Page 50 of Words We Didn't Say

“Do you believe in coincidences?” Zach’s voice was lower than usual. Intimate.

I kept my eyes fixed on the jumble of bottles behind the bar. “No,” I said. “This has Yvette written all over it.”

Zach sighed in agreement. “I knew she was acting weird when she kept asking me about my plans tonight.”

“You talked to Yvette?”

“Ah, well… Yeah? She didn’t tell you?”

“Not a peep. Where’d you run into her?”

“At your salon.”

My eyes rounded. Had Zach dropped off Apology Present 3.0? Was it awful of me to wonder what his latest gift was? “I’d advise you against stopping by for a haircut.” I turned to smile at him ever so sweetly. “Andie has been itching to practice her barbering skills on your balls.”

He grunted. “I’d rather take my chances with Andie than see you here withhim.” A glare shot in Sam’s direction.

“Aw, what’s the matter, honey?” I fluttered my eyelashes. “Jealous?”

“Yes.”

Zach shifted a step. Just one. He was so close. He’d always been too close. The familiar tickle of his cologne and the memory of warm hugs heated my cheeks. Every breath I dragged in pinched my chest.

Zach took up even more space when he dipped his head and whispered into the crook of my neck. “I’m losing my mind I’m so jealous. You look so…” His fingertips grazed along my wrist, sparks shooting up my spine. “Sostunning. But then, you always do, don’t you?”

My heart pummelled my ribs. I was a sucker for a compliment—especially one delivered with Zach’s shy smile. But I wasn’t about to let him have the upper hand.

“I bet you’re sorry now you never brought me to one of your functions,” I said, scorn dripping from my voice.

Zach’s lips flattened. “Just so we’re clear, I never usually go to these stupid kiss-arse networking events. My boss said I need to be more visible.” He lifted a shoulder. “A partnership expectation, I guess.”

I scoffed a laugh. Zach had once politely refused to go to a food festival with me because of the crowd, but when his boss said, “Jump,” suddenly he was out networking. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did.

“Convenient,” I said.

Zach had the nerve to huff out an exasperated breath. “Eden, it’s not like that—”

“Jesus.” A blonde woman fell out of the crowd, crashing against the bar. “I didn’t think I’d escape the leech with the comb-over. He just tried to grab my arse.”

Michaela leant over the marble counter in her Friday night finest, waving for the bartender. I scrutinised her from head to toe. She wasn’t tragic. In fact, she’d put herself together rather nicely in a blushed pink cocktail dress. My eyes narrowed. But she was standing far too close to Zach. She relied on him. Sought him out when she had a problem with some creep. Another reminder that those two had too much history.

I laughed. “The gang’s all here, huh?” I said to Zach.

He frowned. Not at me. At Michaela.

Hazel eyes turned in my direction. Did Michaela know who I was? I lifted my chin but didn’t smile. Her eyes widened. Oh yeah, even if she didn’t know my name, she knew who I was: competition.

Zach cleared the awkwardness from his throat with a cough. “Mac, can you please give us a minute?”

I snorted. Still with the whole Mac thing.Cute.

A scowl scrunched Michaela’s face into too many sharp points. She didn’t want to give us a minute. She was more tempted to take a shot at clawing my eyes out with her French tip manicure.

“Sure,” she said. The smile that followed was basically a sneer. “I can give you a minute.”

A tense silence filled her place at the bar when she left.

“Eden.” Zach’s voice was urgent, desperate to drag my attention off the woman sauntering across the room. “This isnotwhat it looks like. I’m not here with her. I mean, I am, but not like—we’re not—” He forced in a breath to calm himself enough to get the words out. “I didn’tbringher. She isn’t my date, and she’s absolutelynotmy girlfriend.”

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