She already had her passport and ticket in her hand when reality hit, and she sank down to sit on the bed.
Yes, Ash would help her. He’d do whatever it took to get her home safely, she knew that. And he’d do it as a friend.
Except...that wasn’t really all he was any more, however much she was trying to pretend otherwise. Sex changed things, whether they wanted it to or not. It was going to take some time to get them back to where they’d been before—if they ever managed it.
But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that it would be so, so easy not to go back to being friends.
So easy to let Ash travel back to London with her, if he wanted. To suggest she stay the night in his spare room, in that awful sparse flat he barely even lived in, only for them to end up in his bed together, recreating their finest desert island moments.
And from there it would be a short step into friends with benefits territory. She’d be a mate and a warm body in bed whenever he was in town. And she’d never ask him for anything more, because she already knew he couldn’t give it.
It was good that Ash was getting back out into the world again, moving forward after Grace’s death. But it couldn’t be with her. Because she wanted so much more than that out of life.
Zoey knew—after one night or ten years, depending on how she looked at it—that it would be too damn easy to fall in love with Ash Carmichael. And it would break her heart when he couldn’t love her back.
Which meant, for now, she had to do it without Ash. She had to take charge of her own life and move forward without him, without Grace, without her parents, without David or any other members of the Zoey’s Exes Support Group.
Just Zoey.
Suddenly, the weight on her shoulders started to lessen, just a little. And the tears in her eyes were all dried up.
Maybe that was the key.
Maybe it was time to stop running away from her life, from her mistakes, and start facing them head-on instead.
She still wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do when she got back to London. But she knew she would be doing it alone. For herself, by herself.
* * *
Ash was just finishing packing his case when Zoey knocked on the hotel room door.
‘How’s David?’ he asked as he stood aside to let her in. He scanned her face, taking in the red-rimmed eyes and dark circles, the pinched expression that made her look less like his Zoey, somehow. Less vibrant. Less alive.
He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and ask how she was, how he could make it better. And another, less civilised part of him really wanted to find David and hit him for making her look like that.
Except he knew that David wasn’t the wrongdoer in this situation. He and Zoey were.
At least, that was what he thought until Zoey sat on the edge of his bed and filled him in on their conversation.
‘Wait. He wanted to marry you for a business deal?’
‘Oh, not just that,’ Zoey replied airily. ‘He had worse reasons, don’t forget.’
‘To prove he could get what other guys couldn’t? To show you off as some sort of trophy?’
Zoey shrugged, her slim shoulders rising then slumping back down. ‘Apparently my talent for screwing up weddings and relationships is legendary.’
‘At least it is now David’s been telling everyone your personal history so he can brag about overcoming it,’ Ash muttered, the urge to punch rising in him again.
‘Yeah. I dread to think what stories he’s going to tell about me now.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t see me getting asked out on a date again for a while.’
‘Good,’ Ash said without thinking. Zoey shot him a look and he groped for an explanation. ‘I mean, maybe it’s for the best. You can spend some time alone, figure out what you want, before you get back out there.’ That sounded better than, Now I’ve seen you naked I’m going to be insanely and irrationally jealous of anyone else who ever gets the opportunity, up to and including your doctor, right?
‘Right.’ Zoey looked away as she answered and Ash forced himself to remember that she knew what she wanted. She just couldn’t ever seem to find it.
And David was, most definitely, not the man for her.
Could he be?