hand-holding-vision thing, and after a while she’d stopped talking about it. It had just been easier to keep that talent to herself instead of being subjected to their extensive psychoanalysis.
They reached the hotel and Zachary took her up to his suite. When the words and the conversation ran out, he spent the rest of the evening making slow, sweet love to her.
He handled her with such exquisite tenderness, Eve’s throat clogged with the tears she’d refused to shed while telling him about Bali.
He held her after, held her very close. “Thank you. For telling me about Bali. About your brother. For letting me in.”
Eve had never felt more adored, more protected. It had been a very long time since she’d spoken to anyone besides her family about Lochie, but telling Zachary had seemed…right. Something about him made her want to share her innermost thoughts, her emotions. She was, she knew, more than a little in love with the man. He’d burrowed into her heart and made a permanent place for himself there.
Which would have been perfectly wonderful if Eve didn’t know she still hid such a massive part of herself from him. Though she’d let him in and shared her trauma and her past, she’d still hidden her face. Zachary had yet to see the real Eve Andrews.
But did she need to show him her scars? Did she need to reveal the truly ugly side of herself? Couldn’t she just leave Zachary with the illusion that she wasn’t a monster?
Because as wonderful as he was and as beautifully as he held her now, this closeness between them, this love that she felt, could never lead anywhere.
In the end, Zachary was fated to be with another. She’d seen it in his vision—and it made her chest hurt now.
Eve knew, perhaps better than anyone, that visions were never wrong.
She lay with him for a long while, long after he’d fallen asleep, treasuring the time spent in his arms. When she could put it off no longer, when sleep tugged at her eyelids, she slipped from his bed, dressed and made her way to her own room.
When morning came and Zachary remembered the bath, Eve did not want to be near him. Not when the water he used to fill the tub could expose every one of the scars she’d chosen not to reveal.
It was Eve, all showered and made up, who banged on Zachary’s door the next morning. And when he opened it, looking sultry and sleepy, the sight of him made her heart leap straight into her throat.
He spent a good minute or two chastising her for leaving, and a good hour or two making love to her. But at ten they were forced to go their separate ways. Zachary had to prepare for the concert that night, and Eve had a birthday party she’d promised to attend—as a princess.
He kissed her thoroughly, promising to miss her the entire time they were apart. She left after pocketing a pair of Zachary’s green contact lenses, thinking they’d add a nice touch to her princess outfit, and smiling at how perfectly mushy her sexy drummer could be.
Then Jake drove her to her sister’s house, where Eve was drawn straight into the arms of her sister’s family. Bree left Hannah in her dad’s care, locked the two of them in her room, and as Eve transformed herself into a fairytale princess, complete with tiara, wig and Zachary’s contacts, Bree drilled her about roses, visions, blowjobs and Jonah Speed.
Zachary spent more than an hour missing his cues and fucking up one song after another.
His concentration was shot to hell, and damn it, he missed Eve. Wanted her with him. Wanted her beside him now. Today. And tomorrow. And the next day.
Jesus, he never wanted to be apart from her. That connection between them? It was stronger than ever.
As he banged an out-of-tune riff on his drums and was vaguely aware that the rest of the band had stopped to glare at him, he pictured Eve, motionless on the ground, shattered glass lying around her and a piece of the broken window lodged in her chest—saving her life in a grotesque twist of fate.
He missed a beat and dropped a drumstick as the imagined dark patch beside her became a pool of Eve’s blood.
Never had he felt so impotent. So fucking helpless. Eve had been injured in a bomb blast, lost her brother to the attack, and there was not a damn thing Zachary could do about it. Even now, Eve was the one who’d helped him deal with it. He hadn’t made a dime’s worth of difference—except to make her relive the whole fucking experience.
“Zachary!” It was Luke who snapped him back to reality.
He blinked.
The need to protect Eve, to keep her safe, had him itching. He never wanted to let her out of his sight again, never wanted her in a position where she could be a victim again.
And yet…and yet… Fuck, he’d made her a victim of a different kind. A victim of the paparazzi.
Yeah, big difference between a bomb blast and a kiss with a celebrity, but still.
“What the hell is going on with you this morning?” Luke demanded.
Zachary rubbed his now-empty fingers together. He swore he felt the stickiness of Eve’s blood on his hand.
“Take five,” the band manager said, looking around the room. “Get a drink, get a breath of fresh air, and be back here at 11:15.”
The room emptied, leaving just Zachary, his brothers and Luke.
Nathan gave him an assessing look. “You okay, bro?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t look so,” Seth agreed.
“You look kind of like I felt when Sophie disappeared,” Nathan said quietly.
Luke narrowed his eyes. “Has Eve disappeared?”
“No. Not permanently. She’s at her sister’s now.”
“Did the press get hold of her?” Luke’s voice was low, threatening.
“Not that I know of.”
“This
Zachary nodded.
“Spill it, bro.” Nathan demanded. “Get it out so we can get on with the rehearsal.”
“She doesn’t have red hair.”
“Yep. We’d noticed that,” Luke said.
“Or green eyes,” Seth added.
“And yet…”
“And yet you’re in love with her.”
Zachary wasn’t sure who’d spoken. From the looks on the three men’s faces, it could have been any of them.
“Fucking head-over-heels crazy about her,” he agreed.
The second Zachary had realized Eve could have died in Bali, he’d felt it. So caught up was he in Eve’s story, he hadn’t understood it for what it was, but now he knew. He was deeply in love with the woman. The idea of a world without her made him want to punch someone. The idea of his world without her left him wheezing.
“And you don’t like the thought of that?” It was Seth who asked.
“It’s not that I don’t like it.” Not that at all. “It’s that I’m struggling to wrap my head around it.”
Luke and Nath were silent. Seth responded. “Must be messing with your mind. I’ve known Lucas was meant for me for eight years. If I suddenly realized there was someone else for me, I’d be…all fucked up.”
Luke opened his mouth then snapped it shut. A look of fierce possessiveness crossed his face.
“I am all fucked up,” Zachary admitted. Although not necessarily in a bad way. Falling in love with Eve wasn’t a negative. Not at all.
It was…well, fucking perfect. Filled him in a way he’d never been filled before. Not with any of the faceless women he’d slept with as Jonah, or the several girlfriends he’d had as Zachary.
Being with Eve felt right. It made him whole. He could see her beside him—for the rest of his life.
