Zoe watched, dry-mouthed, as the blonde stalked back to where a tall, elderly man was waiting for her near reception. He was frowning like he didn’t now what was going on. The blonde whispered something to him, took his arm and they both left.
Drake still hadn’t said a single word, but his eyes told it all.
Zoe felt sick. And stunned. And shattered.
“You slept with her, didn’t you?” she choked out. “At the Melbourne conference.”
“It wasn’t like she said,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.
“Then how was it?” Zoe heard herself ask in a cold flat voice. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her again. She could have sworn that Drake was nothing like Greg; that he truly loved her; that their relationship was not just a cruel joke.
His eyes lifted from the tablecloth. Panicky, pleading eyes. “God, Zoe, don’t look at me like that. I love you, darling. Honest.”
She winced at the darling. “Then you have a funny way of showing it,” she bit out, “making love to another woman.”
“But I didn’t make love to her. You’re the only woman I make love to. It was just sex. It meant nothing. She meant nothing.”
Zoe despised men who said things like that. “She obviously thought she did,” she pointed out tartly, “or she wouldn’t have been so hurt.”
“Don’t bet on it,” he countered, his cheeks flushed with anger. “Some women are right bitches. Believe me, she knew the score. She knew it was just a one-night stand right from the start, and now, for her own warped reasons, she’s pretending it was something else.”
Zoe shook her head which was a bad move. It was already spinning. “How can you possibly be in love with me and go to bed with another woman? How?”
Drake began to look belligerent, as he did when someone expressed an opinion different to his own. “I told you. It was just sex. There’s a big difference. Love and sex don’t always have to go together, Zoe. I thought you’d know that by now. You’re not a baby. You’re twenty-five years old. Hey, Zoe, try to understand.” His hands lifted to rake through his thick black hair. They were actually trembling.
For the first time since that blonde dropped her bombshell, Zoe began to believe that Drake might love her, despite everything.
“I’m sorry,” he went on urgently. “More sorry than you can ever imagine. But it wasn’t like she said. I’m not some kind of serial sleazebag. I was just weak for a moment. You’re the one I love, Zoe. Too much perhaps. I was missing you terribly and wanting you like mad. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and it got me so darned horny. It happened on the last night of the conference. We’d all been drinking heavily.”
“You never drink at all when socializing at work,” she reminded him with a rush of anger, not wanting to be soothed by excuses and explanations. Didn’t he understand what he’d done? He could call it whatever he liked but he’d still been intimate with another woman. And whispered sweet nothings in her ear while he’d been doing it.
Perhaps that hurt even more than his actual physical betrayal. The things he must have said.
“The conference was virtually over,” he continued explaining. “I didn’t have to drive anywhere so I let my hair down for once. Look, she threw herself at me. Followed me into the elevator at the end of the night. Practically ravished me then and there. I hated myself afterward, but what can I say? I’m not a saint. I’m just a man. I made a mistake. I’m so terribly sorry, Zoe. I never meant to hurt you. I never thought you’d find out.”
“Obviously.” She could no longer look at him. All she could think about now was that blonde and him, doing it in an elevator of all places. How tacky!
“Don’t be like that, Zoe. Try to understand.”
“I don’t think I can,” she said wretchedly. Which meant there was nothing left to do but to split up with Drake. She’d vowed after Greg that she’d never put up with a man treating her badly ever again. Which was why she’d been manless and dateless for almost four long years.
Still, the thought of going back to a single lifestyle made her shudder. She didn’t want to be that lonely ever again. She’d thought she never would be. She thought she had Drake. She thought after a couple of years of their being girlfriend and boyfriend, they’d eventually get married and have kids and live happily ever after.
A sob broke from her throat, tears stinging her eyes.
Drake groaned. “Don’t cry, darling. Please don’t cry. If you forgive me,” he urged, reaching over the table and grabbing her hands, “it won’t ever happen again. I promise.”
A sudden and overwhelming wave of bitterness had Zoe yanking her hands away from his. “And what happens the next time you’re at a conference, and some sexy-looking blonde with big boobs throws herself at you?”
“I’ll know what I’m risking if I go with her, so I won’t.”
Zoe stared at him with pained confusion in her eyes. “But you’d still want to?”
He groaned again. “For pity’s sake, Zoe. I’m only thirty years old. I’m a normal red-blooded male in his sexual prime. Loving you doesn’t mean I won’t ever be physically attracted to another woman ever again. That’s unrealistic and unnatural. But I give you my word, I will never act on any such attraction ever again.”
Zoe stared at him. She wanted to believe him. She really did.
But then she thought of that blonde and what she had said in parting.
Poor you.
“I think,” she said tautly, “that I’ll skip lunch and go for a walk. I need some fresh air. And time to think.”
“Please don’t do that, Zoe. Stay and talk to me.”
Zoe shook her head then bent to pick up her handbag. Staying and talking to Drake was the last thing she should do. He was too good a talker. Too good a salesman. Perhaps too good a liar.
“We can work this out, Zoe,” he insisted. “Truly we can. I don’t want to lose you, darling. I love you. And I know you love me.”
She glared at him. “Yes, but your idea of love and my idea of love are poles apart. I know I would never have done what you did. Never, no matter what the circumstances.”
“Isn’t there anything I can say to make you understand?”
“Not right now.”
“What about later?”
“Leave it for today, Drake.”
“I can’t. I’ll call ‘round tonight after you get home from work.”
“If you must.”
“I must. I won’t let you go, Zoe. I mean it.”
“I know you do,” she said. Which was another reason why she needed to get away from him. Because she feared Drake would talk her into forgiving him without her ever understanding what had happened, and why? Love was a very weakening emotion. In a woman, anyway.
She stood up just as the waiter arrived with their meals. For a split second, Zoe was tempted to stay and shovel every morsel of the delicious-looking food down her throat.
Misery always made her hungry.
But being overweight had made her even more miserable, so she knew there would be no comfort for her there. No comfort in Drake’s presence, either. She wanted to strangle him for doing this to her, for spoiling everything, for being a typical male.
She’d thought he was different. Deeper.
But he wasn’t.
“I