Sophie let herself into her apartment just as the sun was beginning to peek its pale-golden face over the horizon. A new day, yet to her it felt like the end of the world. She’d betrayed Zach’s trust in the worst way possible.
Her apartment looked just the same as it always did, yet Sophie knew without doubt that everything inside her had changed. She’d ruined everything. She—who was always so careful, always so considered—had destroyed her chance at happiness with a wonderful and worthy man. It was one thing to plot, however far-fetched it was, with Mia over lunch, and another thing entirely to act upon it.
She walked into her bedroom and turned back the bed before methodically unpacking her weekend bag and putting things away, with the exception of her dress, which she put in the hamper for dry cleaning. For once she couldn’t take any comfort in mundane activities. Not when it felt as if her heart was breaking in two.
Sophie dragged on a pair of cotton pajamas and crawled into her bed, pulling the covers up over her and blocking out the cheerful light of day. Right now she didn’t want to face the world, or anything or anyone within it. She’d made what was probably the worst mistake in her entire life and against every caution she’d given herself, too.
It was midafternoon when she awoke with a bitter taste in her mouth and a heaviness in her chest that made her want to cry out loud. She scrubbed her teeth in the bathroom, then went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water before curling up on her couch and staring emptily at the blank television screen.
No matter which way she turned things around in her mind, she’d been in the wrong. Zach had been decent and good and professional every step of the way. She had been the one to promulgate the kiss between them after that dinner at Claire’s, not him. She had been the one to actively entice him and flirt with him in the office in the days afterward, even after pushing him away after their first kiss. She had been the one to make that first move, to make love to him, to experience the most incredibly uplifting and fulfilling lovemaking she’d ever had the pleasure to encounter. And she knew why it had been so very special because, somewhere along the line, she’d fallen completely and utterly in love with Zach Lassiter. And she’d been the one to destroy that love with her senseless suspicions and irresponsible behavior.
She lifted a hand to her face and pressed her fingertips tightly to her mouth to hold in the wail of grief that rose from deep inside her.
All her life she’d been the one who fixed things, who made things right by taking the load of others, by organizing the sphere in which she lived. But now she’d done the exact opposite. She’d hurt Zach; she’d pulled apart his trust when he’d so carefully, so cautiously, given it to her.
How could she fix this? Was it something she was even capable of? She doubted it. A man like Zach didn’t commit easily, not when he already had so much happening in his life. The fact that he continued to work so hard to save his ex-wife from hurting herself and her family—no matter how blind they remained to her vulnerability—spoke volumes about his character.
Deep down Sophie had always known he was that kind of man. So why had she been so imprudent as to believe he had something sinister to hide? What business had it been of hers?
She owed him a massive apology and she needed to know exactly where they stood. Okay, so she knew he probably wasn’t in the frame of mind to accept anything from her right now, but at the very least they still had to work together until this business with Alex was resolved. If she could prove to him that she fully accepted she’d been in the wrong, that she could make it up to him somehow, that she’d be even better at her job than she had been before, then maybe, just maybe, he might consider giving her, them, another chance.
Before she could change her mind, Sophie picked up her phone and dialed Zach’s cell. He picked up on the fifth ring and she couldn’t help wondering if he’d been prevaricating between answering and letting her go to voicemail. Before he could answer, she began to speak.
“Zach, please, hear me out. I know you probably don’t want to talk to me right now—”
“And you’d be right. What is it, Sophie?” he replied, weariness weighting his every word.
“I...I...” The words that had been clear in her mind faded on a swell of insecurity. Silence echoed through the earpiece of her phone, forcing her to fill it. “Zach, do I still have a job?”
“That’s a good question,” he answered slowly. “You betrayed my trust. In the same position, would you continue to work with someone like that?”
Sophie wrinkled her brow. She could discern nothing from the tone of his voice. Nothing of the boss she’d worked with these past weeks. Nothing of the lover who’d filled her heart and driven her body to heights of pleasure she’d only ever dreamed of. A small sound of pain rose from deep inside her. She’d ruined everything.
“No, I guess I wouldn’t. Not without a very good reason, anyway. But Zach, we have good reason to keep working together. Without me there you’ll only be able to work at one-third capacity. Even with a temp to help you, between Alex’s responsibilities and yours, you’d still be struggling.”
She heard him sigh through the phone as her words rang true. Pressing her advantage, she continued.
“I know I deceived you, Zach. I went against everything I know in my heart to do so and I’m more sorry than you’ll probably ever understand, but I can’t leave you in the lurch at work. Not now. Please, at least let me have another chance there.”
“All right, but step one toe out of line and—”
“You won’t regret it, Zach, I promise you.”
He made a sound, somewhere between a snort and a laugh, before answering. His words, when they came, chilled her to the bone.
“I already do. Every second,” he said before severing their connection.
Sophie sank slowly to the floor, the phone still clutched in her hand. She’d wanted to know where she stood and now she knew.
* * *
Sophie had to haul herself into work the next morning. Getting up early wasn’t the problem; she’d barely slept a wink all night anyway. No, it was the prospect of seeing the recrimination in Zach’s eyes that was the hardest thing to deal with. She knew she couldn’t put it off. She, of all people, knew how important it was to face up to things, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, day after day, week after week. Eventually a new normal asserted itself. One you could live with. After all, wasn’t that how she and her mother had coped after Susannah had gone to live with her aunt?
Somewhere in the dark hours of the night, Sophie had formed a plan to carry her through today, and if that was successful, it would hopefully see her through the next day, and the next.
“New normal, here I come,” she said under her breath as she let herself out of her apartment and walked to her car parked on the side of the building.
By the time she reached the office she’d all but convinced herself she could do this. Right up until the moment she saw Zach’s SUV in the office’s basement parking lot. Her palms grew sweaty on her steering wheel and she had to concentrate to breathe properly. It would have been so much easier had she been the first to arrive today.
“New normal, remember?” she chided herself in the rearview mirror before alighting from the car and making her way to the elevator.
The main office was still unstaffed and despite the fact they had no idea of what she’d been up to over the weekend, she was grateful she didn’t have to run the gauntlet. She knew she looked terrible. Two nights of broken sleep did that to a person. Two very different nights, she thought briefly before assembling her features into an expression she hoped would appear calm and capable and letting herself into the executive suite.
Zach’s office door was closed and she could hear voices coming from inside. As she was putting her bag away, she heard his door open and Zach and an older couple came out. Past them she could see another woman sitting by Zach’s desk. Zach closed the office door behind him and shook the man’s hand, then leaned forward to kiss the woman on the cheek, only to be enveloped in a huge hug before, on a strangled sob, she reached for her husband and they walked straight out without so much as acknowledging her.
Zach’s face looked strained. It didn’t look as if he’d had any more sleep than Sophie had, she realized as he turned and went back into his office, closing the door once again.
There had been something vaguely familiar about the woman who’d left. She wondered if she should offer Zach and the person she’d seen still sitting in his office a hot drink. She supposed if she was going to break the ice between her and Zach, it would certainly be easier to do it with another person there to act as a buffer.
She put her coffee mug on her desk and walked the short distance to Zach’s door, knocking sharply before twisting the knob and opening the door.
“Good morning,” she said as smoothly as she could. “I wondered if you and your guest would like coffee or tea? Or perhaps some water?”
“Coffee, thanks,” Zach bit out crisply. “Anna?”
Sophie felt a frozen chunk of lead settle in the pit of her stomach. This was Zach’s ex-wife? Oh, Lord, she didn’t know if she was ready for this. Coming face-to-face with the woman he’d chosen to marry, the woman who’d borne his son. The woman who so needed him now that he’d moved heaven and earth to do what he could to help her.
“Just water, thanks,” the other woman said, her voice wobbly as if she was crying.
Sophie turned to her with a smile. “Sure thing, I’ll be back in a mom—”
Her heart shuddered to a halt in her chest. The walls of Zach’s spacious office began to close in on her. Too afraid to speak, to even draw a breath, Sophie straightened and walked out of the office, shutting the door behind her and leaning against its solid surface as if that was the only thing keeping her upright at this point in time.
No wonder the woman who’d just left looked vaguely familiar. The last time Sophie had seen her was twenty-two years ago. The day her sister had left the small rented apartment she’d shared with Sophie and their mother. The day Sophie, in her six-year-old innocence, had believed her four-year-old sister was going for a vacation with her daddy’s sister. A vacation? It had been a lifetime. She could still see her baby sister waving excitedly as she was led away by her aunt. Sophie hadn’t been able to understand why her mother was sobbing quietly in her bedroom when Suzie was going to come back soon, wasn’t she?
It had been several weeks before her mother could even tell Sophie the truth. By then, her mother had become a brittle shell, even worse than she’d been after burying her second husband. It was as if, with Suzie gone, all the light had gone from her world, leaving Sophie to pick up the pieces of the life they’d had before. A simple life, certainly not one with any extravagances in it, but they’d had love. Six-year-old Sophie had made it her mission to show her mother every day that it would be all right, that they still had one another, that they could cope with the gaping hole in their lives where Suzie had been.
Suzie. Anna Lassiter was Suzie.
Sure, she’d grown up, she’d changed, and obviously her name had been changed, but Sophie would have recognized her little sister anywhere. The knowledge slowly seeped into her mind, spreading through her body with something akin to hope. But that hope was brought to an uncompromising end when she remembered exactly who Suzie was now.
Zach’s ex-wife. An ex-wife she knew he still spoke to almost daily. An ex-wife he still felt duty bound to care for, and Anna desperately needed care if what Zach had told her over the weekend was true.
Sophie pushed off the door and went quickly to the kitchenette, automatically going through the motions of pouring Zach’s coffee and a glass of ice water for Anna, complete with a slice of lemon. She put the drinks on a small tray and closed her eyes a moment, drawing in a stabilizing breath before she went back to his office and knocked on the door and let herself in.
She fought the urge to say something to her sister, to beg her to look her in the eyes and recognize what they had lost when they had been split apart all those long years ago. Her hand shook slightly as she put the water glass on a coaster on the edge of Zach’s desk, beside where Anna was sitting. She took the opportunity for an assessing glance at the woman little Suzie had become.
It broke Sophie’s heart to see the person sitting slightly hunched over in the chair, her blond hair long and stringy—desperately in need of a decent wash and style—her blue eyes, a legacy from her father, dull and filled with misery. She was far too thin, her clothes hanging off her shoulders. Sophie ached to put her arms around her, to try to assure her sister that everything would now be okay, but she didn’t have that right.
Suzie was gone. Anna sat in the chair here in Zach’s office. Anna who’d grown up with another life, another world, a husband, a child—the loss of that child. Sophie felt that loss now, as immediate and as sharp as if she’d experienced it herself.
“Sophie?”
Zach’s voice reminded her of her task, of where she was.
“Oh, um, I’m sorry. Here’s your coffee. Will there be anything else?”
She met his eyes for the first time since he’d sent her packing from his home, from his bed. She expected to see something there, some flicker or spark, but his gaze remained inscrutable, devoid of any feeling—for her, at least.
“No, thank you. Anna and I will be leaving shortly. I don’t expect to be back in the office today and I’d like you to take care of my calls for me.”
“Certainly,” she said, taking refuge in her old persona. The superefficient executive assistant who never put a foot wrong. The one who hadn’t been disloyal to her boss by suspecting him of being party to a heinous crime. The one who hadn’t fallen irrevocably in love with him. “It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Lassiter.”
The other woman didn’t even acknowledge her and continued to sit, staring down at her hands, a slow, steady trail of tears rolling down her cheeks.
Sophie collected the empty tray and left the office, her legs working automatically, her heart beating so hard in her chest she was surprised Zach and Anna hadn’t heard it. In the kitchenette she bent to stow the tray in its cupboard then stood, unmoving, as if not knowing what to do next.
And she didn’t know. Not in all honesty. She’d waited all this time to be with her sister again, yet now, having discovered who and where she was, there was no way she could land her discovery on the poor creature in Zach’s office.
At least Suzie—no, Anna, she scolded herself—had Zach on her side, Sophie consoled herself as she felt the burning-hot sting of tears in her own eyes. The fact he had her right here, that he’d spent so much time in the past month or so trying to find help and that he’d apparently now convinced her parents—her adoptive parents—to support him in his quest to get treatment for Anna, spoke volumes as to how much he must still love his ex-wife.
Acknowledging the truth of that love was both a blessing and heartrendingly painful. A blessing because now, hopefully, her sister would have the chance to get well again, to be whole. To learn to accept her grief without allowing it to consume her very reason for continuing to live. The pain came in accepting that no matter how much Sophie loved Zach, no matter what chance she’d ever stood of maybe earning his forgiveness for letting him down the way she had, he wasn’t hers to love. Never had been, never could be—not when he still loved Anna and when Anna needed him so much.
There was no light at the end of her tunnel. No hope. Even if, by some unexpected and unbelievable twist of fate, Sophie did receive Zach’s forgiveness, she could never do that to her little sister.
Anna needed help, pure and simple. It started with Zach and the doctor he’d been consulting with at the Philmore Clinic, and maybe one day it could end with Sophie. She’d been incapable of helping her sister before today but there had to be something Sophie could do for Anna—even if it meant giving up the man she loved with all her heart.