Page 57 of Miss Matched

“And you’re not still close with her?” Zac asks.

I shake my head. “No, she died shortly before I turned eighteen.”

The knot in my throat tightens, and I fight back the sting of tears in my eyes. Thinking of Della stirs up good memories and bad. She’s the only family I’ve somewhat known, immediately followed by more loss.

“I used to see myself fostering or adopting if I ever wanted kids. Be someone for someone else like Della was for me.”

“And now?” Zac asks, planting a kiss on the top of my head.

“I don’t know. I’m just not meant for permanent,” I whisper.

His eyebrows pinch together with all the things he’s not asking. All the things I can’t answer even if he did. How do you explain to someone that you can’t trust love because it always leaves you? Or that people are interchangeable, like houses and streets and schools, because that’s all you know? And how do you tell a man that it never mattered, and you never cared, until the moment you tasted his lips? That if you had to guess what home feels like, it would probably be him, tugging at the seams of a carefully shielded heart.

I unwrap my leg from across Zac’s body and clear my throat. “So, what about you?” I say, shifting the focus.

He buries a frown but lets it go when I lean in with a distracting kiss. The taste of spearmint is on his tongue, and I can smell my perfume on his skin.

“What about me?”

“Your parents aren’t married anymore, right?” I say.

Zac stretches out his legs. “You already know so much about me, and I know so little about you.”

I don’t tell him that’s how I prefer it. After all, in my business, I’m used to wading around in everyone’s dirty secrets without giving them a glimpse of my own. And with Zac, the hint that he’s already peeking behind the curtain is enough to give me goose bumps.

“I don’t know as much as you think,” I try to assure him. “I know what the media says, but so does everyone else, and they’re rarely an accurate source of information. And then there’s your paperwork. But, like I’ve said, those are just answers to questions. I don’t know the stories behind them.”

But I want to.

Zac thinks that over and nods. “True.”

He rolls onto his side and props up his head with one of his arms. His thick bicep and solid chest are momentarily distracting, but not as much as his free hand wandering my skin, starting at the base of my breast and roaming from my ribs to my hips and down my thighs.

“I’m not close with my mother,” he says. “We get along, but that’s only because she enjoys the perks of what I’ve worked for.”

The pinched expression on his face tells me he tries not to care but it still stings.

“She calls once every few months, but it’s more because she’s keeping tabs. Checking in on her piggy bank, not her son,” he says with a lazy shrug. “I think she’s in Paris right now with husband number three.”

I remember reading that he wasn’t close with his mom, but the detachment in his tone, how he talks about her like a figure and not family, breaks my heart a little.

“And your dad?”

Zac’s face noticeably brightens. “My dad and I are close. He lives in Monroe, so I see him pretty often. I’m going there next weekend, actually. His health isn’t that great, so I do what I can.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, spotting a hint of sadness in his eyes.

“It’ll be okay. It’s just that he was always an active guy, so it’s hard to see him cooped up like he is now.” Zac’s eyes avoid me. “He’s the reason I got into development. He did construction work when I was a kid, and he used to take me along to the job sites. He was fascinated with building things from the ground up, developing new towns, changing the landscape of a city. I didn’t start in this business just to make money, although it was a nice perk. I got into it to make changes for the better. To reinvest in rundown communities and breathe life back into historical districts.”

“I never thought of it that way,” I tell him, drawn to the passion in his voice that rarely comes out when he talks about work.

Zac looks around his bedroom. “This building was abandoned office space when I bought it.”

“Wait, you own the whole building?”

“I rent out most of it.” He smirks. “I couldn’t find a place that fit exactly what I wanted, so I found a building instead and redesigned it from scratch.”

I glance around the room. Clean walls and dark furniture match the tone of the rest of his penthouse. Maybe I was mistaken in thinking there wasn’t much of his personality in this space. On second pass, I see careful construction, wooden beams with history lining the ceiling, furniture that’s grand and beautiful but also lived in. The beauty of a museum with life like a home.

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