Читать книгу Hollywood Hills Collection - Lynne Marshall, Amalie Berlin - Страница 15
ОглавлениеZACK REALLY WAS a master at keeping his private life separate from work.
By day he was remote, perhaps even a bit unfriendly at times. There were absolutely no shared looks, or exchanges, not even behind closed doors.
He dived straight into a very full schedule but occasionally Freya found herself back at the hotel, and, yes, the sex was amazing but they didn’t talk much. She knew some stuff, but the information he shared was as generous as a waiter with the cracked pepper—there was never enough.
They lay there one morning and he was the monkey on her back, unknotting all her muscles, when he asked her something.
‘Why are you avoiding James?’
‘I’m not,’ Freya said, and he felt her shoulders stiffen.
‘Who were you speaking to on the phone the morning of my interview?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘You got all flustered.’
‘Well, my one and only one-night stand suddenly had a name.’
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘were you on the phone to some guy?’
‘A woman, actually,’ Freya said, and he laughed.
‘Do tell.’
‘Nope.’ The fewer people who knew about Mila and James’s rocky past the better. And the fewer who knew about her and Zack’s torrid present, all the better too!
‘How come you stay here?’ Freya asked as breakfast was served. Coffee for him, green tea and avocado smash for Freya.
‘I just like it.’
‘But you could have an apartment.’
‘I don’t want one.’
‘Well, if you’ve got money to burn...’
‘I’ve been sleeping under a mosquito net for six months,’ Zack pointed out.
‘Even so...’
Freya stayed quiet.
It wasn’t money that was the issue, it was his transient existence that irked her.
Everything he had was in this room and he could check out tomorrow, Freya knew. His time in one place was only as long as his theatre list.
‘Are you going to operate on Paulo?’
He didn’t answer at first then he said, ‘Is that PR Freya or Freya asking?’
‘Freya.’
‘Yes, I’m just trying to get him at optimum health first. You know his mother lost another son?’
Freya nodded.
‘I don’t want her losing two.’
And he watched as she cracked a very generous amount of cracked pepper on her avocado.
‘My brother died nearly ten years ago. I saw what losing one kid did to my mother.’
For Freya, to hear Zack suddenly reveal such a vital part of himself, it was like the cracker had fallen off the pepper mill.
‘Zack! I’m so sorry to hear that.’
He grinned. ‘Don’t use your psychologist voice on me.’ Then he asked her something he was curious about. She’d told him about her psychology degree and he wanted to know why she didn’t use it. ‘I know you’re good at PR but do you really enjoy it?’
‘I do,’ Freya said, and she took a breath and told him her plans, wondering if he’d laugh. ‘I want to start seeing clients. I wasn’t ready to before.’
‘Ready?’
‘I just didn’t know if I had any right to advise on eating disorders when I was working so hard on myself. I’m not sure I’m ready even now.’
‘I’d say you’re ready.’ Zack smiled. ‘I’ve spoken more to you than I have to anyone. You’re very easy to talk to, Freya.’
‘You’re not.’ She smiled back, glowing on the inside that he thought she could do it, but then she was serious. She really wanted to know more about him. ‘How did your brother die?’ she asked.
‘How we all die,’ Zack said, refusing to open up on her demand. He told only what he wanted to. ‘His heart stopped beating.’
Aaagh! He was so frustrating but when he shared a part of himself it just made her want to know more.
‘Head injury.’ Zack relented a touch.
‘Do you miss him?’
‘I do,’ Zack said, and he liked it that she didn’t say that he must miss him. ‘It’s always there in the background, other times...’ He shrugged, reluctant to explain it. ‘My parents, though, still grieve every day.’
‘That must be hard to watch.’
‘Which is why I don’t,’ Zack said.
Subject closed.
And so she knew something but so little about him and that was proven on his second week at work as the day of Paulo’s surgery neared and Freya wanted more for another press release.
‘Everything you need is on my résumé,’ Zack said, clearly less than impressed to be in her office.
‘Well, can we go with the small-town angle?’
‘It’s hardly small,’ Zack snapped. ‘It’s the size of LA.’
‘I meant the population.’
‘If you bring my family into this,’ Zack said, ‘then you’d better find a stand-in for Paulo’s surgery. Oh, that’s right, you won’t be able to, so you can go and tell his mother why the clinic lost the only doctor prepared to operate on her son.’
‘I’ll take that as no!’ Freya was used to difficult doctors. Putting the new brochure together had been difficult enough, but running promo on Zack took the cake. ‘Can we just get a photo of you with him?’
‘I don’t work like that, Freya. You’re not getting your cheesy photo.’
‘Fine,’ Freya snapped. ‘What am I supposed to write?’
‘That a child from the Bright Hope Clinic with a complex tetralogy of Fallot is being operated on at The Hollywood Hills Clinic and that—’
‘I’ve already got that part, thanks.’ Tough Freya wasn’t working so she lodged an appeal with her eyes but he stared back coolly and dismissed her flirt. ‘People like to see the human angle.’
‘Then get it elsewhere,’ Zack said. ‘Because it’s not coming from me.’
‘I still need your head shot.’
‘Take it, then.’
‘Do you want to go and freshen up?’
‘No.’
‘You haven’t shaved.’
‘I don’t shave on the week of a big operation.’
‘Really?’ Freya’s eyes lit up. ‘Zack, that’s just the type of information people want to—’
‘Freya,’ Zack warned, ‘I’m getting tired of this.’
She took out her camera. Usually she’d dab a bit of powder on the subject’s face but she didn’t think it would be appreciated in this case. Usually when someone was about to have their picture taken they would now be at the mirror, fixing their hair or rearranging their tie or stethoscope.
Zack just sat there and stared back.
‘Can you at least smile?’
He gave her such a fake smile that Freya actually laughed. ‘I’ll settle for scowling.’
She got her shot and it was actually an incredibly good one.
‘Can I go now?’
‘Sure. Do you want to come over tonight?’ she asked, but he just stood up and walked off.
Zack kept her hanging.
Oh, they’d agreed to never discuss the other side of them at work, but just some indication about where she stood might be nice.
Except she knew where she stood.
Zack had made it very clear.
He didn’t come to her apartment. They played at his hotel.
Which meant she should not be sending her phone a copy of his photo and she should not be wondering, hoping, that night as she left work, if Zack was going to call.
He did.
Or rather he fired a text that night at eight to see if she wanted to meet at the bar of the hotel.
She wanted him to come to her home.
Freya fired back her answer.
Busy tonight.
She wasn’t.
Well, there was always work she could catch up on but she was starting to struggle with her end of things.
No problem.
Zack’s response annoyed her.
There were no questions or comment, no I miss you, no Pity. There was nothing to indicate that her response mattered to him.
It did.
Zack was actually relieved that Freya said no to coming to the hotel.
Well, not relieved in a sexual sense, just that he knew now that he would not be seeing her again socially for several days now.
They were getting too involved for his comfort. Too many times through the day he went to call her or saved something in his head to tell Freya about that night. Certainly he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of going over to her home.
He didn’t want a relationship.
He thought of his brother, chained till the day he’d died to a life that he hadn’t wanted, and it would never happen to Zack. And yet he didn’t feel chained when he was with Freya, he felt more open and honest than he ever had.
It was too much to think of now.
So, yes, he was relieved that she’d declined coming over as it meant that he didn’t have to worry about his increasing feelings towards Freya for now. He would be in bed early tomorrow, preparing himself for a very long operation, and he would be living more or less between his office and Paulo’s bedside for a couple of days afterwards.
If Paulo made it.
