One Night Of Consequences Collection. Annie West

have her never look at him like that again. As if he was a cold stranger, as if he’d physically hurt her.

      It would have to go back to how it was. Because he could live without sex. He wasn’t sure he could live without Clara.

      It was the longest car ride in the world. No one was on the streets, and it technically took half the time it normally did to get from Zack’s place to hers, but it seemed like the longest ever.

      Because everything hurt. And she was wearing a really fabulous gown that had already been torn from her body once, during the most intense, emotion-filled sexual encounter they’d ever had. There had been something dark in Zack tonight. A battle. She wasn’t stupid. She knew something had changed, she knew, at least she hoped, that he wasn’t as horrible as he’d seemed when he’d sent her away.

      She bunched up the flaring skirt of her gown when the car stopped and she slid out, letting the dress fan out around her. She gave the driver a halfhearted, awkward wave. He knew her. She’d used his services quite a few times with Zack. Having him be a part of this, the most awful, embarrassing, heart-wrenching moment of her life wasn’t so great.

      Because it was two in the morning and it was completely obvious what had just happened. That Zack had had sex with her, sex, at its most base, and had her go home rather than have her spend the night in his bed.

      She curled her hands into fists and let her nails cut into her palms, tears stinging her eyes. She almost hated him right now. It almost rivaled how much she loved him.

      Almost.

      If she didn’t love him, it wouldn’t hurt so bad.

       You’re my mistress.

      Like hell she was. He might be the only man who’d seen her naked, but she was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she was the only woman who’d ever seen him cry.

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      SHE really hoped everyone wanted cupcakes for lunch. Because there were cupcakes. Nine varieties of them, and someone had to eat them.

      She didn’t think she could eat and she was not sharing them with Zack, which meant they would be going straight into the break room. On the bright side, she’d found a few new varieties that had worked out nicely.

      The sea-salt caramel one was her favorite. She just couldn’t force down more than two bites at a time. Anything beyond that stuck in her throat and joined the ever-present lump that made her feel like she was perpetually on the edge of tears.

      She was just too full of angst to eat anything. She hadn’t been able to eat anything since she’d been dropped at the front of her building by Zack’s driver.

       Zack.

      She put her head on the pristine counter of the office kitchen and tried to hold back the sob that was building in her chest.

      Something had broken in him last night. It had started after their time together at her place, the night he’d left. And last night it had snapped completely. But she didn’t know what it was. She didn’t know how to pull him out of it. If she could, or if she even should.

      “Clara.”

      Clara looked up and saw Jess standing in the doorway of the kitchen. “Zack is looking for you.”

      “Oh,” Clara straightened and wiped her eyes. Normally Zack would come and find her himself. Because there was a time when he’d wanted to be with her simply to be with her. Now she wondered if she had any value when she wasn’t naked. “I’ll be there in a second. Take.” She gestured to the platters of cupcakes. “Take some of these with you. I can’t eat them by myself. If Zack comes near them, tell him they have walnuts.”

      Jess’s eye widened. “They all have walnuts?”

      “No. But tell him they do. All of them.”

      Jess gave her a strange look and picked two of the platters up, heading back out the door.

      She had no choice now. She had to go face the man himself. And figure out exactly what she was going to say. As long as it didn’t involve melting into a heap, she supposed almost anything would do.

      “You sent Jess after me?” She looked inside of Zack’s office, waiting to be invited in. Silly maybe, since she hadn’t knocked on his office door in the seven years since she’d started working at Roasted. But she felt like she needed to now.

      “Yes. Come in.” His tone was formal, like it had been the night before when he’d given her the necklace. Distance. Divorced from emotion.

      That was the strange thing. He’d been aloof the night of the charity, until they’d made love. Then he’d been commanding, all dark intensity and so much emotion it had filled the room. It had filled her. It hadn’t been good emotion. It had been raw and painful. Almost more than she could bear.

      It had caused the break. That much she knew.

      But he was back to his calm and controlled self now, not a trace of last night’s fracture in composure anywhere. She almost couldn’t believe he was the same man whose hands had trembled after they’d made love.

      She almost couldn’t believe he was the same man she’d known for seven years. The same man she’d watched movies with, shared dinners with.

      But he was. He was both of those men.

      He was also the cold man standing before her, and she wasn’t sure how all of those facets of himself wove together. And she really wasn’t sure where she fit in. If she did at all.

      She stepped into the office, watching his face for some sort of reaction. He had that sort of distant, implacable calm he’d had on his wedding day, standing and looking out the window as though nothing mattered to him. As though he had no deeper emotion at all.

      She knew differently now. She saw it for what it was now. A facade. But she wasn’t certain there was a way through it, unless he wanted her to break through.

      “I’m about to sign the final paperwork for the deal with Amudee. I wanted to thank you for your help.”

      For her help. “Of course.”

      They were talking like strangers now. They’d never been like strangers, not from the moment she’d met him. They’d had a connection from the first moment he’d walked into the bakery.

      Now she couldn’t feel anything from him. Now that they’d been so intimate, she felt totally shut off from him.

      “Once everything is finalized we can let everyone know that our engagement has been called off,” he said.

      “Right,” she said, clenching her left hand into a fist.

      “That’s all.” He looked back at his computer screen for a moment, then looked back up. “Are you busy tonight?”

      Her heart stopped. Did he want sex? Again? After what he’d done last night?

      “Um … why?”

      “Because I thought I might come over and watch a movie.”

      His words were so unexpected it took her brain a moment to digest them, as though she was translating them from a foreign language. “And?”

      He shrugged. “Nothing.”

      He was behaving as if … as if nothing had changed. As if they’d gone back in time a few weeks.

      He was pretending, she was certain of it, because he certainly wasn’t acting normal, whatever he might think, but she was insulted that he was trying. After what he’d said to her last night. After the way he’d objectified her.

      She wanted to yell at him. Maybe even hit him, and she’d never hit anyone in her life. But she wanted a reaction.