“Just for tonight,” she said, hating that she had to say it, but knowing she did. Because she knew for certain that there could be no romantic future for them.
She loved him. She was certain of it now. She had for a long time—possibly for most of the seven years she’d known him. It had been a slow thing, working its way into her system bit by bit. With every smile, every touch.
And he didn’t love her. Looking at him now, she saw the light in his eyes wasn’t anything deeper than lust. But if that was all she could have she would take it, and she wouldn’t think about the wisdom of it, or the consequences.
If he wanted her right now, then she’d take it. Because she was staring hard into a Zack-free future, and she would rather have all of him tonight, and carry the memory with her, than be nothing more than his trusty sidekick forever, standing by watching while he married another woman. Watching him make a life with someone else, someone he didn’t even love, while her heart splintered into tiny pieces with every beat.
“One night,” she repeated. “Here. Away from reality. Away from work and home. Because … we can’t keep going on like this. It can’t be healthy.”
ONE NIGHT IN …
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About the Author
MAISEY YATES was an avid Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance reader before she began to write them. She still can’t quite believe she’s lucky enough to get to create her very own sexy alpha heroes and feisty heroines. Seeing her name on one of those lovely covers is a dream come true.
Maisey lives with her handsome, wonderful, diaper-changing husband and three small children across the street from her extremely supportive parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of Southern Oregon, USA. She enjoys the contrast of living in a place where you might wake up to find a bear on your back porch and then heading into the home office to write stories that take place in exotic urban locales.
Recent titles by the same author:
GIRL ON A DIAMOND PEDESTAL
HAJAR’S HIDDEN LEGACY
THE ARGENTINE’S PRICE
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One Night
In Paradise
Maisey Yates
To my very best friend,
who I happened to be married to. Haven, I love you.
CHAPTER ONE
CLARA Davis looked at the uneaten cake, still as pristine and pink as the bride had demanded, sitting on its pedestal. A very precarious pedestal that had taken a whole lot of skill to balance and get set up. Not to mention have delivered to the coast-side hotel that sat twenty miles away from her San Francisco kitchen.
Everything would have been perfect. The cake, the setting, the groom, well, he was beyond perfect, as usual. And everyone who had been invited had come.
There had been one key person missing, though. The bride had decided to skip the event. And without her, it made it sort of tricky to continue.
Clara eyed the cake and considered taking a slice for herself. She’d worked hard on it. No sense letting it go to waste.
She sighed. The cake wouldn’t make the knot in her stomach go away. It wouldn’t ease any of the sadness she felt. Nothing had been able to shake that feeling, not since the groom, who was now officially jilted, had announced the engagement in the first place.
Though, ironically, watching him get stood up at the altar hadn’t made her feel any better. But how could it? She didn’t like seeing Zack hurt. He was her business partner—more than that, he was her best friend. And also, yeah, the man who kept her awake some nights with the kinds of fantasies that did not bear rehashing in the light of day.
But secret fantasies aside, she hadn’t really wanted the wedding to fall apart. Well, not this close to the actual ceremony. Or maybe she had wanted it. Maybe a small part of her had hoped this would be the outcome.
Maybe that was why she’d agreed to bake the cake. To stand by and watch Zack bind himself to another woman for the rest of his life. There wasn’t really another sane reason for it.
She blew out a breath and walked out of the kitchen and into the massive, empty reception hall. Her heart hit hard against her breastbone when she saw Zack Parsons, coffee mogul, business genius and abandoned groom, standing near the window, looking out at the beach, the sun casting an orange glow on his face and bleeding onto the pristine white of his tuxedo shirt.
He looked different, for just a moment. Leaner. Harder than she was used to seeing him. His tie was draped over his shoulders, his jacket a black puddle by his feet. He was leaning against the window, bracing himself on his forearm.
It shouldn’t really shock her that after being left at the altar he looked stronger in a strange way.
“Hey,” she said, her voice sounding too loud. Stupid in the empty room.
He turned, his gray eyes locking with hers, and she stopped breathing for a moment. He truly was the most beautiful man on the planet. Seven years of working with him on a daily basis should have taken some of the impact away. And some days she was able to ignore it, or at least sublimate it. But then there were other days when it hit her with the force of ten tons of bricks.
Today was one of those days.
“What kind of cake did I buy, Clara?” he asked, pushing off from the window and stuffing his hand into his pocket.
She forced herself to breathe. “The bottom tier was vanilla, with raspberry filling, per Hannah’s instructions. And there was pink fondant. Which I hand-painted, by the way. But the vanilla cake in the middle was soaked in bourbon and honey. And not a single walnut on the whole cake. Because I know what you like.”
“Good. Have someone wrap up the middle tier and send it to my house. And they can send Hannah her tier, too.”
“You don’t have to do that. You can throw it out.”
“It’s edible. Why would I throw it out?”
“Uh … because it was your wedding cake. For a wedding that didn’t happen. For most people it might … take the sweet out of it.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Cake is cake.”
She put her hand on her hip and affected a haughty expression, hoping to force a slight smile. “My cake is more than mere cake, but I get your point.”
“We’ve made a fortune off