Page 97

“I will talk to you soon,” Zann echoed, just as softly, as Lydia’s fingertips fell from her face.

She wiped at her face as she stepped away from the car, and forced a smile as she lifted a hand to wave as the driver’s door slammed shut and the engine roared to life. She stood there like that until Lydia’s car rounded the corner and disappeared from sight, and then dropped to a deep squat with her hands over her eyes as the dam holding tears she’d been trying and failing to keep at bay broke and they coursed freely down her cheek.

Eight Months Later

“Okay, this is the last of it.”

Lydia brushed her hair out of her face as she looked up from the bookshelf she’d been organizing. She smiled as she watched Zann set a box onto the coffee table and flop dramatically onto the sofa in their new living room. “You okay?”

“No.” Zann shook her head. “Two moves in six months,” she grumbled, the barest hint of a smile tugging at her lips belying her aggrieved tone. “Please tell me I’m done with that for at least, like, a couple of years.”

Lydia laughed. For as much as she loved her old two-bedroom apartment in Tribeca, it’d been just too small for the two of them and the expanded home office setup that Zann needed now that she was working from New York, and after months of trying to make it work, they had agreed they needed something bigger.

Of course, Manhattan’s competitive real estate market and Zann’s filming schedule meant finding a new place to live wasn’t a quick process, but after months of looking, they had serendipitously stumbled upon this stunning condo on the Upper West Side after meeting her brother and his family for brunch on a random Sunday.

They both knew from the moment they walked into the empty, recently finished unit that they were home. It had the space they needed and then some, a city view she loved, and Zann had fallen in love with the large chef’s kitchen and three sets of floor-to-ceiling French doors that spanned the entire back wall of the living room and opened onto their private south-facing terrace. It wasn’t quite the same as at Zann’s old house in Southern California, but it was the closest she’d seen to it in Manhattan, and Lydia would have gladly paid twice the unit’s already exorbitant asking price to give it to her.

“We won’t have to move for at least a couple of years,” Lydia assured her.

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Lydia said as she climbed to her feet and went to join Zann on the couch. “I honestly don’t think we’ll ever outgrow this place.”

“Me neither,” Zann murmured as Lydia stretched out on top of her, a contented purr rumbling in her throat as she took her weight. She kissed Lydia’s forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you.” Lydia closed her eyes and sighed happily as Zann’s left hand slid up her spine and strong fingers began gently kneading her upper back. “Oh, and I really love that,” she groaned as she let herself go completely limp so Zann’s magical fingers could really dig into the knots in her shoulders. “God, that feels so good.”

Zann chuckled. “You’re not going to fall asleep on me, are you?”

“I might,” Lydia sassed, only half-joking. The last month been an interminably long. Between Zann being home only on the weekends as she flew back and forth to Los Angeles for post-production on her last project, finalizing the sale of her old apartment, closing on this place, organizing movers, and co-chairing TAG’s quarterly executive meetings with her father, she was so far beyond the point of exhaustion that it was a miracle she was still functioning.

Honestly, were it not for the unhealthy number of lattes her assistant brought her and the promise of a solid week off work so she and Zann could settle into their new apartment, she would have surely cracked ages ago.

She kissed the side of Zann’s throat. “You’re very comfortable.”

“You are, too,” Zann said, sliding her hand that wasn’t actively working the tension from Lydia’s traps down her back to grab her ass.

Lydia hummed and wiggled her ass against Zann’s hand. “That might keep me awake, though…”

“Yeah?” Zann asked, amused, as she gave the cheek a playful smack. “How awake?”

Lydia smiled and nipped at Zann’s jaw. She was fairly confident that she’d pass out the moment she climbed into bed, but the easy back and forth was fun and, well, maybe she could stay awake long enough for them to at least christen their new bedroom. “Depends on what you have in mind.”

“Holy shit, my eyes!” Jon shouted laughingly from the kitchen. “Zee, stop manhandling my sister!”

Lydia rolled her eyes. She loved that Zann and her brother had hit it off the moment they’d met, but she very much didn’t love the way Zann’s hand moved from her ass to her waist at his teasing. “Go away, Jon!”

“You misspelled thank you, dear brother, for helping us move all of our shit,” Jon drawled.

“The guys from the moving company moved all our shit,” Lydia shot back as she snuggled deeper into Zann’s embrace. “You just came over under the guise of helping so you could get out of going to that meeting in Dallas with Dad.”

“Absolutely,” Jon replied without shame as he dropped heavily onto the other sofa. “But I did just spend the last hour schlepping boxes down to the recycling, so…”

Lydia nodded. She did have to give him that much. “True. Thank you.”

“Why didn’t you want to go to Texas?” Zann asked Jon.

“Because Mark Berkhoff is a bassackwards, red hat asshole,” Jon grumbled.