HIGHER (The Indigo Lounge Series) (2 page)

Chapter Three

8:03: Bethany, talk to me. Pick up the phone.

Bethany shoved her feet into the
black pumps and attempted to ignore her phone and the messages that were
starting to pile up.

She wasn’t due back to work yet -
Keely had taken one look at her when she picked her up from The Indigo Lounge
VIP area last week and emailed Sheena to tell her Bethany wouldn’t be in for
another couple of weeks.

Leaving Marrakech the morning
after Zach’s atomic revelation, she’d never thought she’d be in the frame of
mind to ever function properly again. But reality had a way of forcing itself
on you, even when you were an emotional wreck who wanted nothing more than to
stay in bed forever with the curtains drawn.

And reality had come in the form
of a Friday morning email from The SMC Group, asking if she was available for
an interview at ten. She’d wanted to ignore the email, to pull the covers over
her head and drown in the misery she was wading neck-deep in.

Then the anger had started to build.
She’d done nothing wrong, except fall in love with a man who’d been ultimately
unattainable. It made her a whole lot stupid, yes, but it didn’t mean she had
to crawl away and die. Even if every single cell in her body craved to do just
that.

And, seriously, there was a
bright side to all of this. She’d had, hands down, the best sex of her life.
Something memoir-worthy should she be so inclined to memorialize her very brief
experience at some distant date in the future…

Jesus. She stopped and sucked in
a breath. She was losing it. Perfectly understandable but if she was to have
even a hope of making any form of impression at her interview, she needed to
get her head out of Marrakech and back into New York mode
asap!

She picked up her phone just as
another message came through.

8.37: I can’t stop thinking about you. I’m in agony, baby. Please, pick
up the phone.

She turned her phone to silent
before the inevitable ringing started and tried to get her thoughts into
professional work mode. She had time on the ride to SMC’s Midtown office to
brush up on what she’d said in her resume. She just needed to stop her brain
from deciphering every single nuance of Zachary’s message. The man had a way
with words. And he was particularly ruthless when it came to getting his way.

Well, she was done rolling over
for Zach Savage. And if the thought immediately caused another shattering of
the fragile pieces of her heart, that was just something else she would have to
suck up today.

The interview passed in a blur of
polished questions and equally polished answers with a mildly out of body feel
to the hour she spent in the CEO’s office.

Before she left, Bethany was
certain she wouldn’t take the job even if it was offered to her. Her potential
new boss was a carbon copy of Sheena, and taking anything they had to offer
would be making a bad situation worse.

She’d made enough of a mess of
that in her private life. Feeling another vibration in her purse, she tried to
tell herself she wasn’t really interested in what else Zach had to say but
found her hand reaching for the phone anyway.

10:14: Fuck. Stop this. I miss you. Z.

But as she read the latest one,
her heart started to pound.

10:49: You made promises too, Bethany. You promised I wouldn’t lose you
no matter what. You promised you wouldn’t hold yourself back from me. You’re
reneging on both promises.

She stopped in the middle of the
sidewalk. Someone bumped into her and followed through with the classic New
York response of
watch it, bitch
.

Her fingers shook as she pressed
the button.

He answered immediately.
“Bethany?”

Just like that the world fell
away. She was back in his arms, in that exhilarating place that felt like
nothing else in her universe. The way Zachary Savage said her name made her
want to break down and weep with equal amounts of joy and sorrow.

He exhaled noisily down the line.
“Please say something, baby.”

The world snapped back into sharp
focus. Horns blared and people rushed past at breakneck speed. Sights, sounds,
smells. But all the wrong ones. She yearned to be back in Paris or in
Marrakech. Before everything had gone to shit.

“You want me to say something?
How dare you pull me up on my promises when you never kept even one of yours?”
Her voice, husky from all the emotions she was trying to keep inside, sounded
like she’d smoked a pack of cigarettes for breakfast.

“Bethany—”

“You expect me to keep trotting
after you like some horny puppy after you dropped a bombshell at my feet and
walked away? Let’s try this for a second. What if I’d been the one to throw
that grenade at your feet? Would you want to carry on blithely, as if what I’d
said didn’t matter?”

“No. But I wouldn’t have walked
away either. I let you go because—”

“You
let
me go? FYI, I am my own person. I may have let you have too
much of your own way back in Paris and Marrakech but don’t mistake willing for
spineless.”

“I never thought you were
spineless.”

That appeased her a little but
anger still burned in her gut that he would use her promises against her. “Your
last text was a low blow. I’m disappointed that you would sink that low.”

“I wanted to get your attention.”

She noted that he hadn’t
apologized. That Zach was still very much in play. “Well, you succeeded. For a
minute. Goodbye—”

“No! Dammit, don’t hang up.”

Her grip tightened on the phone.
Someone else bumped into her and a hiss of anger was swiftly followed by a rude
suggestion of what she could do to herself.

“Where are you?” Zach demanded.

“I’m standing in the middle of
the sidewalk somewhere in Midtown,” she replied before she could think better
of it.

She heard the distinct sound of a
chair being shoved back. “I can be there in fifteen minutes. Tell me exactly
where—”

“Wait a minute. You’re in New
York?” Shock rocked through her. Somehow, she’d imagined he was calling from
his base in San Francisco. Learning that he was in the same city made her hot
and cold at the same time.

The idea that he was
fifteen minutes
away made her heart flip
over.

“I’m trying not to be disturbed
by the fact that you think I’d be anywhere else but where you are.”

Words, she reminded herself. They
were just words. And Zach Savage was very good with his words, even when they
hid his true meaning.

When she was bumped a third time,
Bethany forced herself to move. She found herself want to ask him how long he’d
been in New York and clamped her mouth shut.

“I took the next commercial
flight out right after my plane left to bring you home,” he volunteered softly.
“You needed time so I didn’t want to force my presence on you on my plane. Tell
me where you are.”

She reached an intersection and
stopped. “No.”

“Please, baby.”

“You were right about me needing
time.”

He breathed out and Bethany could
imagine his eyes narrowing into laser-sharp focus. “It’s been a week, Bethany.
It’s felt like a three fucking lifetimes but it’s been a
goddamn
week.”

The lights changed and she went
with the flow of human traffic. She had no idea where she was headed but moving
was a little better, and not like a robot only attuned to Zach’s voice. “I know
exactly how long it’s been. Are you ready to explain what you meant in
Marrakech?”

His silence lasted a few seconds
but felt like a year. “I told you, it’s not that easy.”

The permanent vice-like grip
around her chest tightened another notch. “Then I guess I’ll be taking more
time.”

He sighed. “Dammit, Bethany, stop
these games.”

“Fuck you, Zach. You don’t get to
say that to me. If there’s even a tiny shred of game-playing, it’s not on my
part. If you trust nothing else, trust me on that. You’ve taken pleasure in
fucking with my head since we met. You won’t be given the opportunity to
mind-fuck me anymore.”

“I know you want answers—”

“Answers you’ve made clear you’re
not prepared to give me. Knowing I’m not worthy of your trust hurts and I
refuse to hurt anymore. So unless you’re about to propose anything remotely
close to what I need, I fail to see what the point of this phone call is.”

“The fucking point is
I need you
. I miss you. I can’t sleep
without you. I can barely fucking function,” he growled.

She stumbled, hating herself for
the betraying flow of warmth that started in her belly and arrowed straight
between her legs. Spying a coffee shop ahead, she quickly darted inside and
found a pre-lunch time empty seat.

“I know you’re not functioning
well either, baby,” his voice softened, almost crooning in her ear.

“Right. And you know this, how?”

“Because I
know
you. Inside and out. Tell me where you are. I need to see you.
We can talk.”

“By talk you really mean fuck,
don’t you? Because you know there’s only one thing I want to talk about. And
since we both know you don’t want to talk about that, there can only be one
thing on your mind.”

He sighed. “I need more time,
Bethany. There are other factors involved beyond me revealing what happened six
years ago. But I’m working on it.”

Her heart slowed with a painful
thud. “You know something, Zach. Ever since we met you’ve used some variation
of that line to keep the important parts of your life from me. Why did you even
bother to tell me about your…about Farrah? Oh wait, you didn’t. I only found
out because you were
dreaming
about
her
while you were in bed with
me
.”

“Christ, Bethany—”

She gave a laugh that scraped her
throat and drew the wary attention of the guy on the next table. “And now I
sound like a fucking neurotic bitch for wanting to control who you dream about.
That’s what you’ve reduced me to. You need more time? Sure. Go ahead and take
all the time you need.”

She ended the call. Her phone
rang immediately. She flipped it to silent and sucked in a shaky breath.

The guy glanced at her again.
Slowly she watched his expression turn from wary to appreciative. She stared
back, forcing herself to look properly. He wasn’t bad looking. He was well
built with a pleasantly charming face and thick brown hair that flopped over
one eye. Earphones rested over his buff shoulders, and he was dressed in a
casual trendy way that flattered his body.

Her gaze clashed with his again.
His interest was definitely sparked.

Once upon a time she would’ve
been extremely flattered.

Now she felt nothing. Not even
mild feminine satisfaction of catching another man’s attention.

Because the only attention she
wanted was Zach’s. First and always. Except Zach only had one interest. Her
body.

She looked away from the guy and
didn’t even feel bad when she sensed his disappointment. Her heart hurt too much.
Her body hurt even worse.

Zach Savage Withdrawal was a
condition she’d become agonizingly familiar with over the past seven days. The
ache hadn’t been gradual. The pain of walking away from Zach had been
immediate. And excruciating.

She’d shut down completely once
she’d boarded his plane to come home. She’d slept the whole journey, as if her
body was preparing her for the rough ride ahead.

When she’d woken a half-hour
before they landed at Newark, she’d relived the events of the night before and
been stunned Zach had let her leave.

She may have been angry when he’d
reminded her just now, but the truth was that if he’d asked her to stay she
would’ve seriously considered it. In that moment after his stark declaration
he’d been vulnerable enough for her to have pulled the information out of him
had she so chosen.

Of course, shock had played a
huge part in rendering her mindless for those precious minutes. The triple
whammy of Zach being married for just one day before he…he…

God. She couldn’t think about
that last statement. No matter how much it’d knocked about in her head,
demanding an answer, she couldn’t wrap her mind around Zach’s stark confession.

I’ve never wielded an axe in my life…

He’d said that to her in Paris.
He’d looked like he meant it. And seriously, if Zachary Savage, billionaire
extraordinaire had taken an axe to anyone, surely it would’ve made breaking
news?

A bark of hysterical laughter
startled from her throat.

Cute guy veered back to wary guy.
The waitress walking past barely glanced her way. She was probably used to nut
jobs stopping by to reminisce about their axe murderer ex-lovers just before
the lunch crowd descended. Another laugh threatened to burst out but she
swallowed it down.

You’ve finally fucking lost it, Bethany.

Standing, she picked up her bag
and sucked in another breath. She was walking out when her phone pinged again.

Heart jumping into her throat,
she read the message.

11:46: There’s a time limit on how long I’m prepared to live without
you. The clock’s counting down fast and I’m slowly losing my mind. One way or
the other, this will have to end soon. Z
.

Chapter Four

The flower arrived the next
morning. A single vintage-yellow rose with a note -
Thinking of you. Z

Bleary eyed from another
sleepless night, Bethany stood on her doorstep for several seconds clutching
the flower and note, blinking to stop the tears from forming.

She’d dreamt of him. Of
Marrakech. Of dancing in his huge, magical ballroom. Of hot hands, hotter lips,
wicked tongue and his thick, delicious cock.

In the dark of night, her body
had screamed for him. She’d been so turned on, so needy and horny, she’d come
in her sleep.

Opening her eyes to her dark New
York apartment and her cold bed had been beyond rough. She wanted to hate Zach
Savage. But right now she wanted to see his face so badly, she could barely breathe.

The silence between his texts had
grown progressively longer as the day went yesterday. The last one had been at
midnight. She’d snort-laughed at his imploration to
sleep well, baby.

She’d texted back with a
fuck off.
Then she’d laid awake for
hours expecting a response, hating herself for clutching her phone to her chest
and jumping at each imaginary beep.

Now she slowly closed her door and
stared at the flower. It wasn’t a replica of the one he’d given to her in
Marrakech, thank God. She was barely holding it together as it was. She didn’t
need another reminder of Marrakech. When she found herself trailing a finger
over the sprawling
Z
, she shook her
head and dropped the note on her coffee table.

Life. She needed to get one.

She changed into her jogging
pants and tank top and pulled on her trainers. Tying her hair into a ponytail,
she plugged in her iPod and tucked her keys into her hip pouch.

Vladimir, the Ukrainian daytime
doorman smiled at her as she stretched in the foyer. “You have a good run, Miss
Green.”

“Thanks, Vlad. It’s been a while.
Hope I haven’t forgotten how.”

Two weeks ago, she’d been engaged
in another, more mind blowing form of exercise. Her face flamed and she walked
quickly to the swinging doors.

“You never forget how. Not that
easily,” Vlad said.

She waved her thanks as he held
the door open for her. She blinked as she walked out into the dappling
sunlight.

The stretch town car wasn’t out
of place in her relatively affluent East Village neighbourhood. All the same
she found her footsteps slowing as she walked past it. It was driverless, with
black-tinted windows that made it impossible to see inside. Aside from the high
polish and silently opulent model, there was nothing distinctive about the car.

And yet…

She caught her reflection in the
glass and realised she’d walked so close to it, she was in danger of looking
like a total creep.

Turning, she hurried away and
broke into a jog. After several minutes, the sound of her feet pounding the
sidewalk slowly soothed her.

By the time she’d run a mile,
Bethany was daring to believe she could rescue a few worthy crumbs from the
pile of ashes her life had become. By the time she’d run two miles, she was
daring to believe she could put Paris and Marrakech out of her mind some time
before winter arrived in New York .

By the time she turned around and
started back, her pounding heart was making the argument with her brain that
one day she would forget that Zach Savage existed.

Bethany never found out which
organ won the argument. She rounded the corner of her apartment block and
jogged the last few meters, grateful that her body hadn’t let her down. And
stumbled to a halt.

The town car was still parked in
the same place but this time its occupant was very visible.

Mouth agape, heart racing, she
watched Zach’s head turn to where she stood. Slowly he straightened from where
he’d been leaning against the car.

From across the space between
them, he stared at her with those mesmerizing eyes. Then his gaze slowly raked
her from head to toe, lingering for several seconds at her breasts and hips.
With depressingly eager enthusiasm, her body reacted to his stare, her pulse
slamming higher, her nipples tightening into painful nubs as fire flared
through her belly to heat her clit. She felt dirty in a delicious way, as only
Zach could make her feel.

Hell, in that moment, feeling
those eyes on her, even the sweat drenching her skin turned her on.

A wave of dizziness washed over
her as she devoured him in turn, her senses jumping wildly at the sensual feast
Zachary Savage offered.

“Hello, Bethany.”

Despite the high volume of Pink
blaring
The King Is Dead
in her ear,
she couldn’t mistake the low, dark voice. Or the distinct edge to it.

Or the fact that in the morning
sunlight, his tall, arresting body was a sight her hopelessly deprived senses
were lapping up with a greed that was truly frightening.

He wore an indigo shirt - God,
the man could work that colour like no other - and dark blue jeans that rode
low on his lean hips. Powerful thighs she remembered far too well bunched as he
took a step toward her. His shirt was folded back to reveal his brawny forearms
and his beautiful skin was thrown into stunning relief. He hadn’t lost the tan
he’d acquired under the hot desert sun.

“What are you doing here?” She
didn’t bother to ask him how he knew where she lived. The arrival of the flower
this morning had reminded her that Zach knew most of the pertinent details of
her life, thanks to the forms she’d filled out for the Indigo Lounge flight and
also because, unlike him, she’d held nothing back during their short time
together.

That admission of total access
made her exhale noisily. She didn’t want to dwell on just how openly she’d
shared her life with him and how much less she’d received in return. Now wasn’t
the time. Right now, she needed to get her roiling emotions under control.

“Are you really surprised to see
me? You knew this was inevitable.” Dark grey eyes rested on her, watched her
with an intensity she’d thought she’d imagined but was rudely reminded was very
real. “Did you get my delivery?”

Pink
raged on the
truth about
love
. She pulled out the earphones and left them dangling uselessly from
her side. “I got the flower. And I got the note. That changes nothing.”

A hard smile curved his lips. “I
didn’t expect it to. I just wanted you to know how I was feeling.”

“Why? So I can feel sorry for
you? You’re thinking about me. Big deal. I thought about you too. I thought about
how I never want to see you again. I made that very clear in Morocco.”

His jaw tightened and he folded
strong, muscled arms across his chest. She tried very hard not to stare at the silky
dark hairs that coated those arms. To remember how much she’d loved to run her
hand up and down the bunched strength of it. How they felt banded around her
waist as he pounded into her.

“Baby, you don’t mean that,” he
said quietly. “I refuse to accept that you mean that.”

“I know you make your own rules.
Ones that don’t apply to us lesser mortals. But please do me the courtesy of at
least pretending to think that I know my own mind, Zach.”

He regarded her for several
seconds before he tapped on the front window. It wound down smoothly to reveal
Philip, Zach’s driver, bodyguard and Bethany imagined, all round Mr Fix-It.
Philip looked her way and nodded his greeting. Then he picked up a Styrofoam
tray containing two large coffees and a bag with a familiar bakery logo on it.

“What’s that?”

“Breakfast. I missed you leaving
for your run when I popped round the block to get it earlier. I got you a
fresher cup a few minutes ago. Invite me up, Bethany.”

Her gaze snapped back to him.
“Hell no!” Her voice emerged screechier than she’d intended. Simply because the
effect of seeing Zach again had hammered home the fact that she was still on
precariously shaky ground where her feelings for him were concerned. Inviting
him up to her apartment was inviting trouble and temptation to feast on her
already ravaged heart.

“Fine. Have dinner with me
tonight.”

“I have other plans.”

His jaw clenched and he walked
slowly to where she’d stumbled into immobility five minutes ago. When they were
inches apart, he stopped. “Plans. Who with?” he grated, his tone icy and
commanding.

“None of your business,” she
replied, struggling not to inhale his hauntingly familiar scent like a
bloodhound on a juicy trail. Her gaze reached the pulse throbbing in his neck
and warmth shamelessly flooded her mouth.

“Tell me who you’re going out
with, Bethany.”

She raised her head and glared at
him. “Go away, Zach.”

“Christ,” he muttered. “How did I
not know you were this stubborn?”

“Because as much as you like to
think otherwise, you don’t know everything about me.”

His face hardened. “I know you’re
not stupid enough to go out with another guy when you still belong to me.” Her
gasp got lost in the morning air because he was still speaking. “No matter how
much you think you hate me right now, you’re still mine and I’m not letting you
go. I never will. I’m telling you that right now so we’re both clear on the
matter and there’s no room for misinterpretation. Nod if you understand what
I’m saying to you.”

Her head moved before she gave it
permission to and Bethany exhaled roughly, ready to kick her own ass for that
weak slip.

“I guess that will have to be
enough for now,” he rasped. He continued to stare down at her for a full
minute, his eyes raking over her face and her body with a hunger that threatened
to flatten her where she stood.

Finally, he held out the bakery
bag to her. The scent of sugared pastry rose to tease her nostrils. She was
fast reaching her breaking point. Seeing him again felt like being plugged into
an electric socket with the voltage racing higher by the second. She risked a
full-body electrocution if she didn’t retreat fast.

“If I take this will you go
away?” she ventured bravely.

His eyes narrowed further. “I’m
hanging on by a fucking thread here, baby, so don’t push me. Take the food,” he
instructed.

She took the bag and the coffee
cup he held out to her. With both hands full, she couldn’t stop him when he
reached out and traced his thumb over her lower lip. It tingled and trembled
before she bit desperately on it and jerked her head away.

His eyes darkened and he made a
rough sound under his breath.

“Drink some water first before
you drink the coffee. And next time you run, take some water with you. It’s
July in New York for fuck’s sake. I don’t want you stroking out on some street
corner because you’re careless with your health.”

She really needed to get out of
here. “Are you done?”

His fingers twitched again as if
he wanted to touch her.

“Not nearly. I’ll call you in
twenty minutes. Make sure you pick up.”

Every nerve in her body screamed
in anticipation even as she raised her chin. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll just turn around and
come back here. You have no idea how much it hurts to be this close to you and
not take you in my arms and show you how much I’ve missed you. But I’m playing
by your rules for now. So throw me a fucking bone, Bethany. Pick up the phone
when I call. Or I will come back. And if you think that puny excuse of a doorman
I can see glaring at me from in there is going to stop me, think again.”

With one last, intense look, he
took two steps back and pulled the back door open. She didn’t want to watch him
leave. She swore she wouldn’t do it as she turned and walked quickly toward the
swinging doors.

And yet, as Vlad moved forward
and held the door open for her, she found herself looking over her shoulder.

His eyes were riveted on her.
When they dropped to her ass, she saw his grip clench hard on the door. His gaze
reconnected with hers and the stark, fiery hunger on his face slammed into her
so hard she moaned.

She rushed indoors and stumbled
toward the elevator, nodding jerkily at Vlad’s concerned query if she was all
right. She was still shuddering long after she was back in her apartment, her
body screaming with all the emotions rampaging through her.

He called exactly twenty minutes
later. Freshly showered and sipping the last of the delicious freshly ground
coffee, she told herself she was answering so he would leave her alone and not
return to shatter her peace of mind.

“I’ve answered your call. Can I
go now?”

“No, you can’t. You sent me away
when I wanted to lick every fucking drop of sweat off your gorgeous body. Now I
have a hard on that won’t subside and an appointment in five minutes. You’ll
pay for that, Peaches.”

Her breath caught at his dark
promise. Desperately, she tried to think of anything else besides Zach’s cock
and what form her punishment would take.

This man had turned her life
upside down with a revelation that should make her run a thousand miles
away...he continued to devastate her with his silence while blatantly
disregarding the fact that she considered them over.

And yet her heart and body craved
him with a hunger that defied reason. Despair warred with anger inside her and
still she hung on, her pulse hammering and waited to hear that deep,
gravel-rough voice again.

“Did you eat yet?” he asked.

“Yes.” She’d devoured the
cream-filled pastry within minutes of entering her apartment. Stress eating had
never felt so good and the deep shame she’d felt afterward was well worth it.

“Good.” Satisfaction reeked in
his voice.

“What kind of appointment do you
have on a Saturday?” she asked before she could stop herself.