No, he’d never been scared of committing to Grace. But he’d been petrified of not being good enough to deserve her. Even now she was gone, the idea of not living up to the man she’d believed he could be kept him awake some nights.
Sometimes, he wondered if it was only Grace’s belief in him, in what he could become, that kept him going after her death. That, and Zoey’s blind determination to drag him out of the pit he’d buried himself in the moment the doctor had told him the news.
But that was him. It was all so different for Zoey. For her, it was the commitment she was terrified of. The idea of forever with one person.
Not that she’d ever told him that. But Grace had tried to explain it to him once, back when they were blissfully happy in their extended honeymoon period, and Zoey had just run out on her latest fiancé.
‘It’s not that she doesn’t want to get married. She does, desperately, I think. It’s just that after so many years of watching her parents perform the perfect How Not to Be a Happy Couple show, she’s terrified of getting it wrong.’
That had been three fiancés ago and now, sitting in a tiny storeroom of a luxury hotel, watching Zoey eye up the too-small window as a viable escape route again, Ash had to admit that his wife had been right. As usual.
Hardly surprising, he supposed. Grace had known Zoey better than anyone in the world. Almost as well as she’d known him.
And now he and Zoey were all that was left, trying to muddle through together. She’d literally picked him up off the floor after Grace was pronounced dead following a frantic ambulance ride from the scene of a multi-car pileup that stole three other lives. In return, he tried to be the best friend he could to Zoey, to make up for the much better one that she’d lost that day.
Some days he was better at it than others. He hoped today was a good day. Zoey looked as if she needed it.
And she was still waiting for him to explain his fears.
‘It never occurred to me not to marry Grace.’ Ash stretched out his legs along the table, turning so he could see Zoey as he talked. ‘From the first moment I met her, she was my future. She was all I could think about.’
‘I remember,’ Zoey said, her voice dry. ‘You had to be reminded that you’d actually met me that night too, when you both finally came up for air a week or so later.’
Ash winced. His eighteen-year-old self might not have been entirely aware of other people’s feelings. But Zoey was smiling at the memory, so he figured he must have made up for it in the decade or so since then.
‘So, why were you scared?’ Zoey asked.
‘Because...everything was so perfect. Grace was so perfect. I was scared I’d screw it up. That I wouldn’t be enough.’
‘That I get.’ Zoey pulled her knees up against her chest, her bare toes with their sparkly aqua nails peeking out from under the hot pink dress. Ash spotted her high heels discarded by the door.
She looked about twelve, sitting like that. Ash felt the familiar protective instinct rising up in him. Ever since Grace died, it had just been him and Zoey, looking out for each other. His parents, as much as they loved him, were generally more concerned with Ash’s ability to perform his role in the family business than the state of his psyche, and Zoey’s parents were worse than useless.
Which meant it was up to him to fix the latest twist in Zoey’s romantic life.
Starting with figuring out which side of that window she really wanted to be on.
‘Is that what this is about?’ He scooted closer to sit beside her. The warm breeze from the open window brushed against the back of his neck. ‘You’re scared that you can’t be what David needs?’
If anything, Ash thought it was the other way around. Of all her fiancés, David was his...second least favourite. Not that he was keeping a list. Well, not a written one.
But then, he and Grace had never thought anyone was good enough for their Zoey.
Zoey pulled a face. ‘Not exactly. It’s more... I don’t think that our marriage will be what either of us are hoping for.’
‘But you didn’t feel that way when you said yes to his proposal. Or when you told me that David was different, and that you’d absolutely go through with it and I wasn’t to let you climb out of a window to escape getting married this time.’