‘You mean you’re not going to tell him about our shopping trip?’
‘I mean he doesn’t know about us at all. That we were ever...anything to each other.’
Thea took the last turning out of the town and suddenly their speed rocketed. Plastered back against his seat, Zeke tried to process the new reality she’d just confronted him with. She’d said they didn’t talk about him, but he hadn’t realised it extended this far. She’d written him out of their history completely, and the pain of that cut through his simmering anger for a moment.
‘But...how?’ How could anyone who knew them, who had seen them together back then, not known what they were to each other? They had been seventeen and twenty-one. Subtle hadn’t really been in their vocabulary, despite Thea’s requests to keep things secret. He hadn’t cared who knew. Certainly their parents had known. How could Flynn have missed it?
‘He was away at university, remember?’ Thea said. ‘And not just round the corner, like you. He was all the way up in Scotland. I guess he just...he was living his own life. I didn’t realise at first, when we...started this. But it became clear pretty quickly. He just...didn’t know.’
‘And you didn’t think it was important enough to tell him about?’ Didn’t think he was important enough. Suddenly Zeke wanted nothing more than to remind her just how important he’d been to her once.
‘Why would I? You were gone. You were never coming back as far as I was concerned. And even if you did...even now you have...’
‘Even now I have, what?’
‘It doesn’t change anything. You and I are ancient history, remember? What difference does it make now what we might have had eight years ago?’
But it did make a difference. Zeke couldn’t say how, but it did. And suddenly he wanted her to admit that.
* * *
Thea tried to focus on the road, but her gaze kept slipping to the side, watching Zeke’s reactions. It wasn’t a test, wasn’t as if she’d said anything untrue, but he wasn’t reacting quite the way she’d expected.
She knew Zeke—had always known Zeke, it seemed. She knew that for him to come back now, into this situation...whatever his reasons...he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to drag up the past. He’d want his brother to feel uncomfortable, to know that he’d had her first. Punishment, she supposed. Partly for her, for not leaving with him, for breaking their deal. And partly for Flynn, for taking everything Zeke had always assumed was his.
Not telling Flynn... It had seemed like the best idea at the time. And when Zeke had returned she’d been so relieved that she hadn’t. One less thing to drive her crazy this week. Her relationship with Flynn might not be the most conventional, but their marriage agreement did have a fidelity clause, and she really didn’t want to have an excruciatingly awkward conversation with her fiancé and probably their lawyers, maybe even their fathers, about whether Zeke’s return would have any effect on that.
Of course it didn’t. They’d both moved on. But Flynn liked to be thorough about these things.
‘It makes a difference,’ Zeke said suddenly, and Thea tried to tune herself back into the conversation, ‘because you’re lying to your fiancé. My brother.’
Thea gave a harsh laugh. ‘Seriously? You’re going to try and play the loving brother card? Now? It’s a little late, Zeke.’
‘I’m the best man at your wedding,
Thea. Someone tomorrow is going to ask me if I know of any reason why you shouldn’t get married.’
‘You don’t! Me sleeping with you eight years ago is not a reason for me not to get married tomorrow.’
Zeke raised an eyebrow. ‘No? Then how about you lying to your fiancé? Or the fact you left your last two fiancés practically at the altar?’
‘Why were you reading up on my love-life anyway?’ She hadn’t thought to ask when he mentioned Scott before. She’d been more concerned with getting the conversation away from her past romantic disasters. ‘I don’t believe for a second you just happened to stumble across that information on your site.’
‘Did you think I hadn’t kept up with you? Kept track of what was going on in your life?’
‘Yes,’ Thea said. ‘That’s exactly what I thought. I thought you left and forgot all about the people you left behind.’
‘I didn’t leave you behind.’
The countryside sped past faster than ever, but Thea couldn’t bring herself to slow down. ‘Zeke, you left and you didn’t look back.’
‘I asked you to come with me.’ His mulish expression told her that even eight years couldn’t change the fact that she’d said no. Too late now, anyway.
‘And I told you I couldn’t.’
Zeke shook his head. ‘Not couldn’t. Wouldn’t.’
‘It was eight years ago, Zeke! Does it really matter which now?’
‘Yes!’
‘For the love of God, why?’
‘Because I’ve spent eight years obsessing about it and I need closure now, dammit! Preferably before you marry my brother and send me away again.’
Thea’s head buzzed with the enormity of the idea. Eight years of obsession, and now he wanted closure. Fine. She’d give him his closure.
Slamming on the brakes, Thea pulled over to the side of the road, half into a field of sunflowers, and stopped the engine. Opening the door, she stepped out onto the dusty verge at the edge of the road, waiting for Zeke to follow. He did, after a moment, walking slowly around to where she leant against the car. She waited until he stopped, his body next to hers against the warm metal.
