Chapter Seventeen Daisy #2
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 made her feel. 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 be wanted.
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 did she 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 be here.
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’t feel like 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 at half a construction company was 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 do not like 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 of like and attraction being 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’s already 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.”
It was like a burden had been lifted off her shoulders, one she’d been carrying for months now, or maybe years.
Worry. About everything. About everyone.
About what they needed, what would make them happy, what would contribute to the household, to the business.
This stood alone. It wasn’t about anything but feeling good now.
That was a revelation.
“I want you,” she said.
It was all either of them needed to know.
“Your place or mine?”
“Yours,” she said.
Because she wanted separation. From that house that her kids lived in, the place where she and Jonathan had slept together for all those years.
She wanted her and Zach to be a separate thing, even though it really couldn’t be.
Even though it was always going to be colored by the fact that there was something satisfying about it being Zach who was coming to her rescue.
Something satisfying about it being Zach who wanted her.
Both because of who he was, and who he was to Jonathan.
But if she could just have this . . .
She would do her best not to compare, not to think about the reality of her life. She just wanted a fantasy. For once. She wanted to be swept away.
“Let’s go.”
His car was nice, of course it was, but that only occupied a fraction of her brain on the drive out of town toward his mountaintop home. She had been there before, but it had been a long while. Back when Zach had first partnered with Jonathan on the business.
It was beautiful. Wood and stained glass and glorious natural light that filtered through the windows, a profound view of the valley below.
It was like a church there, separate from everything, worshipping nature.
That was her memory of it, at least. Right now, everything felt contracted. Small. Like there was nothing beyond the car, nothing beyond the two of them. Nothing that mattered, anyway.
When he parked in the driveway, she hesitated, and then he rounded to her side of the car, opened the door for her, and took her hand. Even now, he was taking care of her.
The sound of their footsteps on the gravel heightened, the sensation of that rough hand closed around hers extreme.
She let him lead her inside, and the feeling of being outside her body was suddenly intense. An unfamiliar house, and an unfamiliar man. This wasn’t her. But she wanted it to be. She slipped back inside herself and looked at him. Grounded herself in the moment.
She reached up and touched his face, tracing the angles of it.
It was funny, because his face was so familiar.
She had seen it a hundred times on her favorite TV series as a teenager before he’d moved to town.
But that was different from the reality of him standing right in front of her.
Different from this real version of him who had lines on his face and radiated heat.
It had been innocent back then. He’d made her heart beat faster, and he’d been hundreds of miles away. A stranger. A concept. He was real now. Her heart was beating faster, but her whole body ached along with it, and he was here. She could touch him. Taste him.
She wanted him.
More than she had ever wanted anything before. Or at least, that was how it felt. Because everything she had ever seen or done or wanted before was fuzzy in comparison to this.
This was all that was real.
If she had any magic within her whatsoever, she wanted to call all of it to the surface now so he could feel what she did. So that it would be as electrifying for him as it was for her.
Yes. She really wanted that.
“Don’t overthink it,” he whispered.
“I can’t help it. I’ve spent my life overthinking all the details so I could be sure everything would work out according to plan.”
“And has it?”
She laughed. Maybe this was a stupid time to laugh, but she couldn’t help herself. She threw her head back and dissolved. “No. No. Nothing has worked out the way I expected it to, or the way I wanted it to. But right now it feels worth it.”
She was about to have sex with Zach Woods. Teen Daisy would be elated, as long as she didn’t look at the rest of the mess her life was in.
You don’t need to look at it right now either.
“I hope you have condoms,” she said. “Because I don’t.”
“I’ve got you covered.” His voice was rough. Unfamiliar. He leaned in and kissed her again, but it was more intense than the kiss they had shared in the square. This time, there was intent. Intent to take her upstairs, to take her clothes off, to take her.