‘I’ll do my best to get Zane to Brandon’s christening,’ she said as Tess’s long-legged stride took her down the hallway ahead of her.
Tess paused on the doorstep, Brandon’s howls subsiding to choking sobs. ‘If you can at least get him to consider coming, I’d be eternally grateful.’ She took Iona’s hand in hers and gave it a quick reassuring squeeze. ‘But could you do me an even bigger favour?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Don’t run off back to Scotland too soon. Zane’s an amazing guy for all his pig-headedness, and I think he deserves someone special who can shake up his life—and get past all that industrial-strength charm to the man beneath.’
The shot of adrenaline returned, accompanied by the kick of panic.
‘But how do you know I’m that someone?’ Iona asked, the panic starting to choke her.
Tess shrugged. ‘I don’t, but then neither do you. And if you leave without giving this relationship a sporting chance, you never will.’ She bounced the baby on her hip, her voice sobering. ‘I guess it boils down to whether you want to find out for sure?’
With those disturbing parting words, Tess headed off down the driveway. After loading the now hiccoughing Brandon into his car seat, she sent Iona a jaunty wave goodbye.
Iona stood on the doorstep, watching the shiny Beemer turn into Seventeen Mile Drive and disappear from view. Her heart galloped into her throat.
She pressed her hand to her shaky tummy…feeling a little nauseous.
She checked her watch. Zane would be back soon. And for once she wished he’d take his time. What if Tess were right? She already knew this wasn’t as casual for her as it should be, or she would have bought her ticket home by now. But what if it wasn’t casual for Zane either? And did she have the guts to find out for sure? To risk having him reject her?
And how the heck was she going to eat the lasagne she’d spent an hour preparing earlier, when her tummy was doing cartwheels?
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘THAT’S GREAT. LET’S schedule a conference call tomorrow with your contact in Ocean Beach, then we can turn over the evidence to the San Diego PD.’ Zane pushed a hand through his hair and ended the call to his detective.
They were within days of catching the scammer who’d been selling non-existent luxury cars on an Internet auction site, but the sweet rush that usually accompanied closing any big investigation was conspicuous by its absence. Probably because his mind had been less and less on work lately and more and more on what he was missing while he spent the long hours his business demanded away from Iona.
Iona. With her bright, teasing smile, her warm golden-brown eyes, her funny, forthright conversation and that lush full mouth that could drive him wild and scare the hell out of him at one and the same time.
In the last week, ever since she’d moved in with him, it had become a major struggle to leave her every morning, and harder still to stay tied to his desk until he could return each evening. And he knew why. Because every moment he was away from her he could feel the time they had left together slipping through his fingers. The last month had shot past in a haze of spectacular sex and scintillating conversation and easy companionship and he could already see the day when she would get on a plane and return home to Scotland racing towards them at breakneck speed.
Rising from his desk, he opened his briefcase to stuff in the papers he was supposed to be reviewing this evening, but knew he was unlikely even to look at.
It was plain dumb and illogical to be worrying about her leaving so much, when that had always been the plan. But the more time he spent with Iona, the more dumb and illogical he seemed to get.
He grabbed his suit jacket from the hook behind the door and headed down the corridor.
He’d had spectacular sex before and scintillating conversation, but it was the quiet times when he knew he didn’t have to talk, didn’t have to charm, didn’t have to make her feel good because she was already there that he had become really addicted to.
This urgency, this need to have her, would eventually pass. But when? They were a month in and it was showing no signs of waning, yet. He rolled his shoulders, the muscles contracting at the thought of the fifteen-minute drive home before he could see her.
The last couple of evenings, he’d had to put in a titanic effort not to fall on her like a starving man as soon as he got home. He rubbed the back of his neck as he strode through the building. Hell, yesterday evening, when they’d been on the beach, C.D. barking at the surf, she’d laughed and the husky, smoky sound had arrowed right through him—and all of a sudden, he’d been hard as an iron spike.
He gave Jim an absent wave as he passed his office. His mind already focused on putting a stranglehold on the growing warmth in his crotch. How many times in the last few weeks had he driven home with a hard-on? It was a damn miracle he hadn’t totalled the mustang on Highway One.
As he walked into the parking lot, the buzz of his cell phone cut the evening quiet. Pulling it out, he spotted his mother’s name on the display. Unlocking the mustang, he dumped his briefcase on the passenger seat, and tossed the cell on top, ignoring the prickle of guilt as he waited for the call to go to voicemail.
He’d hardly spoken to his mother since the quinceañera a month ago, because when he had it hadn’t gone well. For years his mother had tried to get him to talk about his father. And for years he’d never had too much of a problem deflecting her.
But in the last week, ever since he’d turned down his friend Nate’s request to become his son Bran’s godfather, he’d found it harder and harder to deal with his mother.
Zane’s shoulders cramped as the cell stopped ringing. He’d have to call her soon, he knew that, but not tonight. Not when his addiction to Iona was already tying his brain in knots.
Avoidance was the answer and it always had been when it came to the question of his relationship with his father, and Nate, and his son Bran, because the alternative was unthinkable. And he couldn’t risk going there again.
He flexed his fingers, his knuckles throbbing at the sudden memory of that morning when he’d been fourteen years old and he’d hit his best friend and kept on hitting him. Connecting with bone, feeling Nate’s flesh tear, seeing the sticky blood splatter Nate’s favourite Spiderman T-shirt, hearing the startled whimpers of pain, the thud of the blows as they landed—and feeling nothing, not even the smarting skin on his knuckles, until his mother’s screams had cut through the rage.