Bittersweet (20 page)

“It
would fit in the big guest room, and it would suit that room a lot better than
this one. Why don’t you put it in there and get something new for this
bedroom?”

“Yeah,”
she agreed with a smile, starting to get excited about the prospect of picking
out whatever bedroom furniture she wanted for her new room. “That’s what I’ll
do. I’d love a big old-fashioned four-poster bed. Do you think that would be
over-the-top?”

“No.
It would be great in this room. I know a good antiques dealer. If you want, we
can go see him. If you tell him exactly what you want, he’ll find it for you.”

“Perfect.
Thanks!”

Adam
pulled out his smartphone. “I’ll call him now. Maybe we can see him this
afternoon.”

Zoe
watched fondly as he got on the phone to make things happen. Since it was a
Sunday, Adam was dressed casually in a gray trousers and a camp shirt, but he
applied the same focused determination to outfitting her new house that he did
to his business projects.

She
wasn’t at all surprised to learn that they had an appointment with Adam’s
antiques dealer in two hours.

Logan
had been running around the big empty room, climbing on the window seat and
trying to peer out the big windows. He’d been happily amusing himself, and
she’d been so focused on Adam’s phone conversation that she momentarily lost
sight of him.

When
she heard an unexpected sound from the master bathroom, she paused. She and Adam
stared at each other for a second, both trying to identify the sound.

“Logan,”
Adam called, striding into the bathroom, “you’re not turning on the water in
the bathtub, are you?”

The
boy would have had to climb up over the side of the bathtub in order to reach
the faucet.

Logan’s
delighted laugh told Zoe—even before she made it into the bathroom to see for
herself—that was exactly what her enterprising and surprising agile son had
done.

*
* *

A week later,
she had closed on both her loft apartment and her new home, and that Sunday the
movers came to move her and Logan into their new place.

Her
new bedroom furniture had arrived a few days earlier, and she’d moved some of
her clothes and personal items over herself. So, in the midst of the chaos of
the move, Zoe snuck into her new bedroom and had a private gush over how lovely
everything looked.

It
had been kind of hard to watch all of the furniture she and Josh had picked out
get moved out of their loft apartment. But there was too much to do to get
bogged down in depression, and Zoe was as excited about starting again in her
new home as she was sad at saying goodbye to her old one.

Knowing
that she needed to make sure the movers knew where to put everything, she gave
herself one more moment to gaze is satisfaction at her lovely new bedroom. Then
she went back downstairs to see how much progress the movers had made.

They’d
gotten most of the large furniture in place downstairs, and Zoe liked how her
favorite dark red sofa looked with the big leather chair in front of the
traditional fireplace in the living room. She’d bought a new area rug—a Turkish
rug in reds and browns—to tie the colors and modern lines together with the
traditional room.

Adam
stood in the middle of the floor, overseeing the progress. He looked hot with a
damp spot on the back of his brown shirt. Logan was hanging from his neck.
“That goes in the second room to the right upstairs,” he told the men who were
carrying in Zoe’s old bedroom furniture. “The headboard goes against the wall
across from the window.”

When
the men had passed, he walked over to the window to rearrange the side chairs
that had been placed there haphazardly. Logan squealed in excitement as Adam’s
motion bounced him around. “Un-Cla Lala hosey! Un-Cla Lala hosey!”

Adam
adjusted the small boy so that he was more secure on his back. “Uncle Adam is
not in the habit of being a horse,” he replied, evidently unaware that Zoe was
standing in the entryway to the room.

Logan
laughed, his face red and beaming.

But
before Zoe could eavesdrop on any more of that charming conversation, another
mover came into the house carrying a console table.

“Where
does this go, sir?” he asked Adam.

“Why
don’t you put it behind the red sofa for now?”

That
was exactly where Zoe would have put it. She was about to say as much when Adam
glanced back and saw her standing there. After a brief, surprised expression,
he gave her a rueful smile. “Is that where you want it?”

She
nodded, feeling an odd lump of emotion in her throat. “Thanks.” She cleared her
throat when her voice broke a little.

Adam
gave her a quick, penetrating look, but then was distracted by the entry of
more movers carrying her old round dining table, which would now go in the
kitchen.

Logan
got a ride into the kitchen as Adam followed the movers. But Zoe stayed where
she was, trying to figure out why she felt suddenly so emotional.

It
wasn’t the bitter grief of recognizing more and more how much Josh was gone, and
it wasn’t the pained confusion of not knowing how or when to move on.

It
was something else. Something like tenderness. Prompted by watching Adam do
something as simple as direct movers in her new home with her son clinging to
his neck.

Things
between them for the last three weeks had been remarkable easy. They’d
interacted as they normally did, with no obvious awkwardness or
self-consciousness. Zoe, of course, couldn’t forget what had happened between
them that night, and she certainly couldn’t deny how deeply she was attracted
to him.

Acting
on her desires that one time had made it impossible for her to repress her
feelings—and she spent far more time than she was comfortable with in bed at
night thinking about touching Adam, about Adam touching her.

But
it wasn’t lust that had swelled up inside her just now, although Adam looked
incredibly virile and masculine all hot and sweaty and focused. It was
something deeper. Fondness. Belonging.
Tenderness
.

It
seemed so impossible—almost ludicrous—that Adam Peterson would have become such
an essential part of her life in just a year. But he had. He was her family, and
she didn’t want anything to hurt him.

Not
even her.

When
he’d finally let himself go that night, when he’d finally kissed and caressed
her, he’d been so incredibly hungry. Needy.

Josh
had never been needy.

Josh
had loved her. Zoe had never doubted that. And he’d found comfort and solace in
her when he needed it. But, by nature and upbringing, Josh was fundamentally
self-contained. Nearly all of their fights had revolved around this issue—Zoe
pushing for him to be more emotionally vulnerable, and Josh insisting he was
sharing with her as much as he possibly could.

She’d
eventually believed him. He was a kind and passionate husband. He loved her and
Logan deeply and sincerely. But he wasn’t by nature sensitive.

Understanding
this truth about Josh hadn’t meant that she loved him any less.

Adam
was different. At heart, he was incredibly sensitive. He felt things very
deeply. And Zoe was starting to wonder if she had the power to hurt Adam in a
way Josh would never have let her hurt him.

So
it was hard for her to process what the hunger, the neediness in Adam that
night might mean. It was so foreign to her experiences, so different from any
way she’d ever been with Josh.

But,
for some reason, it thrilled her—the fact that, beneath Adam’s uber-competent
exterior, he might really need her so much.

That,
however, just made her feel guilty too, that she was excited about something in
Adam that she’d never had in Josh.

She
blinked when she realized Adam had returned to the living room and was giving
her a strange, questioning look.

“Everything
all right?” he asked, holding Logan against his side now.

She
nodded. “Yeah. Just kind of overwhelmed by all of this.” She waved her hand
around, hoping he would understand her words as referring to the move rather
than their relationship.

“Well,”
he said with a half a smile, “It’s a big thing. It
should
be
overwhelming.”

Something
in his eyes made her wonder if he meant the move or if he realized what she was
really talking about.

“Mommy!”
Logan exclaimed, his face breaking out in a smile at the sight of her. He
reached his arms out in her direction.

She
walked over to pull her son into a hug. Then, acting on impulse, she stretched
up to kiss Adam on the cheek.

His
brows drew together. “What was that for?”

She
smiled up at him, that same tenderness swelling up in her chest again. It
simply wouldn't be denied. “That was for you.”

Zoe stared down
at the bottom line of the spreadsheet that Michael Murray had been going over
with her. “Wow,” she breathed. “Looks like it’s been a really good quarter.”

Michael
nodded with the sober smile that characterized the man. “Yes. We’ve done really
well.”

Zoe
met with Michael once a month to go over business details connected to Byte
Tech. She certainly would have trusted Adam to update her on the monthly
report, but Adam insisted from the beginning that Michael do it instead.

At
first, Zoe had thought Adam simply wanted an onerous duty off his plate. Now
she knew better. She suspected Adam had originally thought that Zoe would be
more comfortable with Michael and that she would trust him more to give her a true
picture.

“So
it’s been a year,” Zoe said, looking at the kind face of the man who had been Josh’s
best friend. “You think the way we’re handling things is working out pretty
well so far?”

“Absolutely.
I can’t imagine things going better.”

“And
you’re happy working with Adam? It’s working out for you and the rest of the
staff?”

“Yes.
No worries there. I was a little worried at first, since I thought he’d be a
micromanager. But he’s not at all. He trusts the team to do our jobs and gives
us what we need. In fact, he’s remarkable. I’ve never known anyone with better
instincts. A couple of times, I doubted his recommendations, but I ended up
being dead wrong.”

Zoe
smiled, irrationally pleased to hear Michael’s praise of Adam. “Somehow, it
doesn’t surprise me that those kinds of instincts would be second nature to
him.”

“That’s
a good way to put it. With everything else he has on his plate, he can only
give us a few hours of his time a week. But, with only that investment of time,
he’s not only managed to sustain the company, he’s actually helped us grow. You
can see the evidence in the bottom line there.” Michael, normally a reserved
man, must really be impressed by Adam to express such verbose enthusiasm.

Zoe
looked back down at the spreadsheet and shook her head faintly. “Yeah. I guess
he can do in a few hours a week what, for Josh, was a full-time job.”

She’d
spoken her thoughts without any bitterness or reproach. Just a simple statement
of fact. But when she saw Michael’s expression, she immediately regretted her
words.

“I
didn’t mean to imply that Josh wasn't as good,” Michael said in a rush, guilt
twisting on his face. “I never would have said such a thing. He built this
company out of nothing. You know how much I loved and respected him.”

“I
know,” Zoe assured him. “I know you weren’t implying Josh was lacking in any
way. I loved and respected Josh too, and I was totally blown away by the
success he made of this company. But Adam is just brilliant. There’s no way
around that. And it doesn’t mean that Josh wasn't good enough. I’m not
brilliant. You’re not brilliant. There’s nothing wrong with that. Josh wasn’t
brilliant either.” With another sigh, she smiled at Michael, only slightly
bittersweet. “But he was wonderful anyway.”

Michael
smiled back at her. “Yeah. He was.”

They
held the moment for a length of time, and Zoe suddenly realized that—although
they were sharing a deep affection for Josh—neither one of them was close to
tears.

She
wondered when it had happened that she could think about Josh, appreciate Josh,
love Josh…without always crying over his loss.

She
was distracted from the idea when Michael said, “Anyway, things have worked
very well with Adam’s leadership for the last year, and I have no reason to
expect them not to work in the future.”

“Great.
We’ll just carry on with things as they are then.” After a pause, she voiced
the question that was on her mind, given the direction of their conversation.
“I wonder why Josh didn’t want to bring Adam in when he started this company.
It seems like it would have been a good idea.”

“I
think so too,” Michael agreed.

“I
always assumed he didn’t trust Adam, although now I’m not exactly sure why.”