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Zach didn’t answer.

Turning her head, she peered over her shoulder at him.

He had his head bowed, the gold-streaked strands falling down and hiding his features from her.

“Zach?”

He sighed. “Do you really want to hear what I have to say about this right now, sugar?”

“I always want to hear what you have to say.”

“Okay.” He used the cloth again on her back and then bent down, staring at her skin like there was nothing else in the world but her back and the design he was inking on her flesh. “He never loved you.”

It was a strike, square to her heart.

She closed her eyes.

“If he loved you, he wouldn’t treat you the way he did. When you walked into a room, it would have showed on his face...if he really loved you. Either he’d have been so busy staring at you because he just had to see you, or he would have been looking away so nobody could see it. Except he was going to marry you—you were his and he had every right to let the world see how he felt.” Zach dabbed at her back again, still focused on the work.

She was almost glad of the pain now, because it was easier to think about how much it hurt than to think about what he had to say.

“But when you walked into a room, that fucking prick was too busy either messing with his damned gadgets or looking at everybody else to see what they thought about you. He was in love with the idea of having Kate the cutie on his arm—the son of a bitch just loved to talk about his fiancée, the actress...and don’t tell me you never noticed. He might have loved the idea of being with Kate...but he never loved you.”

He paused what he was doing and for a brief second, the world fell away as he looked up and met her eyes. “He never loved you, and the son of a bitch sure as hell didn’t deserve you, sugar.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs as his blue gaze held hers.

And then, as it started to feel like all the oxygen in the room had dwindled away, he turned his attention back to the task at hand.

It felt like he was flaying the flesh from her bones. And she decided that was just fine, because now she needed that distraction.

Was he right, she wondered?

She’d noticed, and tried to ignore, Roger’s fascination with her old life, but she’d chalked it up to him just wanting to know about her. They were getting married...they should know about each other. But what if Zach was right?

What if Roger had never really loved her at all?

And that thought, as much as it infuriated her, it also made her wonder one simple thing.

Hadsheloved him?

* * * * *

“Okay, here are theimportant things,” Zach said as he studied the design. It was cute and sexy as hell. If he found out another guy was the one who got to press his lips to that dragonfly where it curved low over the flare of her left hip, he thought he just might go insane. “I’ll send you home with some instructions on how to care for it, but you need to make sure you keep it clean. No scrubbing at it or anything—you need to be gentle when you wash it. I’ve got some ointment I’ll send home with you and I’ll go into detail about using that, too.”

She was still staring at it over her shoulder in the mirror. Worrying her lower lip with her teeth and eyeing the dragonfly like she expected it to take flight or something.

“I need to get the bandage on,” he said softly.

“What? Oh.”

She continued to stand there and he reached up, pressed his hand between her shoulder blades. “Lean forward a little.”

Hunger screamed, jerking on the leash inside him as he eased the waistband of her skirt just a little lower so he could get the bandage in place. Bent over the table like that, he could so easily imagine pulling the hem of the skirt up. Slipping his hand between her thighs. Would she sigh? Moan?

No. This was Abby and she’d freak the hell out and then she’d run away and he’d lose her—

A soft, shaky sigh caught his attention as he smoothed the bandage down. Keeping his head bowed, he checked the mirror from under his lashes and his knees almost buckled.

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