“Drink this.”
Hugh reached for the coffee mug on the tray and handed it to Zoe. She sat up and pushed a pillow behind her back, accepting the cup meekly.
She grimaced after taking a sip. “Ew, too sweet.”
“You need the sugar. Drink it.”
Zoe took another few sips and Hugh was relieved to see some color return to her cheeks. She reached for a plate of biscuits and nibbled on a chocolate chip cookie.
“I guess you’re right,” Hugh said, returning to the conversation that had been interrupted when the waiter had arrived.
Zoe’s forehead crinkled in a frown. Was she deliberately avoiding the topic?
“It’s not like school,” he said. “After all, we’re adults now. Grown up. Responsible for our own actions.”
Her frown deepened. Hugh himself wasn’t even sure what he was trying to say.
Zoe’s eyes dropped from his and she shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I’m fine, so I guess I’ll—” She threw her legs over the side of the bed and began to stand up, staggering almost as soon as she was on her feet.
Hugh jumped up and put a restraining arm around her shoulders. Now he knew exactly what he wanted to say. “Don’t be an idiot. You fainted a minute ago. Sit down.” He pushed her back down, but he didn’t need to use much force. She was trembling and as weak as a kitten. Once she was leaning against the pillows again, she drew a shaky breath.
Hugh tugged his chair closer to the bed and sat. Anxiety was still unsettling his gut, although he couldn’t put his finger on why.
She managed a weak, mocking laugh. “Don’t worry, Hugh, I’m not about to throw a tantrum or pull out a razor blade.”
He cursed himself for being so easy to read. But then, to her, he always had been. He’d just thought he’d learned to hide his inner thoughts better in the intervening years. “I want…I want you to be okay,” he finished lamely.
She smiled then, sad and sweet. “You always were too nice,” she said, almost to herself.
“Not really,” he said.
She studied him curiously for a while and Hugh couldn’t bring himself to look away. If it was possible for ten years of hurt to be conveyed in someone’s eyes, then Zoe had mastered it.
When she spoke, her voice was soft. “Hugh, it was all a long time ago. We’re both very different people now.”
He certainly hoped so. They were going to have to find a way to deal with each other without this massive lump of history coming between them. He wanted to buy Waterford—that meant discussions, negotiations, meetings. Interactions he intended to conduct as an adult, not an angry and broken-hearted seventeen-year-old.
But despite his best intentions, a flash of fury from back then revived itself somewhere deep inside him. It was wrong, so wrong, to be angry with someone for something they couldn’t control. Zoe had been sick. Mental illness was a disease just like cancer—intellectually he understood that. Emotionally, the idea that she’d tried to take her life again after she’d promised…
“Mack told me you were lucky to survive,” he said. So much for leaving the past in the past.
Her eyes became glassy. Not with tears, but with a sadness that was beyond crying. “That’s not quite true. It took a few weeks to recover, but I was eventually okay—healthwise.”
He noted her modifier, didn’t know what to say about it. “Good. I’m, uh, glad to hear it.” Cringe. Hugh scrubbed a hand across his mouth. His business goals evaporated. Suddenly, more than anything, he needed to talk about it. Let her know how hard it had been on him—how doing the right thing had felt like the worst thing possible. He wasn’t sure if talking would make it any better, but it would be something.
“Zoe? I…” He blew out a breath. “Christ, this is hard.”
“Don’t say it.” She looked almost…frightened.
Of what? “What?”
She looked down at her hands, her fingers twisting together. “Don’t apologize. I couldn’t bear it. Not now.”
Apologize? No, that wasn’t what he’d been about to do. “But I—”
She didn’t let him finish. “It’s too late,” she said simply.
His shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I know.” She was right. They should leave it alone.
A thick silence fell over the room.
“Why?” Her voice was barely more than a breath.
“Why what?”
“Why didn’t you come for me? I called so many times, wrote letters when my emails to your account bounced…”
He ignored the email comment—he’d deactivated his account on instruction from his father and Mack. But letters? “I didn’t get any letters.”
“You didn’t…” She sighed heavily. “Your dad.”
Hugh nodded. Pete Lawson would have made sure that any mail from Zoe didn’t reach Hugh. He’d probably thought he was helping. “Yeah, I guess.”
“But I called.” Her voice held no accusation; it was a simple statement of fact.
“I know. But, Zoe, I was doing what I thought was best. They told me it would be better for your recovery if I didn’t speak to you. And…” Oh, this was hard. On a scale of one to ten, this sucked pole.
“You still believed what Jason told you.”
It sounded so juvenile now. Hell, it had been juvenile at the time, he’d just been too young to realize it.
“What is Jason up to these days?” Zoe asked mildly.
“Accountant. Married, with a kid, I think. Lives in Melbourne. I don’t see him much. He came out here a couple of years ago to visit the winery—that was probably the last time.”
“You guys were best friends.”
“Yeah.” The friendship hadn’t survived Zoe’s betrayal—fictional or otherwise. And it certainly hadn’t survived Hugh’s guilt. He and Jason had stopped being friends the day after Zoe’s collapse.
“I didn’t, you know. Not with him. Not with anyone else when we were together. Just in case you were still wondering.” She sounded so calm.
Hugh managed a tight smile. “I wasn’t.” Although, if he was honest he’d never been completely sure. Jason was full of shit, but Zoe had earned her bad-girl reputation. And she’d been the first—and only—girl Hugh had lost his heart to. Even the idea of her infidelity had been enough to send a blood haze over his vision. His teenage rage had been a scary thing—to both himself and Zoe, he was sure.
“But you were fine,” he said, deliberately not making it a question, ready for this conversation to end. Zoe’s still countenance and her calm, monotone voice were becoming unnerving.
She gave a strange, bleak laugh. “Oh, I don’t think I was ever fine again, actually. But I get by.”
Ah, shit. Had he intended this conversation to make him feel better? Because that hadn’t happened so far.
“Did you cut yourself again? Or was it something else?” The question blurted itself out without Hugh’s conscious permission. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”
For the first time, her Stepford-wife-like composure seemed to slip. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
Zoe sat