“Just for tonight,” she said, hating that she had to say it, but knowing she did. Because she knew for certain that there could be no romantic future for them.

She loved him. She was certain of it now. She had for a long time—possibly for most of the seven years she’d known him. It had been a slow thing, working its way into her system bit by bit. With every smile, every touch.

And he didn’t love her. Looking at him now, she saw the light in his eyes wasn’t anything deeper than lust. But if that was all she could have she would take it, and she wouldn’t think about the wisdom of it, or the consequences.

If he wanted her right now, then she’d take it. Because she was staring hard into a Zack-free future, and she would rather have all of him tonight, and carry the memory with her, than be nothing more than his trusty sidekick forever, standing by watching while he married another woman. Watching him make a life with someone else, someone he didn’t even love, while her heart splintered into tiny pieces with every beat.

“One night,” she repeated. “Here. Away from reality. Away from work and home. Because … we can’t keep going on like this. It can’t be healthy.”

ONE NIGHT IN …

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About the Author

MAISEY YATES was an avid Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance reader before she began to write them. She still can’t quite believe she’s lucky enough to get to create her very own sexy alpha heroes and feisty heroines. Seeing her name on one of those lovely covers is a dream come true.

Maisey lives with her handsome, wonderful, diaper-changing husband and three small children across the street from her extremely supportive parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of Southern Oregon, USA. She enjoys the contrast of living in a place where you might wake up to find a bear on your back porch and then heading into the home office to write stories that take place in exotic urban locales.

Recent titles by the same author:

GIRL ON A DIAMOND PEDESTAL

HAJAR’S HIDDEN LEGACY

THE ARGENTINE’S PRICE

Did you know these are also available as eBooks?

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One Night
In Paradise
Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my very best friend,

who I happened to be married to. Haven, I love you.

CHAPTER ONE

CLARA Davis looked at the uneaten cake, still as pristine and pink as the bride had demanded, sitting on its pedestal. A very precarious pedestal that had taken a whole lot of skill to balance and get set up. Not to mention have delivered to the coast-side hotel that sat twenty miles away from her San Francisco kitchen.

Everything would have been perfect. The cake, the setting, the groom, well, he was beyond perfect, as usual. And everyone who had been invited had come.

There had been one key person missing, though. The bride had decided to skip the event. And without her, it made it sort of tricky to continue.

Clara eyed the cake and considered taking a slice for herself. She’d worked hard on it. No sense letting it go to waste.

She sighed. The cake wouldn’t make the knot in her stomach go away. It wouldn’t ease any of the sadness she felt. Nothing had been able to shake that feeling, not since the groom, who was now officially jilted, had announced the engagement in the first place.

Though, ironically, watching him get stood up at the altar hadn’t made her feel any better. But how could it? She didn’t like seeing Zack hurt. He was her business partner—more than that, he was her best friend. And also, yeah, the man who kept her awake some nights with the kinds of fantasies that did not bear rehashing in the light of day.

But secret fantasies aside, she hadn’t really wanted the wedding to fall apart. Well, not this close to the actual ceremony. Or maybe she had wanted it. Maybe a small part of her had hoped this would be the outcome.

Maybe that was why she’d agreed to bake the cake. To stand by and watch Zack bind himself to another woman for the rest of his life. There wasn’t really another sane reason for it.

She blew out a breath and walked out of the kitchen and into the massive, empty reception hall. Her heart hit hard against her breastbone when she saw Zack Parsons, coffee mogul, business genius and abandoned groom, standing near the window, looking out at the beach, the sun casting an orange glow on his face and bleeding onto the pristine white of his tuxedo shirt.

He looked different, for just a moment. Leaner. Harder than she was used to seeing him. His tie was draped over his shoulders, his jacket a black puddle by his feet. He was leaning against the window, bracing himself on his forearm.

It shouldn’t really shock her that after being left at the altar he looked stronger in a strange way.

“Hey,” she said, her voice sounding too loud. Stupid in the empty room.

He turned, his gray eyes locking with hers, and she stopped breathing for a moment. He truly was the most beautiful man on the planet. Seven years of working with him on a daily basis should have taken some of the impact away. And some days she was able to ignore it, or at least sublimate it. But then there were other days when it hit her with the force of ten tons of bricks.

Today was one of those days.

“What kind of cake did I buy, Clara?” he asked, pushing off from the window and stuffing his hand into his pocket.

She forced herself to breathe. “The bottom tier was vanilla, with raspberry filling, per Hannah’s instructions. And there was pink fondant. Which I hand-painted, by the way. But the vanilla cake in the middle was soaked in bourbon and honey. And not a single walnut on the whole cake. Because I know what you like.”

“Good. Have someone wrap up the middle tier and send it to my house. And they can send Hannah her tier, too.”

“You don’t have to do that. You can throw it out.”

“It’s edible. Why would I throw it out?”

“Uh … because it was your wedding cake. For a wedding that didn’t happen. For most people it might … take the sweet out of it.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Cake is cake.”

She put her hand on her hip and affected a haughty expression, hoping to force a slight smile. “My cake is more than mere cake, but I get your point.”

“We’ve made a fortune off your cakes, I’m aware of how spectacular they are.”

“I know. But I can make a new cake. I can make a cake that says Condolences on Your Canceled Nuptials. We could put a man on top of it sitting in a recliner, watching sports on his flat-screen television, with no bride in sight.”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly and she felt a small bubbly sensation in her chest. As though a weight had just been removed.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“That could be a new thing we offer in the shops, Zack,” she said, knowing business was his favorite topic, aborted wedding or no. “Little cupcakes for sad occasions.”

“I’m not all that sad.”

“You aren’t?”

“I’m not heartbroken, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Clara frowned. “But you got left at the altar. Public humiliation is … well, it’s never fun. I had something like that happen in high school when I got stood up by my date at a dance. People pointed and laughed. I was humiliated. It was all very Carrie. Without the pig’s blood or the mass murder.”

“Not the highlight of my life, Clara, I’ll admit.” He swallowed. “Not the lowest point, either. I would have preferred for her to leave me before I was standing at the altar, with the preacher, in a tux, in front of nearly a thousand people, but I’m not exactly devastated.”

“That’s … well, that’s good.” Except it was sort of scary to know that he could be abandoned just before taking his vows and respond to it with an eerie calm. She reacted more strongly to a recipe that didn’t pan out the way she wanted it to.

But then, Zack was always the one with the zenlike composure. When they’d first met, over a cupcake of all things, she’d been impressed by that right away. That and his beautiful eyes, but that was a different story.

She’d been working at a small bakery in the Mission District in San Francisco, and he’d been scoping out a new location for his local chain of coffee shops. He’d bought one of her peanut-butter-banana cupcakes, her experiment du jour. His reaction, like all of Zack’s reactions, hadn’t been overly demonstrative. But there had been a glint in his eye, a hint of that hard steel that lay just beneath the outer calm.

And he’d come back the next day, and the next. She’d never entertained, not for a moment, the idea that he’d been coming in to see her. It had been all about the cupcakes.

And then he’d offered her twice the money to come and work in his flagship shop, making the treats of her choice in his gorgeous, state-of-the-art kitchen. It had been the start of everything for her. At eighteen it had been a major break, and had allowed her to get out of her parents’ house, something she’d been desperate to do.

In the years since, it had been a whole lot more than that.

Roasted’s ten thousandth location had just opened, their first in Japan, and it was being hailed a massive success. Conceptualizing the treats for that shop had been a fun challenge, just like every new international location had been.

She and Zack hadn’t had a life since Roasted had really started to take off, nothing that went beyond coffee and confections, anyway. Of course, Zack was the backbone of the company, the man who got it done, the man who had seen it become a worldwide phenomenon.

They had drinks, coffee beans and mass-produced versions of her cupcakes and other goodies in all the major grocery chains in the U.S. Roasted was a household name. Because Zack was willing to sacrifice everything in his personal life to see it happen.

Hannah had been his only major concession to having a personal life, and that relationship had only started in the past year. And now Zack had lost her.

But he wasn’t devastated. Apparently. She was probably more devastated than he was. Again, cake related.

“I didn’t love her,” he said.

Clara blinked. “You didn’t … love her?”

“I cared about her. She was going to make a perfectly acceptable wife. But it wasn’t like I was passionately head over heels for her or anything.”

“Then why … why were you marrying her?”

“Because it was time for me to get married. I’m thirty. Roasted has achieved the level of success I was hoping for, and there comes a point where it’s the logical step. I reached that point, Hannah had, too.”

“Apparently she hadn’t.”

He gave her a hard glare. “Apparently.”

“Do you know why? Have you talked to her?”

“She can come and talk to me when she’s ready.”

Zack would have laughed at the expression on Clara’s face if he’d found anything remotely funny about the situation. The headlines would be unkind, and with so many media-hungry witnesses to the event, mostly on the absent bride’s side, there would be plenty of people salivating to get their name in print by offering their version of the wedding of the century that wasn’t.

Clara was too soft. Her brown eyes were all dewy looking, as though she were ready to cry on his behalf, her petite hands clasped in front of her, her shoulders slumped. She was more dressed up than he was used to seeing her. Her lush, and no he wasn’t blind so of course he’d noticed, curves complemented, though not really displayed, by a dress that could only be characterized as nice, if a bit matronly.

She did that, dressed much older than she needed to, her thick auburn hair always pulled back into a low bun. Because she had to have her hair up to bake, and it had become a habit. But sometimes he wished she’d just let her hair down. And, because he was a man, sometimes he wished she wouldn’t go to so much trouble to conceal her curves, either.

Although, in reality, her style of dress suited him. They worked together every day, and he had no business having an opinion on her physical appearance. His interest was purely for aesthetic purposes. Like opting for a room with a nice view.

That aside, Clara was all emotion and big hand gestures. There was nothing contained about her.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“I know. I believe you,” she said.

“No, you don’t. Or you don’t want to believe me because your more romantic sensibilities can’t handle the fact that my heart isn’t broken.”

“Well, you ought to love the person you’re going to marry, Zack.”

“Why? Give me a good reason why. So that I could be more broken up about today? So that I could be more suitably wounded if she had shown up, and we had said our vows, when ten years on the marriage fell on the wrong side of the divorce statistics? I don’t see the point in that.”

“Well, I don’t see the point at all.”

“And I didn’t ask.”

“You never do.”

“The secret to my success.” His tone came out a bit harsher than he intended and Clara’s expression reflected it. “You’ll survive this,” he said drily. “Breaking up is hard to do.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I’m not so breakable. Tell me, any big word on the Japan location go up online while I was busy getting my photo taken?”

“All good. Some of the pictures I’ve been seeing are showing that it’s absolutely slammed. And everything seems to be going over huge.”

“Good. That means the likelihood of expanding further there is good.” He sat down in one of the vacant, linen-covered chairs. They had pink bows. Also Hannah’s choice. He put his hands on the tabletop, moving his mind away from the fiasco of a wedding day and getting it back on business. “How are things going with our designer cupcakes?”

“Um … well, I was pretty busy getting the wedding cake together.” Clara felt like her head was spinning from the abrupt subject change.

Zack was in full business mode, sitting at the trussed up wedding-party table like it was the pared-down bamboo desk he had in his office at Roasted’s corporate headquarters.

“And?”

“I have a few ideas. But these are pretty labor-intensive recipes and they really aren’t practical for the retail line, or even for most of the stores.”

“Cupcakes are labor intensive?”

She shot him a deadly look. “Why don’t you try baking a simple batch and tell me how it goes?”

“No, thanks. I stick to my strengths, and none of them happen to involve baking.”

“Then trust me, they’re labor intensive.”

“That’s fine. My goal is to start doing a few boutique-style shops in some more affluent areas. We’ll have bigger kitchens so that we’ll have the capability to do more on-site baking.”

“That could work. We’ll have to have a more highly trained staff.”

“That’s fine. I’m talking about a few locations in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, London, that sort of thing. It will be more like the flagship store. A bit more personalized.”

“I really like the idea, not that you’d care if I didn’t.”

“I am the boss.”

“I know. I’m just the Vice President of Confections,” she said, bringing up a joke they’d started in the early days of the company.

A smile touched his lips again and her heart expanded. “A big job.”

“It is,” she said. “And you don’t pay me enough.”

“Yes, I do.”

She gave him a look. One she knew was less than scary, but she tried. “Anyway, go on.”

“I had made an appointment to speak to a man who owns a large portion of farmland in Thailand. Small clusters of coffee and tea. All of his plants receive a very high level of care and that’s making for extremely good quality roasts and brews. My goal is to set up a deal with him so we can get some limited-editions blends. We’ll sell them in select locations, and have them available for order online.”

Her mind skipped over all the details he’d just laid out, latching on to just one thing. “Weren’t you going to Thailand on your honeymoon?”

“That was the plan.”

Clara couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open. “You were going to do business on your honeymoon?”

“Hannah had some work to do, as well. Time doesn’t stop just because you get married.”

“No wonder she left you at the altar.” She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“You did, and that’s fine. Unlike you, Hannah had no romantic illusions, you can trust me on that. Her reasons for not showing up today may very well have had something to do with a Wall Street crisis. There’s actually a good chance she’s at her apartment, in her wedding gown, screaming obscenities at her computer screen watching the cost of grain go down.”

She had to concede that the scenario was almost plausible. Hannah was all icy cool composure, and generally nice and polite, until someone crossed her in the corporate world. Clara had overheard the other woman’s phone conversations become seriously cutthroat in tense business situations. Threats of removal of tender body parts had crossed her lips without hesitation.

She admired her for it. For the the intense way she went after what she wanted. She’d done it with Zack. It had been sort of awe inspiring to watch. Mostly it had been awe-inspiringly depressing. Because Clara wasn’t cutthroat, or intense. And she hadn’t been brave enough to pursue what she really wanted. She’d never been brave enough to pursue Zack.

“I doubt that’s what happened,” Clara said, even though she couldn’t be certain.

“There was a reason I asked how the designer-cupcake thing was going.”

“Oh.” Back to business.

“I was trying to make sure you didn’t feel swamped by the amount of work you have to do.”

“No. Creating recipes is the best part of my job. I’ve been having fun with this one. I’ve actually done most of the experimental baking and tasting with our panel, and I have a few standout favorites, plus some that need to be improved. And then I’ll have to narrow down the selection, because it just won’t be feasible to have too many different kinds on the menu at once.”

“So that was the long, detailed version of you telling me you aren’t too busy at the moment?”

She shot him a deadly look. Jilted or not, he didn’t need to be a jerk. “No, I’m not too busy.”

“Good, because everything was set for me to head to Chiang Mai tonight.”

“And you need me to make sure everything is running smoothly at corporate?” That wasn’t usually the role she fulfilled. She wasn’t an administrator, not even close.

“No, I want you to get packed, because you’re coming with me.”

Her stomach honestly felt like it plummeted, squeezing as it made its way down into her toes. “You’re not serious. You’re not actually asking me to come on your honeymoon with you?”

“The trip is booked. I have appointments made. I’m not canceling the honeymoon just because my bride neglected to show up.” He looked at her, like he had thousands of times, but this time felt … It felt different. The inspection seemed closer somehow, his gray eyes more assessing, more intimate. She swallowed hard and tried to ignore the fact that her heart seemed to be trying to claw its way out of her chest. “I think you’ll make a more than fitting replacement.”

CHAPTER TWO

IF he had physically hit her he couldn’t have possibly hurt her worse. A replacement? The consolation prize. The stand-in for tall, lean, angular Hannah who possessed the cheekbones of a goddess. Not that Clara had noticed, or compared.

Well, she had. And in some ways, on some days, the fact they were so different made it easier because there was no question of what the other woman had that she didn’t.

But she had never, never put herself in the position of trying to vie for Zack’s attention, not in that way. Because she’d known that she would be the consolation prize if he ever did decide to look in her direction. And she’d decided that was one thing she couldn’t do to herself. The one thing worse than watching the man who meant the world to her tie himself to another woman. Being the one he’d settled for.

And now Zack was shoving her into that position. It made her want to gag.

“I’m not a replacement for anyone, Zack. And if you’re suggesting I am, then I think we’ve become a little bit too comfortable with each other.”

She turned and walked out of the reception hall. She left the cake. She didn’t care about the cake. The staff of the hotel could have it for an early, sugary breakfast when they came in tomorrow morning.

She breezed through the hall and out the front doors, into the damp, salty air. It had been a cool day, but now, with the sun dipping down below the horizon, the air coming in off of the bay was downright chilly. Which was good, because now, if anyone saw her lip tremble a little bit, she could blame the cold.

She didn’t want to be emotional, not over something that wasn’t even intentional, and with Zack, she knew it wasn’t. Zack wasn’t mean, more than that; he simply wasn’t all that emotional, so he never assumed that anyone else was.

Everything was so surface to Zack. Nothing seemed to get under his skin. Nothing seemed to throw him off, even for a moment. Not even a canceled wedding.

Anyway, she’d had enough intentional digs taken at her in her life to know that things could get far too dramatic if she didn’t make people have to work at hurting her feelings.

But since her feelings for Zack were a constant jumble, her reactions to anything involving him were always strong. Most of the time, though, she managed to keep that fact hidden from Zack. A lot of the time, she kept the extent of her feelings hidden from herself.

“Clara.”

She turned and saw him standing just behind her. She didn’t say anything. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and fixed him with her best glare.

“You’re the second woman to abandon me today.”

Her face flooded with prickly heat. “See, that comparison is not very flattering, considering you’ve already used the word replacement in regards to me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“That I need someone to come with me, and actually, under the circumstances you’re a better fit than my ex-fiancée.”

For a full second she could only think of one thing his statement could possibly mean. Images clicked through her mind like close-up still-shots. Tan hands on a pale, bare hip. Masculine lips on a feminine throat. Blood roared through her body, into her cheeks, making her face burn. She was sure they were the color of ripe strawberries, broadcasting her thoughts to anyone who looked at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Hannah’s smart, don’t get me wrong, but she doesn’t know this market quite like you do. Prices on stocks, maybe, but it will be nice to have you on hand to offer an opinion about marketing and flavor.”

Business. He was talking about business. And somehow, to Zack, business was more important than romance and making love on his honeymoon?

At least he was pretending it was. There was something different about his expression, a dark light behind his gray eyes. She’d seen Zack nearly every day for the past seven years. She knew his moods, his expressions as well as she knew her own.

And this was a different Zack. Well, she thought it was. For some reason, the hardness, the intensity, seemed more true than what she thought she knew of him.

Strange. But then, the whole day had been strange. Starting with the interminably long silence after the strains of the Bridal March had faded from the air and the aisle remained vacant.

All right, he’d made her mad. It wasn’t the first time. He was bullheaded and a general pain in the butt sometimes. He was also the smartest man she knew, with a cutting wit that always kept her amused. He was one of the few people who’d never doubted that her ideas were good.

If she didn’t go with him, she would spend her evenings hanging out by herself, reading and experimenting with cupcake recipes and licking the batter off the spatula. Fun, sure, but not the kind of fun she could have in Thailand.

Again, those images, erotic and explicit, assaulted her. No, that wasn’t the kind of fun she would be having in Thailand. Zack had never looked twice at her in that way and for the most part, she was fine with that. She’d had a crush on him at first, but even then she hadn’t expected anything to come of it.

And, yes, Hannah had come in and stirred up some strange feelings. Because as long as Zack had simply been there, at work every day, and available for dinner meetings and a lot of other things, it had been comfortable. Zack was in every space in her life, at work and home.

But then along came Hannah, and she took up his time, and, Clara had assumed, that he loved her. And having to share Zack’s emotion with someone else had felt. It had felt awful. And it had made her jealous, which didn’t make sense because she’d never even tried to cross the boundaries of friendship with Zack. So it wasn’t like Hannah had been encroaching on her territory or anything. But she’d been so jealous looking at Zack and Hannah she’d felt like her stomach was turning inside out, and she knew, that even if she could never have Zack, she didn’t want anyone else to have him, either.

Which was just stupid and childish. About as stupid as going with a man on his honeymoon, platonically, in place of his bride, to conduct business with him. Platonically.

She needed her head checked. She needed some sanity. Maybe the problem was that Zack did take up all the spaces in her life. Maybe it would have to change.

Just the thought of that, of pushing him away, sent a sharp dose of pain through her system. She was addicted to him.

“All right. I’ll go. Because I would rather have a paid vacation in Thailand than spend the week hanging out in the office and orchestrating the return of all your wedding presents.”

“I’m not returning my wedding presents.”

“You can’t keep them, Zack.”

“Of course I can. I might need a food processor someday. What does a food processor do?”

“I’ll teach you sometime. Anyway, yes, I’ll go with you.”

The corner of his lip curved up into a wicked smile that made her stomach tighten in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “Excellent. Looks like I won’t be spending my wedding night alone, after all.”

It probably wasn’t nice of him to tease Clara. But he liked the way her cheeks turned pink when he slipped an innuendo into the conversation. And frankly, he was in need of amusement after the day he’d had.

But amusement hadn’t been his primary goal when he’d given her the wedding-night line out in front of the hotel. He’d been trying to atone for his ill-spoken remark about her being a replacement. In truth, he had more fun with Clara than he did with Hannah. It wasn’t as though he disliked Hannah; quite the opposite. But he hadn’t been marrying Hannah for the company.

She’d needed a husband to help her climb the corporate ladder, a little testosterone to help her out in a male-dominated field. And a wife … well, a wife like her was a convenience for a lot of reasons.

But Clara was not his wife. In a lot of ways, she was better. And he hadn’t intended to hurt her feelings. She’d been quiet on the ride from the hotel back to her town house by the bay, and once they’d gotten inside to her place she’d dashed into her bedroom to pack a few things “real quick” which, in his experience with women meant … not quick at all.

He sat in her white leather chair, the one that faced her tiny television. Not state of the art at all, nothing like his place. The home theater had been one of his first major purchases when Roasted had become solvent. Clara’s had been an industrial-grade mixer for her kitchen. That was where all her high-tech gear was. She had a stove with more settings than his stereo system.

“Ready.” He looked up and his stomach clenched.

Clara was standing at the end of the hallway, large, pink leather bag draped over her shoulder, dark jeans conforming to the curve of her hips, and a black knit top outlining the contours of her very generous breasts. He hadn’t gotten married today, so he was going to allow himself a longer look than he ever did. He’d noticed her body before, but he’d never allowed himself to really look at her as a man looked at a woman. He didn’t know why he was letting himself do it now. A treat in exchange for the day, maybe. Or exhaustion making him sloppy with his rules.

Clara was an employee. Clara was a friend. Clara was not a possible lover, and normally that meant no looking at her like she could be.

But tonight wasn’t normal. Not by a long stretch.

“Good.” He stood up and tried to keep his interest in her body sublimated. But he was just a man. A man who had been celibate for a very long time. A man who had been expecting a reprieve on that and had been sadly disappointed.

“Are we taking the company jet?” She smiled, her perfectly shaped brow raised.

She really was beautiful, and not just her curves. He didn’t stop to notice her looks very often. She was like … not furniture, but a fixture for sure. Someone who was always there, every day, no matter what. And when someone was always there, you didn’t stop and look at them very often.

But he was looking at her now. Her face was a little bit round, her skin pale and soft. Her eyes, dark brown and wide, were fringed with dark lashes, surprising given her auburn hair color. And her lips … full and soft looking, a very delicate shade of pink.

Looking at her features was a nice distraction, especially since he was about to make her very, very angry. Normally he didn’t care for other people’s feelings. Not enough to lose any sleep over. He was in command of his world, and he didn’t question his decisions.

But Clara was different. She’d always been different.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you yet.” And it might have been wise to save it until she was safely on the plane. And had had a glass or two of champagne.

“What’s that?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

“I was supposed to get married today.”

Her eyes became glittering, deadly slits. “Right.”

“I was meant to be going on my honeymoon with my wife. And now, here I find myself jilted. No bride. Barely any pride to speak of.”

She arched her brow, her mouth twisted into a sour expression. “What, Zack?”

“I need you to come with me. As more than my friend. Not really more than my friend, but more as far as Amudee is concerned.”

She shook her head and let her pink bag slip off of her shoulder and onto the hardwood floor. “That’s … that’s insane! Who would believe you’d hooked up with someone else already?”

“Everyone, Clara. I’m a man who, as far as the public is concerned, is in the throes of heartbreak. Everyone knows about our business relationship. About our friendship. Is it so insane to think that, after suffering heartbreak, I looked to my closest friend and found so much more?”

Oh, it was sick. It really was. To hear him saying something that was … that was so close to her real-life fantasies it was painful to listen to the words fall from his lips. “No. No, I am not playing this game. That’s ridiculous, Zack. Go on your own.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Look, my pride will survive. But if I show up alone, and without my wife, looking the part of lonely loser who couldn’t hold on to his woman … well, who wants to cut a business deal with that guy?”

“So offer him more money,” she hissed.

“That’s the thing with Amudee. Money isn’t the main objective. If I could throw a bigger check at him, I would. But it’s not only about that. It’s about people, the kind of people he wants to do business with, and for the most part, I am that man. I care deeply about fair trade, about the work he has going on there in Thailand. I have to look like I call the shots in my own life, and I will not let an inconsequential hiccup like Hannah’s cold feet affect that.”

She shook her head. “No. Zack just …”

“If I lose the deal because of this …”

“I’m fired? I doubt it. And I can’t imagine him passing this up just because you aren’t getting married now.”

“This growing project is a huge thing for him, his life’s work. He’s poured his entire fortune into this. He has high principles, and, yes, a lot of it does have to do with bringing money into Northern Thailand, for the people that live there, but he won’t go into something if he doesn’t feel one hundred percent about it. I can’t afford to let it slip to ninety-nine percent. And if you tip the deal over, then I need you.”

“So buy your beans from someone else,” she said. “Someone who doesn’t care what your personal life looks like.”

“There is no one else. Not with a product like this. He understands the foundation I’ve built Roasted on. That it’s always been my goal to find small, family run farms to support. He’s a philanthropist and what he’s done is give different families in the north of Thailand their own plots to cultivate their own crops. Tea and coffee is being grown there, of the highest quality. And I want the best—I don’t want to settle for second.”

Clara bent and picked her bag up from the floor. She really hated what Zack was proposing. Not just because she didn’t exactly relish the idea of lying to someone for a week; there was that, but also because the idea of playing the part of his lover for a week made her feel sick.

She’d done a good job, a damn good job, of pretending that all she felt for Zack was friendship, with a very successful working relationship thrown into the mix. She’d pretended, not just for him, but for herself.

Because she didn’t want to desire a man who was so out of her league. A man who dated women who were her polar opposites in looks and personality. Women who were tall and thin, blonde and as cool and in control at all times as he was.

Wanting Zack was a pipe dream of the highest order.

Yes, it had been harder to ignore those sneaky, forbidden feelings when his engagement was announced, but she’d still done it. She’d baked his wedding cake, for heaven’s sake.

But this, this was one ask too many. Even for him. To go to a romantic setting, pretend she was experiencing her deepest fantasy, all for show, just seemed too masochistic.

And yet, it was hard to say no to him, too. Not when, as much as it galled to be asked to do this, it would give her this sort of strange, out of time, experience with him.

And definitely not when the whole thing was such a big deal to the future of Roasted. Her wagon was well and truly hitched to the company, and in order for her to succeed, the company had to succeed.

Her wagon was hitched to more than the company, if she was honest. It was Zack. Zack and his wicked smiles, Zack and that indefinable thing he possessed that made her want to care for him, even though he never let her.

Zack was the reason she didn’t date. Not because, as a boss he kept her so busy with work, though she’d pretended that was it for a long, long time. It was Zack the man. Because her feelings for him were more than just complicated. And she was … she was a doormat.

She’d baked the man’s wedding cake. And then what had she thought would happen? She was going to stay at Roasted, after Zack married? Play Aunt Clara to his kids? Watch while he had this whole life while she died a virgin with nothing but her convection oven for company?

Sick. It was sick.

And now she was really going with him to Chiang Mai to play the part she knew he’d never really consider her for?

She needed to get a life.

She was right. What she’d thought earlier at the hotel had been right. A moment of clarity. It wasn’t healthy to have him in everything. He was her boss, her best friend. He filled her work and personal hours, and even when he wasn’t around, he was in her thoughts. Zack had dates, he had a life that didn’t include her and she … didn’t. She couldn’t do it anymore.

“If I do this. If I do this, then it’s going to be the last thing I do at Roasted.” She thought about the bakery, the one she’d been dreaming of for the past few months. The one she’d drawn up plans for. It had been in her mind ever since Zack and Hannah got engaged. Just a mere fantasy of escaping that painful reality at first, but now … now she thought she needed to make it happen.

She needed to make some boundaries. Have something that was hers. Just hers.

“What?” he asked, his dark brows locking together.

“If I go 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 to fixate on. Basically two of the only breasts on earth that were off-limits to him.

More inconvenient, considering they were about to spend the week in Chiang Mai in a very secluded and gorgeous honeymoon villa. Even more when you considered that she was leaving the company soon after.

Well, that wasn’t happening. He would make sure of that. He would offer her whatever he had to offer to get her to stay, and until then he would simply nod whenever she brought it up.

He wasn’t sure how he would convince her, only that he would. He’d successfully stolen her away from her bakery job back when he’d only had a handful of coffee shops to his name. He had no doubt he could do an even better job of keeping her now that he had so many resources at his disposal. He could give her whatever she wanted, more freedom, more time off. And she was his friend. She wouldn’t leave him.

She was just mad about the whole fake fiancée thing. But she would get over it. She always did. It wasn’t the first time he’d made her mad. Likely it wouldn’t be the last. But that was just how it was. She wouldn’t really leave him.

He was a master negotiator. And he didn’t lose. He was good at keeping control, of his life and of his business.

“The property we’re staying on is supposed to be amazing. It borders a Chiang Mai, and there’s a spa right on site. It’s more of a resort than anything else, but you have to be invited to stay there by the owner. Very exclusive.” He got nothing but silence in response.

“They have unicorns, I hear,” he continued, “with golden hooves. You’ll love it.”

He heard her try to stifle a very reluctant snicker.

He leaned in and looked at her face, at the faint shadows marring the pale skin beneath her eyes. “Are you tired?” he asked.

She leaned back in the chair. “You have no idea.”

“There’s a bedroom.” His blood jumped in his veins again, like the kick-start on a motorcycle. “You could lay down for a while if you want.”

“How long have we got?”

“Ten more hours.”

“Oh, yeah, I need sleep.” She stood up and did another little stretch move that accentuated her breasts.

Clara needed more than sleep. She needed to get out of the tiny, enclosed space with Zack and all of his hot, male pheromones that were wreaking havoc on her good sense. If she had any at all to wreak havoc on. Well, she did have some. She’d used it to ask for her out.

For a little bit of a chance to move on and forward with her life. Because Zack hadn’t married Hannah today, which was fine and good, but he would marry someone. He’d decided to, and when Zack put his mind to something, he did it. That meant it would happen, sometime in the very near future, she imagined, now that she knew love wasn’t necessarily on the docket. Heck, if he smiled just right at the flight attendant they would probably be engaged by the time they landed in Thailand. And then she could sleep in the guest room in the villa.

She snorted.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“The scariest word known to man when issued from the lips of a woman.”

Her lip curled voluntarily at his statement. “Sexist.”

“I prefer realist, but you’re free to call it as you see it.”

“So tell me this, Zack.”

“What?” he asked, one dark eyebrow arched.

“I assume you’ll attempt marriage again.”

“If I find the right woman.”

“And by that, you don’t mean the woman you love?”

Something in Zack’s posture changed, subtle but obvious to her, his shoulders straightening, his muscles tensing beneath his expertly tailored shirt. His eyes changed, too. There was something dark there, haunted, something she’d never seen before, not this clearly. She’d felt it before, an intensity lurking beneath his cool exterior, but she’d never seen it so plainly.

It was almost frightening in its intensity, transforming a man she’d seen every day for seven years into a cold stranger.

“I don’t do love, Clara. Ever.” He turned his focus to the newspaper that was folded on his lap. “Good night.”

Clara turned toward the bedroom, exhaustion burrowing beneath her skin, down into her bones. Yesterday, everything had been the way it had always been. It had sucked; it had been heading in a direction she hadn’t liked, but for the most part, it had been the same.

Today everything felt different. Most of it was her fault. And even though she wouldn’t change it, she hated it.

“We just landed.”

Clara sat up and pushed the wild mass of auburn curls out of her eyes. She blinked a few times and Zack’s face came into focus. For a moment, she didn’t do anything. She didn’t move, she didn’t breathe, she just concentrated on his face being the first thing she saw.

She’d never woken up next to a man before. And, yeah, this wasn’t really waking up next to a man in the traditional sense. And he was more leaning over than next to her. But it was a really nice thought, and it was a very nice sight first thing in the morning. If it was even morning. She had no idea.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“It’s 10:00 p.m. local time.”

She flopped backward. “Oh, no. Why did you let me sleep?”

“I tried to wake you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did, you were out.”

She felt a strange sort of disappointment curling in her stomach. She wished, well, part of her did, that he had woken her up. She swallowed hard. Her throat felt like it was lined with cotton. It was far too easy to think of a lot of very interesting ways he might have woken her up.

No. Bad.

“I’m going to be a wreck.”

“Sorry.”

“I take it you didn’t sleep?” She looked down and realized she was still wearing her jeans.

“No. But then, I don’t sleep all that much.”

That didn’t surprise her. She’d never really quizzed him on his sleeping habits, but honestly, he just didn’t seem like the kind of man who could sleep at all. He had too much energy and drive to stop even for a moment. Whenever she’d thought of him in bed … well, it hadn’t been images of him sleeping plaguing her.

“We’re at the airport?” she asked, peering out one of the windows, confused by how dark it was outside.

“Don’t know if I’d say airport so much as landing strip. We’re on Mr. Amudee’s property. It backs the city, but there’s a lot of forest in between his land and civilization.”

“Oh.”

“There’s a car waiting for us, and your luggage, such as it was, is already loaded in it.”

She stood and her breasts nearly brushed his chest. She’d misjudged the distance. Her breath caught in her throat and nearly choked her.

Zack didn’t seem affected at all. He just smiled at her, one of his wicked smiles, all of the ghosts she’d glimpsed in his gray eyes before she’d gone to sleep were banished now, leaving behind nothing but the glint that was so familiar to her.

“I didn’t have—” she had to take in another breath because being so close to him had kind of sucked the other one out of her “—that much time to pack. Otherwise I could have had just as many bags as your high-maintenance ladies.”

“You aren’t like the women I date. You aren’t high maintenance. I like that about you.” He turned and headed out the bedroom and she followed him, her chest suddenly feeling tight.

What he meant was, she wasn’t beautiful. Not like the women he dated. The women who were all high-fashion planes and angles. And cheekbones.

Her mother was like that. Her sister, too. Tall and leggy with hip bones that were more prominent than their breasts. And that was the look that walked runways. The look that was fashionable, especially in southern California.

And she just didn’t have the look. She had curves. An abundance of them. If any of the chi-chi boutiques had bras with her cup size, they were very often too small around, meant for women who’d gone under the knife to give them what nature had bestowed upon her so liberally. And her stomach was a little bit round, not concave or rippling. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen her ribs.

Standing next to the women in her family just made her feel … inadequate. And wide. And short. She’d tried to subsist on cabbage and water like her mother and sister, but frankly, she’d felt like garbage and had decided a long time ago that feeling healthy beat being fifteen pounds lighter.

Of course, that decision didn’t erase a lifetime of insecurity. And that insecurity wasn’t all down to weight, either.

“Great. Glad to be so … easy.”

The door to the plane was standing open, and a staircase had been lowered to the tarmac. Zack stood and waited for her to go in front of him. She passed him without looking, trying not to show the knockout effect the slight scent of his cologne had on her as she moved by him.

“I wouldn’t call you easy,” he said.

She stopped, third stair from the top, and whipped around to look at him. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Not what I meant, either,” he said, his expression overly innocent.

“Yeah. Right. Are you determined to drive me absolutely insane for this whole trip?” She continued down the steps and hopped onto the tarmac, the night air balmy and thick with mist, blowing across her cheeks and leaving its moist handprint behind.

“We are supposed to be a couple.”

“Fair enough.”

She was reluctant to get into the glossy black town car that was parked right by the plane. Because she’d only just gotten Zack-free air, and she didn’t really relish the thought of getting right back into a tight, enclosed space with him.

She needed to be able to breathe. To think. And she couldn’t do it when he was around.

That realization alone reinforced her crazy, spur-of-the-moment decision to move on with her life, and away from Roasted.

The idea made her slightly sick and more than a little bit sad. Roasted had been her life since Zack had hired her on. The day-to-day of it, the constant push to invent more and more goodies, to push the flavor profiles, to push her creativity … there would never be anything else like it.

But she needed to stand on her own feet. To move on with life. She’d gone from her parents to Zack, and while she didn’t feel familial about Zack in any way, he represented comfort and safety. And other stuff that wasn’t comforting or safe. But being with him, like she was, wasn’t pushing her to move forward.

So she was pushing herself. It was uncomfortable, but that was the way it worked. She hoped it would work.

He opened the door to the town car for her and she slid inside, and he came in just behind her. “So, do you and your boyfriends have fights?”

He must know she never had boyfriends. The odd disastrous date that never went past the front door. Emphasis on the odd, since half the men picked her up while she happened to be in the flagship store. And, in her experience, men who picked you up at ten in the morning in coffeehouses were a bit strange.

“How many long-term relationships have I had, Zack?”

“Well, Pete was around a lot until he moved for work.”

“Pete? He was a friend from high school. And I was not his type, if you catch my drift.”

“You weren’t blonde?”

“Or male.”

“Oh.”

“Point being, I haven’t done a lot of long-term.” Any, but whatever. “And if I’m ever going to … move on, go into that phase of life then I need to be less consumed with work.”

A muscled in his jaw ticked. “But you won’t make this kind of money running your own bakery.”

“I know. But I have a decent amount of money. How much do I need? How much do you need?”

There was a pause. Zack’s hand curled into a fist on the leather seat, then relaxed. “More. Just … a bit more.”

“And then you’re never done.”

“But if not for that then what am I working for?”

She swallowed. “A good question. Good and scary. Though I suppose adding a wife will add … something. When you find a new prospect, that is. Did Hannah have an equally efficient and driven sister, by chance?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

She snapped her fingers. “Darn.”

“Don’t lose sleep over it.”

“I won’t be sleeping tonight, anyway. Because you didn’t wake me up on the plane.” She couldn’t resist the jab.

“Because you sleep like a rock and snore like a walrus.”

“Might be why my relationships aren’t long-term,” she said drily. Not that any man had ever heard her snore but she was so not admitting to that.

“I doubt that.”

“Do you?”

His eyes locked with hers and something changed in the air. It seemed to crackle. Like a spark on dry leaves. It was strange. It was breathtaking, and electrifying, and she never wanted it to end.

“Why?” she asked, pressing. Desperate to hear more. A little bit afraid of hearing more, too.

“Because a little bit of snoring wouldn’t deter a man who’d had the pleasure of sharing your bed.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and looked out the window, and into the inky-black jungle. She felt dizzy. She felt … hot.

“Well, thanks,” she said.

He chuckled, low and rich like the best chocolate ganache. Just as bad for her to indulge in as the naughty treat, too. “You seem uncomfortable with the compliment.”

“You and I don’t talk about things like that.”

“Only because it hadn’t come up.”

“Do you snore?” she asked.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Then your lack of long-term relationships doesn’t really make sense at all.”

He arched one dark brow. “Was that a compliment?”

“More a commentary on the transient nature of your love life.”

“I’m wounded.”

She winced. “Well, maybe in light of all that happened today it wasn’t the best thing to say.”

“You’ve never pulled punches before, don’t start now.”

“I don’t know any other way to be.”

“Now that may account for your own short-term relationships.”

She whipped around to face him and her heart stalled. He was looking at her like she was a particularly interesting treat. One he might like to taste.

The car stopped and she nearly breathed a prayer of thanks out loud. She needed distance. She needed it desperately.

“Well,” Zack said, opening the door. “Time to go and have a look at our honeymoon suite.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE honeymoon villa was the epitome of romance. The anterior wall of the courtyard was surrounded by dense, green trees, clinging vines and flowers covering most of the stone wall, adding color, a sense that nature ruled here, not man. There was a keypad on the gate and Zack entered a code in; a reminder that the man very much had his fingerprints all over the property.

“Nice,” she said, as the gates swung open and revealed an open courtyard area. The villa itself was white and clean. Intricate spires, carved from wood and capped in gold, adorned the roof of the house, rising up to meet the thick canopy of teak trees.

“Mr. Amudee had planned on giving Hannah and I a few days of wedded bliss prior to meeting with me, so he made sure I had the code, and that everything in the home would be stocked and ready.”

Clara tried not to think about Zack and Hannah, using the love nest for its intended purpose. More than that, she tried not to think of her and Zack using it for its intended purpose.

She really did try. There was no point in allowing those fantasies. Those fantasies had led to nothing more than dateless Friday nights and lack of sleep.

“Well, that was … thoughtful of him.”

“It was. I believe he has some activities planned for us, too.”

Oh, great. She was going to be trapped in happy-couple-honeymoon-activity hell.

She followed Zack through the vast courtyard and to the wide, ornately carved double doors at the front of the villa. She touched one of the flower blossoms etched into the hard surface. “These are gorgeous. I wonder if I could mimic the design with frosting.”

“I will happily be a part of that experiment.” He pushed open the doors and stood, waiting for her to go in before him.

“You do seem to hang around a lot more when I’m practicing my baking skills.”

“I don’t know how.”

“I could teach you,” she said. “Maybe sometimes after I can teach you how to use a food processor.”

“I think I’ll pass. Anyway, I’m a bachelor. Have pity on me. I wasn’t supposed to be a bachelor after today, but I am, and now I still need my best friend to cook for me.”

“And probably do your laundry.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

Basically he wanted her to be his wife with none of the perks. She nearly said so, but that would sound too much like she wanted the perks, and even if a part of her did, she’d rather parade naked through the Castro District than confess it.

“I’m not doing your laundry.”

Zack closed the door behind them and a shock of awareness hit her, low and strong in her stomach. She felt so very alone with Zack all of a sudden that she could hardly breathe. And it wasn’t as though she’d never been alone with him. She had been. Hundreds of times. Late nights in the office, at her apartment cooking, at his luxury penthouse watching a movie.

But this wasn’t San Francisco. It wasn’t their offices; it wasn’t one of their apartments. It felt like another world entirely and that was … dangerous.

She looked up at the tall, peaked ceilings, at the intricately carved vines and flowers that cascaded from wooden rafters. Swaths of fabric were the only dividers between rooms, gauzy and sexy, providing the illusion of privacy without actually giving any at all.

And in the middle of it all was Zack. He filled the space, not just with his breadth and height, but with his presence. With the unique scent that was so utterly Zack mingling with the heavy perfume of plumeria. Familiar and exotic all at once.

This was like one of her late-night fantasies. Like a scene she’d only ever allowed herself to indulge in when she was shrouded in the darkness of her room. And now, those fantasies were coming back to bite her.

Because they were mingling with reality. This was real. And in reality, Zack didn’t want her like she wanted him. But in her fantasies he did. There, he touched her like a lover, his eyes locked with hers, his lips.

She needed her head checked.

“I have a housekeeper, anyway. I was teasing,” he said.

“I know.” She hoped she didn’t look as flushed as she felt.

“I don’t think you did. I think you were about to bite my head off.” He looked … amused. Damn him.

“Is there food?”

His lips curved into a half smile. “I can check.”

He wandered out of the main living area, in search of the kitchen, she imagined, and she took the opportunity to breathe in air that didn’t smell of Zack. Air that didn’t make her stomach twist.

She walked the opposite direction of Zack, through one of the fabric-covered doorways and stopped. It was the bedroom. The bed was up on a raised platform, a duvet in deep red spread over it. Cream colored fabric with delicate gold vines woven throughout hung from the ceiling, shielding the bed. It was obvious that it wasn’t a bed made for one, or for sleeping.

She swallowed heavily, her eyes glued to the center of the room.

She heard footsteps behind her and turned. “I found food.”

“Good,” she said, trying to ignore the fast-paced beating of her heart. Zack and the bed in one room was enough to make her feel like her head might explode. “There is. I mean, this isn’t the only bedroom is it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I set dinner out on the balcony, if you want to join me.”

“Don’t you want to go to bed?” she asked, then immediately regretted the way the words had come out. Heat flooded her face, and she was certain there was a very blatant blush staining her cheeks. “I mean … well, you know what I mean. That wasn’t. I meant you. By yourself. Because I slept and I know you didn’t.”

“At least let me buy you dinner first, Clara,” he said, his mouth curved in amusement, his eyes glittering with the same heat she’d noticed earlier. It made her uncomfortable. And jittery. And a little bit excited.

She laughed, a kind of nervous, fake sound. “Of course.”

Zack ignored the jolt of arousal that shot through his veins. For a moment at least, he and Clara had both been thinking the same thing. And it had involved that bed. That bed that was far too tempting, even for a man who prided himself on having absolute control at all times.

Things with Clara had always been easy. No, he’d never been blind to her beauty, but their relationship had never been marked by moments of heavy sexual tension. Not until today.

And knowing that, even for a moment, she’d shared in the temptation, well, that made it all worse. Or better. No, definitely worse, because in his life, he valued boundaries. Everything and everyone had a place and a purpose. Clara had a place. It was not in his bed.

Or this bed.

It was important that his life stay focused like that. Controlled. That nothing crossed over. He’d been rigid in that, uncompromising, for the past fourteen years.

“This way, beautiful,” he said, clenching his hand into a fist to keep from putting it on Clara’s lower back. He would have done it before. But suddenly it seemed like far too risky of a maneuver.

Clara shot him a look that was pure Clara, his friend, and it made the knot in his chest ease slightly. Though it didn’t do much for the heat coursing through his veins.

He was questioning why he’d thought bringing her was a good idea. And he never questioned his decisions. Not anymore. Because he thought everything through before he acted. Not thinking, letting anything go before reason, was a recipe for disaster.

And bringing Clara had been the logical choice. At least until thirty seconds ago.

He moved in front of her, under the guise of leading her to the deck, but really just so he wouldn’t let himself look at her butt while she walked. Occasionally he allowed himself the indulgence of looking at her curves. Harmless enough. He was human, a man, and she was a beautiful woman. But it seemed less harmless after a moment like that.

“This is really nice,” she said when they were outside.

Her words were true, banal and safe. He’d set the table and turned on the string of lanterns that were hung above the table. A moderate effort, but he had wanted it to be nice. Now it felt strangely intimate.

He couldn’t remember the last time a dinner date had seemed intimate. He couldn’t even remember the last time that word had seemed applicable to something in his life. Very often, sex didn’t even seem all that intimate to him.

Of course, it had been so long since he’d had sex maybe that wasn’t true. That was likely half of his problem now.

Clara wandered to the railing and leaned over the edge, tossing her glossy copper curls over her shoulder and sniffing the air. Or maybe the sex wasn’t the problem. Because being alone with Hannah hadn’t made him feel this way. And there were days when the scent of Clara’s perfume hitting him when she walked past made his stomach tighten.

But he ignored that. He was good at ignoring it.

“What are you doing?”

“It smells amazing out here. Like when you bake bread and the air is heavy with it. Only it’s flowers instead of flour.” She turned to him and smiled, the familiar glitter back in her eyes.

The knot inside him eased even more.

“I would never have thought of it that way.” He pulled her chair out and nodded toward it and she walked over to the table and took her seat.

He sat across from her, ladling reheated Tom Yum Ka into her bowl and then into his. She smiled at him, the slight dimple in her rounded cheeks deepening as she did.

Things seemed to have stabilized, even if her sweet grin did have an impact on his stomach.

“So, tell me more about this deal with Mr. Amudee.”

He put his forearm on the table and leaned forward. “I think we covered most of it. Although, another reason it’s nice to have you here is your palate. I’d like you to taste the different roasts and come up with pairings for them. It would be particularly nice to have in our boutique locations.”

“Pairings!” Her eyes glittered. “I love it.”

“Good coffee or tea really is just as complex as good wine. There are just as many flavor variations.”

“I know, Zack,” she said.

“Of course you do. You appreciate good coffee. It’s one reason we get along so well.”

Clara took another bite of her soup and let the ginger sit on her tongue, enjoying the zip of spice that hurt just enough to take her mind off the weird reaction she was having to Zack. Yes, being attracted to him was nothing new.

But this was different. The attraction she felt at home was like a sleeper agent. It attacked her when she least expected it. In dreams. When she was looking at other men and contemplating accepting a date. It wasn’t usually this shaky, limb-weakening thing that made her feel tongue-tied and exposed in his presence. Maybe it was the feeling of utter seclusion. Or maybe it was because she knew just what that big bed was here for, what he’d been planning on doing with it.

“That and I bake you cupcakes,” she said, swallowing the tart and spicy soup.

“There is that.” Zack looked toward the railing of the deck, off into trees, the look in his eyes distant, cold suddenly. “Tell me about your bakery.”

“The one I hope to have?”

“Yes. And the life you’re going to put with it.”

Her chest constricted. “It will be small. I’ll have regular menu items and daily specials. I’ll have more time to make fancy little treats with a lot of decorations. I’ll have a hand in everything instead of just conceptualizing and farming the instructions out to hordes of employees.”

“And that’s important to you?”

“It’s how we started. Me in the flagship store, you going back and forth between your—What did you have when I met you? Fifteen stores up and down the West Coast? It was fun.”

“Yes, but now we have money.”

She nodded. “We do. And it’s great. You’ve done this incredible thing, Zack. The growth has been … amazing. Way beyond what I imagined.”

“Not beyond what I imagined.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “It was always the plan. Planning is key. It’s when you don’t plan, when you drift, that’s when things are a surprise. Good or bad.”

“You didn’t plan for Hannah to opt out of the wedding.”

“I didn’t plan for you to leave Roasted, either. Sometimes other people come in and mess with your plans,” he said, his dark eyebrows locked together.

“This doesn’t mean I won’t see you anymore,” she said. Though she probably shouldn’t. But the thought of that made her chest feel like there was a hole in it. Still, she’d baked the man’s wedding cake. She was such a pushover, such a hopeless case, it was obscene. It had to end.

She didn’t want it to. But if she didn’t see him at work every day … it would be a start.

“I know you’ll still see me,” he said, his mouth curving. “You’d have withdrawals otherwise.”

If only that weren’t true. “Right. Can’t live without you, Zack.” She felt her throat get tight. Stupid. So stupid. But Zack really did mean the world to her, and she had a very strong suspicion that her statement was nothing but the truth. He had offered her support when no one else in her life had. He still did.

She regretted saying she wanted to leave Roasted. Regretted it with everything in her. But she couldn’t change her mind. The reasoning behind the decision was still sound. And she really would still see him. He just wouldn’t fill up her whole world anymore. She couldn’t let feelings for him, feelings that would never be returned, hold her back for the rest of her life.

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