Shouldn’t he have you?
She felt another wave of shame. How hard must it have been for him to come to her today? Yet even feeling as horribly guilty as he had, he’d knocked on her door.
And she’d effectively accused him of putting Debs through hell, and then slammed it in his face. Bitch wasn’t a strong enough word for her right now.
‘Are you and Zac going to kiss and make up?’ Debs asked as they wandered into the kitchen.
An image of Zac from a moment ago burned across her mind, his face stricken as he’d walked back to the car. ‘I’m not sure it’s that easy.’
‘Why not?’
The simplicity of youth. Kat envied Debs in that moment. She’d have given anything not to be drowning in so many confusing emotions. ‘I said some harsh words to him when he came here. I think we both need to cool off before any bridges can be mended.’
‘Why were you so cross with him? What did he do? It wasn’t about him involving me again, was it?’
‘No.’ Kat took Debs’s hand and squeezed it. ‘I never blamed him for that, only myself.’ She walked over to the kettle and began to fill it. ‘I was cross with him because we had this plan to get you back, and to protect him. He was supposed to wait until you got halfway, and then slowly, really slowly, on my count, step out of the car. That gave me time to line up the shot and fire before Zac was ever really in danger.’
‘But he sort of jumped out and waved his hands in the air, didn’t he?’
‘Exactly. And when you were only a third of the way across.’ Her stomach rolled as she relived that chilling moment. ‘His stupidity could have got himself killed, and all because he didn’t trust me.’
Debs looked at her as if she was an alien species. ‘OMG, Kat, what is with you? Why are you being so precious? He did that for me. He wanted to make sure I was safe.’
On one level Kat knew that, but it didn’t lessen her anger. ‘The plan we put together was to keep you both safe. He should have trusted me to deliver it.’
Debs shook her head in a way that made Kat wonder briefly who the adult was. ‘Maybe he didn’t care about your dumb plan. Just about making sure I was okay.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘He was brave, not stupid.’ She raised her watery eyes to Kat’s. ‘You’re the stupid one for being angry with him.’
And this time she really did flounce off. Not that Kat could blame her. If she’d had a choice, she’d have flounced away from herself in disgust, too. The trouble was, her confrontation with Zac had been about more than annoyance that he hadn’t done what she’d asked. In seeing him crumple to the ground, in fearing he’d been killed, her heart had literally stopped. It had been déjà vu. Wes, all over again.
It had taken that moment, that horrific feeling of thinking she’d lost Zac, to make her fully realise how deeply she’d fallen in love with him.
And that was why she needed space from him. Space to think.
Space to wonder if she could really put herself through the agony of another relationship. One that, logically, had little chance of success. Her heart had already decided, but she was done being ruled by that, and her mind was far from certain she could do it.
***
Zac didn’t know where else to go. The studio had told him to take a few days, but his four walls screamed back at him. Alone. You’re all alone.
In the end he shoved a few clothes in a case – yes, he was willingly going to live out of a suitcase again for a few days – and jumped into the Aston.
It felt good to drive again. At least that’s what he told himself as the car ate up the miles. Funny to think that when he’d first been assigned Kat as a bodyguard, he’d been so annoyed he wasn’t allowed to drive his own car. Now he’d give anything to have Kat drive him.
No. For the sake of his sanity, he wasn’t going to keep thinking about her. He had his life back on track now, didn’t he? Soon he’d finish this film and start the next. That morning he’d called his manager and told her to accept a spot on one of those chat shows that kept asking him to appear. He wanted to come clean about his real background so anyone entering his life from now on knew exactly who he was, where he’d come from. And the inherent risks they could potentially be exposed to.
An hour later he swung the Aston into the Edwards Estate and brought it to a stop on the gravel drive by the entrance.
Even before he’d climbed out of the car, the front door of the house was flung open. It’s a bloody stately home. Damn it, why could he still hear Kat’s voice?
‘Zac.’ Helena dashed down the stairs and before he knew it, he was being pulled into a firm embrace. ‘Oh my goodness, my dear boy, how are you?’ Her eyes ran over him. ‘You look tired, and a little on the thin side for my liking. I need to tell Maisy to change dinner tonight to something more fattening.’
‘Whoa, calm down. I’m fine. Really.’ Feeling a rush of affection, he gave her a quick squeeze. ‘I’ll have double helpings of whatever Maisy has already planned.’
‘I suppose that will work, too.’ He was surprised, when he looked into her eyes, to find them heavy with unshed tears. ‘I was so worried when I got the call to say you’d been shot.’
‘You needn’t have been. It was a flesh wound, nothing more, though I have acquired a rather heroic scar.’
She smiled, threading her arm through his as they walked into the house. ‘I would expect nothing less than heroic from you.’
He faltered as the word circulated around his head. ‘There is nothing heroic about getting a fourteen-year-old girl involved in my mess.’
Immediately Helena stopped, her gaze searching his for a moment before she shook her head. And swore for the first time since he’d known her. ‘I might have known you’d be taking the blame for what happened. Of course you would.’ Gently she touched his cheek. ‘I’m not sure if you remember, but for the first few years you lived here after your mother passed, you kept apologising for everything. If you needed new shoes because your feet grew too big. If you’d left a dirty sock on the floor in your otherwise far too tidy bedroom. When you knocked over a vase and broke it, even though Antony was the one at fault for chasing you indoors.’ She reached up to kiss him. ‘Like I told you when you were a child, not everything is your fault, Zac. And this certainly isn’t. Your father hired a man to kill you, and that man chose to use Debs in order to get to you.’
‘He wouldn’t have even known about Debs if I hadn’t agreed to live with them.’ When she started to refute him, Zac squeezed her hand. ‘I know that was Kat’s choice, just as I know she’s blaming herself for it. But I also know if I hadn’t lied to her, if I’d told her who my real father was, she wouldn’t have suggested I stay.’
‘Fiddlesticks.’ Helena gave him one of her steely stares. He’d not received many – most had been directed at Antony when they’d been growing up – but he felt the power of it now. ‘Kat is a strong, independently-minded woman. She’d have trusted herself to keep you and her niece safe, whatever the circumstances. Besides, nobody could have foreseen that Jimmy would be crazy enough to seek revenge in this way. Neither the police, the prison wardens nor his parole officers saw this coming, and they knew him better than any of us. Now,’ she guided him towards the living room. ‘Enough of this nonsense. William will be pacing up and down, wanting to see you.’ She gave Zac a soft smile. ‘But I told him I wanted a bit of mother–son time, first.’