LITMIR.BIZ

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Was he as stupid now as he’d been fourteen years ago?

      His heart froze for a moment, the events of what sometimes felt like a past life, playing through his head from start to finish. Like a horror film he couldn’t pause.

      No. He’d worked way too hard to leave that person behind. That boy, who had been so irresponsible. Who had caused so much damage.

      Last night he’d lost control. With Clara, of all people. She shouldn’t have tempted him like that. But she had. She’d made him shake like he was the virgin.

      It couldn’t happen again. It wouldn’t. He might have lost his control for a moment, but he wouldn’t do it again.

      Clara appeared a few moments later, her face scrubbed fresh and pink, her hair wet and wavy. She was dressed, a fitted T-shirt and jeans meaningless now since he’d already seen her naked and his mind was doing a very good job of envisioning her as she’d been last night.

      All pale skin and soft curves. Pure perfection. Better than he’d ever imagined.

      “Hey,” she said, trying to smile and not quite managing it.

      “Are you all right?” he asked. He’d never slept with a virgin before, but that was only part of the foreign, first-time feeling he was dealing with. The other part of that was because it was Clara. And the rest was because of his carelessness.

      Carelessness that had to be addressed.

      “I’m fine,” she said.

      “Are you on birth control?” he asked.

      She narrowed her eyes. “No.”

      He tried to get a handle on the gnawing panic in his gut. Condoms were reliable. He knew that. But there was the matter of his impatience, of his entering her, even briefly, without protection. He swore. “Why not?”

      “What?” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I’m sorry, was I supposed to start taking the pill just in case you invited me on your honeymoon and we hooked up? I was a virgin, you jackass.”

      “I know,” he shouted, not sure why he was shouting, only that his blood was pumping too fast through his veins and his heart was threatening to thunder out of his chest. “I know,” he said again, softer this time.

      “You used a condom,” she said, her cheeks flushing pink.

      “Yes, I did, eventually. There’s a chance that kind of carelessness could have gotten you pregnant. It’s not a big chance, but there is a chance.”

      “I … I seriously doubt that I’m pregnant. Well, obviously I’m not pregnant yet since things take a while to travel and … well, that’s high-school health, you know all that.”

      “But there’s a chance. I’m usually more careful.”

      “Zack, I think you’re overreacting.”

      “Is that what you think, Clara?” he asked, his voice deadly calm. “You think I’m overreacting because you think it can’t happen. But then, you’ve never been pregnant, obviously. And I have gotten a woman pregnant, so I think I might be a bit more in touch with that reality than you are. Do you know what it’s like? To know that everything in your life is going to have to change because for one moment you were so utterly selfish and consumed with one moment of pleasure that you didn’t think about anything else?”

      Clara’s heart was in her throat. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. It was like a shield had been torn away from Zack, like his armor had dissolved, crumbled around his feet, leaving nothing but the man he was beneath his facade. A facade she hadn’t realized was there.

      This was the man she’d seen glimpses of. The reason for the darkness that she saw in his eyes sometimes. And she was afraid to hear the rest. But she had to.

      His chest rose and fell sharply. “I was sixteen. And I was more interested in getting some than thinking about using a condom. Turns out you can get someone pregnant after just one time, regardless of the idiot rumors floating around the high school saying otherwise.”

      She didn’t ask him what happened. She didn’t interrupt the break. She just let his silence fill the room, and she felt his pain. Felt it in her, through her. She didn’t have to know what happened to know that it was bad. Devastating. To know that knowing it was going to change her. The way it had changed Zack.

      “I didn’t want a baby, but we were having one. She wanted it. I didn’t want him,” he said. “But I got a job so that I could pay for the doctor bills. So I could help her raise him. Because at least I knew that I should do the right thing.” A muscle in his jaw jerked. “He came too early. And by the time I realized how badly I did want him, it was too late. By the time I realized that a baby can very quickly mean everything in the world to you, he was gone.”

      She tried to hold back the sob that was rising inside her. His face was blank now, void of emotion, flat. Like he was reading a story in a newspaper, not telling her about his life.

      “Another reason Hannah was so perfect for me,” he said. “She didn’t want kids.”

      “You don’t. You don’t want kids?”

      “I had one, Clara. I would never … I will never put myself through something like that again. I nearly died with him. I don’t make the same mistakes twice. I’m always careful now.”

      Except last night, he wasn’t as careful as he usually was, obviously. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Or what it might mean. And right now, she wished they had never slept together. Because she wanted to comfort him as a friend. To tell him how much her heart ached for him. But she wasn’t sure if it was her place now. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. What he expected. What he would allow.

      Because now she saw just how much he had always hidden from her. She saw a stranger. She wondered if it was even possible that this man, hard and angry, was the same man she’d seen every day for the past seven years.

      “How did you … how did you cope with it?”

      “I don’t need to talk about it, Clara. I don’t talk about it, ever. This isn’t an invitation for you to psychoanalyze me. But now you know why I insist on being careful. That’s the important part of the story. And you’ll tell me, if you’re pregnant.”

      “I’ll let you know,” she said. “But I’m sure everything will be fine.”

      He turned away from her and shrugged his shirt on.

      “Everything will be fine,” she repeated. That assurance was just for her. And she wasn’t certain she believed it.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      THE plane ride back to San Francisco was a study in torture. Zack was hardly speaking to her and she felt battered from the inside out. Her body was a little bit sore from her first time, and her heart felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry.

      Zack was acting overly composed. His focus on work, not on her. Not on the revelation that had passed between them, both in bed and out.

      She didn’t feel like the same person. She felt changed. She wasn’t sure if Zack was the same person, either. Or maybe he was; maybe it was just that she saw him better now.

      “I think I’ll probably take a couple days off,” she said, looking over at Zack who was engrossed in his laptop screen. “Recover. From the jet lag.”

      “Fine.”

      The chill in his response made her shiver. “And I’m thinking of buying a pony.”

      “You don’t have anywhere to keep one,” he said drily, still not looking up.

      “Just a small one. For the rooftop garden.”

      He

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