Dan’s fingers tightened on his glass as the truth of it smacked him right between the eyes. God. Zoe was right. He had been waiting for her to let him down because he’d known he was in deep and he’d wanted to escape and then be able to pat himself on the back for getting out of something that might cause him the kind of emotional grief he’d suffered at the hands of Natalie.
Not the grief of splitting up necessarily but the loss of control that he might experience as a result of it. Because what if he and Zoe made a go of it, and things didn’t work out? He hadn’t loved Natalie and look what had happened. He absolutely adored Zoe so if it all went wrong the fallout could be so much worse. He lifted the grass to his mouth, and shuddered. The thought of that truly didn’t bear contemplation.
Although, come to think of it, thought Dan, suddenly going stock-still mid-gulp and nearly choking, wasn’t that what had already happened? He was nuts about her and they’d broken up, so weren’t things about as bad as they could get? They were. And was he going off the rails? Was he losing control and getting that criminal record he’d been so close to getting last time? No, he wasn’t. He might be feeling all shredded and twisted up inside, but he was here. In agony and, for the first time in his life, utterly lost, but he wasn’t assaulting police officers and he wasn’t drunk out of his skull. Because he wasn’t rash and impulsive and twenty-five, and it wasn’t his pride that had been battered. This time it was his heart, and the pain of losing Zoe went too deep.
So what the hell had he done? he asked himself, his heart hammering as the realisation of just how much he loved and wanted her slammed into his head. Zoe was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he’d made her leave. He’d stood there in that hotel room all cold and intractable, wilfully choosing not to believe her, deliberately bottling up how he really felt in favour of a sort of righteous fury that had been deeply unfair, totally idiotic and undeserved.
Had he completely lost his mind?
She hadn’t tried to deny what she’d done or make out it was anything other than her fault. She’d taken the blame for it fairly and squarely. She was the bravest woman he knew, and not just then.
She hadn’t had to go to the wedding with him, but she had. She’d swallowed back her concerns and turned up alone, knowing no one but him. The wedding, what with the four hundred guests, his mother, Beth and Natalie must have been her ultimate nightmare. But she’d dealt with it.
Zoe had courage, way more courage than he had. She’d had the courage to work out what she wanted, where she was going wrong, and change.
And what did he do? Let things fester. Lose his temper and sulk. Was he really going to let himself carry on getting away with it? It didn’t seem the most attractive proposition.
Wasn’t it time to put things right? Tell her how he felt about her and beg her for another chance? And if it was, what was he doing still sitting here when he knew where she was going to be?
Jumping to his feet and scooping up his keys, his wallet and his phone, Dan set his jaw and grabbed his coat because it seemed that Zoe wasn’t the only one who’d screwed up.
FIFTEEN
The reason she’d come to Celia’s New Year’s Eve party had nothing to do with the hope that she might see Dan, thought Zoe, handing her coat to the cloakroom attendant and stashing the ticket she was given in exchange into her bag. Truly, it didn’t. It was simply that Lily was doing her own thing and she hadn’t wanted to spend the last night of the year on her own. That was all.
She didn’t want to see him anyway. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told him that she didn’t need him. She didn’t. Over the last fortnight she’d realised that he might have been a catalyst in her self-discovery but she’d have got there without him on her own—eventually—because she’d decided things needed to change long before she’d met him.
Nor did she miss him. In fact she’d barely thought about him over the last couple of weeks. She hadn’t had time and she certainly hadn’t had the inclination. She’d had more than enough work to keep her occupied and so the only time he crossed her mind was when she was accosted by a journalist wanting a follow-up to her kiss-and-tell either on the phone or in person, but she’d got good at barking out a ‘no comment’ and reminding herself just what a bastard he’d been.
No, she reminded herself, pulling her shoulders back and lifting her head as she walked over to the deep red velvet curtain that hung between the lobby and the nightclub, she didn’t mi
ss the stubborn deluded idiot. And she was far better off without him. She was. Or she would be when it stopped hurting. Which it would soon enough because she was over it, and she was over him. And she was here to prove it.
She drew back the curtain and she slipped into the club, the noise hitting her like a rocket blast and making her resolve strengthen and her spirits soar. Tonight marked the beginning of a new year, she told herself firmly. A new start. A new her. And she was going to celebrate in style.
* * *
What the hell was Zoe doing?
From the bar of the dimly lit, packed and beat-throbbing nightclub Dan was watching her with astonishment. He wasn’t sure what kind of state she’d be in after he’d stupidly banished her from his life, but he hadn’t been expecting this. If he’d thought about it at all he’d have imagined her standing to one side, nursing a gimlet as she watched the proceedings while perhaps wondering if it would be rude to leave before the clock struck midnight.
But she wasn’t doing any of that. She wasn’t on the sidelines, she wasn’t watching the proceedings and she certainly wasn’t showing any signs of wanting to leave. She was wearing a black halter-neck top and tight-fitting black trousers and dancing with an abandon he’d never have expected from her. An abandon he didn’t actually think he’d ever even seen before. She had her hands in her hair, her body was moving sensuously to the thudding beat of the music, and, bloody hell, was she gyrating?
She looked incredible. Wanton. Liberated. And his heart pounded with admiration, desire, longing, adoration and a whole host of other good things he didn’t have time to identify, because now she was boogieing up to a man who’d been eyeing her up and shooting him a flirtatious smile, and Dan found he wasn’t liking any of it at all.
She clearly hadn’t been pining for him the way he had for her, he thought, his stomach twisting painfully as he fought the urge to grind his teeth. She didn’t look haggard and drawn. She looked stunning and ecstatic, as if she was having the time of her life, as if she hadn’t given him a moment’s thought, as if as far as she was concerned he, they, had never happened.
The realisation made his heart shudder to a halt and his throat tighten. God, maybe he was too late. Or maybe she’d didn’t love him. Based on how she’d held him and the things she’d whispered in his ear that last night they’d spent together, he’d sort of assumed she did but maybe his assumption—or rather presumption—had been wrong.
The possibility that that might be the case nearly brought him to his knees, but he had to remain upright because he hadn’t come here to collapse. He’d come to get her back.
He watched as she pulled the man she’d been flirting with onto the dance floor and went into his arms and a sheet of white-hot jealousy lanced through him.
Right. That was it. He’d had enough. Assuming it wasn’t too late and he hadn’t been wrong—and he really had to cling onto that assumption so that he didn’t fall completely apart—it was time to try and put things right.
* * *
Dammit, this wasn’t working, thought Zoe, sweat pouring off her. She’d danced her heart out but it was no use. Because she’d tried so hard to convince herself that she was over Dan, but she wasn’t.