His heart flipped, his chest tightened, and for the first time ever, Zachary felt complete. Contentment, happiness, excitement and anticipation filled him as he realized there was no longer anything standing in the way of his—and Eve’s—happily ever after.

No wonder the connection he’d instantly felt with Eve had been so strong. No wonder her recollections of the Bali bomb had gutted him. He’d felt her pain because she was his fate. His soul mate.

His.

He walked towards her, dazed, and she stilled to watch him approach. For once he was content not to touch her, not to haul her tight against him. All he wanted to do was stare. Look at her until he’d finally had his fill. He stopped a mere inch away and gazed into her deep, green eyes. Eyes that now looked suspiciously like his and his brothers’ when they performed.

And then he couldn’t help it. He smiled. Just let a goofy grin spread across his face.

Eve smiled right back.

“It’s you.” His voice reflected his wonder and his enchantment. “It was you all along.”

This time, it wasn’t her own cheek she ran her fingers down, it was his, and he felt her touch all the way through to his heart.

Her green eyes shimmered with emotion. “It is, Zachary. It’s me.”

And that was all they had time to say before a mob of mothers, armed with cameras and questions, surrounded them.


Many long hours later, Eve stood beneath the spray of the shower, letting the grime and sweat from the concert wash down the drain.

Try though she had, Eve had been unable to keep her eyes off Jonah the entire duration of the concert. She’d had to force herself to focus on Delilah and Devine, force herself to ensure their makeup was perfect, because all she wanted to do was devour the man she loved with her gaze. And when the man she loved got onstage and became Jonah Speed, he was a sight to behold. Breathtaking. Magnificent.

They hadn’t had a minute to themselves the entire day. Bree’s friends had crowded around him during the party, not giving him a minute to breathe, then Bree and Anthony had insisted he stay for lunch, and Hannah had insisted he help her open presents.

Even four-year-olds, it seemed, were spellbound by Zachary.

Luke had phoned around three, demanding Zachary get back to the hotel, and Eve had followed about an hour later. Jake had gotten her to the arena, dressed once again as Eve, with time to spare and no interruptions from the press.

But cameras had flashed backstage. And more than one photographer had caught Eve and Zachary together. Not kissing this time—just talking when they found two minutes to be together and alone. Eve strongly suspected a kiss wasn’t necessary to capture her feelings for him on film. Every time she looked at Zachary, she knew her eyes turned all gooey and her lips wouldn’t stop smiling.

Eve was no fool. She’s seen her reflection in the mirror this morning. It hadn’t occurred to her before, not at any point, that she might be the woman from Zachary’s vision. But a mirror didn’t lie. And when she’d seen his face, seen his reaction as he’d stared at her made up as a princess, she’d known for certain.

It was her. She was Zachary’s fate.

The water splashed over her hair and in her ears, deafening her, so when two arms encircled her waist from behind, she jumped a good half a meter in the air.

“Easy, Tiny,” Zachary soothed. “It’s just me.”

The blood drained from her face. Every muscle in her body went lax. “H-how did you get inside my room?”

She’d felt safe removing her mask. Safe behind her locked door. But now Zachary was here, with her, in the shower. With her and her unpainted face.

He chuckled a low, sexy chuckle that echoed through her belly and made her groin clench with need. “Simple abuse of power,” he confessed. “I charmed the woman at reception into giving me a spare card for your door.”

He pulled her against him, his chest to her back, his erection nestled against her ass. And God help her, Eve was ready for him. Hot, aroused and achy with desire.

She was also absolutely terrified. Her hands quivered so bad she had to clasp them together.

“You…” She cleared her throat, finding it hard to talk. “You are incorrigible, Zachary Pace.”

God, she so wasn’t ready for this. So wasn’t ready to expose herself to him. Not now, when everything should be so perfect between them. Not when she’d just discovered she was his fate.

Not now, when she was so in love with him she almost couldn’t breathe from all that emotion crammed into her chest.

How could everything she’d never dared dream about fall in her lap, making her the luckiest, happiest woman on earth, only to be torn away when Zachary saw the real her?

“I wasn’t Zachary down there. I was Jonah. Desperate to get to my drumsticks, which I’d accidentally left in your room earlier.”

“Just admit it. You turned on the full power of your sexual prowess, and the woman fell over herself offering you the card.” Her voice was as shaky as her hands. Could he tell?

He chuckled again, sending an erotic shiver down her spine. “Maybe.” He nipped her ear. “She may have offered me a key to every room on the floor.”

“Poor thing didn’t stand a chance.” Now her voice shook even more. Partly from fear that he’d turn her around, and partly because his hands had wandered over her front, feathering over her breasts, down her belly, around and up her sides only to find her breasts again.

“We going to talk about a woman whose name I can’t even remember?” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her neck. Water pounded her front, slipping down her skin and over his hands. “Or are we going to acknowledge what happened at your sister’s place?”

She held her breath as he brushed a thumb over her left nipple, making it harden instantly, and dropped his hand to her groin, letting his other thumb find her clit.

“You’re the woman of my vision.” His amazement was audible. “The redhead I’ve waited almost my entire life to meet.” He rocked his hips, letting his erection settle between her buttocks, slide against the tender skin there.

“I never…thought…never realized. Until I put the wig on.” Her heart had beat like crazy at her reflection. Even Bree had asked her what was wrong.

“A wig.” Zachary laughed and strummed her clit with his thumb. “Who would have thought that was all it would take?”

Eve saw stars. Her pussy filled with moist heat as the spray of warm water and his touch combined to make her dizzy. Not a good thing. Not good at all, seeing as she held her breath, praying to God he didn’t turn her around. Not now. Not yet.

She knew as soon as he did, whatever they’d built between them would come crashing down. Knew that while Zachary might have accepted her chest scar with ease, her face was another story. A grotesque, ugly story that no man in her life to date had been able to accept. Why would he be different? Why would she expect him to be?

“Wig, a ton of colored makeup I don’t usually wear, heels and a pair of your lenses,” she corrected.

“You know the irony about that? I was the one who insisted we wear green lenses. It was my way of keeping my redhead in my present.”

So if he hadn’t, she’d never have put them in, and never have become his fated vision. The thought stunned her.

“Know what else is funny?” He rubbed small, sinful circles around her clit, making her gasp. “If Nath hadn’t told me to come and find you, if the guys hadn’t insisted I ditch practice and get to your sister’s place, I’d never have seen you dressed like her. I’d never have known.”

One coincidence after the other had led them to that moment at Hannah’s party.

But maybe it would have been better if Zachary had never come there. Never seen her dressed up that way. Maybe then they’d never have reached this point, with him on the verge of meeting the real Eve.

A part of her, a part that made her sick to the stomach, knew she and Zachary existed on borrowed time. Their affair was as close to over as an affair could get. But she wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Wasn’t ready to let him go. God, she’d never be ready to let him go.

Just a few more minutes with him. Please.

One more chance to make love.

He was ready. So very firmly, thickly ready. She was too. Achy and needy, for him.

One more time to feel him move inside her, and then Eve would give him up for good, give him his freedom.

But not just yet. Please, God, not just yet.

“Know what else is funny?” He plucked at her nipples, first one then the other, and slid his finger down to her slit, let it slip over her swollen folds, making her pant and shiver. “I’d given up on her. On my redhead. Decided I no longer wanted or needed her. The reason I came to the party was to tell you I’d fallen in love with you. Fallen so damn hard, my vision no longer meant anything to me.”

His words caught her in her chest, making her breath falter.

Zachary loved her? Eve? Not the redhead? Her?

She hiccupped and then coughed, not quite able to catch her breath.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Eve nodded, too choked up to speak.

He buried his face in her neck, nuzzled his way up to her ear. “Know how you feel. Seeing you at your sister’s, my love and my fate all melded into one person? Jesus, I don’t know how I held it together. Don’t know how I remained upright. My legs almost gave out on me.”

Oh, God, he was killing her. One beautiful word at a time. Breaking her heart into tiny pieces.

By the time he finally saw her face, Eve figured her heart would be just as badly scarred. The difference? Her face had healed. Hideously, but it had healed. She didn’t think her heart would ever get over losing Zachary Pace.

Chapter Thirteen

“Tiny?” His heart clenched. “Baby? Are you…are you crying?” Zachary tried to turn her around, get her to face him.

“I-ignore me.” She wouldn’t let him move her, wouldn’t show him her face. “It’s just…n-no one has ever told me he loved me before.”

Bullshit.

Impossible.

Men must have fallen at her feet, confessing their love.

“A-and hearing you say it? It’s like a dream, Zachary. A dream I know I’m going to have to wake up from, because it’s just too damn amazing to be real.”

“It’s no dream, sweetheart,” he reassured her. “I’m not just in love. I’m freaking nuts about you. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. Wouldn’t go crazy when you weren’t around if I felt any other way.” And yeah, he’d been a little crazy this morning, needing to see her—when they’d just spent the preceding two hours making love.

He caressed her pussy, loved her wetness around his fingers, her beaded nipples beneath his palm. Loved that even in a hot shower, with warm water cascading over them, Eve’s skin was covered in goose bumps.

His cock pulsed between her buttocks. One day, very soon, he’d make love to her there. But for now, he just needed to be inside her, needed to be in her pussy, be a part of the woman he loved. The woman he’d looked forward to finding his whole life. “I waited twenty-four years to meet you, and then fell in love with you without knowing who you really were.”

“We met two days ago. Do you think you really know me? Every part of me?”

The uncertainty in her voice stabbed at his heart, and he cursed whatever moron had come before him, refusing to declare his love to this woman. Asshole.

“I know enough of you to realize I want to spend the rest of time with you. I’ve waited long enough for this moment. Fuck knows I don’t want to wait another second.”

A soft moan escaped Eve’s throat, and for long seconds Zachary was incapable of speech. How could he talk when Eve rubbed herself against his hand? When her hot, swollen pussy grabbed at his finger as he slid it inside her, trying to hold him there? When the muscles of that hot, swollen pussy made his need to fuck her almost intolerable?

Loath to release her breasts, Zachary dropped his other arm to her waist so he could give her the full benefit of his touch. With one hand he fucked her, relishing the way her pussy clenched at his finger, and with the other he teased her clit, caressing it with ever-increasing pressure, rubbing tiny circles around it, over and over, as the spray poured over them.

Streams of water coursed through her hair, down her back, pooling between their bodies. He licked at her neck, catching some of the drops with his tongue, then closed his lips over a particularly sweet spot and sucked.