‘Zara?’ He barely recognised his own voice, its strangled quality alien even to him.
Slowly, she turned to look at him, the trail of tears upon her cheeks wrenching him in two.
He swallowed, the words catching in his throat. He’d never done this before. He didn’t even know where to begin.
‘I wanted to talk to you tonight, after the party. It had always been my intention,’ he began and took an unsteady breath, looking for courage that he didn’t feel. Somehow voicing it made it feel ever more real and the vulnerability that came with it terrified him. He’d never been more scared, or so desperate. ‘I know we’ve not had the best start to a relationship and I know I’ve said and done a lot of things that I’m not proud of.’
Her lower lip trembled and she clutched her arms around her tighter, but she didn’t stop him.
‘And I know nothing of this, not really, but I think I’m falling in love with you and if you—’
‘You think?’ She gave a tremulous little laugh. ‘Please, Daniel, don’t go there.’
Of all the reactions he’d envisaged, her laughing wasn’t one. ‘I’m trying to be honest with you.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re trying to keep me any way you can.’
She sounded tired, done in, and then her gaze swept back to the window as her words echoed around the cabin. ‘You’re confusing desire with love.’
He swept towards her, one arm hooking around her waist to draw her in and she came willingly, her body falling into his.
It was a start.
‘Desire is something I know plenty about, and this is more than that.’
Gently he nudged her chin up and their gazes locked, her voice whisper-like. ‘I wish I could believe it.’
‘You can.’
Beneath them the car nudged gently to a stop and he realised they were here, at her place, and any moment she would be gone.
‘Don’t go,’ he rasped, his arms tightening around her. ‘Give me the chance to prove it.’
‘I have to go,’ she said softly. ‘I can’t do this with you.’
He could see the truth of her words in her face, knew that any argument he could give would fall on deaf ears. He’d spent so long convincing her—hell, the world, even—that he wasn’t capable of love, that she couldn’t see past the facade.
Behind her, Peters opened the door and he slipped his arm from around her, letting her go, his words doing anything but. ‘I’m not giving up on us.’
She dropped her gaze, her breath shaky as she slid away. ‘Goodbye, Daniel... I mean it this time.’
And then she was gone, and his life emptied out, his insides carved hollow. In that second, he’d never been more convinced or more scared of something in his life: his love for her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘I THINK WE need to change the office number,’ EJ muttered as she brushed through her office doorway, two coffees in hand.
Zara looked up from the property details she’d been poring over for the last hour, nothing making sense. It was a one-bed studio, not some mansion, and yet it might as well have been Buckingham Palace for the amount of time it was taking. ‘They’re still calling?’
‘Yup.’ EJ set the coffee down and grimaced. ‘Brings a new meaning to not taking no for an answer.’
She felt a pang of guilt. It was enough that she was being hounded, tailed on an almost daily basis, the intrigue her brief outing with Daniel had sparked still burning strong after three weeks of no contact. Not from her at any rate.
She sat back in her seat and took in the fresh bouquet that had arrived that morning. She hadn’t had chance to share this one out among the staff yet.
‘The press aren’t the only ones,’ EJ mused, spying her focus and bringing Zara’s gaze back to her.
‘He’s just not used to dealing with the word.’