Zach and Sabrina: Round 2 Page 10

  “I’ll be able to manage work around that. I had already blocked it so I wasn’t traveling and I can do meetings and work around riding and showing,” she let him know.

  “Perfect. What’s the plan for tonight?” he asked.

  She almost groaned. Her private parts needed a rest.

  He chuckled.

  “Able to cross your legs today?” he asked full of mischief.

  “Shut up,” she replied.

  That made him laugh outright.

  “How about this…I pick up the dogs at your house, grab the Chinese I wanted to grab on Monday and you head to my house after work. I’ll even grab some clothes for you while getting the dogs,” he offered.

  She debated the idea. She flashed for a second thinking about him going through her drawers and her private things, but laughed when she thought how he had moved right past that.

  “Zach, I’m really sore. I need a break tonight,” she confessed.

  “Ok, scouts honor. I’ll only treat you with tenderness and we won’t fool around.”

  That sounded like a trap, she thought.

  “We’ll go to bed early and I’ll behave,” he promised.

  It sounded really good, she thought.

  “See you at 8:00,” she said confirming.

  “Bye Sabrina. I love you,” Zach said with a smile.

  She smiled too. She had told him she loved him, but it was hard for her to say on the phone.

  “Bye Zach. Me too.”

  He smiled. She’s so predictable, he thought to himself with a smile.

  Chapter 35

  The rest of the week flew by with a similar pattern. They would join up at the barn, ride separately or do a lesson together, head to one of their houses, have dinner and enjoy the night together.

  Sabrina had run out at lunch on Thursday and found a dress that was stunning for the Gala. She found herself looking forward to it, not dreading it as she had originally.

  They got ready at her house. He was downstairs waiting for her when she walked down the stairs. She literally took his breath away. The emerald green fabric against her porcelain, alabaster skin in contrast to her flowing beautiful red hair made her stunning. A diamond pendant sat above the sweetheart neckline. Her diamond earrings sparked like her eyes did. She had a wrap that packaged those lovely shoulders and her lipstick made her lips even more kissable.

  “The Gala has been cancelled,” Zach said quickly.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Yes, I got a call and it’s been cancelled,” she caught his eye and could see the lie in it.”

  “Oh really?” she said smiling.

  “Ok, no, not really. But I’ll be damned if I let you out of this house looking like that,” he said with force.

  “What is wrong with how I look?” she asked confused.

  “No one should be able to see you like this. I should be the only who can see you as magnificent as you are. All the men in that room will be undressing you all night!”

  “Oh, Zach! Stop! Not everyone is a sex maniac like you are!” she said laughing.

  “Brine, I’m telling you. If you walk out of here looking like that, you’ve made my life hell. I’ll be fending people off all night.”

  “You are so sweet and loving. I really appreciate you making me feel good about myself. Let’s go,” she said.

  “Ok, I’ve warned you babe. You have no idea how amazing you are, but you’re about to find out,” he said shaking his head.

  He escorted her to the Ferrari and helped her slip in side. He ran his hand through his hair. He wasn’t kidding. He would punch anyone in the face who looked at her tonight inappropriately.

  He laughed. He was usually so calm and collected and actually took great pride when he had a beautiful woman on his arm that other people admired. He never experienced jealously like this and now that the beast was out, it wasn’t listening to anything other than the fact that his amazing woman was packaged to be devoured by only him. That included eyes devouring her.

  It’s going to be a long night, he thought.

  Chapter 36

  Sabrina thought the Gala was a blast. They sat with some of Zach’s friends and his sister and her boyfriend. Their table had lots of laughs. It was a little rocky to start when she arrived and there were reporters everywhere, flashing her picture, asking her questions.

  Zach posed for a few and then cut them off. He took her hand in his and made his way through the crowd. The crowd was lively and interested.

  At one point, she bumped into a couple she knew from her other social circles. She was never a fan of the wife. Linda was a jealous bitch to put it plainly.

  “So Sabrina, how is Troy?” the witch in front of her asked.

  She regarded Linda. She had to know they weren’t together.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said looking at her.

  “How would you not know? I thought you were engaged to Troy Duncan,” she said for others to hear. If his fiancée doesn’t know, who would? Actually, I’m surprised to see you here with Zach. Are you involved with the Foundation?” she asked nosily.

  Zach placed his arm on her to settle her.

  “Actually Linda, she’s here with me. As in, she’s with me,” Zach said firmly.

  Linda looked from Zach to Sabrina and raised her eyebrows.

  “Oh. My bad,” Linda said without concern.

  “Zach, would you get me a glass of wine? I’m going to the ladies room,” Sabrina directed.

  “Of course, sweetheart,” he replied.

  They parted and went in opposite direction.

  “Sweetheart?” Linda thought. Linda followed Sabrina to the bathroom. Sabrina was washing her hands when Linda walked in.

  Sabrina saw her out of the corner of her eye and chose not to acknowledge her.

  “My, my Sabrina. You are getting around. Am I to take this that you are no longer engaged to Troy?" Linda said.

  “Linda, what I do is not your business,” she said sternly.

  “Well, if I were you, I would hold off shutting the Troy relationship down fully. I love Zach and all, but he’s a player. You won’t be at the next social event. “

  “Linda, if I am not at the next social event it is because I’ve decided I don’t want to be surrounded by evil spewing, trash-mongers like yourself. Not because Zach and I are no longer together. Climb on your broom and go back to the hole you climbed of…”

  And with that, Sabrina pushed her to the side and left the bathroom.

  Zach found her easily as she was marching towards him. Oh boy, he thought as he saw her make her way to him.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Sabrina?” he asked.

  “Nothing. That piece of shit Linda cornered me in the bathroom and I needed to set her straight,” she said pissed.

  She turned when she heard him squeak because he was working so hard to hold back his laugh.

  “Stop it,” she said without really any anger.

  “No. You only get better. How did I get so lucky?” With that, he wrapped her in his arms and laid the biggest most dramatic kiss on her.

  “Zach, stop. You are doing this as advertising,” she said.

  “Listen, I’ve waited all night to kiss you. If at the same time let people know how beholden I am to you, then I can’t help that,” he reasoned.

  “Beholden? Who are you? Put your Renaissance man away and let’s dance.”

  “Of course, my lady,” he said with a bow.

  “Shit,” she said.

  After they danced, he introduced her to several more associates and a few times excused them from the conversations.

  After the third time, she asked him why he was doing that.

  “That guy is a snake. His money is important for the Foundation, but you are not here for his viewing pleasure. I didn’t like the way he looked at you or how he was trying to talk to you,” he explained.

  “Zach, you are being ridiculous.
He was just being polite. Is that why you pulled us out of those other two conversations?” she asked.

  He was silent as he looked at her with his steely eyes.

  “I thought you wanted to advertise me to all your friends here?” she teased but is eyes remained steely.

  At that moment, Zach was called to the podium to address the audience about the Foundation.

  As he spoke, she thought how proud she was to be here with him. One of the men who were in a group that she and Zach had been talking with sauntered up to her while Zach was speaking. He was too close, she thought at the time. There was something seedy about his eyes. He slid towards her and as he spoke he put his hand on her lower back. Because the dress was backless, it made her very uncomfortable. She smiled and stepped to the side. As he spoke to her, he followed suit.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot your name. I’m actually trying to listen to Zach, so if you wouldn’t mind….” and she stepped to the side again.

  “Oh, this speech is one you’ll hear at every charity event. There’s nothing special about it,” still moving towards her with his hand firmly in place.

  Sabrina wound up and was just about to lay into him when she heard….

  “And I would like to introduce you to one the greatest things to ever happen to me. You’ll be seeing Sabrina quite a lot. I plan on begging her to use her business expertise to help the Foundation grow in new ways. I’m going to ask Sabrina to come up here with me and that will give Dave Dults a chance to get his hands off of her before I break them… or by the look in her eye, before she breaks them…”

  The room went silent and looked towards the back. Dave and Zach locked eyes.

  “Sabrina?” Zach called again.

  She shot Dave a look. She was mortified. She was appalled at Dave, she was mortified that Zach introduced her to the whole room, confounded by his proclamation of her being around going forward and pissed that he virtually laid claim to her like a dog marking his territory.

  She stuffed all that down as she made her way to the podium.

  She walked by Linda’s table and cast a casual glance Linda’s way. The woman was shooting daggers out her eyes.

  Zach pulled her close and positioned the microphone in front of her.

  “I’m a believer in the work this Foundation is doing and I look forward to helping in any way I can. It will be a pleasure to put my efforts along side all of your hard work. Thanks.” She took a step back and Zach was beaming.

  He wished people a good night and encouraged them to continue to enjoy the food and dance.

  Chapter 37

  Zach and Sabrina made their way off the podium.

  Zach leaned into her ear and whispered, “You make me so proud to be with you.”

  She blushed. She wanted to be mad at him about his Neanderthal demonstration of ownership of her across a ballroom filled with people. But she just couldn’t muster it. She had been warned about people being rude. She had been about to be in a troubling situation and he addressed it.

  He also squashed any conversation about her not being around in the future. But she couldn’t let it go entirely.

  “Zach, you know you were out of line in how you handled that situation with David. You embarrassed me,” she told him.

  He stopped and pulled her to him.

  “Brine, I never meant to embarrass you. I saw red when I saw you trying to distance yourself from him and that scumbag continued to touch you. It made me crazy as I told you it would so I decided to squash it completely,” he explained.

  “I didn’t think that in the process I was embarrassing you.”

  “I can fight my own battles,” she insisted.

  “I know you can. Believe me, I’ve been in them. I know you can. But this battle was because of me and I didn’t want you to have to fight this one. And truthfully, it made me proud to pull you into the Foundation work for everyone to see. I know we talked broadly about it and that you wanted to get involved, so I’m sorry if that was a surprise too.”

  “The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that you handled yourself really well in this whole situation,” she conceded.

  He smiled that killer smile at her with a look of getting caught and she couldn’t stand it. He did it for the right reasons so she could forgive a little Neanderthal behavior.

  They made their way through the crowd, stopping to talk to big donors along the way. Zach had hit his limit of people’s interest in Sabrina.

  He whispered in her ear, “You ready for me to unwrap you from that Christmas packaging you are in?”

  “I’ve been waiting all night,” she said back.

  “Good,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter 38

  The next morning Zach and Sabrina were all over the society pages in the Boston newspapers. She tried to laugh it off, but she was annoyed at the press taking full advantage of the moment with David and exploiting it.

  She and Zach had slept in until six. He went downstairs to make coffee and had come up with the papers.

  At first, he tried to keep them away from her.

  “You don’t need to read this morning. Rest. You had a busy night last night. “

  “No, I’m up. Hand me the paper please,” she asked.

  “Ok, which one?” he asked trying to stall her.

  “I don’t care. Just make sure it is one with the business section and the social section.”

  He rolled his eyes and handed it to her.

  “What?” she inquired.

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  “What?” she asked again.

  “You aren’t going to like it,” he informed her.

  She looked down and saw that she was above the fold on the front page of the societal section. Her eyes grew larger as she read the trash that was included in the article. They called her Zach’s love interest. Cited that he seemed to be smitten. Referenced the Foundation created from the proceeds of his parents company. Referenced the airplane crash. Referred to her as the possibly current or former fiancée of Troy Duncan.

  “How incredibly invasive,” she exclaimed. “They don’t even have half of it right.”

  “What they do have is a beautiful picture of you and me, my dear. You do photograph well,” he said trying to diffuse her.

  She snorted at that and he laughed.

  “Brine, there’s nothing we can do about it so don’t sweat it,” he advised knowingly.

  “Easy for you to say. They go easy on you. They paint me as the possibly current fiancée and a mere puppet on your dating string,” she complained.

  “Stop! You are exaggerating,” he replied.

  Her cell phone rang.

  Who was calling so early on a Sunday morning?

  She looked at the screen and saw that it was Lillie.

  “Lillie?” she said when she answered the phone.

  “Oh, Sabrina. You’ve got to come. Troy’s been in an awful accident. He’s in the hospital and they aren’t sure that he’ll make it!” Lillie said with a sob.

  “Lillie, slow down. What happened?”

  “He saw the newspapers this morning and called me distraught. He was beside himself. I tried to calm him down. He was inconsolable. He hung up on me and thirty minutes later, I get a call from the police because I am listed in his wallet as the person to call if there was an emergency,” she explained.

  “He apparently took off in his car and wrapped it around a tree. They said he has internal bleeding, head trauma, a lacerated lung, and they just don’t know whether he’ll make it. He’s asking for you, Sabrina. The only thing he keeps saying is your name. You have to come!”

  “Ok, Lillie. What hospital?” She wrote down the information. “Ok, sweetie, I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  Sabrina dropped the phone on the bed, jumped out and ran to the shower. She took a two-minute shower and was out again in a towel, hunting around for clothes.

  “Brine? Brine?” Zach said. He had to say her name s
everal times to get her attention.

  “What?” she said distressed.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he asked severely.