He glances around us. “Do we have to do this here?”
“You wouldn’t meet me anywhere else.”
“Your drinks!” The barista emerges from the coffee station and produces the two blonde espressos we supposedly ordered. She shoves mine in my face, handing Zach his tenderly with a bat of her eyelashes. I’m pretty sure I can see numbers along the outside of the cup.
“Thanks,” Zach says, and nudges me to the side. “There’s a reason we can’t be seen together right now, Aly. And it isn’t because I’m trying to marry Chloe.”
“Then tell me what it is. I’m all ears,” I say, unconvinced. There’s no way this has nothing to do with Chloe. This is about far more than being caught at school. He won’t even come to my house for fear of someone seeing us. “I’m anxious, really, to know what this phenomenal secret is.”
He loops an arm around my shoulders and moves me deeper into the café. “Can we talk somewhere private?”
“Like where?” I look around for a hiding space. The café isn’t overly crowded, but there aren’t any dark corners or private rooms to drink in either. “The broom closet?”
“Just follow me.”
His arm guides me toward a small set of stairs that leads down into another part of the café. There is only one couple there and a crew member mopping the floor. Zach hands me my drink, then leaves me to talk to the worker. He whispers something to the kid, then hands him a slim piece of paper, like a note.
Not a note, I soon realize, as the other couple is swiftly ushered out of the room.
“Classy,” is all I can manage to say.
“I never used to do things like this until I met you,” he explains.
“I’m flattered.”
More annoyed. He keeps trying to change the subject, and being so close to him is slowly wearing me down. Now that we’re alone, all I can imagine is hurtling myself on top of him. “So let’s hear it.”
“My father wants me to date Chloe to get this deal to go through. We had a thing a year ago, and she wants to rekindle that relationship.” His eyes wander up the length of me. That same painful desire lingers in his gaze. Apparently, I am not the only one thinking about a quick romp in the café corner. “I obviously...don’t.”
I ignore the way his eyes over me feels. Instead, I blame the coffee between my palms for the fluttery burst of warmth coursing through my body. “Well, you’re doing a great job getting that message across.”
“My father said he would cut me off if I didn’t.”
“And you simply can’t live without your fortune.”
Typical. I’m still kicking myself for not realizing who he really was all this time, how completely far out of my stratosphere he was. Would I even want to enmesh myself in that kind of world? His family would just think I was a gold-digger. The whole world would think that. And I’ve worked too hard all my life for it to be trivialized.
Who are you kidding? You want this man more than air.
Zach shakes his head. His sullen stare warns there is more to the story than he’s letting on, but I am so confused I don’t know what to believe anymore. “All that means nothing to me, Aly. But my mother...he wouldn’t let me see her again. I know him. He would do anything to get what he wants and make my life miserable in the process.”
His father.
Of course. Derek and Marianne mentioned Zach taking on something as a way to appease his father. I was simply so blinded by my pain, I hadn’t thought the two could be connected in any way.
Derek swears Zach cares about me. There were simply issues beyond our control he needed to handle first. With this confession, I can almost forgive him. Though it makes the only solution to his problem agonizingly clear.
His mother.
Even if Zach never mentioned his father, he had talked about his mother before. There’s no one comparable to her. She was his rock growing up, his world. Now, the role of protector shifts to the child who wants nothing more than his mother’s happiness. From what Marianne had said, it couldn’t have been easy for Zach’s mother to live with a man like his father. If Zach were to leave his family, leave her behind, there’s no telling how his father might retaliate. I couldn’t be responsible for something like that.
I’d never forgive myself.
“So this is it.” Well, at least I know the truth. He may not want to admit it’s over, but nothing more can exist between us if he wants to keep his mother close. “You marry the blonde goddess, and I go back to being Aly from Home Depot.”
“No, that’s not-”
“It’s fine.” I don’t want to hear any more excuses. I deserve to move on as much as he does, and I’m finally prepared to do so.