It was like an explosion. Fireworks and bombs, some Molotov cocktails thrown in for good measure, homemade and sharp and unwieldy. She’d never kissed anyone other than her husband. The excitement of it, the intensity of it, nearly pushed her over the edge right away. Whether it was a rush of satisfied vengeance, a rush to her ego, or simply arousal, she couldn’t say.
It was a baptism in the sweet water of justice as far as she was concerned.
Because while a younger woman had been stroking her husband and his ego, she had been sitting there frozen, feeling discarded and unwanted. She hadn’t let herself marinate in that, not much.
There were kids to take care of and a play to direct and an aging mother and ailing grandmother and bills to pay and books to do and the general logistics of everyday life. She was constantly running here, there, and everywhere, and while she had been angry at Jonathan and grieved his presence in her life, in the kids’ lives, like it had been before, she hadn’t really examined all the ways in which this had madeherfeel. Rejected. Ugly, unwanted, undesirable.
She wasn’t sure when she had last felt beautiful.
She felt it right now. With Zach Woods’s mouth on hers, and his hands skimming over her curves. Like she was sexy, desirable, like she wasn’t a woman who was easy to leave behind.
She moved her hands up to his broad shoulders and gasped. He was so tall. Muscular, like he was still working to be fit for Hollywood even though he hadn’t been working there for five years.
She kissed him because she wanted it. There was something revolutionary about that.
It was also amazing to bewanted.
He moved his hands and cupped her cheeks, parting his lips and taking the kiss deeper, his tongue sliding against hers as she became very aware they were standing on the street making out like teenagers. Not like two grown adults who could be recognized at any moment. But didshe care? She tried to imagine it. Rumors circulating around Hemlock that she’d been seen kissing Zach Woods.
It was a wonderful, dizzying thought.
It started with her, though. That realization nearly made her knees buckle. If she hadn’t quit, if she hadn’t taken the first step to cut Jonathan off, to stop him from being able to use passive-aggressive tactics against her, she might not behere.
She’d taken the job at the apothecary.
She’d asked for karma.
She’d thought of that as Jonathan getting something bad for all the hurt he’d caused. Maybe she was getting something exciting in exchange for being brave.
Zach lifted his mouth from hers and stood back, watching her, and she very nearly melted into a puddle at his feet.
“I want you,” he said. “The offer of the business is a separate thing.”
Oh, he wanted to talk. Which meant she had to remember how to do that. Easier said than done when her heart felt like it was going to pound through the front of her chest, and there were cars driving slowly by where they stood, casting them in a headlight glow, like an interrogation lamp. A demand that she answer the questions. That she know answers she didn’t.
“It doesn’tfeellike it,” she said.
Did she care? It was messed up, but the idea that he would trade half a business for the privilege of having her was flattering, even if it shouldn’t be. Her self-worth had been trampled on, and the idea that she might be valued athalf a construction companywas flattery when the father of your children had left you and gotten engaged to a younger woman in record time.
“It’s separate,” he said. “I like you, Daisy. I increasingly donotlike your husband. I regret being in business with him. For a variety of reasons, that’s true, not only the way he comports himself in his personal life, but the way he does business. I’m also attracted to you.”
The idea oflikeandattractionbeing two totally separate entities was one she’d never fully considered. She’d never had to. She’d been attracted to Jonathan in high school, and it had become the endgame relationship. Feelings didn’t separate from it.
Maybe it was like the crush she’d had on Zach. He’d been on-screen, untouchable in most ways, but teenage Daisy still would have kissed him given half the chance. Maybe this was the adult version. Want, separate from everything else.
“I think I like you,” she said slowly. “At least, everything you’ve done recently has given me reason to. But ...” She wanted to tell herself not to do it, not give him the disclaimer. Because it was embarrassing. Because it would be assuming a whole lot. “I ... I’m bruised. I’m messed up. I’m not even divorced yet.”
“He’salready engaged.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “He is. I don’t know if I’m over him. We were together for nineteen years. I don’t know if I’m over that. I wouldn’t take him back. But I’m not done mourning the future I lost, and that’s a complicated feeling. It’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” He looked at her with all the confidence a man that beautiful deserved to have. “Do you want me?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
She was shaking. She was so filled with need for him she was almost weak with it.
“That’s not complicated, Daisy,” he said. “Tonight, you can want me, and have me, and worry about the rest of it later.”
