painfully. Got it?”
Zachary almost snorted out loud. The idea that this diminutive woman could threaten him so openly was both amusing and sobering.
Amusing because she was the same size as Eve and, reasonably speaking, didn’t stand a chance against him in open combat, and sobering because it reinforced just how badly Eve had been hurt before.
Her sister simply would not allow it to happen again.
That did it for Zachary. He instantly liked Bree. “Got it. Loud and clear.”
She peered at him through narrowed eyes for a few more seconds, then nodded. “Good. Now, would you like some birthday cake?”
From fierce protector to charming hostess in a heartbeat. Zachary wondered if he’d ever understand women.
“I’d love some, thank you.” If it was chocolate, he’d save the piece for Eve. Okay, even if it wasn’t, he’d save it for Eve.
Bree turned and walked towards the table obviously expecting him to join her. He did, walking at her side. “Uh, is Eve around?”
“Sure.” She gestured over her shoulder. “Last time I looked she was busy with the kids.”
Zachary looked over Bree’s shoulder—and froze.
He blinked, then blinked again. Then sure he was hallucinating, blinked one more time.
He scrubbed his hand over his eyes, clearing the haze from them. But God help him, when he opened them again the very same sight greeted him.
“Holy shit! Jonah Speed?” A woman standing beside the birthday cake gasped. “Is it really you?”
Zachary nodded instinctively, only half aware of the question.
His attention was fully focused on the last thing he’d expected to see in Eve’s sister’s garden.
“Cripes. Can I have a photograph with you? Please? My niece is going to freak out when she discovers I met you.”
He should respond, should answer. Should even acknowledge the question, but his head just wasn’t in the game. How could it be? His whole world, his whole future had just been turned upside down.
“Oooh. Me too,” another voice squealed. “A piccie with you, and one of you alone? Please?”
And then his view was blocked as a small group of women surrounded him.
Again, Zachary acted on instinct, smiling when told to smile and placing his arm around one woman’s shoulder after the next. It hardly registered in his awareness.
Someone placed a pen in his hand, and he was signing his name to shirts and papers and napkins, trying his damn best not to let the tremor that shook his hand affect his handwriting.
He scrambled to act normal, tried frantically to behave as if his life threw him a massive curveball every day.
“What do you think of Australia?”
“Is it true, then, Jonah? You and Bree’s sister are an item?”
Hell, yeah, it was true. He and Eve were an item, and if he had anything to say about it, he’d make them a permanent item.
Or so he’d thought two minutes ago. But that was before. Before he’d seen what he still couldn’t believe he’d seen.
“Is Jamie coming to the party too?”
“And Jordan?”
“Have you met Hannah before? Does she know who you are?”
Shit, couldn’t these people move away, give him space? Let him confirm what he’d seen?
“Ladies. Let’s let Jonah catch his breath. He’s looking a little shell-shocked from all your attention.”
Not that Jonah was shocked from the attention. He was used to it. Thirty women clambering around him hardly featured as a blip on his radar.
But there was no denying he was shell-shocked. No denying his heart pounded like a fucking freight train. No doubt that his life had just changed forever.
Jesus, fate was a bitch.
Either that, or she had a seriously sick sense of humor.
Bree must have cleared the women from around him, because suddenly a path opened up, leaving him with an unobstructed view of none other than the woman he’d waited his whole life to meet.
The red-haired, green-eyed beauty he’d seen in his vision.
She stood right there, laughing, enchanting the group of girls who surrounded her. Her red hair flowed over her shoulders in lustrous waves, and her green eyes snapped with joy.
Jesus, she was even more beautiful in the flesh than she’d been in his imagination. She took his breath.
Her laughter tinkled through the air like the peal of a small bell, and every fantasy Zachary had ever had about her came crashing back to haunt him. He was assaulted by pure exhilaration, stunned confusion and complex horror.
Twenty-four years he’d thought about her. Twenty-four long, lonely years.
And the minute he finally decided to give up on her, finally decided his future lay with someone else—with a woman he’d met just days ago yet fallen irrevocably in love with—she made an appearance in his life.
Oh, yeah, fate was a bitch all right. A crazy bitch, who must be sitting somewhere, laughing raucously.
His grandmother’s song reverberated through his head.
There would be no more waiting. That time was officially over. She was out there now. Red hair, green eyes. And fuck, yeah. She was fascinating.
He couldn’t deny it, couldn’t look away.
And when she looked up and caught him staring, her smile broke into a huge grin meant only for him.
He was so fucked. So absolutely and completely fucked.
Yeah, he loved Eve. Yeah, he wanted a future with her. But fucking hell, the future he’d anticipated his entire life now stood in front of him, grinning. Smiling the smile he’d seen a million times in his mind.
“She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?” It was Bree who asked. Bree who stood beside him.
“More beautiful than anything I’ve seen in my whole life,” he agreed. Although he wasn’t sure that was really true. She was beautiful. No two ways about it. Striking. Stunning. But she was no more beautiful than Eve.
Bree said something else, but all Zachary heard were her words from earlier.
Jesus, he didn’t want to hurt Eve. The thought alone about killed him. But how did he reconcile his feelings for her with his feelings for his red-haired fate?
Hadn’t his grandmother’s predictions come true for Nathan, Seth and Luke?
How did he now change his fate, when she stood before him, smiling?
“Sing us another song,” one of the children begged. “Please, Princess Eve. Sing us a song.”
His red-haired beauty flashed him one last smile, then clapped her hands and turned back to the girls. In seconds they’d formed a circle around her, and while she sang a tune he recognized from one of the Disney movies, the kids danced around her.
He watched, spellbound, as she charmed the girls.
Watched spellbound as she sang to them. Her voice was sweet, lyrical. But it wasn’t her singing that held them all rapt. It was her sheer joy in entertaining them. Her delight in making the girls smile and laugh.
It was almost magical.
His red-haired beauty, Princess Eve with the sparkly tiara in her hair, was born to make children happy.
