Summer Love by Piper Rayne

Chapter Nine

Mack lay awake that night, staring into the darkness. Outside a ripe moon reflected against the gently rippling waves below and light spilled in through his bedroom window, lying in ribbons across his bed. He could make out the outline of Zoey’s body tucked into his side. Her hair spilled across his chest and her soft even breathing made warm air puff across his skin.

He felt a soul-deep contentment and utter completeness that he’d never experienced before.

Not with his ex, a woman he’d thought he may marry one day. Not with his home, that he’d built from scratch. Not with anything or anyone…

Except her.

He stroked her hair—the colours muted by the darkness—away from her face. She huffed in her sleep, shifting against him. After they lost themselves in one another the first time, they’d showered and started all over again. Then they watched the sun set, grazing on fruit and cheese and drinking a bottle of wine that he’d stashed away for a special occasion. After that, they went to bed full and happy and reaching for one another under the covers.

It must be midnight by now. Maybe later.

“Mack?” Zoey’s voice was gravelly and it suited her well.

“I’m here.”

“You’re wide awake.” She snuggled against him. “Your brain is so loud it woke me up.”

He laughed. “You know me, always thinking.”

“Too much.” Her hand trailed over him, fingertips dancing across the flat of his nipple and down the ridges in his stomach. “Sometimes it’s better to do.”

This was where they would always differ. Because Mack did everything with intention and planning. It was the very reason he was financially secure enough to bail his parents out. It was also the reason he was good at his job, getting promoted into being the head of all the construction safety work at South Coast Construction.

“You disagree,” Zoey said, as if she could read his mind.

“I do. I’ve seen what acting before you think can do to a family.” The incident with his sister had been kept quiet—not even Sean knew about it. His parents were so ashamed of having to lean on their son for financial support, that they’d made him promise not to tell.

But maybe Zoey needed to understand what could happen if you took “doing” too far.

She propped herself up on one arm. Moonlight illuminated her face, making her eyes look like silver stars, but a frown marred the smooth skin of her forehead. “What are you talking about?”

“You promise this stays between us?”

She pressed the flat of her palm to his chest, as though wanting to infuse him with her care. “Of course, Mack. You can trust me.”

“Melody didn’t go to Queensland because she got a job.” It hurt to even say that out loud, because he and his sister had been close growing up. Now they’d barely spoken in over two years. “She ran away.”

“What?” Zoey shook her head, blinking. “But that whole thing about her going to work at a resort in Noosa…”

“A made-up story.”

“But she posted a picture of herself there and…” Zoey’s shoulders slumped. “We spoke not long after she left. She told me how great it was.”

“She was probably trying to save face.” He ran his hand down her arm in a soothing manner. “I don’t think she wanted to deceive you, but you know what Melody is like. Making people think her life is perfect is what gets her into trouble.”

“What happened?”

“She decided to go into business with someone she met at a fashion show in Melbourne. They were going to produce surf-inspired clothing and sell it online, as well as trying to get it into stores along the coast. She was so excited that she skipped over doing her due diligence on her business partner.” He raked a hand through his hair, fury bubbling up inside him. “They needed money for the initial production run and the clothing manufacturer had a big minimum order for the unit pricing they needed. Otherwise the idea wouldn’t have been profitable. Mel asked for a loan from the bank, but they refused.”

“Oh no.” Zoey’s face crumbled as if she could tell exactly where the story was going.

“So, she asked Mum and Dad to help. As you know, they’re not the richest folks but they wanted to support her. They drew down a line of credit on the house.”

Zoey covered her face with her hands.

“Then Mel handed all that money over to her ‘business partner’ so they could ink the contract with the manufacturer. Only the woman stopped taking her calls and answering her emails. Mel went to the house where she supposedly lived and it was empty.”

“Shit.”

“It turned out everything about this woman was fake—her name, her address, her credentials. All of it.” Even now, he still couldn’t believe his sister had fallen for it. But Melody got swept up in the excitement of things, she always had. This time, unfortunately, it wasn’t only her bank account that bore the brunt of it—she’d ruined their parents, too. “The money was gone.”

“They never found the woman?”

“Police said they’d heard of similar things happening, but apparently she was a pro. There was no trail at all. They believed it wasn’t the first time she’d pulled this scam and that she’d likely left the country.”

“Poor Melody.” Zoey shook her head.

“Poor Melody?” Mack baulked. “Don’t you mean poor Mum and Dad? Their daughter bled them dry, almost ruined their retirement, and then they had to come to me to bail them out. Technically I now ‘own’ part of their house. What about them? Her naivety could have cost them everything.”

The air shifted in the room. What had been a warm, relaxed atmosphere a second ago was now charged with tension. “You’re seriously telling me you blame your sister for getting scammed?”

“Of course I do. Anybody with a modicum of sense in their head would have smelled this a mile off. All Melody had to do was look into her business partner. Heck, all she had to do was not hand the money over to a complete fucking stranger on a promise that wasn’t even in writing.”

“Come on, Mack. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

He should have known that Zoey would see his sister’s side of things more than his. She’d looked up to Melody, who was two years her senior, when they were younger, following her around like a colourful little duckling, hanging on to every word she said.

“You don’t need hindsight if you plan ahead,” he said. “Starting a business isn’t something to do on a whim, especially not when you’re dragging other people into it.”

Zoey’s mouth popped open. “Is this why you were so freaked out about me buying the food truck? Because you think I’m going to be like your sister? That I’m going to screw Gwen over?”

He didn’t say a word. Because that had been his fear. Not only that Zoey would lead Gwen into a bad situation with her contagious enthusiasm, but that she’d ruin herself, too. That she’d end up running away like his sister had, because the thought of never seeing Zoey again…

Holy shit.

Thatwas why he was so worried. Not because of the financial implications, but because if it all went wrong and Zoey ran away with her tail between her legs, he might not ever see her again.

“Do you really have so little faith in me?” Zoey’s voice wavered. The moonlight shifted through trees shuddering in the night breeze, and he caught a glitter in her eyes. Tears or anger, he wasn’t sure which.

“It’s not that.” He shook his head, trying to make sense of this unwanted and most inconvenient revelation.

“I think it is.” She pulled away from him. “You’ve seen me stumble so many times that you believe I’m only capable of stumbling.”

“That is not true.” He reached for her, but she pushed off the bed.

She stood naked in the moonlight, mermaid hair tumbling over her shoulders and a look of utter betrayal in her eyes.

Isn’t this what you wanted? For her to see how you’d never be right together.

Only now that it was happening, it felt like a burn all through his body. It scorched him from the inside out, charring his heart and his lungs. And it hurt like nothing else.

“You’re always going to see me as destined to fail.” A tear dropped onto her cheek and she whisked it away. Then she turned and walked out of his bedroom.

“Zoey, stop.” He followed, finding her pulling her bikini bottoms back on. “Don’t be rash.”

Ugh, maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say. Her jaw clenched and she yanked her T-shirt over her bare breasts. “This was clearly a mistake. I thought that if you could see how good we were together you might…”

“Might what?”

Her lip quivered, but she stayed strong, locking her shoulders in place as she stared him straight in the eye, strong as a queen. “That you might be able to pull your head out of your arse long enough to see how much I love you.”

The words froze him in his tracks.

Sure, he knew that Zoey had crushed on him since she was a gangly, freckle-faced teenager. Sure, he knew that she was attracted to him as an adult. But love? Actual long-lasting forever love?

She stepped into her jean shorts and pulled them up over her hips, not meeting his eye as she tugged the zipper up and stuffed her feet into her Havaianas. Then she bent over to scoop up the top part of her bikini and stuffed it into the back pocket of her shorts.

“Mack, you’re a smart guy but sometimes you’re really dumb.” She shook her head and walked across the room, right to the front door, and left without a backward glance.

Zoey loved him.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. Tonight was meant to be a release of energy, a calculated lapse in his responsibility. Not love. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he swore under his breath, remembering that he’d driven Zoey here. He couldn’t let her walk home on her own.

But by the time he made it outside she was gone.

MACK: Don’t walk home alone, please. Let me drive you.

ZOEY: I’ve already texted Gwen. I’m crashing at her place.

Gwen lived on the next street over, and Mack sighed in relief. But there was a hard knot in his chest. Zoey loved him and he was afraid of losing her. Both of these things didn’t fit with his view of the world. He was supposed to be chasing a stable life, looking to settle down and make a family with someone who matched him. Not falling in love with a wild, whimsical woman who revved his engine and made him break his own rules.

But as he walked back into his house, his legs feeling heavy and stiff as though they were filled with concrete, he knew that tonight had fundamentally changed things. He could no longer deny that his feelings about Zoey were purely based on responsibility. He could no longer deny that his attraction to her was more than skin deep.

Fact was, there was a very real possibility that he loved Zoey, too. But this possibility wasn’t a green light to act. What if he messed it all up and lost two people he cared about as much as if they were his own family? He couldn’t have that.

Risk didn’t always equal reward. He knew that better than anyone.