“For some people.” He said it quietly. “Not for you or me. We’re basic, Nell. When basic people fall in love, and mean it, they get married, start a family. I want to share my life with you, make children with you, grow old with you.”

Tears threatened. Everything he said was what she wanted, so deep in her heart that it was into her soul. “You’re moving too fast.”

“I don’t think so.” He took the box from his pocket. “I bought this today because we’ve already started our life together, Nell. It’s time to see where it takes us.”

Her fingers curled into her palms as she looked down. He’d bought her a sapphire, a rich, warm stone set in a simple band of gold. He’d have known she would need warmth and simplicity.

Evan had chosen a diamond, a brilliant square in platinum that had sat on her finger like ice.

“I’m sorry. Zack, I’m so sorry. I can’t marry you.”

He felt the slice through his heart, but he never flinched as he watched her face. “Do you love me, Nell?”

“Yes.”

“Then I deserve to know why you won’t make a promise to me, and take one from me.”

“You’re right.” She struggled to steady herself. “I can’t marry you, Zack, because I’m already married.”

Nothing she could have said would have stunned him more. “Married? You’re married? For God’s sake, Nell, we’ve been together for months.”

“I know.” It wasn’t just shock she saw now. It wasn’t just anger. He stared at her as if she were a stranger. “I left him, you see. More than a year ago.”

He struggled over the first hurdle. The fact that she’d been married and hadn’t told him. But he couldn’t make it over the second. That she was married still.

“Left him, but didn’t divorce him.”

“No, I couldn’t. I—”

“And you let me touch you, you slept with me, let me fall in love with you, knowing you weren’t free.”

“Yes.” It was so cold, suddenly so cold in the little kitchen that it penetrated her bones. “I don’t have any excuses for it.”

“I won’t ask when you were planning to tell me. Obviously you weren’t.” He closed the box with a snap, jammed it back in his pocket. “I don’t sleep with other men’s wives, Nell. A word from you, one goddamn word from you, and we wouldn’t have gotten to this point.”

“I know. It’s my fault.” As his anger grew, hardened his face, she felt the strength she’d rebuilt draining away like the color in her cheeks.

“You think that makes up for it?” he shot back, as temper and misery careened inside him. “You think taking the blame for it cleans the fucking slate on this?”

“No.”