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with you and play arm candy then I’m done. It’s not … it’s not the first time I’ve thought of this.” It wasn’t. When he’d come into the office with Hannah and announced that the whole thing was official, well, she’d just about handed in her resignation then and there.
But of course his smile and his innate Zack-ness had stopped her. Because in her mind, it was better to have crumbs from him than everything from someone else. Because he was so enmeshed in her life, so a part of her routine. Her first thought in the morning, her constant companion throughout the day. And it was his face she saw when she drifted off to sleep.
He was everything.
And the real truth of the situation was that while Zack cared for her, and even loved her, possibly like some sort of younger sister figure, she wasn’t everything to him. And he didn’t want her the way she wanted him.
“What the hell?” he asked.
“I’m. I’m having a revelation, hold on.”
“Could you not?”
“No. I’m sorry. I’m. I’m sorry, Zack. This really has been. It’s been brewing for a while and I know it wasn’t the best day or the best way to say it, but … it does have to be said.”
“Why?”
“Because. Because it’s eating my life!” The words exploded from her. “And if that isn’t made completely obvious by the fact that I’m agreeing to drop everything at the spur-of-the-moment to fly to Asia to go on your honeymoon in place of your fiancée and pretend to be your new girlfriend … well … I can’t help you.”
“No. No, I don’t agree.”
“And what, Zack? You can’t force me to stay at my job.”
He looked like he was searching for some loophole that would in fact give him that authority.
“I need a good severance, too. I want to open my own bakery.”
“The hell you will!” he said, his voice hard, harsher than she’d ever heard.
“The hell I won’t,” she returned, keeping her own voice steady, though, how she managed, she wasn’t sure.
“Non-compete.”
“What?”
“You signed a non-compete.”
“A bakery would not compete with Roasted, not really,” she said, planting her hands on her hips.
“It could, on a technicality, especially as we’d likely share a very similar desserts menu, seeing as you planned all of mine.”
“I’m not talking about a worldwide bakery chain, I’m talking … I want to open one up that I run myself. Here in San Francisco. Something personal, something me. Something that would give me a chance to have a life.”
“No.”
It was shocking, Zack’s transformation from unaffected, jilted groom, to this. She would have expected this kind of reaction from Hannah not showing up to the wedding, not to her asking to quit the business. Where was his control? Zack always had control. Always.
Except now.
“Then I won’t go with you. And I get the feeling that a female companion is a bit more important than you let on. I know you too well for you to hide it from me.”
His gray eyes glittered in the dim light of her apartment. “There is some competition. Sand Dollar Coffee is competing for the chance to get these same roasts, and Mr. Amudee, traditionalist he is, is very likely to give preference to their CEO. They were just there for a week in the villa, Martin Cole, his wife and their four children. Mr. Amudee was charmed.”
“So you do need me. You need me to give you an edge. To make sure Amudee knows you’re a macho man who can have his way with whomever, whenever. We’re friends, Zack. I don’t know why it has to be like this..”
“You were the one leveraging,” he bit out.
“Because I can’t do this anymore. The beck-and-call thing. I need more. You were getting married, you should get that.”
“You want to get married?”
Her stomach tightened. “Not necessarily. But I don’t even have a hope of it as long as I’m working sixty-hour weeks. And since I don’t believe in practical arrangements, like the one you and Hannah have, that will keep me from having a successful relationship.”
“Fine,” he said, the word stiff. “But you stay on until the deal with Amudee is done. Got it? I’ll need you to be around, at the business, my assumed lover, until the ink is dry on the contract.”
It was cold and mercenary. And it was tempting. Tempting to play the part. To immerse herself in it for a while. Just thinking about it made her stomach tighten, made her shiver.
No. You can’t forget. This is just a game to him. More business. “Yes. I won’t let you down. If I say I’m going to do something, I’ll do it.”
“I know.”
“And when it’s over?”
“You can open your bakery. I’ll make sure you’re compensated for your time here.”
Clara stuck out her hand, her heart cracking in her chest. “Then I think we have a deal.”
CHAPTER THREE
ZACK was in a fouler mood than he’d been when the double doors of the hotel’s wedding hall had opened to reveal, not his bride, but a very panicked wedding coordinator who was hissing into her headset.
He leaned back in his seat on his private plane and stared at the amber liquid in the tumbler on his tray. Turbulence was bouncing the alcohol around, sending the strong aroma into the air. He wasn’t tempted to take a drink. He didn’t drink, it was just that his flight attendant had heard about the disaster and assumed he might be in need.
He looked across the wide aisle at Clara, who was, sitting on a leather love seat in the living-room-style plane cabin, staring fixedly at her touch-screen phone.
“Good book?” he asked.
Her head snapped up. “How did you know I was reading?”
“Because you always read.”
“Books make better company than surly bosses.”
“Do they make better company than bitchy employees? If so, perhaps I should read more.”
She looked at him, her expression bland. “I wouldn’t know.”
“No. You wouldn’t. Look, I gave you what you asked for.”
“After a big ugly fight.”
“Because I don’t want to lose you.”
A strange expression flashed in her brown eyes. “Right.”
“You’ve been here since the very early days of Roasted, and you’ve been key to the success of the company, of course I don’t want to lose you.”
She looked back down at her phone. “Well, I can’t live my entire life to make you happy.”
He frowned. “That’s not how it’s been, is it?”
“No,” she said, her tone grudging. She put her phone down and stretched her legs out in front of her and her arms straight over her head, back arching, thrusting her breasts forward. His body hardened, his blood rushing through his veins hotter and faster.
That was a direct result of the fact that he was supposed to break his long bout with celibacy tonight, on this very plane, and it wasn’t happening now. Still, his body hadn’t caught up with his mind yet. Damned inconvenient considering he was now fixating on his friend’s breasts. Breasts that he was not supposed