“I’m alive,” was his offhand reply. “Everything’s great.”

His eyes were so cold, so shuttered. All she’d wanted was to have him back, but not like this.

Not when he suddenly seemed to be a shell of the man she’d thought he was.

The pain in her stomach grew bigger, but the need to have the real Zach Sullivan back—her Zach—was bigger. Big enough that she kept moving closer.

“I can’t imagine how it must have felt to be in that car, trying to get out while it burned. But you walked away from it.”

Whenever she’d gotten stuck in darkness, he’d always fought for her. He’d made her laugh, he’d held her when she cried, he’d taught her how to trust again, and to believe in love when she’d thought it wasn’t possible.

Now she needed to fight for him.

“Talk to me, Zach. Tell me what’s going on.” The word please was on her tongue when the doorbell rang.

She could barely stand to watch as Zach shoved all of the puppy’s things into a grocery bag, picked up Cuddles, and pushed both the bag and the puppy into his brother’s arms.

The little Yorkie whimpered as she looked from Gabe to Zach.

“You sure about this?” Gabe asked his brother.

“I agreed to keep her for two weeks. Time’s up.”

Gabe’s eyes moved from his brother to Heather. She could see worry in them, and disappointment.

The same disappointment that was choking her until she could hardly breathe around it.

“Summer told me you needed a dog because she thought you were lonely. She was so happy that you were going to keep her. She thought you wanted the puppy.”

Heather waited for Zach to soften at the mention of the little girl...or for him to at least acknowledge the way Cuddles was struggling to get from his brother’s arms into Zach’s.

“I don’t need a dog.”

He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t need to for Heather to hear what he was really saying.

I don’t need anyone else.

She wanted to be anywhere but there, with Gabe’s eyes taking in her devastation. But she was glad she’d stayed, glad she’d actually witnessed Zach doing what he was doing, because it was the only way she could ever have made her heart face the truth.

She didn’t realize Atlas had gotten up from his nap on his dog bed and moved to her side until she felt his big head nudge her hand. She put her hands on his neck and shoulders, letting his steady warmth give her the strength she so desperately needed.

Hadn’t she known the other shoe would drop at some point? That it had to because it always did?

But, oh, how she’d wanted to believe that it wouldn’t.

Just as badly as she’d wanted to believe in Zach.

He closed the door on his brother, walked back into the room, picked up the shoe Cuddles had been chewing on, and dropped it into the garbage can with a thud.

All the while the puppy’s cries could be heard as his brother put her in the car.

“I told you everything.” Her voice shook with emotion she couldn’t contain. “I loved you enough to tell you my secrets. To trust you with them.” And with her heart. Which was why she had to try one more time to see if he would be honest with her about what was hurting him. “I know something’s wrong, something to do with today’s crash.” She clenched her hands at her sides to keep from reaching for him, because if he pushed her away she would shatter into a thousand pieces on his kitchen floor. “Won’t you trust me, too?”

He went completely still and for a moment as she stared into his bleak eyes, she thought he might be about to tell her why he was acting so weird.

Only, when he finally spoke, it was just to say, “Trust me, it’s better this way. It was only a matter of time before something happened to her at the shop.” He paused. “Or before something happened to me. Like today, out at the racetrack. If I hadn’t been able to get out of the car, they would have taken her back anyway. Better if it happens now, before she gets any more attached to me.”

She blinked at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. “Wait a minute. Are you actually trying to convince me you got rid of the puppy for her own good?”

When he nodded, she shook her head in disbelief. “That’s crazy. Can’t you see how much she loves you? And that she doesn’t want to be with anyone else on the off chance that you’ll crash a race car one day?”

But with every word she spoke, she could see Zach shutting down more and more. To the point where it was like talking to the cement wall he’d driven into today.

Only this time, it was her heart going up in flames as he shut her out completely.

Heather had thought she’d found him; the one guy who could prove to her that they weren’t all the same. But she’d never know if she had or not, would she? Because he wouldn’t talk to her.

Just like her father, Zach made all the rules and she was expected to follow them.

This was why she’d been trying so hard to resist him, to argue away his love...and her own.

Atlas silently moved beside her as she found her bag and put her things into it. She walked into the bedroom to retrieve the extra clothes she’d started to leave at Zach’s house. The bed mocked her, told her what she hadn’t wanted to believe was true.

It had just been sex.

Friends with benefits...only, maybe they hadn’t even been friends when it came right down to it.

Zach’s eyes were dark as he watched her gather up her things, a muscle jumping in his jaw, right beneath one of the scratches she was so tempted to reach out and run a finger over. Just to be close to him one more time.

“You’re leaving?”

Before tonight, Zach would never have asked her if she was going. He simply wouldn’t have let her go, would have pulled whatever tricks out of his sleeve to convince her she was better off staying with him.

“I’ve got a big backlog of work at the office.”

Work had piled up due to all the time she’d been spending with Zach. It had seemed worth it at the time, the tradeoff between love and growing her business.

Worth it, that is, until the mirage of love disappeared like a puff of smoke.

“You’re that pissed off at me for giving the damn puppy back?” At last, she could see the veneer he’d tried to put around himself cracking. But it was too late. Especially when he said, “It wasn’t even my dog. I never asked for it. They just dumped it on me.”