Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(32)

“The cabinet over the dishwasher.”

Alex took a juice glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the refrigerator dispenser. He gave two tablets to Zoë, and handed her the water.

“Thank you,” she said. “I think my arm’s okay now.”

“Give it a little more time. Burn damage keeps going for a few minutes after it starts.”

Resignedly Zoë stared at the water as it streamed over her skin. Alex stayed beside her, making no move to touch her again. Unlike the companionable silences she’d shared with Chris, this silence was tense and voltaic.

“Zoë,” he said in a rough-soft murmur. “What I said to you earlier … I was out of line.”

“Yes, you were.”

“I … apologize.”

Guessing that he was a man who made apologies rarely, and never easily, Zoë relented. “It’s okay.”

In the charged silence that followed, Zoë became acutely conscious of Alex’s solid presence beside her, the steady counterpoint of his breath to her own. He reached out to test the temperature of the water, his forearm heavily muscled and dusted with dark hair.

She glanced discreetly at the hard perfection of his profile, the dark-angel handsomeness of a man who stole his pleasures wherever he could find them. The hints of dissolution—the subtle shadows beneath his eyes, the hollows of his cheeks—only made him seem sexier, elegantly lethal.

An affair with him would cost a woman every ideal she had.

Justine was right—if Zoë wanted to start dating again, Alex was not the one to start with. But Zoë suspected that even though going to bed with him would inevitably turn out to be a mistake, it was almost certainly the kind a woman would enjoy making.

The prolonged exposure to the cold water sent fine tremors through her. The more she tried to steel herself against them, the worse they became.

“Do you have a jacket or a sweater around here?” Alex asked.

She shook her head.

“Should I ask Justine—”

“No,” Zoë said immediately. “Justine would call for an ambulance and a team of paramedics. Let’s keep her out of this.”

Amusement flickered in his eyes. “Okay.” He settled a hand on her back, the warmth of his palm sinking through the thin fabric of her T-shirt.

Zoë closed her eyes. After a moment, she felt Alex’s arm slide across her shoulders. He was big and warm, his body practically radiating heat. A pleasant sun-bleached, faintly salty smell clung to him.

“I have to tell you something,” she managed to say. “About how I know that Chris’s visit wasn’t a booty call.”

Alex’s arm loosened. “It’s none of my—”

“The reason I’m sure,” she said, “is because …” She hesitated, the words lodging behind a lump in her throat. Alex might blame her for the failure of the marriage, the way her father and Chris’s family had. He might be insulting or even cruel. Or worse, he might not care at all.

There was only one way to find out.

As she forced herself to say it, the lump broke, and her chest and throat filled with heat. “Chris left me for another man.”

Eleven

Upon hearing Zoë’s words, the ghost, who had been lingering inconspicuously in the background, blurted, “Outta here,” and fled.

Stunned, Alex looked down into Zoë’s upturned face. Before he could react, she hurried on in a nervous rush. “I didn’t know he was g*y when we got married,” she said. “Chris didn’t know, either, or at least he wasn’t ready to face it. He genuinely cared about me, and he thought … hoped … that marrying me would solve all the complications. That I would be enough for him. But I wasn’t.”

She paused, a deep carnelian flush covering her face. Her free hand dipped under the water, and then she patted her cold wet fingers against her cheeks. The sight of the sparkling droplets sliding down her smooth skin was nearly too much for Alex. Carefully he removed his arm from her back.

Encouraged by his silence, Zoë continued. “ ‘A woman who looks like you’ … I’ve heard that phrase all my life, and it never means anything good. People who say that always think they know exactly who I am without ever bothering to get to know me. They think I’m dumb, or fake, or conniving. They assume that all I’m interested in is ha**ng s*x or … well, you know what they assume.” She slid him a guarded glance, seeming to expect mockery. Finding none, she bent her head and resumed. “I matured a lot earlier than everyone else—by the time I was thirteen, I had to wear a C cup bra. Something about the way I looked caused other girls to not like me, and spread rumors about me in school. Boys shouted things at me when they drove by in cars. In high school, they asked me out only so they could make passes at me and lie to their friends about how far I had let them go. So for a while I stopped going out at all. I didn’t trust anyone. But then I became friends with Chris. He was smart and funny and nice, and it didn’t matter to him what I looked like. We became a couple—we went everywhere together, helped each other through tough times.” A melancholy smile hovered at her lips. “Chris went to law school, and I went to a culinary arts school, but we always stayed close. We talked on the phone all the time, and spent summers and vacations together, and … eventually it all just led to marriage.”