“Why?”
“They smothered me. Can you imagine four older sisters? It was absolute hell being the center of all that feminine attention.” He shivered dramatically. “Then, when I was ten, I got sick. It turned out to be leukemia. I got through it okay but after that, my life wasn’t worth living. I couldn’t even move without someone asking if I was okay. It drove me crazy. So at seventeen I was out of there. I packed a backpack and was off. Did any job I could get. Did it until I got bored, then moved on.” He glanced across at Dani. “I’ve got a very low boredom threshold.”
Dani grinned. “Yes, I heard that about you.”
Zach looked almost affronted. “Who’s been talking?”
“Does it matter? You admitted it yourself—why look so upset when someone else says the same?”
“I’m not upset. I just like to be in control of my own publicity.” He leaned back on his elbows, crossing his long legs at the ankles, and she tried not to stare. “I gather you’ve been avoiding me?”
“Hmm,” she said, trying for noncommittal. But the truth was, if he’d wanted to seek her out, he could have. So he’d obviously decided the sex thing was a mistake as well. Or maybe now he’d had her, he wasn’t interested anymore.
“Not even going to bother denying it?”
“Nope.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?” she replied to give herself time to think. “Why am I avoiding you or why aren’t I denying it?”
“Both.”
She just gave another shrug.
“You haven’t even been swimming,” he said. “Isn’t that cutting off your nose to spite your face?”
“As a writer, should you be allowing yourself to talk in such clichés?”
“Definitely not.” He stared off into the distance, his lips a firm line as if considering his next words. “Jake called me.”
“What?” She shook her head at the abrupt change in direction.
“I wasn’t sure whether to mention it, but then I didn’t want you to think we’d had sex and then that was it—I wasn’t interested anymore.”
“I’m not getting this. What has Jake got to do with you and me having sex?”
“He called the other day and warned me off you.”
“Fuck. I’ll kill Gary.”
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he actually told Jake we did it.”
“And how would you know that?” And why did she get the feeling she wasn’t going to like the answer?
“Because Jake told me you were a virgin.”
“Fuck. I’ll kill Jake as well. And how the fuck would he know?”
“So are you?”
She glared at him and his lips twitched.
“So were you?” he rephrased the question.
“None of your—” She broke off. What did it matter? She wasn’t ashamed of her now long-gone virginity; celibacy had been a conscious decision she’d made early on in her career. And before the army, she’d been a total tomboy. “It’s not so weird. When I joined up, I wanted to be taken seriously. I had enough disadvantages without getting that sort of reputation.”
“So why me?”
She so didn’t want this conversation. But maybe it was better to get the whole thing out in the open and then they could forget it, put it behind them. “This”—she waved a hand around her—“doesn’t seem real to me. In real life, I don’t want a relationship; it doesn’t fit into my life. But I thought that maybe this was my one chance to experience sex, to find out if all the hype is true, before I go back to the real world. And you’re gorgeous and experienced and…”
“So far, so good, but I suspect I’m not going to like the next bit.”
“And you’re also decadent and immoral and there’s no way I could come to care for you. So you’re safe.”
“Ouch. You know there’s such a thing as being too honest. So tell me. Was the hype true?”
Oh yeah. She considered lying, but she figured he’d known how much she’d enjoyed it. She gave a quick nod.
“You used me?” he said.
“Yup.”
“So why stop now? Why not use me some more?”
Good question. He was so beautiful, merely looking at him made her totally aware of her body, her nipples tingled, and her sex clenched with remembered desire, so she shifted where she sat. She had a flashback to how he’d felt inside her, all that male power focused solely on her. She could lose herself in him. Never find herself again. The idea terrified her. That wasn’t who she was or wanted to be. She wanted to be in control.
“Let’s just say that once was enough and leave it at that. You’re my employer, and it’s inappropriate.”
“But—”
“Can we change the subject?” Why was he going on about it anyway? He’d obviously taken Jake’s advice and stayed away. She counted to ten. “Let’s forget it ever happened.” Taking a deep breath, she pasted on a smile. “You look very stylish today. Are you off somewhere?”
For a minute, she thought he was going to pursue the subject. In which case she was going to get up and walk away. Then he exhaled loudly. “I’m heading into town. I thought you might join me. We could get some lunch. Just friends.”
“Which part of me avoiding you are you not getting here?”
“I know this great little pizza place.”
God, she wanted to, and not for the pizza. “No thank you,” she replied primly. “Anyway, I might go and use the pool now that I know you’re going to be out of the way for a few hours.”
He gave her a disgusted look. “Coward.” He got to his feet, and she watched wistfully as he strolled away from her. Gary should be proud. So should Jake. That had definitely taken willpower.
…
“I’ve brought you a present,” Zach said.
It was hours after he’d left her. Dani had had her swim, then spent some time working with the dogs, and now it was early afternoon—siesta time by anyone’s standards—and she was lying sprawled under the olive trees by the kennels.
“Come on, I know you’re not asleep.”
When she still didn’t move, he nudged her with his toe.
“Go away,” she mumbled, trying to push away the offending toe. It retreated, but only slightly.