Page 43 of 2 Books in One Bundle

He didn’t want to be alone, he now knew, he wanted her, but he just couldn’t get past his fears about vulnerability and potential destruction. He didn’t know why. He’d tried to analyse it, he’d even googled it, but to no avail.

Currently, Zander was not alone. He was standing at the bar just off the ballroom of one of London’s top hotels, the venue for the company’s Christmas party—not catered by Halliday Catering, thank God—downing whisky like it was water.

He didn’t want to be here. He was not in a party mood. The noise generated by the chatter of five hundred merry people and the thumping of the band was hurting his head. The trouble was, he didn’t want to be anywhere else either. Being on his own, a situation in which there’d be no distraction from the utter hopelessness of his thoughts, certainly didn’t appeal. In fact, he didn’t know what he wanted. Apart from Mia. Who he couldn’t have. And freedom from this horrible state of paralysis that meant he hadn’t dealt with her belongings and, worse, hadn’t been in touch.

Thalia, who was in attendance as head of the company’s charitable foundation arm, joined him at the bar and ordered herself a glass of white wine. ‘No Mia this evening?’ she said, as if able to read his poor tortured mind.

His chest tightened. His head pounded. How much more of this could he take? ‘Not tonight.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

His sister hoped in vain. And in the past he might have made light of it with a shrug and a smile, but tonight he didn’t have the energy to put up a front.

‘We’re no longer together.’

‘I didn’t realise you had been in the first place.’

He knocked back the contents of his glass and signalled for another. ‘No, well, neither did I.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘It is.’

‘Are you in love with her?’

‘What makes you ask that?’

‘You couldn’t take your eyes off her at dinner last week. I honestly thought the room was going to go up in flames. Even Leo noticed.’

‘I’m crazy about her,’ he said, seeing little point in denying it when apparently it had been obvious to everyone but him.

‘Does she love you?’

‘So she says.’

‘Then what’s going on?’

He hadn’t a clue. He hadn’t a clue about anything any more. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘You love her. She loves you. There isn’t anyone else involved. What’s complicated about that?’

If only itwerethat simple. But Thalia didn’t fear having her heart ripped out and stamped all over.

‘How do you do it?’ he muttered, needing help like he’d never needed it before. ‘How do you all do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘Embrace the love. How do you get past the fear of it all going wrong and winding up in pieces?’

Thalia tilted her head in consideration for a moment. ‘I guess you just have to weigh up the alternatives and then decide if the risk is worth taking.’

And therein lay the problem. His decision-making ability was history. The risk seemed insurmountable. But whatwasthe alternative? A lifetime of misery and regret? Wanting Mia but not having her? Watching her gradually fall out of love with him and into it with someone else, as she inevitably would because she wasn’t afraid to go for what she wanted?

Was that any way to live? Was that really the future he could see for himself? On the outside looking in? Letting her go out of cowardice? No. Absolutely not. Many things required a leap into the unknown. Not all of them ended in disaster. And why would she rip his heart out? She loved him. Or at least she had, three days ago.

‘She told me she loved me and I walked out on her,’ he muttered, sick at the memory of doing such a thing.

‘Oh, dear.’

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