Читать книгу The Gold Collection - Ким Лоренс, Maggie Cox - Страница 40

‘I AM a patient man,’ Zac stated with a mind-boggling disregard for the truth, ‘but I’ve had as much as I’m prepared to take from you.’

Frozen to the bed, Freya watched him activate the remote to turn off the television, before his hands moved to the belt of his robe. ‘Obviously I was wrong about Miss Joubert. I’m sorry,’ she muttered thickly. She watched him with wide, disbelieving eyes, her blood pounding in her veins when he loosened the belt and shrugged out of his robe to stand before her, gloriously and unashamedly naked.

‘Zac!’ She swallowed hard and tried to tear her gaze from the masculine perfection of his body. His skin gleamed like polished bronze in the lamplight and her eyes skittered down over the rippling muscles of his abdomen, following the path of dark hairs that arrowed down his taut stomach to his thighs. He was aroused—and it was the sight of his boldly erect manhood that finally penetrated the fog clouding her brain. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking what you were so blatantly offering to Lucien Giraud,’ he replied coolly, foiling her attempt to scramble off the bed by coming down beside her and pinning her to the mattress with insulting ease.

‘I was not.’ Tears stung her eyes at the contempt in his, but her traitorous body recognised its soul mate and molten heat surged through her veins, leaving her weak with longing. One look was all it took to arouse her to fever pitch—what chance did she stand if he touched her, kissed her…? ‘Zac, I don’t want this.’ She twisted her head frantically from side to side, her breath coming in shallow gasps.

‘Liar.’ His supreme self-confidence was mortifying, but when he captured her chin and slowly lowered his head, she shook with need and parted her lips to accept the savage mastery of his kiss.

The bold thrust of his tongue into her mouth should have appalled her, but she was drowning in sensation, her senses set aflame by his potent male heat. After the lonely years apart he was impossible to resist and with a groan she slid her arms around his neck, loving the feel of his silky hair against her fingers.

Sensing her capitulation, he eased the pressure of his mouth a little so that the kiss became a sensual, evocative tasting that brought fresh tears to her eyes. He was everything to her, the only man she had ever loved, but she meant nothing to him. It destroyed the last vestiges of her pride to accept that, even though he despised her, she wanted to make love with him one last time—a precious memory to cling to during all the bleak years ahead.

Zac trailed his lips down her throat, his fingers tugging the ribbons at the front of her negligee before he pushed the delicate peach-coloured satin aside to expose her breasts to his hungry gaze. His eyes darkened as he brushed his thumb across her nipple and watched her pupils dilate. ‘I love the way you are so responsive, chérie,’ he said roughly. ‘There’s no pretence with you, is there? You are the most sensual woman I have ever met and I have never been able to get you out of my blood.’

She tensed, sure that he was taunting her and expecting him to flay her with his sarcasm, but instead he lowered his head and the feel of his tongue drawing moist circles around her areola made her tremble with anticipation. He moved slowly, inexorably towards the centre until his mouth closed around the tight peak of her nipple and she gave a low cry as sensation pierced her. She arched up to him and clutched his shoulders while he teased her and tormented her, and just when she thought she could bear no more he transferred his mouth to her other breast and pleasured her until she was a limp mass of quivering need.

‘You want me, Freya, and, God help me, I can’t fight my hunger for you any more,’ Zac growled as he tugged her negligee down over her hips and followed its path with his mouth on her skin—trailing kisses over the sensitive flesh of her stomach to the tiny triangle of peach satin that hid her femininity from his gaze.

It was purely physical, he reassured himself, his senses flaring when he caught the subtle, feminine scent of her arousal. The sexual attraction between them had always been explosive and, even though he knew she was a cold-blooded liar, he couldn’t resist her. Her skin felt like silk beneath his fingertips and she was so soft and pliant that he had to restrain himself from plunging into her and taking her with primitive passion.

Drawing a sharp breath, he fought to leash his rampaging hormones as he slid his fingers beneath the lacy edge of her knickers. He pushed the material aside before he lowered his head and stroked his tongue lightly up and down the delicate folds of her femininity, coaxing and teasing until she whimpered and shifted her hips to allow him access to the moist heat within.

Freya knew she should stop him, but her limbs felt heavy and her entire body throbbed with desire. She couldn’t do this again, couldn’t give herself to a man whose opinion of her was rock-bottom. But Zac was the only man she had ever wanted and she couldn’t deny him, not when it meant denying herself the exquisite pleasure of his possession.

His wickedly intrusive tongue seemed intent on destroying her self-control as he brought her to the brink and she gasped, part relief, part disappointment, when he suddenly lifted his head and stared down at her. ‘You can’t do this,’ she whispered, shaken by the glittering contempt in his eyes when he removed her knickers with brisk efficiency. ‘You think I’m a cheat and a liar,’ she reminded him desperately, her eyes widening when he reached into the bedside drawer and took out a condom. He made no reply as he fitted it with practised ease and her heart thudded in her chest when he pushed her legs apart and moved over her. ‘How can you make love to a woman you despise?’ she cried jerkily, trembling with hurt and the frantic need to feel him inside her. She made one last despairing effort to halt him by beating her hands on his shoulders until he caught hold of her wrists and forced her arms above her head.

‘Unfortunately you’re not the only one to suffer from an embarrassing physical reaction,’ he mockingly reminded her of the excuse she had made after she had climaxed in his arms on the dance floor. ‘My brain tells me you’re a tramp, but my body isn’t so fastidious—it’s just hungry,’ he said grimly as he slid his hand under her bottom, lifted her and effected one deep, shockingly powerful thrust that made her gasp in awe at his potent strength.

It had been a long time since she had done this, but the ministrations of his hands and mouth had brought her to the peak of sexual arousal and she welcomed the full, rigid length of him as he slowly filled her. As her muscles stretched around him to form a tight, velvet sheath, Zac gave a low growl of satisfaction, eased back a fraction and then thrust again and again, setting a rhythm that she eagerly matched.

Each strong, deep stroke was sending Freya closer to the edge and she lost all sense of time and place as his male scent swamped her senses while the only sounds she could hear were her breathless cries for him to thrust faster and harder.

‘I’ll hurt you,’ he muttered against her throat when she wrapped her legs around his back and urged him on.

In the dim recess of her mind she recognised the truth of his words—not that she feared he would cause her physical pain, but emotionally he had the power to destroy her. But she blanked out the thought as her whole being focused on the exquisite sensations that were unfurling deep inside her. ‘You won’t,’ she assured him huskily as she arched her hips in mute supplication for him to loosen his hold on his self-control and take her with the primitive force she knew he was capable of. ‘I want you, Zac…I want…’ The rest of her words were lost beneath the pressure of his mouth as he captured her lips in a fierce, drugging kiss that drove everything but her desperate need for fulfilment from her mind.

Zac’s shoulders and brow were beaded with sweat and his face was a taut mask. He was a skilful lover who knew exactly how to give pleasure, but the time for playful seduction was long past and he was driven by a basic urge to satisfy his hunger. He slid his hands down Freya’s slim body and gripped her buttocks as he drove into her, his jaw clenched as he felt her muscles contract around him.

He could feel his pleasure building to a crescendo, but just when he feared he could hold back no longer, she gave a sharp cry and her whole body convulsed beneath him in a shattering climax. The sensuous pleasure-pain of her nails raking down his back tipped him over the edge and he paused for an instant before giving one last forceful thrust that annihilated his control and sent shock waves through him as his body shuddered with the power of his release.

Freya clung to Zac’s sweat-damp body and revelled in the weight of him as the lingering ripples of sensation drained from her. Recriminations were already mustering in her head, taunting her with her abject stupidity, but she was determined to ignore them for a few more blissful minutes. She could feel Zac’s heartbeat thudding through her and she screwed her eyes shut and breathed in his musky, male scent. Making love with him topped the list of mistakes she had made—in her life that seemed littered with them—but she couldn’t regret it. Despite his mistrust and suspicion and his unshakeable opinion of her, she loved him, she acknowledged sadly, and it seemed likely that she always would.

Eventually he rolled off her to lay flat on his back, his silence growing more ominous to her ears by the second.

‘I’ve decided that I want you back,’ he said in a voice devoid of all emotion, ‘to live here as my mistress the way we once were.’ He turned his head on the pillows and stared at her coldly. ‘You’re like a drug in my veins and, although I despise myself, I seem to be addicted to you,’ he grated harshly. ‘I’m prepared to overlook your…indiscretion with Brooks, and if you stay I’ll accept your child and provide for her as if she were my own. But if you ever look at another man the way you looked at Lucien Giraud tonight, so help me, chérie, I will not be responsible for my actions.’

For a few seconds Freya stared at him in stunned silence while her brain assimilated his words. Bitterness, humiliation and rage congealed her blood and she closed her eyes for a moment, shocked by the level of pain he could still inflict on her. How could she love him when he seemed determined to shred her heart into a thousand pieces? She obviously possessed a masochistic streak, she thought as agony swept through her.

‘If—overlooking my indiscretion with Brooks—is your way of saying that you forgive me for having sex with Simon, you’re wasting your breath,’ she said tightly, her voice shaking with emotion. ‘At a risk of repeating myself, I never slept with him or anyone else—ever.’ She pushed against his chest with a force borne of desperation, terrified that she was actually going to be sick. ‘How dare you! How dare you take that high and mighty tone with me? Your arrogance sickens me—you sicken me,’ she flung at him.

All this time she’d struggled as a single mother, juggling work and childcare and using her few precious hours of free time while Aimee slept to study for her degree, in the hope that she could improve her financial situation. And all the while Zac had lived here in his luxury penthouse apartment, refusing to accept that he was the father of her child while he thought the worst of her. Not for much longer, she thought furiously. The results of the DNA test would force him to accept the truth and she hoped he suffered an overdose of remorse when he realised how cruelly he had misjudged her.

He was staring at her through narrowed eyes, his jaw tense, but she no longer felt overawed by him. Her pride had finally come to her rescue and, although it was way too late to salvage her self-respect, she had to try. With jerky movements she dragged her negligee over her head, ignoring the pain in her wrist. The pain in her heart was a thousand times worse and she scrambled to her feet, desperate to escape before she broke down in front of him. ‘I don’t need anything from you, Zac, certainly not your arrogant assertion that you’ll overlook something I didn’t even do,’ she told him fiercely. ‘But one day soon you’ll come crawling to me on your hands and knees, and hear me now—I will never forgive you for your treatment of me.’

Freya woke with a start as sunlight filtered through the blinds and slanted across her face. Dazedly she stared at the clock on her beside table and gave a disbelieving frown—surely it couldn’t really be ten a.m.? She sat up and groaned as she quickly fastened the front of her nightgown, her cheeks flaming when she recalled how Zac had stripped her last night before he had pushed her flat on her back and taken her with a savagery that had escalated her excitement to fever pitch.

What did that make her? she wondered dismally as she recalled her wanton response to him. And how could she have been so stupid and so utterly lacking in pride? He had looked down his arrogant nose at her while he’d stated that he was prepared to overlook her affair with Simon Brooks, but she was innocent and his lack of faith hurt as much now as it had two years ago. Every day that she spent with him he stripped away another layer of her protective shell, leaving her raw and vulnerable, and she knew she had to leave before the damage to her heart was irreparable.

A hesitant tap on the door heralded the arrival of the maid. ‘Ah, you are awake,’ Elise said with a smile. ‘Shall I bring you breakfast in bed?’

‘No, thank you, Elise.’ Freya jumped to her feet. ‘Where is my daughter?’

‘She is in the pool with Monsieur Deverell.’

Freya snatched up her robe and paused on the way to the en suite to stare blankly at the maid. ‘Zac has taken Aimee swimming?’ she queried, her voice sounding sharp as panic and confusion mingled. To her chagrin, Aimee had developed an instant fascination with Zac and, to give him credit, he treated the little girl with a gentle patience that he never revealed to anyone else—certainly not her, Freya thought bleakly.

Elise nodded. ‘Madame Lewis is with them. Monsieur Deverell said that you’d had a disturbed night, and should be left alone to sleep,’ she told Freya innocently. ‘I’ll tell him you are awake now. He wishes to see you in his study as soon as you are dressed.’

The temptation to pass on a message to Zac telling him to go to hell was so strong that Freya had to bite her lip. It wasn’t fair to involve the penthouse staff in their private war, she reminded herself, and had to be content with cursing him beneath her breath as she stormed into the bathroom.

After the quickest shower on record, she dressed in a simple skirt and blouse suitable for travelling in, although her injured wrist still made it impossible for her to fasten her bra. She packed the few belongings she had brought from England and moved into the nursery where she swiftly stowed Aimee’s clothes into a holdall ready for their immediate departure. With any luck Zac was still on the roof-garden, she thought as she raced along to his study and scooted across to his desk to search for her and Aimee’s passports. One thing was certain, after her humiliating capitulation in his bed she could not risk remaining in Monaco for another night.

‘Looking for something?’ His lazy drawl brought her head up and she blushed and jumped guiltily away from the desk to find him standing in the doorway.

‘Passports,’ she replied, swallowing at the sight of him in chinos and a cream shirt, open at the neck to reveal the tanned column of his throat. ‘Aimee and I are leaving. I refuse to stay here and be subjected to your vile accusations any more,’ she said heatedly.

‘Ah.’ He stepped into the room and her heart lurched when he shut the door behind him and turned the key in the lock.

She could not look at him without remembering how she had writhed beneath him in abject surrender just hours before and she gave a silent groan of despair as her body stirred into instant life. Her palms felt suddenly damp and she wiped them down her skirt. ‘Elise said you wanted to see me about something,’ she muttered, tension prickling her skin when he moved towards her. As he walked around his desk she edged away from him, and at his terse command to sit down she subsided into the chair facing him.

He studied her speculatively for a few moments, but his gaze did not quite meet hers and she gained the curious impression that he felt awkward.

‘I owe you an apology,’ he said brusquely.

Astounded, she stared at him, wondering if she had heard him correctly. Zac apologising to her had to be a first, but the fact that he felt the need to made her realise how much he obviously regretted making love to her. ‘It’s all right,’ she mumbled as she inspected her lap with sudden fascination. ‘I’m not proud of my behaviour either. We just got carried away, but obviously it’s an experience neither of us wants to repeat.’

Black eyebrows winged upwards. ‘I was not apologising for last night, chérie,’ he said silkily, his eyes glinting with amusement. ‘It was an incredible experience that I have every intention of repeating. You enjoyed it too,’ he added before she could comment, ‘so don’t play the innocent martyr with me because you’re a wildcat in bed and I have the scratches on my back to prove it.’

‘Oh!’ Scarlet-faced, she wished a hole would open up and swallow her, and more than anything she longed to wipe his smug grin from his face.

‘My only regret about last night is that I was rough with you,’ he continued, his husky, accented voice sliding over her like a velvet cloak. ‘I was, as you so succinctly put it, carried away, and I’m afraid that in my urgency to possess you I might have hurt you. Did I, ma petite?’

His words evoked a stark image in Freya’s mind of how she had begged him to take her; how she had enticed him with her desperate pleas to move faster and thrust deeper into her as he took her to the heights of sexual ecstasy. Zac’s regrets had nothing on hers, she thought sickly, tearing her gaze from the knowing gleam in his. ‘No,’ she choked thickly, ‘you didn’t hurt me, but last night was a mistake I regret bitterly.’

She ran a shaky hand through her hair and forced herself to look at him. ‘If it wasn’t…that, then what are you apologising for?’

In reply he took a folded document from the drawer and handed it to her. For a few seconds Freya’s heart stopped beating and then started again at twice its normal rate. She knew instinctively that it was the results of the paternity test and she stared at him without opening it. ‘I already know what it says,’ she told him quietly. ‘And now, so do you.’

She searched his face for some sign that would tell her how he felt about learning that Aimee was his child, but his expression was shuttered. This should be her moment of triumph, but she felt empty inside. For two years she’d played out a stupid daydream in her head that one day he would discover he was Aimee’s father and would immediately beg her to forgive him for the way he had treated her, before sweeping her into his arms and pleading for a chance for them to live together as a family—in true happy-ever-after tradition. His grim face shattered her dream and the little seed of hope she’d carried in her heart withered and died. He didn’t want their child any more than he wanted her, and it was about time she accepted that fact.

‘Damn you, Zac,’ she burst out when his silence became intolerable. ‘There’s no need to look so horrified,’ she muttered bitterly. ‘I don’t want a penny of your wretched money. All I ever wanted was for Aimee to have a daddy who would love and protect her, and that clearly isn’t going to be you. But I can do those things. I’ll be a mother and a father to her and right now I’m taking her home.’ She glared at him, and a frisson of unease ran the length of her spine when he stood up and strode around the desk.

‘No, chérie, you are not,’ he said steadily, his eyes narrowing when she jumped up and backed away from him. He could see the hurt and confusion in her eyes and felt a flicker of remorse. But when he closed the gap between them and noted how her pulse was jerking frantically at the base of her throat, he felt a surge of quiet satisfaction. Sexual alchemy was a potent force that held her in its thrall, however much she might resent its power.

There was no point in denying that he was deeply shocked by the results of the paternity test. Aimee was his child, a Deverell who, like him, was a possible carrier of the gene that had caused the illness and deaths of his baby sisters. His one relief was that Aimee was eighteen months old and safe from the risk of developing the disease, which caused death in infants usually before they were a year old.

Discovering that he was a father was something he hadn’t been prepared for, but he had felt protective of Freya’s child from the moment Joyce Addison had abandoned her to his care and he knew without doubt that he would love Aimee unconditionally for the rest of his life. Aimee was adorable and, having missed the first eighteen months of her life, he was determined not to miss another day.

His feelings towards Freya were more complicated. On the few occasions that she had crept into his mind during the past two years, he had angrily dismissed her, reminding himself of her true colours. But the moment he had seen her again he’d been forced to accept that his desire for her was as fierce as it had been in the past. He had made love to her last night because he couldn’t resist her, and now it seemed that he didn’t have to try. She hadn’t lied to him, she was the mother of his child and she wanted him with the same urgency that he wanted her. All he had to do now was persuade her to resume her place in his bed.

‘It seems that I am one of the rare cases for whom the vasectomy reversed, but now I know Aimee is my child and I accept that I have a responsibility for her.’ he began, but Freya interrupted him.

‘No, you don’t.’ She shook her head fiercely, hating the fact that he felt a duty towards Aimee. Her grandmother had tolerated her out of a sense of duty, but it had been a loveless upbringing and she would do everything in her power to prevent her daughter from feeling the same sense of worthlessness that she had felt as a child. ‘I hereby absolve you of all responsibility. What were you planning to do, Zac—appease your conscience by arranging regular maintenance payments and maybe send her a birthday card once a year?’ she demanded sarcastically. ‘Aimee’s conception was the result of a freak chance, it wasn’t your fault and there’s no reason for you to feel obligated towards either of us.’

‘It’s not a question of obligation,’ Zac said forcefully. ‘I want to play an active role in my daughter’s life.’ The ring of steely determination in his voice caused Freya’s heart to jerk in her chest and she stared at him, bemused by his unexpected statement.

‘You mean you want to arrange visitation rights? Think carefully, Zac. A child is for life, not just for Christmas,’ she said sharply. ‘It’s all very well for you to decide you want to see Aimee occasionally, but what happens when the novelty of fatherhood wears off? I remember how excited I used to feel when my mother promised to visit, and the crushing sense of disappointment when she let me down yet again. I won’t allow you to do that to Aimee.’

‘That’s not how it will be,’ he stated angrily. ‘Aimee is my child, a Deverell, and I want her to live here in Monaco.’

‘But how would that work?’ Freya argued faintly, her mind reeling. ‘Even if I finish my degree, I’m not sufficiently fluent in French to find a job that would pay rent on a property here. Aimee’s home is in England and that’s where I’m taking her. If you’re serious about wanting a relationship with her, you can easily afford to visit as often as it suits you.’ Her tone plainly indicated that she believed he would soon lose interest in playing daddy, and Zac’s jaw hardened.

‘I wasn’t suggesting that we live in separate homes and pass our daughter between us like a parcel. A child needs two parents and I want you and Aimee to move into the penthouse with me.’

For the sum total of twenty seconds Freya experienced a surge of incandescent joy—quickly followed by the feeling that her heart was plummeting towards her toes with the speed of an express elevator. Of course he wanted her to move back in with him—it would be much more convenient for him than having to travel back to England to visit Aimee. She was still stunned by Zac’s declaration that he intended to be a proper father. Undoubtedly Aimee would benefit from having both her parents around, but what role was he expecting her to play in his life?

‘Won’t that cramp your style?’ she queried sarcastically. ‘You can hardly maintain your reputation as Monaco’s most eligible bachelor with an ex-lover and a baby in tow.’

His slow, sensual smile sent a tremor of awareness through her. ‘Since last night, you’re no longer an ex-lover, are you?’ he murmured softly, his warm breath fanning her ear.

Freya suddenly became aware that he was too close; she could feel the heat from his body and the waves of sexual energy emanating from him triggered alarm bells in her head. She took a jerky step backwards, but his arm snaked around her waist to draw her inexorably towards him.

‘You know how it was between us, Freya. Don’t deny it,’ he said fiercely when she opened her mouth to remonstrate. ‘The passion we shared was explosive for both of us, chérie.’

‘No.’ Freya made an inarticulate sound low in her throat as she watched his head descend. Any second now his mouth would touch hers and she would be lost to the simmering, burning need that only Zac could arouse. Outrage battled with desire and won by a narrow margin. ‘Do you honestly think you can click your fingers and I’ll fall into your arms?’ she demanded, shamefully aware that she had done exactly that the previous night. ‘Yesterday I was a common slut with a predilection for wealthy lovers—’

‘That was before I knew the truth,’ he interrupted harshly. ‘I know now that I was wrong and I am willing to accept that you didn’t sleep with Brooks.’

‘That’s big of you,’ Freya muttered bitterly, ‘but you’re too late, Zac. It’s a pity you didn’t believe me two years ago—when I needed you. Instead you almost destroyed me with your distrust, and, to be frank, I wouldn’t come back to you if you were the last man on the planet.’

His slow smile disarmed her and she missed the warning gleam of battle in his eyes. ‘We’ll see, shall we?’ he said softly, tightening his arm around her until her face was pressed against his chest.

‘Let go of me, you…brute.’ She hammered her fists on his shoulders, like a wild bird frantically beating its wings against the bars of a cage, but he ignored her blows and threaded his other hand through her hair, tilting her face to his. The scorching heat in his gaze sent a quiver of excitement through her and she gave a silent groan of despair. How could she fight him when this was the only place she wanted to be? Clutching the remnants of her pride, she tried to turn her head, but lean fingers held her chin as he angled her mouth to his satisfaction before claiming it with his own in a searing kiss that drove all thoughts of resistance from her mind.

His tongue explored the contours of her lips, stroking, caressing, until he judged the moment she relaxed her guard and thrust into the moist warmth of her mouth in a flagrantly erotic gesture. Freya felt the drugging sweetness of desire flood through her veins, leaving her limp and boneless with longing. Her fists unfurled and she laid her hands flat against his chest, feeling the erratic thud of his heart beneath her fingertips.

‘Last night was a mistake. We can’t simply take up where we left off two years ago,’ she protested when he eased the pressure of his mouth and traced her swollen lips with the tip of his tongue. ‘Too much has happened, Zac. You hurt me so badly,’ she whispered as she relived the agony of his rejection and the countless nights when she had cried herself to sleep. She was appalled by her weakness—how could she be such a pushover? He was probably congratulating himself that he had demolished her resistance with one kiss, but when she stared into his eyes and saw the undisguised hunger flare in his blue depths she felt a heady sense of elation. He felt it too, this pagan drumbeat of desire that pounded in her veins until she was conscious of nothing but the desperate, overwhelming need to surrender her soul to passion.

‘Then let me try to make amends,’ he growled against her throat. ‘Let me remind you of how good it was between us and show you how good it can be again. We always communicated better without words, chérie.’ He slid his hands down and curled them possessively around her buttocks, drawing her up against him so that her pelvis was in direct contact with the throbbing force of his arousal.

Freya gasped and he captured the faint sound, grinding his lips on hers with a primitive passion that whipped her senses into a feverish state of anticipation. She was on fire for him and nothing else mattered—not the past and all the pain he’d caused her and not the future and all its uncertainties. She wanted him now, the only man she had ever loved, and when he lifted her into his arms she clung to him, her fingers tearing at his shirt buttons until she was able to part the material and run her hands over the dark hairs that covered his chest.

Zac cleared the surface of his desk with one sweep of his arm before laying her down on the polished wood and immediately covering her body with his own. He deftly removed her blouse and muttered his satisfaction that she wasn’t wearing a bra, his voice hoarse as he bent his head and captured the tip of one pink nipple between his lips. The effect on Freya was electric and she arched her back so that her breasts thrust provocatively towards him, the taut, swollen peaks begging for his possession.

She was shaking—or was it him? she wondered feverishly as she pushed his shirt over his shoulders and ran her hands over his smooth, tanned skin. This was madness but they were both caught up in the conflagration that threatened to consume them in a flame of white-hot need. With a rough, almost violent movement he grabbed the hem of her skirt and jerked it up to her waist before skimming his hand over the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs.

‘Zac.’ His name escaped her lips as a plea rather than a protest. She lifted her hips and he dragged her knickers down before spreading her legs with a deliberate intent that made her tremble with anticipation. When he touched her she thrust against his hand and moaned when his skilful fingers slid into her and began to explore her with a thoroughness that made her clench her teeth as her pleasure built. Through heavy lids she watched his hand move to the zip of his trousers, no thought in her head other than that he should hurry before she died with the urgent need to feel the full length of him inside her.

‘You see, Freya, some things never change,’ he groaned as he came down on top of her, supporting his weight on his elbows so that the rigid strength of his penis pushed intimately against her eager body. He slid his hand beneath her bottom to lift her towards him, but his words penetrated the haze of sexual heat surrounding her and she bunched her hands on his shoulders to hold him back.

Was it the element of satisfaction in his voice that she had capitulated so easily—yet again? Or was it his arrogant assumption that nothing had changed and she was still a slave to his touch, despite the way he had treated her? She closed her eyes as a wave of nausea swept over her—how could she be so stupid? Zac hadn’t changed—he said he believed that she hadn’t had an affair with Simon Brooks, but only because the DNA test proved that Aimee was his child. Two years ago he had been so ready to believe the worst of her and if other issues arose between them in the future she had no faith that he would trust her word above all else.

‘You’re wrong, Zac,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I’ve changed. I’m not the pathetic, lovesick girl I once was. You abandoned me when I needed you most, and I had to grow up fast. I won’t let you do this to me again,’ she muttered, tearing her gaze from him as she fought to control the dictates of her body that begged for her to surrender and accept his full possession. From somewhere she found the strength to push against his chest, but the glitter in his eyes warned her that she was too late. His body was primed and ready to take her, his breath coming in harsh gasps as he fought for control.

The discreet knock on the study door shattered the tension and the butler, Laurent’s, imperturbable tones sounded through the wood. ‘Madame Deverell has arrived and is waiting in the salon.’

Hysterical laughter bubbled in Freya’s throat. ‘Madame? You have a wife?’

‘Non, I have a mother—who has impeccable timing,’ Zac replied sardonically as he rolled off her and snatched up his shirt, muttering a string of profanities beneath his breath. ‘But the very fact that you believe I could be married does not say much about your opinion of me, chérie.’

‘It’s an opinion I formed during the time I’ve spent struggling to bring up our child,’ Freya bit back sharply. She couldn’t imagine what he must think of her when she was semi-naked and spread-eagled across his desk. Scarlet-cheeked, she tugged her skirt down and hopped inelegantly from foot to foot trying to pull her knickers on, praying that Zac’s mother wouldn’t walk in. She’d suffered enough humiliation to last her a lifetime—much of it self-induced, she thought miserably as she recalled her shameless response to him. One thing was clear: she dared not trust herself to be near him for another day. He could deal with his mother and explain why his elegant bachelor pad was littered with toys and teddies, while she collected Aimee and made her escape.

‘I’ll go and speak to my mother while you tidy yourself up,’ he said tersely, his expression unfathomable as he inspected her dishevelled appearance and hot face. He on the other hand looked as cool as a cucumber and had obviously had no difficulty in bringing his desire under control. Any minute now and he would pop a couple of bank notes down her blouse in payment for services rendered, Freya thought furiously, shrivelling beneath his look of haughty disdain. She held her breath until he left the room, and as soon as he had gone raced around his desk and searched for the passports. Flights back to England would stretch her overdraft to its limit, she acknowledged ruefully, but it couldn’t be helped, she had to get away.

Ignoring the sound of voices from the sitting room, she raced along the hall to the nursery and snatched up the holdall she’d packed with Aimee’s things. With any luck she could collect her daughter from the roof-garden, bid a quick farewell to Jean Lewis and disappear before Zac realised that she had no intention of remaining at the penthouse until he grew bored of fatherhood. At the doorway she spun round and gave one final glance around the room, groaning when she spied Aimee’s favourite toy rabbit at the end of the cot. With a muttered curse she dropped the holdall and flew across the carpet to retrieve the toy, her heart sinking at the sound of Zac’s voice.

‘There you are—I thought you were going to come and meet my mother,’ Zac drawled, his eyes narrowing when Freya gasped at the sight of him.

‘I…thought Aimee was here,’ she said quickly, praying that he wouldn’t notice the holdall behind the door.

‘She’s with Jean in the salon. My mother would very much like to meet you,’ he added quietly.

‘You never introduced me to her during the time I lived with you,’ Freya muttered, remembering how hurt she’d felt when Zac had used to visit Yvette Deverell but never suggested that she accompany him. ‘Why the sudden urgency?’

‘The situation is different now.’ He paused and then explained, ‘When you lived here, my mother was still devastated at the loss of my father. She became a virtual recluse and I was the only person she wanted to see. Thankfully she is much better now and she’s eager to meet you.’

The glint in Zac’s eyes warned Freya that she had no option but to comply and she hastily shoved the passports behind her back and followed him down the hall. Voices were audible from the salon, Jean Lewis’ calm tones and another, heavily accented voice, mingled with Aimee’s gurgling laughter. ‘What an adorable child—how old is she?’

‘Eighteen months,’ Zac answered his mother’s query as he ushered Freya into the room while Jean quietly excused herself. ‘Maman, this is Freya Addison—Aimee’s mother.’

‘Mademoiselle Addison.’ Yvette Deverell stood and held out one elegantly manicured hand to Freya. She was tall, willowy and effortlessly chic in an exquisite dress and jacket from one of the leading fashion houses. Freya immediately felt conscious of the creases in her cheap skirt and, as had so often happened during her childhood, she was swamped by a feeling of inadequacy, not helped when Yvette continued to study her from beneath faintly arched eyebrows, in a silence that spoke volumes. ‘You have a delightful little girl,’ she commented at last, and Freya stiffened when Zac placed his arm around her waist and drew her forwards.

‘Aimee is my daughter, Maman.’ He spoke softly to his mother. ‘You have a granddaughter.’

Freya was prepared for Yvette to look surprised, shocked even, but the expression of horrified dismay on the Frenchwoman’s face filled her with cold fury. Suddenly she was eight years old, walking up the path of Nana Joyce’s house clutching the hand of the social worker who had collected her from the foster family she had been staying with. There had been no look of pleasure on her grandmother’s face when she had opened the door, no welcoming smile.

‘You’d better go up to your room, Freya, and mind you don’t make any noise. You can come down at teatime as long as you’re quiet—I don’t expect to be disturbed by childish chatter,’ Joyce Addison had greeted her coldly.

To this day she rarely spoke unless spoken to, and even in her own flat she’d crept about on tiptoe out of habit, Freya thought bleakly. Her grandmother had crushed her spirit and destroyed her self-confidence—she would not allow Zac’s mother to do the same to Aimee.

‘I don’t understand. How can this be?’ Yvette Deverell was staring at her son, a look of blank incomprehension on her face. ‘Are you certain this is your child?’

Her comments were the last straw, Freya decided furiously, her face burning with mortification as she tugged out of Zac’s hold and grasped Aimee’s hand. It was bad enough that Zac had doubted Aimee’s paternity—how dared his mother do the same? ‘There was some debate over whether Aimee belonged to the tinker, the tailor or the candlestick maker,’ she snapped, her eyes flashing fire as she met Yvette Deverell’s stunned glance. ‘Zac is Aimee’s biological parent, but that’s where his involvement ends. Please don’t worry, madame, I’m taking my daughter home to England and, I assure you, you won’t see either of us again.’

‘Zac! I don’t understand.’ Yvette bombarded her son in a torrent of rapid French while Freya spun on her heel and raced towards the door, tugging Aimee after her. But Zac beat her to it and stood blocking her path, his eyes focused intently on her face.

‘Let me go,’ she said in a low voice that shook as she struggled to keep her emotions in check. ‘Aimee doesn’t belong here. Your mother just made that abundantly clear. She’s my daughter and I’m taking her home.’

‘Zac, I insist you tell me what is happening,’ Yvette demanded plaintively.

‘Calm down, Maman,’ he ordered impatiently as he lifted Aimee against his chest. Without giving Freya a chance to react, he captured her chin with his lean fingers and lowered his head to take her mouth in a brief, searing kiss. ‘There has been a simple misunderstanding, but it’s sorted now,’ he said coolly, his bruising grip on her chin preventing her from speaking while his eyes burned into hers. ‘Freya agrees that our daughter should grow up in Monaco with her family, and from now on she and Aimee will live permanently here in the penthouse with me. Isn’t that so, chérie?’