Page 20 of Lily, Unwritten

I slapped the top of his arm. “Of course it’s still on, cheeky.” He wrapped his arms around me.

“Can I drag you home now because I have needs and you left me all alone, Zachary. All alone with nothing to think about but houses and weddings and things that get me all excited about you. Plus, I baked you a chocolate fudge cake…”

Zack grinned. One of the hands that was wrapped around me slid slowly down and squeezed my bottom. “Car. Now.”

A couple of hours later, we dragged ourselves from the sanctuary of our bed, reunited in every sense of the word. Despite the cold weather outside, the house felt toasty warm as heat surged from the radiators. We snuggled on the couch with our favourite wine, Zack just in shorts and me in one of his t-shirts. I ran my fingers through Zack’s thick, dark hair as we talked, trying to get it back into his usual style. I may have been a little overzealous with my treatment of it while we were in bed.

“Did you miss me or my hair?”

“I missed all of you. Felt like a long week, but it sounds like you loved it. So excited for you that the job’s going well.”

“Not just mine. You looking forward to being on this case you told me about?”

I nodded as I placed my wine glass down and snuggled my head against the warm, smooth skin of his chest. “It sounds great. Definitely more stimulating than office plans and dictation. I wish Anna wasn’t on the case too, but apart from that, yeah, I’m eager to learn more.”

“Don’t let her put you off, she’s more interested in herself than anyone else. Was surprised you were out with her, to be honest.”

“Ha! Me too. She caught me at a weak moment. She was going on about what a womaniser you used to be and how I made you dull.” My tone was light-hearted, but I secretly hoped for information. Was Zack the type of guy who had a different girl every week before me? I couldn’t imagine it; all he’d ever wanted was to settle down since the day we’d met.

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I wouldn’t worry. She’s only happy when she’s admiring herself or gossiping,” he said.

“Hmm, I suppose. I booked us three house appointments for tomorrow, you want to see where?”

“No, I trust you to have picked the good ones.” He placed a kiss to the top of my head. “You think about wedding stuff at all?”

“A little. I spent quite a bit of time with your mum, and Hannah nipped in too.”

He squeezed me tighter. “Makes me happy that you guys all spend time together.”

“What do you think about wedding plans?” I asked.

“I’d go with any plan as long as you were there. I can’t wait.”

“I wanted to talk about something, though.” Zack’s body went rigid for a moment.

“Lily, please don’t say this is something awful again.”

“What? No,” I laughed and kissed around Zack’s neck. “You know the problems Cassie is having?”

Zack nodded as he squeezed my waist and held me tight against him.

“Well, she asked me about egg donation.”

“OK, I don’t understand the whole situation, but I guess that could work for them?”

“Specifically, my eggs.”

He drew in a breath. “Well… Yours are spoken for, aren’t they? I assume you told her that?”

“No, I told her we’d talk about it; it’s a fairly simple procedure.”

“Why would she want your eggs? I don’t get that, it’s weird.”

A small sigh flew from me before I continued. “I felt the same, initially, but she doesn’t want a random person doing it for money or whatever. And she likes my DNA.”

“Again, we have plans for your DNA, my darling.” Zack snuggled up close and pulled my thigh over his own. “As soon as possible, I think.”

“There’s no reason I couldn’t do both,” I suggested.

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