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‘I agree that we need to do a paternity test,’ she said when he made no reply. ‘But why can’t we do it here in England? I don’t want to go anywhere with you.’
‘Tough.’ Zac checked Aimee was secure and then opened the driver’s door and slid into the car. ‘I have an urgent meeting with the Deverell board tomorrow at the Monaco office and so it’s more convenient for me to have it done in my private clinic at home. Get in the car,’ he snapped testily when she continued to stand outside in the rain. ‘I’ve chartered a private jet and my pilot can’t wait all day.’
Freya glowered at him as she climbed reluctantly into the passenger seat. Her heart was thumping painfully in her chest and she wished she had the nerve to snatch Aimee and run. The torrential rain, her injured wrist and the bitter knowledge that he could effortlessly outmatch her in speed and strength made her stay put, but she edged as far away as possible from him once inside the car and stared pointedly out of the window.
‘You’ll have to give me directions to your flat,’ he said when he turned out of the hospital gates. ‘Aimee’s pushchair and a bag of her clothes are in the boot, courtesy of your grandmother,’ he added, his voice simmering with barely concealed anger. ‘You can have twenty minutes to pack, but I intend to leave within the next hour.’
Freya leaned back and closed her eyes wearily, overwhelmed by his determination. When Zac wanted his own way he invariably got it—but unless he intended to kidnap her and Aimee, he couldn’t make them get on his plane.
She was acutely conscious of him sitting beside her and when she peeped at him from beneath her lashes, the sight of his strong, tanned hands on the wheel made her feel weaker than ever. Once those hands had skimmed every inch of her body and explored her so intimately that the memory made her blush. He smelled of rain and damp leather, and the subtle scent of the cologne he favoured was achingly familiar, tantalising her senses and forcing her to remember the mind-blowing passion they had once shared.
It was over, she reminded herself angrily as she tore her gaze from his stern profile. He had tried and convicted her before she’d even understood the crime she was supposed to have committed. In a strange way his revelation about his vasectomy was almost a relief. His savage anger and rejection two years ago had destroyed her, but now at least she could understand why he had been so ready to believe that she’d been having an affair with Simon.
The fact that he had never mentioned his vasectomy when she’d lived with him emphasised how little she’d meant to him. The question of children had never arisen because she’d been Zac’s mistress and he hadn’t wanted a permanent relationship with her.
But the operation must have reversed. She didn’t know much about the procedure but presumably it hadn’t worked properly because Aimee was undoubtedly his daughter, she thought on a wave of near hysteria. What other explanation could there be?
After Aimee was born she had briefly considered asking Zac for a DNA test, but had decided against it. His reaction to her pregnancy had shown that he abhorred the idea of fatherhood and she had feared he would only take a reluctant role in his daughter’s upbringing.
At eighteen months old, Aimee was a happy, loving child whose confidence was built on the instinctive knowledge that she was loved unconditionally. She would not allow Zac to destroy that confidence, Freya thought fiercely, and she would do everything in her power to ensure that her child grew up with a sense of self-worth that she herself had been denied.
But now Zac had his own reasons for insisting on a paternity test. He was convinced that the results would absolve him of any responsibility for Aimee and she feared his reaction when he was finally forced to accept the truth.
After fifteen minutes, during which Zac barely contained his frustration as they crawled through the traffic, he pulled up outside the house where Freya occupied the top-floor flat and frowned at the peeling paintwork and general air of decay. ‘You live here? Mon Dieu, I assume it’s in better condition inside.’
‘Don’t bank on it,’ she muttered, feeling a peculiar pain around her heart as she watched Aimee raise her arms for Zac to lift her out of her seat. The little girl was usually shy with strangers. Did she feel a subconscious bond with her father? Freya wondered as she led the way up the front path. Once inside she preceded him up the stairs, aware that his silence was growing more ominous by the minute.
‘How were you planning to carry Aimee up and down four flights of stairs with your injured wrist?’ he enquired when they finally reached her front door. ‘What would you do if there was a fire? You’d never be able to evacuate quickly.’
‘I’d manage somehow, just as I always have,’ she replied stiffly, hovering in the narrow hallway in a vain attempt to block his way. She didn’t want him here, intruding on her life, but he ignored her and stepped past her into the cramped bedsit.
The flat was a mess—it seemed a lifetime ago that she had flown out of the door to drop Aimee at the nursery and continue on to work. Yesterday’s breakfast dishes were still piled up in the sink and the clothes-rack was festooned with a selection of her underwear. Zac was glancing around the room with a faint air of disbelief and she wished he would go away. She hated him seeing how she lived. ‘It’s not ideal, I admit,’ she mumbled, ‘but it’s all I can afford.’
‘I can’t believe you’re bringing a child up here,’ Zac said grimly, genuinely shocked by the squalid flat. Freya had obviously done her best to make the place feel homely with brightly coloured cushions scattered on the sofa and Aimee’s collection of teddies arranged on the dresser. But nothing could disguise the musty smell of damp plaster, and the bucket strategically placed to catch the rain leaking through the ceiling provided stark evidence that the old house was in a bad state of repair.
Her living conditions were none of his business, he reminded himself as he set Aimee down and she trotted over to her toy box. But now at least he could understand why she was so adamant that he was Aimee’s father—perhaps she had genuinely deluded herself into believing it in the hope that he would provide for her child?
Freya shrugged listlessly. ‘My living conditions have never bothered you before, Zac. Why the sudden concern?’ she asked coolly. She shrugged out of her wet jacket and belatedly remembered that she’d been unable to put on her bra when she had struggled into her clothes at the hospital. Zac’s eyes moved over her and to her horror she felt her breasts tighten.
The atmosphere in her tiny flat changed imperceptibly and she was aware of his sudden tension as she hastily folded her arms across her chest to hide the prominent peaks of her nipples. Now was not a good time to remember the connection they had once shared. She tore her gaze from the sensual curve of his mouth and tried to banish the memory of how it had felt when he had crushed her lips beneath his own.
‘I meant what I said earlier—I’m not coming to Monaco with you,’ she told him firmly, feeling more confident on her home territory. ‘You can’t make me, unless you intend to bind and gag me and bundle me onto your plane,’ she added when he said nothing and simply stared at her as if he could read the thoughts whirling around in her head.
He seemed to dominate the small room and she swallowed when he strolled towards her. ‘It’s tempting,’ he drawled, his blue eyes glinting dangerously. ‘Don’t goad me, chérie, or I might think you are trying to anger me on purpose.’
‘Why would I do that?’ Freya demanded, despising herself for the way her nerve endings sprang into urgent life at his closeness.
‘We always had the most amazing sex after an argument,’ he replied silkily, the sudden flare of amusement in his eyes warning her that he was aware of the effect he had on her. Freya blushed furiously and itched to slap him.
‘I don’t remember sex between us being anything more than mediocre,’ she lied. ‘Perhaps you’re thinking of one of your other lovers Zac. You’ve had plenty, after all.’
She almost jumped out of her skin when his hand suddenly shot out and he caught hold of her chin, tilting her head so that she had no option but to meet his gaze. ‘Nothing about our relationship in the bedroom was mediocre, chérie, and if we had more time I’d be tempted to prove that fact.’ The flare of heat in his eyes scorched her skin and she focused helplessly on his mouth, her tongue darting out to trace the curve of her bottom lip in an unconscious invitation. The atmosphere was electric, she could almost feel the sparks shooting between them, but then he abruptly released her and moved away, his expression unfathomable.
‘Be thankful that I am in a hurry to get back for a dinner date tonight,’ he growled as he scooped her underwear from the clothes rack and dumped the pile of pretty lace knickers in her hands. ‘And hurry up and pack or you’ll find yourself travelling to Monaco sans your lingerie.’
Freya glared at him, her jaw aching with the effort of holding back her furious retort. He was so smug, and, as usual, so in control of the situation, nothing ever dented his supreme self-confidence. She hated him for every foul accusation he’d flung at her, every scathing insult that she was an unfaithful, gold-digging tramp. But even though he was looking at her as if she were something unpleasant that had crawled from beneath a stone, she could not deny the inexorable tug of desire that coiled low in her stomach.
It was devastating to realise that, despite everything he had done to her, she still wanted him. Where was her pride? she asked herself. Zac had used her body for sex and abused her fragile heart with his cruelty and contempt. But seeing him again had opened up the feelings she had tried so hard to suppress since he had ruthlessly dismissed her from his life.
She had never got over him, she acknowledged dismally. He had been the love of her life, but the molten heat surging through her veins was caused by lust, not love, she assured herself frantically. She’d learned the hard way never to waste her emotions on him because he had certainly never loved her and he never would.
The last thing she wanted to do was go to Monaco with him, but what choice did she have? she brooded as her gaze fell on her little daughter. As usual, Zac was right; she was never going to manage the stairs with Aimee and the pushchair while her wrist was so painful, and she had lain awake for most of the previous night worrying about how she would cope.
Her heart jolted in her chest as she accepted the unpalatable truth that she would have to go with him for now. She had no idea how long it would take for Zac to arrange a paternity test and await the results but it couldn’t be more than a week or two, she consoled herself. And by then her wrist would be stronger and she would be able to return home.
She would go to Monaco, but this time she would be on her guard and would not give in to the undeniable sexual attraction that still smouldered between them, she vowed fiercely. She was no longer a naïve girl, she was an independent woman, and she would not be tempted by the sizzling sexual promise in Zac’s bold gaze.
The bright lights of Monaco blazed against a backdrop of black velvet. As the helicopter swooped low over the coastline Zac glanced over his shoulder. Aimee was fast asleep, sitting next to the nanny he had hired. ‘We’re almost there,’ he murmured reassuringly to the uniformed woman. ‘May I say how grateful I am that you were able to join us at such short notice, Mrs Lewis.’
Jean Lewis smiled. ‘I’m glad to help. With any luck I’ll be able to put Aimee straight to bed without waking her. She’s worn out, poor poppet.’
With a brief nod, Zac turned back and glanced at Freya who was sitting stiffly beside him, the mutinous tilt of her chin causing him to curse irritably beneath his breath. If anyone had told him when he’d set out for Deverell’s London offices that he would return to Monaco with his ex-mistress and her child in tow, he would have laughed out loud, he thought with a humourless smile.
His eyes trailed over her and he felt his body’s involuntary reaction to the sight of her small breasts outlined beneath her blouse. Once again Freya had turned his life upside down. After their bitter parting two years ago, he had neither wanted nor expected to see her again, but, even knowing what she had done, he was finding it impossible to ignore her.
Freya felt Zac’s eyes on her and stiffened when he shifted slightly in his seat so that his thigh brushed against hers. When they had left England aboard the private jet, he had sat at the front of the plane, his attention focused exclusively on his laptop. It had suited her fine—she had nothing to say to him that wouldn’t blister his ears anyway—but when they’d arrived in Nice and boarded his helicopter for the short journey to Monaco, her heart had sunk when he had sat down next to her.
She had tried her best to ignore him but unfortunately her senses refused to fall into line and she was agonisingly aware of his closeness. The subtle tang of his cologne was tantalisingly familiar, causing her nerve endings to prickle.
She did not want to feel like this, she thought angrily as she edged away from him. It was humiliating to realise that he could still affect her so strongly, despite everything he had done to her. But it had always been the same; she had never been able to resist him and unfortunately just about every other woman on the planet shared her fascination.
The months she had spent with him had been the happiest but also the most nerve-racking of her life and her ever-present fear that he would tire of her had added to her deep insecurity.
Zac was one of Monaco’s most eligible bachelors and at the many parties they had attended he had always been the centre of attention. Women had flocked around him and made their interest clear with a bold smile or knowing glance loaded with sensual invitation. He had responded to their blatant flirting with one of his cool, faintly sardonic smiles, and she’d felt reassured. But Annalise Dubois had been different.
The stunning glamour model had pursued Zac with relentless determination and had shamelessly flaunted her spectacular figure in clingy silks and satins that made the most of her eye-catching cleavage.
Beside her, Freya had felt pale and insipid and she hadn’t been able to help but notice the way Zac’s eyes had lingered appreciatively on the Frenchwoman’s curves. Jealousy had been a green-eyed monster that festered in her soul, making her edgy and paranoid. She’d hated to be apart from him and had questioned his every move—every late night at the office or business trip that had taken him away for days at a time.
She’d known that her behaviour had angered him, but as he’d grown increasingly distant from her, so her terror had increased that he had been tiring of her. The only time she had felt secure was when they had been in bed. There at least his passion for her had shown no sign of diminishing, but he had shut her out of every other aspect of his life and she’d felt as though her only role had been to provide convenient sex on demand.
Choking back a cry, she dragged her mind from the past. She had spent the past two years determinedly trying to forget the life she’d shared with Zac and she must be mad to have agreed to return to Monaco with him.
‘Do you still live at the penthouse?’ she asked stiffly, seizing on the faint hope that he had moved from the elegant, marble-floored apartment where she had once kidded herself that he might fall in love with her.
‘Oui. The location suits me and I enjoy the view over the harbour,’ he replied coolly.
Freya recalled the spectacular view from the penthouse over Monaco’s busy port and the vast stretch of the Mediterranean beyond. ‘Do you still keep The Isis moored there?’
Zac nodded. ‘Unfortunately I don’t get to spend as much time on her as I’d like. Deverell’s is expanding and we’re opening several outlets around the world, including the new store in Mayfair. If your grandmother had picked any other day, I would not have been in London,’ he added tersely.
His frown told her that he was cursing his bad luck to have been in London on the same day that Joyce Addison had arrived with Aimee, but Freya shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been there.
‘I’m glad Nana Joyce found you,’ she admitted quietly, forgetting for a moment that they were enemies. ‘I don’t know what would have happened to Aimee otherwise.’
‘Your grandmother would have cared for her, surely?’
Freya’s face twisted. ‘I don’t know. When she found out that I was going to be an unmarried mother, she was adamant that she would have nothing to do with me or my baby. She bitterly resented having to bring me up and when I was a child I lived with foster parents for a while,’ she confided dully. ‘My mother had married and was moving to South Africa and my grandmother assumed she would take me with her. They had a furious argument when it turned out that I wasn’t included in Sadie’s new life.’
Zac’s mouth tightened and he was aware of a faint tug of compassion. No wonder Freya’s self-esteem was nonexistent when she had been so cruelly rejected by her own mother. ‘Is that when you were put into care?’
Freya nodded. ‘I think my grandmother believed that once social services were involved, Sadie would finally take responsibility for me—but instead she flew out to Durban without even saying goodbye.’ Now that she was a mother herself she found it impossible to understand how her own mother had been able to abandon her so easily. It was obvious that Sadie had never loved her, she acknowledged bleakly, but even after all this time, it still hurt.
‘After about six months I went back to live with my grandmother…but I was always afraid that she would send me away again and I tried my hardest not to annoy her.’ She thought of the years she’d spent skirting around her grandmother like a timid mouse, desperate not to bring attention to herself and pathetically grateful that Nana Joyce allowed her to live with her. It had been a dismal childhood and she was determined that her daughter would never feel so worthless or unloved.
She jerked her head round and stared at Zac. ‘I love Aimee more than anything and I won’t allow anyone to hurt her. I agree we should do a paternity test—it’s time to set the record straight. I just hope you’re prepared for the result.’
The fierceness of her tone shook Zac more than he cared to admit, but he immediately dismissed his doubts. She was bluffing, he reassured himself; or else her desperate financial situation had deluded her into believing he was Aimee’s father. Either way, he was not going to be drawn into believing her lies.
‘I’m prepared for the test results to confirm that you’re a common tramp,’ he said aggressively. ‘Finally you’ll have to accept the truth and move on with your life, as I intend to move on with mine.’ And ignoring her furious gasp, he turned his head and stared into the dark for the remainder of the flight.
CHAPTER THREE
TEN minutes later the helicopter landed on the roof of the penthouse and Zac lifted Aimee into his arms and preceded Jean Lewis down the steps. ‘Laurent, were you able to carry out my instructions?’ he greeted his butler.
‘Everything is as you asked, sir,’ the butler replied in his usual unflappable manner. ‘The nursery suppliers delivered a cot and other necessary furnishings and equipment, and the dressing room adjoining the fourth bedroom has been prepared for the child’s nanny.’ If Laurent was surprised by the request to prepare a room for a baby, his tone gave nothing away and his facial expression remained as bland as ever.
‘Bon,’ Zac murmured as he transferred the sleeping child back into the nanny’s arms. ‘Please escort Madame Lewis to the nursery and ensure she has everything she requires.’
He swung round and walked back to the helicopter just as Freya reached the bottom step. She looked pale and tired and was clearly in pain but she glared at him when he reached her side.
‘There was no need for you to hire a nanny. I can look after Aimee perfectly well.’
‘How exactly when you only have the use of one arm?’ he asked impatiently. ‘Jean Lewis has excellent references and she’ll take good care of Aimee.’
‘Where has she taken her?’ Freya demanded. Her whole arm was throbbing and she felt light-headed with pain but she refused to admit it to Zac—any more than she would admit to feeling jealous that Aimee had settled so happily with Jean Lewis. Her steps slowed and a feeling of panic swept over her as she followed him into the penthouse. She didn’t want to be here and she didn’t want to remember the past, but memories were bombarding her.
Zac travelled by helicopter as routinely as most people used a car and had regularly swept her off to parties and other glittering social functions outside Monaco, often flying along the coast to Cannes or St Tropez. The parties had always been wonderful, glamorous affairs, but Freya had only had eyes for him and even in a crowded room his slumberous stare had tormented her with the unspoken promise of sensual nirvana to follow. The hours until they could make their excuses and leave had been a slow torture and her anticipation had always been at fever pitch by the time they had climbed back on board the helicopter for the return flight.
There had been something incredibly magical about swooping low over the sea and the towering apartment blocks that lined Monaco’s crowded coastline, knowing that in a few short minutes they would be home. The sensual gleam beneath Zac’s heavy lids would stoke her excitement and as soon as the rotors came to a halt he would scoop her into his arms and race into the penthouse, stripping her with brisk efficiency along the way.
Sometimes they hadn’t even made it to the master bedroom, she remembered as heat suffused her body. In his urgency to make love to her he had deposited her on one of the sitting room sofas, and the feel of the cool leather against her skin had added a new dimension to her pleasure when he had pushed her thighs apart and entered her with one powerful thrust. Their hunger for each other had been insatiable, a wild, primitive passion that had known no bounds as he had dispensed with her inhibitions and made love to her with an inventiveness that still brought a tide of colour to her cheeks.
Heart pounding, she forced her mind back to the present and stumbled along the hall after him. Oh, God, what was she thinking? And why had her libido chosen now to make a comeback when she had spent the last two years living like a nun?
Zac opened the door of the guest bedroom and ushered Freya inside. ‘Jean has taken Aimee to the nursery,’ he explained, his eyes narrowing speculatively on her hot face.
‘Nursery?’ Her eyebrows shot up as she frantically dragged her mind from her erotic fantasies and forced herself to concentrate on his words. She remembered Zac’s chic, minimalist apartment as a confirmed bachelor pad—when on earth had he installed a nursery?
‘I instructed my staff to prepare a room for Aimee since you will both be staying here for the time being. I hope it will be suitable,’ he added coldly.
‘I’m sure it’ll be more suitable than a damp bedsit. I hope you haven’t gone to too much bother, Zac—Aimee and I won’t be here long,’ Freya muttered, unable to disguise the sudden bitterness in her voice as she remembered how she had struggled to afford even the most basic baby equipment. With a click of his fingers Zac could provide everything Aimee needed—it was a pity he was two years too late.
His mouth tightened but he simply said, ‘Laurent will serve supper in your room and then I suggest you take your painkillers and go to bed. You look like death.’
Terrific, she really needed reminding that she looked a mess, Freya thought grimly, especially when he looked so gorgeous. He had removed his leather jacket and she could not help but notice the way his black sweater moulded his muscular chest. He was lean, dark and so beautiful that it hurt her to look at him, she acknowledged as desire swept through her. Zac possessed a raw sexual magnetism, and, although her mind urged caution, her body was responding to him with a reckless disregard for her emotional safety.
She was trembling; not as a result of the cool night air, she realised shamefully, but with an almost desperate longing to slide her fingers beneath his fine-knit sweater and run her hands over his olive-gold skin to feel the faint abrasion of the wiry hairs that covered his chest. The images from the past were stubbornly refusing to disappear and she felt thoroughly hot and bothered as sexual frustration spiralled in the pit of her stomach. Swallowing hard, she tore her eyes from him and stared at the carpet. ‘I forgot my toothbrush. You didn’t give me enough time to pack properly.’
‘All the toiletries you could possibly need are in your bathroom,’ Zac informed her, ‘and the clothes you left behind two years ago are still in the wardrobe.’
‘Really?’ The surprising statement brought her head up. ‘I thought you would have wasted no time getting rid of them,’ she mumbled, remembering how humiliated she had felt when he’d hustled her out of the apartment. Her face burned at the memory but he merely shrugged disinterestedly.
‘I didn’t keep them because I was anticipating ever taking you back, chérie, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he drawled laconically. ‘I’d forgotten they were there, until the maid found them in the back of the cupboard when she was preparing your room.’ He glanced at his watch and strode towards the door. ‘I’m going out for the evening. Can you manage to get undressed, or do you need me to help you?’
Freya flashed him a look that told him she’d rather accept help from a self-confessed axe murderer. ‘I’ll be fine, thanks,’ she replied in a cool voice that masked the sharp pang of dismay she felt as she wondered whom he was meeting for his dinner date. Undoubtedly the woman would be stunning and sophisticated—his current mistress? Or someone picked from his little black book? she mused sourly as she fought her irrational surge of jealousy. It was no business of hers whom he dated, she reminded herself, but the devil in her head was determined to have the last word. ‘Oh, and, Zac,’ she murmured as he strolled towards the door, ‘I’m glad you hadn’t planned on resuming our relationship because I wouldn’t come back to you if you paid me a million pounds.’
His eyes narrowed on her angry face and then dropped lower, to the frantic rise and fall of her breasts. ‘You’re here now,’ he reminded her silkily.
‘Only because you forced me to come—I don’t want to be here.’
‘Non, chérie, I can see that.’ The mockery in his voice taunted her long after he had stepped into the hall and closed her door, and with a yelp of impotent fury Freya spun round and stared at her reflection in the full length mirror. No wonder Zac had looked so smug, she thought dismally as she stared at her flushed face. Her pupils had dilated to the size of saucers and her lips were parted, practically begging for him to kiss her, while the hard peaks of her nipples pushing provocatively against her blouse were shameful evidence that he turned her on. Her body had turned traitor from the moment Zac had arrived at the hospital, and to make her humiliation complete it was clear that he was well aware of the effect he had on her.
Uttering a furious oath at her stupidity, she went to check on Aimee, who was sleeping soundly in one of the guest bedrooms that had now been transformed into a nursery. A temporary nursery, Freya decided firmly. Zac was going to get the shock of his life when he learned that he was Aimee’s father, but she was under no illusion that he would welcome the news and she intended to return to England as soon as possible, before Aimee ever realised that he did not love her.
She didn’t know what Zac would do after the test result, but she wasn’t holding her breath that he would apologise for misjudging her so terribly. At best she guessed he would offer some sort of financial support for his daughter, but she would put the money in trust for when Aimee was older. She did not want a penny of his fortune for herself and once she was over the temporary setback of her injured wrist, which had partly forced her to come to Monaco with him, she hoped she would never have to set eyes on him again.
Soon after she had returned to her room the butler Laurent arrived bearing a light, fluffy omelette for her supper. He was unfailingly polite but gave no indication that he remembered her from when she had lived briefly at the penthouse. Presumably her role as Zac’s mistress had been quickly filled, probably by Annalise Dubois, she brooded miserably. Was Zac with Annalise tonight? The thought was enough to ruin her appetite and she toyed with her food before heading for the bathroom where she struggled to shower while keeping her bandaged arm out of the spray. By the time she had finished she felt sick from the pain of her injured wrist and after swallowing a couple of painkillers she crawled into bed, desperate for sleep to swallow her in its comforting folds.
Zac swung his powerful sports car into the underground car park and rode the lift up to the penthouse apartment. Dinner had been an unmitigated disaster, he brooded darkly as he unfastened his tie and shoved it in the pocket of his dinner jacket. Not that it had been Nicole’s fault. She had looked stunning tonight and her low-cut dress with its thigh-high split down one side had left little to his imagination.
Throughout the meal in one of Monte Carlo’s finest restaurants, she had been on sparkling form and had prattled on endlessly about her life, which seemed to consist of shopping or sunbathing on Daddy’s yacht, and in the rare lulls in her conversation her smile had sent the subtle signals indicating her willingness to spend the night with him.
It had been their third date, after all, he mused cynically, and the unspoken rules of the game they were both playing dictated that tonight the attractive brunette had expected their relationship to progress to a full-blown sexual affair. But somewhere between the entrée and dessert he had lost his appetite for both the food and his companion, and instead of envisaging Nicole’s tanned, lissom limbs his mind had seemed intent on recalling every detail of Freya’s slender figure.
He had never known another woman to have such pale skin. It was as if even the sun’s rays had not been permitted to touch her and his hands had been the first to stroke her virginal flesh—as they had, he acknowledged, feeling an uncomfortable tightness in his groin. He had been Freya’s first lover and, if he was honest, sex with her had been an amazing experience he had never come close to repeating with any other woman.
And he had tried. He’d never professed to be a monk, he conceded sardonically, but sitting in the restaurant with Nicole tonight he’d realised that he did not feel the slightest desire for her and after driving her home he had politely refused her offer of a nightcap. Clearly disappointed, Nicole had eventually accepted his rejection, but he didn’t feel good about it—in fact he felt intensely irritated with himself, life in general, and, at the top of the list, the woman who had managed to disrupt his comfortable existence in less than twenty-four hours.
With a muttered oath he strode into the penthouse and headed for the lounge and the well-stocked bar, but the sight of Freya curled up on the sofa caused him to halt abruptly. The low coffee table in front of her was littered with books and papers and she was leafing through the pages of a thick folder, so engrossed that she seemed to be unaware of him.
For a few seconds Zac stood still and allowed his eyes to roam over her mass of blonde hair and perfectly defined heart-shaped face. Her grey silk robe was vaguely familiar from the past and he frowned as he focused on the way the edges had parted to reveal the wisp of silk and lace beneath.
Every item of clothing he had bought for her when she’d lived with him had been chosen with the express purpose of pleasing him, particularly her nightwear, and his mouth tightened cynically as he wondered whether she had changed into the sexy negligee set deliberately to taunt him. Freya was still absorbed in her books and his irritation upped a notch. Being ignored was a new experience for him and, giving an angry shrug of his shoulders, he stepped into the room.
Only then did she glance up. ‘Zac…’ She blinked at him and fire surged through his veins when he took in the image of her silky blonde hair framing her flushed face. Her skin was bare of make-up, but somehow that made her sexier, he decided as he studied her closely, noting the dusting of freckles on her nose and the fact that her long eyelashes were tipped with gold. She was staring up at him with her wide witch’s eyes, casting her magic, and with a jolt he realised that he suddenly felt more alive than he had done in months.
‘I wasn’t expecting you to wait up for me, chérie,’ he drawled as he crossed to the bar and poured himself a large cognac.
