He had the good grace to wince. “If it helps, I don’t answer to it.” It was just the two of them in the yard now, with no company except the light breeze and waves. Perfect time to tell him she wanted to mix business and pleasure, just once. He stood close enough that she could see flecks of dark jade swimming in that sea of pale green. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and maybe not yesterday morning, either, and she could feel the heat radiating off his body and seeping into hers. She could smell him, too, some delicious, intoxicating scent of pure male that had her nostrils twitching.

Bad nostrils. Tell him…

“Cristina doesn’t mean to be rude,” Zach said.

It made her laugh. “Yes, she does.”

“Okay, yeah. She does.”

“You’re all a very tight unit. I get that loud and clear.”

“We are. It’s what makes us so good. But there’s room for more. There’s room for you. You could fit in, if you wanted to.”

Her greatest fantasy…“If I wanted to?”

“Yeah, well, you have a tendency to stand on the outside looking in.”

“No, I don’t.”

He just looked at her, all patient and quietly amused, and she sighed. “Okay, I do.”

“But you don’t want to be on the outside looking in.”

How was it that he knew her? “We both know I don’t really fit in.”

“You could.”

“Uh-huh. Cristina’s waiting with open arms.”

His expression was serious now. “She’s had it rough and is a little distrustful, that’s all. It has nothing to do with you.”

She had a feeling it wasn’t only Cristina who’d had it rough. “You’re sleeping with her.”

Brooke hadn’t meant for that to escape from her lips. She wanted to pretend it hadn’t, but Zach’s brows had shot up so far on his forehead they vanished into his hair.

“Not that it matters,” she said quickly, trying like hell to backtrack. “Because it doesn’t.”

“It doesn’t?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t. It really doesn’t. It really, really, really doesn’t—”

He set a finger on her lips and she shut up.

“Cristina and I are friends,” he said quietly. “We have been for a very long time.”

She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and pulled it away. “And more than friends? Have you been more than friends for a very long time, as well?”

“Twice. A very long time ago.”

She didn’t want to acknowledge the relief that flooded through her at that. “You might want to remind her of that part the next time she’s going around marking her territory.”

“She has no territory to mark. Or I never would have kissed you like I did.” He ran a finger over her jaw.

A simple touch.