Rhythm of My Heart: Speed, Book 3 (20 page)

And the minute he finally decided to give up on her, finally decided his future lay with someone else—with a woman he’d met just days ago yet fallen irrevocably in love with—she made an appearance in his life.

Oh, yeah, fate was a bitch all right. A crazy bitch, who must be sitting somewhere, laughing raucously.

She’s out there now, quietly waiting,

Red hair, green eyes…fascinating.

His grandmother’s song reverberated through his head.

There would be no more waiting. That time was officially over. She was out there now. Red hair, green eyes. And fuck, yeah. She was fascinating.

He couldn’t deny it, couldn’t look away.

And when she looked up and caught him staring, her smile broke into a huge grin meant only for him.

He was so fucked. So absolutely and completely fucked.

Yeah, he loved Eve. Yeah, he wanted a future with her. But fucking hell, the future he’d anticipated his entire life now stood in front of him, grinning. Smiling the smile he’d seen a million times in his mind.

“She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?” It was Bree who asked. Bree who stood beside him.

“More beautiful than anything I’ve seen in my whole life,” he agreed. Although he wasn’t sure that was really true. She was beautiful. No two ways about it. Striking. Stunning. But she was no more beautiful than Eve.

Bree said something else, but all Zachary heard were her words from earlier.
If you hurt my little sister, I promise to hunt you down and kill you. Slowly and painfully.

Jesus, he didn’t want to hurt Eve. The thought alone about killed him. But how did he reconcile his feelings for her with his feelings for his red-haired fate?

Hadn’t his grandmother’s predictions come true for Nathan, Seth and Luke?

How did he now change his fate, when she stood before him, smiling?

“Sing us another song,” one of the children begged. “Please, Princess Eve. Sing us a song.”

His red-haired beauty flashed him one last smile, then clapped her hands and turned back to the girls. In seconds they’d formed a circle around her, and while she sang a tune he recognized from one of the Disney movies, the kids danced around her.

He watched, spellbound, as she charmed the girls.

Watched spellbound as she sang to them. Her voice was sweet, lyrical. But it wasn’t her singing that held them all rapt. It was her sheer joy in entertaining them. Her delight in making the girls smile and laugh.

It was almost magical.

His red-haired beauty, Princess Eve with the sparkly tiara in her hair, was born to make children happy.

Wait.

What the…

Princess Eve?

She waved at him.

Zachary’s jaw dropped. He blinked. Then blinked again, and then again. Then he scrubbed his hand over his eyes to clear his hazy vision as the next few lines of his grandmother’s lullaby rang through his ears.

Appearances fool, you have been warned,

Follow your instinct, don’t be torn.

And as he looked at her once again, the clouds parted from a part of his brain he hadn’t realized they’d been shadowing, and sunlight poured through the space, enlightening him.

Holy crap.

Princess Eve.

He slapped his head as the pieces of a puzzle he’d never solved before fell into place. His heart leapt, as though charged by an electric pulse.

Princess Eve, the red-haired beauty of his vision was
her
. Eve. Tiny. The woman he’d fallen in love with. His fate and his love were one and the same. He’d just been too focused on the red hair and green eyes to see the similarity in the facial structure. Although she was taller than usual, by a good few inches. But that could be explained away by a pair of heels. And her lips looked different—the color was off. They were a bright orange he’d never seen on her. And her cheekbones were more pronounced—but that was obviously a trick of the makeup.

Princess Eve removed the tiara from her head and placed it on one of the girls. Hannah?

Zachary didn’t know. He didn’t care. Because as he stared at his present and his future, she beckoned to him, calling him over. And in that second, Eve was the redhead who’d beckoned to him in his vision. It was the exact moment he’d seen, over and over as his grandmother had sung to him, the moment he’d immortalized in his mind.

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.”