HIGHER (The Indigo Lounge Series)

  HIGHER

  THE INDIGO LOUNGE SERIES #2

  BY

  ZARA COX

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  COMING SOON

  DEAR READER

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT AUTHOR

  Chapter One

  “You…you killed her?”

  Of the three emotional grenades Zach Savage had just thrown at her feet, this was the one that had wreaked the most devastation. Not that she wasn’t shattered by the other two…

  Farrah was my wife…

  We were married for a day…

  Bethany Green shook her head, unable to fathom how to begin to process those pieces of information the man to whom she’d confessed her love had just flattened her with. Her mind was locked on this last statement.

  Around her crickets chirped in the dark Moroccan night, uncaring that two people stood frozen in the middle of what should’ve been a sultry paradise, but was instead ground zero of epic proportions.

  Zach had paled alarmingly following his stark confession, his vibrant golden beauty turned into a taut, cold statue. He looked shell-shocked, as if his own revelation had stunned the hell out of him.

  She was equally stunned. Stunned that she wasn’t fleeing his presence as fast her legs could carry her. He’d just confessed to…to…

  “Say something!” The words were propelled from the depths of her ravaged soul, the consuming need for an answer greater than the fear that she could be in danger from Zachary Savage.

  He jerked out of his stasis. Grey eyes pierced through the darkness at her and he suddenly lunged for her.

  “No!” Bethany scuttled out of reach, narrowly missing the shallow pool to her left. Renewed fear slammed into her as she adjusted her position to avoid yet another looming threat.

  Zach checked himself and froze, looking from the water to her face.

  “Bethany, come here.”

  She looked from his tormented expression to the mound of stones behind her. The beautiful shrine he’d built to his dead wife.

  Oh God. Oh God. “Oh God.”

  “Bethany!” His voice was sharpening, his focus strengthening as determination and that iron control began to reassert itself.

  “Tell me what you meant.”

  His eyes darkened until she could only see black holes, fraught with chaotic despair. A breeze wove through the garden. They both shivered.

  “I can’t. It’s…Bethany, I can’t tell you anything more than I already have. I’ve already said too much…”

  The ice that had engulfed her soul hardened several degrees more. “You can’t? You brought me to the place where you’ve built a shrine to your dead wife and you can’t tell me how she died? How you killed her? Please, God, tell me you meant that metaphorically?”

  The words jerked out of her and dropped into the yawning space between them.

  Zach made a sound, like a wounded animal, before he twisted away from her and dragged his hand through his hair. “God, this whole thing is a fucking mess. I shouldn’t…you shouldn’t have…”

  “I shouldn’t have what? Watched you sleep? Been awake to hear you talking to another woman in your dreams?”

  He whirled back round. “That wasn’t what I meant,” he bit out.

  “Then tell me what the hell you meant!”

  “I shouldn’t have let you this deep under my skin. I shouldn’t have let myself crave you this desperately. And you shouldn’t have told me…”

  She took another shaky step back, her heart hammering hard enough to snap her rips in half. “I shouldn’t have told you what? That I loved you? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?” Her lips barely moved. Her fingers felt numb. The stone she’d half-forgotten she held, the one that formed part of Zach’s monument to his wife, fell from her nerveless fingers.

  Eyes, bleak but no less intense, stared back at her. Then his gaze dropped to the stone at her feet.

  Wordlessly, he picked it up, walked to the mound and placed it back where it belonged. The gentleness with which he did so shattered her heart smash a few more million pieces.

  He faced her. Opened his mouth. No words came out. He sucked in a heavy breath and his shoulders hunched.

  She could barely work her vocal cords to speak. “Message received.” She shook her head in derision. “And you’re right. We’ve known each other what, a handful of days? How could I possibly be in love with you? How could I possibly believe that I can’t imagine my life without you?” The words burned her throat so badly she was surprised she could swallow around the pain ricocheting through her heart.

  He made another rough sound. “Baby—”

  “Are you really a killer, Zach?” He flinched and a tiny part of her felt hope for that action; a foolish part of her that wanted something to hold on to in a world suddenly gone nuts.

  I should be running!

  But she couldn’t force her feet to move. All she could see when she looked at him was the man who’d made love to her like she was part of his soul; who’d taken the patience to help her overcome her fear of water.

  Then she looked at the stones, and a shiver coursed down her spine. The evidence of death was too hard to refute.

  She took a step back. “Don’t worry, Zach, you can hang on to your secrets. Stay here with your precious shrine and your sacred memories.” She started to walk down the centre marble walkway that divided the pools and realised she’d have to walk past him.

  His eyes narrowed on her as he saw her hesitance and her heartbeat tripled. She couldn’t risk him touching her for fear she would break into a million useless pieces.

  She stared down into the shallow pool and fought the rising panic. On top of everything else, she couldn’t deal with the terror that stemmed from her fear of water. Not right now.

  Holding her breath, she stepped into the water and felt it close over her ankle. Panic flared higher. Her legs started to turn to jelly and her arms flailed.

  Zach stepped toward her. She looked at him. At the man who’d been so gentle with her, who’d called her brave and worshipped her body over and over this past week.

  The man who’d just confessed to killing his wife.

  She darted sideways before he could touch her.

  Feeling solid tiles beneath her feet, she ventured another step. Then another.

  And then she was running.

  “Bethany!”

  She didn’t stop until she was in the bedroom. Grabbing her weekender, she shoved as much of her belongings as she could find into the bag.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  She f
roze as Zach entered the room and stalked to where she’d just slammed the bag shut.

  She licked her lips and sucked in a breath. Here in the well-lit bedroom, she couldn’t miss the fact that he was only wearing boxers. His sleek body gleamed under the golden lights, and even in the midst of despair, something inside flared to life.

  That, on top of having her life turned upside down it was just too much to bear.

  Hot, choking tears scoured her throat and pricked her eyes. Hands shaking, she tugged the button of her jeans and shoved her feet into her heeled wedges.

  “You can physically stop me from leaving if you want to. But I know you won’t. I know that because the only reason I’d stay is if you tell me what you meant. And we both know that’s not going to happen. Don’t we, Zach?”

  His eyes hardened. “Emotional blackmail doesn’t work with me.”

  “And secrets don’t work with me! You know what I went through with Chris.”

  He growled. “Do not compare me to that asshole.”

  Her fingers tightened around the handle of her bag. “Then prove you’re different from him!”

  Anger flamed through his eyes and his fists clenched. But he remained silent.

  Pain raked her insides raw. “That’s what I thought. Goodbye, Zach.”

  She yanked her bag off the bed and stalked past him.

  At the last moment, he grabbed her arms, lifted her clean off her feet and pressed her against the bedroom wall. His large body imprinted hers from head to toe, his large body bracketing hers, reminding her how powerful he was, how overwhelmingly male, even as his large hands gently cradled her face.

  A fierce, indomitable light burned in his eyes as he stared deep into hers.

  “You’re seriously deluded if you think that, baby. We’re not over. Not by a long shot.”

  Chapter Two

  New York, One Week Later

  “He killed her. He actually said that?”

  “Yes. He did.”

  “But…I don’t understand.” Keely looked at a loss, the way she had since Bethany had finally broken down and blurted out the scalding, condemning words screeching through her brain.

  Bethany’s fingers convulsed around the cushion in her hand. Consciously relaxing her fingers, she hugged the velvet square to her chest, blinked hard, and concentrated on just breathing. Her eyeballs were gritty and aching with the tears she’d shed over the last seven days. Her ass was numb from being permanently glued to the living room sofa, and her heart thudded every now and then - normally when her phone rang - with some mocking semblance of beating.

  All because of Zachary Savage.

  Keely made another incoherent sound of disbelief and shook her head. She started to speak but Bethany interrupted.

  “Well, he said, quote: ‘Farah was my wife. We were married for one day. Then I killed her.’”

  Keely flinched, then reached for the bottle of red she’d brought with her. “Jesus.” She poured and took a huge gulp. “I can’t believe you kept this to yourself for a fucking week before you told me.”

  “I didn’t…I couldn’t…” she heaved in a huge breath. “The way he was with me, Keel. No one’s ever taken care of me like that. I couldn’t cope with the fact that he could do anything like that…that he could…Oh God!”

  Keely patted her knee. “I’m sorry, baby girl,” she said softly.

  “Please don’t do that. It’ll make me cry and I sure as hell have no fucking tears left.” Even as she spoke, her eyes brimmed. “Shit. I hate myself for doing this. I feel so pathetic. So fucking weak. After what he said, I still want him. I can’t stop thinking about him.” She realized her whole body was trembling and she breathed in deep. The damn pain just grew larger. “God, how did I end up here?”

  “You took a chance.”

  “And it backfired horribly.”

  For once her friend didn’t have a quick come back. She just nodded and drank some more. But Bethany could see the questions in her eyes, the puzzlement in the slight shake of her head every now and then.

  Yeah, join the fucking club.

  Angrily, she brushed away the tears and reached for her glass of wine. With a defiant toss of her head, she drained the full glass and set it down to find Keely watching her, one perfectly plucked eyebrow cocked.

  “Umm…atta girl?”

  “Yeah. Go me.”

  “Bethany, maybe he didn’t mean it literally? Maybe—”

  “You weren’t there. You didn’t see the guilt on his face. The anguish. He looked as though his heart had been ripped out. He didn’t just blurt it out, he confessed it. Trust me, he meant it. And you know what that said about me? That I’d been sleeping with a man I had no clue about.”

  “But you don’t really think he did that, do you? Killed someone?”

  Bethany jumped up, her insides roiling with pain and heartache. “I don’t know! I’ve asked myself that same question a thousand times. And yes, I asked him. He told me he couldn’t talk about it!”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  Her heart did that thing it’d perfected over the last seven days every time she thought of Zach. It bungee-jumped from her chest into her stomach, set itself on fire and streaked about like a firework. “Because he was so damned ripped up about it? Because he loved her more than life itself and things went horribly wrong between them? I was merely the woman he was fucking six ways to Sunday at every opportunity who just happened to find out his dark secret at a weak moment.”

  She clawed her hand through her hair and barely felt the pain of her tingling scalp at the rough movement. “Bottom line is, I found out, it scared the hell out of him, and he clammed up. And I got the hell out of there.”

  “How did you leave Marrakech?”

  “He had his driver take me to the airport and his pilot flew me home.”

  “Okay, that kinda floors me a bit. But you trusted your instinct with him, B, or you would never have ditched the Indigo Lounge trip to go with him.”

  The reminder that had been both her pain and her hope through this hellish week, threatened to overwhelm her again. “I know. Which is why I can’t think straight! My gut tells me he’s incapable of…whatever he did, that there’s more to the confession. But my head…I can’t unhear the words.” She shuddered.

  Her phone buzzed loudly. They both jumped and stared at the number on the screen.

  “Looks like he not ready to give up either,” Keely murmured. “Should I turn it off?”

  Bethany swallowed, shrugged, and tried to keep breathing. More than anything she wanted to pick up that phone and hear his deep, dark, pulse-destroying voice again. Seven days had felt like a million lifetimes. She wanted to hear him call her Bethany in that husky, growly way of his that promised insanely decadent things. She wanted to see his gorgeous face, run her thumb over his lower lip the way he loved her to do. Hell, she wanted to climb into him and never come down.

  Too damn bad.

  She backed away from the ringing phone, her heart now making a slightly more valiant effort to do its job. “He’ll go away,” she replied shakily.

  “I hear wishful thinking but I also hear yearning and denial. Which is it, baby girl?” Keely eyed her, then eyed the phone as if she wanted to incinerate it with just her thoughts.

  “You didn’t come here expecting coherency from me. Jesus, am I not allowed some leeway to be confused out of my goddamned mind?”

  Contrition gentled Keely’s face. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  They both stopped as the phone cut off mid-ring. A second later, a text message beeped.

  Bethany’s knees gave way and she subsided back onto the sofa. Keely eyed her again and snatched the phone off the table.

  She read the message, then sucked in a deep breath.

  “What?” Bethany blurted, unable to stop her belly from flipping over.

  Silently, Keely handed the phone over.

  We need to talk. But until you’re ready I need to know that you’re okay
. I’ll respect your decision for me to stay away but only up to a point, Bethany. Avoiding my calls will not make me go away. I think we both know that.

  Jesus. Zachary Savage couldn’t help his arrogance even as he respected her decision. There was a mild threat to the text that promised punishment for her silence.

  Punishment. As in, retreating to nurse her completely shattered heart and reeling senses would only be tolerated up to a point.

  Sliding her finger across the interactive surface, she tapped her keypad.

  I’m not okay, Zach. I think we both know *that*. And I don’t see the point of talking when you won’t answer the questions that are creating the problems between us. Hell, is there even an *us*? Or was there always going to be me, blowing my stupid feelings out of proportions and you taking advantage of that?

  She pressed SEND and dropped the phone beside her.

  “More wine?” Keely asked.

  “Why not?” She held out her glass and took another big, fortifying gulp. Getting hammered was a stupid idea, especially after the first time she’d replied to Zach’s incessant attempts to contact her all week. The likelihood of her weakness and pain bleeding through was very high, but her own silence was eating away inside like acid.

  “Feel better?” Keely asked.

  “Not even a little bit. But keep it coming.”

  “What—” she stopped at the sound of another text message. “He’s fucking persistent. Gotta give him that.”

  Bethany made a sound between a snort and a sob. “You don’t know the half of it.” She picked up her phone and read the message.

  Her shaky sigh had Keely’s eyes narrowing. “What did he say?”

  “He’s calling in thirty seconds. He wants me to pick up. God.”

  “And are you going to?”

  Bethany typed No, pressed send and held up the phone to Keely.

  Her best friend slowly nodded her approval. “You know that’s bought you like one minute, of course. But hey, I’m happy to kick his ass for you?”

  Bethany attempted a smile. “Thanks, sweetie. I appreciate it.”

  The phone rang. They both ignored it. “Okay, let’s talk about your birthday,” Keely said brightly. “We could hit Shades, that new club downtown. I organised a premium tequila taster there last month for some bigwigs from Mexico. The owner was so impressed he put me on the permanent guest list. Or we can do karaoke? You missed a hell of a Fourth of July Karaoke Special at…Oh fuck, what did I say?” The touch of gentleness was fading from her eyes to be replaced by exasperation as tears welled up in Bethany’s eyes.