Zack (Blue-Collar Billionaires 4)

“I’m sure he left some stuff out but I won’t ask about it. And you are never, ever to tell me.”

“Got it,” she replies happily.

“But I’m happy for you. Both of you.”

She walks over and pulls me into a hug. Jamie watches us with a relieved expression on his face. I can tell that he was really worried about how I would act around Izzie. But I’m truly thrilled. She’s been like a sister to me for so long that in a way, he did what I couldn’t do. Brought us even closer.

I whisper to her, “Maybe one day we’ll be sisters for real.”

“Oh Josie, I would love that,” she whispers back.

She starts squealing in my ear and I have to laugh because her reaction is just so … Izzie. Wild, untamed and one hundred percent real. Family events are going to be way more entertaining now. The thought makes me smile.

“Just wait until he brings you home to our parents.”

Izzie groans. “We’re not that brave yet.”

I leave the lovebirds snuggling in the kitchen to go back upstairs. They look like they could use the time alone and honestly, my emotions are a little too raw for me to be around all that happiness. Right now, Zack is gathering his stuff from Gabe’s house and probably regretting ever getting involved with me. His relationship with his brother is on shaky ground and who knows if this will affect the business they own together. Being with me has torpedoed every major area of his life.

He probably wishes he’d left me to the Magic Mike auditions that day.

An hour later, Zack enters my room carrying a duffel bag over his shoulder and wheeling a rolling suitcase behind him. At least he’s not sporting a black eye or bruised knuckles so I know he wasn’t fighting.

“How did it go?”

He glances down at the suitcase. Stupid question, Josie. Things couldn’t have gone too well or he wouldn’t be bringing half his earthly belongings to my house. He reads the trepidation on my face because he taps me under the chin and says, “It will all blow over eventually.”

“That bad, huh? Well, you tried to warn me that this would happen.”

I take the duffel bag from him and place it on the foot of the bed. He rolls the suitcase into my walk-in closet. Then he stretches out on his side of the bed facing me. We rest there quietly just breathing together. His eyes meet mine.

“Do you regret it?” I ask quietly, hating how scared I am of his answer.

He takes my hand and pulls me closer. I snuggle right under his arm. I love being this close to him.

“Listen to me, sweetheart. When I was a little boy, I was hospitalized several times. I usually roomed with kids who didn’t have chronic diseases. Maybe they broke an arm or had their tonsils removed. The important thing to me was that they got to go home and be normal after their hospital stay.”

He pauses in the middle of his story and I glance up, surprised to find that he’s obviously getting emotional.

“I envied those kids. There were so many times when I wished we could change places. It made me feel ashamed when I thought about how Gabe or my moms would feel if they knew.”

“I’m sure they would have understood.”

Zack keeps everything so locked down that it’s easy to forget that he’s had a pretty rough road in the past. Between their financial difficulties growing up to the complications from his diabetes, a lesser person would have emerged bitter and sullen. Instead, he built a business and has been a rock for the rest of his family.

My admiration for him grows every day.

“I’m sure they would have,” he continues. “But I can’t deny I’ve felt that a few times even when I was an adult. How much easier would my life have been if I’d been born into a normal family or even an unconventional family with money?”

“But then we never would have met.”

His eyes shift over to mine. “You’re right. And that would have been a tragedy. When I saw that book of photos you have of me, that was the first time I felt like someone thought I was worth noticing. I saw myself through your eyes and I’m not broken or defective.”

“You’re perfect, Zack. Perfect for me.”

He kisses me and by the time he raises his head we’re both breathing hard.

“I could never regret you. You showed me I’m exactly who I’m meant to be and I’m loved exactly the way I am.”