Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: June 2018 Books 1 - 4 - Линн Грэхем, Miranda Lee - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

AS HE PEELED off the last of his protective gear, Zac glanced across at Freddie and his wide, sensual mouth quirked with concealed amusement. There she was, benched after being red-flagged for a safety violation, her face still a mask of angry mortification. Yet she had initially gone onto the track with all the risk-taking verve of a nervous elderly lady and then Zac had flashed past her, a manoeuvre that had evidently unleashed her competitive instincts, and the die had been cast as she raced into pursuit of him in flagrant disregard of her apparent lack of experience on the track.

‘Go on...laugh,’ she urged sulkily, her annoyed gaze challenging him to do his worst while even then noticing the natural animal rhythm of his fluid stride. He walked lightly for so large a man yet testosterone seeped from his very pores. Even in a crowded location, his stunning looks stood out and guaranteed female turned heads and interested stares. Her stiff cheekbones flushed on the sinking acknowledgement that she was woman enough to be proud of being seen with him.

‘When you suggested it, I assumed go-karting was a favourite pastime of yours.’

‘You must be kidding. I’ve only been once and that was years ago...a birthday treat with the foster family we were staying with then.’

Zac took her breath away by simply lifting her off her feet and settling her down on the back of his bike. ‘Foster family? We?’ he queried with a frown.

‘Never mind,’ Freddie parried, seeing no reason to share her past with him when he was about to take her home.

Resting her cheek against his broad back as the bike glided through the traffic, Freddie closed her eyes, the oddest sensation of regret tugging infuriatingly at her while her body reacted with heat and awareness to the physical contact with his. The date, as such, was done and dusted and he had to now recognise that she was scarcely the sexy temptress of his dreams. He had enjoyed himself though, for Zac and speed were a perfect match, so hopefully there would be no hard feelings and her job would be safe because she really could not afford to lose her job, she thought fearfully.

Lifting her off the bike, Zac unclipped her helmet. As he herded her forward, he tossed his key fob to the doorman and addressed him in a foreign language. ‘Where the heck are we?’ Freddie demanded, cursing herself for having drifted off into her thoughts and failing to pay attention.

And even by the time she bleated that foolish question she knew exactly where she was and she cringed because she had never walked through the front entrance of The Palm Tree before. Staff had a side entrance and the bar was separate as well and employees were instructed to stay in their designated zone. Ahead of her and below the magnificent crystal chandeliers stretched a blur of mirrored reception counter that was dazzling and disorientating in the bright light.

Something remarkably like panic grabbed Freddie. ‘I can’t be in here... I work here!’ she exclaimed in dismay, trying to pull away from Zac’s controlling hand at her hip.

Zac grabbed her up into his arms as though she were Eloise and strode into his private lift before setting her down.

‘Let me go, for goodness’ sake!’ Freddie launched at him furiously as he slid her down his long, lean body, ensuring that she missed out on not a single angle of his lean, muscular physique. ‘I’m not coming up to your penthouse with you!’

‘Yes, you are,’ Zac countered without hesitation. ‘I have food waiting for us.’

‘I’m not hungry!’ she protested contrarily.

‘And I’m not an abuser of women and dislike being treated as though I am,’ Zac replied very, very drily.

Colour ran in a hot tide up beneath Freddie’s pale complexion and she collided with narrowed eyes the shade of crushed ice, glittering like a dangerous glacier in sunlight below a black lush fringe of lashes. ‘That’s not how I’m treating you.’

‘It is,’ he contradicted. ‘And I don’t like it. I would never touch you without your permission.’

A maddening need to apologise assailed Freddie and she fought it off, examining her behaviour, conceding that she might have come off a little hysterical in her rigid need to protect herself around a man. ‘Look, I have to work here, and obviously I don’t want to be seen inside your penthouse.’

‘And maybe, just maybe,’ Zac incised in a lethal undertone, those eyes luminous and cold as polar stars, ‘I’m tired of doing everything your way, meu pequenino.’

Freddie compressed her lips and studied her scuffed trainers in the rushing silence. Her muscles ached with the tension in the air and her tummy performed a nauseous flip.

‘When were you in foster care?’ Zac continued smoothly as he thrust open the door of what she assumed to be the penthouse suite, because a superb wall of glass overlooked the twinkling lights of the city skyline that bounded one side of the huge room.

Freddie was busy looking around herself at a level of luxury way beyond her experience. There was a tiny elegant kitchen alcove in one corner, not one to be taken seriously, for few who could afford the rates for the penthouse would wish to cook for themselves in a hotel renowned for its cuisine. Another couple of doors led off the main area, which was furnished with a massive wall television and buttery soft leather sofas, currently strewn with car magazines.

‘Freddie?’ he prompted, amused by her frank curiosity about her surroundings.

Freddie relocated her wits, still careful not to look at him. ‘My parents were killed in a car crash when I was ten. I had a completely happy childhood up until then, not so much after that,’ she admitted stiffly, food scents tugging at her nostrils, provoking an embarrassingly loud and needy growl from her stomach.

Freddie spoke quickly, fearful that he had heard her tummy grumble. ‘What about you? Where did you grow up?’

‘A fazenda...a ranch in Brazil.’ Zac lifted the cover on the food trolley with a flourish. ‘Help yourself,’ he urged.

Grateful to have something to do with her knotted hands, Freddie reached for a plate while scolding herself for her nerves. Being alone with a man was no big deal and it was time she got over her hang-ups from the years spent living with her sister. In any case, Lauren had been the victim of the abuse, not Freddie, who had merely been a powerless shrinking presence. Zac had probably done her a favour by calling her on her attitude to him. After all, some day in the future, she might want a man of her own and she wouldn’t want to scare him off by acting weird, would she? Her spine stretching out of the stiffness she had maintained, she struggled to relax her defences.

‘I would never have picked you out as a country boy,’ Freddie confided as she ate the convenient mini finger foods she had piled on her plate, perched on the edge of a too comfortable sofa.

Zac’s beautifully shaped mouth quirked. ‘I’m not, although I’m quite interested in breeding pedigree horses,’ he admitted, startling her afresh.

Zac watched her ease back into the sofa as though it were a potentially dangerous manoeuvre. Her feet left the floor and she crossed her legs like an elf, making herself at home with him for the first time, and he got a rush out of that display of relaxation, which unsettled him. It was only that she was prickly, difficult and an unknown quantity and he loved a challenge, he told himself squarely. Maybe without really noticing he had got bored with the constant sexual come-ons and the easy conquests. And Freddie was different, so very different from the sort of women he usually bedded. She also looked ridiculously cute sitting there, he acknowledged uneasily, frowning at that aberrant thought.

‘I also wanted to ask if you’ve thought any more about joining me in that bet I mentioned this morning,’ Zac delivered, getting back down to business with a strong sense of relief.

Her vivid little face screwed up tight and she studied him in surprise. ‘You’re still on about that?’ she questioned.

Zac shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘I don’t give up on anything easily.’

No, if she could peel him apart Freddie was convinced she would find the word ‘determined’ stamped through him as though he were a stick of rock. She parted her lips to protest and then closed them again, wanting to be civil. ‘I have the children to look after,’ she said finally.

‘And I could easily hire a nanny,’ Zac traded, once again refusing to take no for an answer. ‘We could have a lot of fun at Vitale’s royal ball. I’m sure you’d enjoy getting all togged up in a fancy designer dress as much as any woman.’

‘No, sorry,’ Freddie muttered, crushing down the temptation offered by that treacherous word, ‘fun’. For a split second, she considered the offer of a nanny’s help and then suppressed the idea again because, with Claire’s current mood, she did not want to risk rocking the boat. It was out of the question. Certainly not while Claire was currently saddled with a boyfriend flying out to Spain whenever he could to help his parents set up their new business. It would be the worst possible time for Freddie to start demonstrating a desire to fly free on her own behalf.

Zac sank down beside her on the sofa, suddenly way too close for comfort, she told herself anxiously. Or was that prickling fullness in her breasts and the sudden tiny betraying burst of heat between her thighs a mortifying wish for him to get closer still? Colour bled up beneath her skin, heating her all over.

‘But that’s crazy,’ Zac argued.

‘You don’t know when to quit, do you?’ Freddie remarked in reproach. ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’

‘But I do,’ Zac parried with irrepressible enthusiasm, light eyes shimmering like stars in the dusk light. ‘I’d like to spend more time with you and I can’t understand why you would fight that when you want it too.’

Eloise and Jack, Freddie reflected without speaking. ‘I don’t want to spend more time with you, though,’ she told him drily, running for her only possible escape hatch.

‘Why do you lie about it?’ Zac demanded with sudden lancing impatience.

Freddie breathed in deep. ‘I’m not lying,’ she told him, looking back at him steadily, literally willing him to believe what she was saying.

His big hands came up to cup her cheekbones, long controlling fingers sliding into her hair to fasten to her skull, and she couldn’t move an inch, brown eyes dilating with an enervating mixture of excitement and dismay.

‘Liar,’ he growled again.

‘Just because I won’t say what you want to hear doesn’t mean I’m lying!’ Freddie proclaimed in desperation.

The silence between them smouldered as if someone had set it on fire, brown eyes clashing with volatile light grey condemnation, and then he took her mouth with a wild, seething passion unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was like being swept away by a tidal wave, like sticking a finger in an electric socket or hitching a ride on a rocket because one minute she was grounded, the next she was flying high on a hunger that consumed her with its ferocious urgency. Sensation roared through her trembling body with every delving exploration of his tongue. He lowered a hand to crush the slight pout of her aching breast and she almost spontaneously combusted inside the prison of her flesh, her body screaming for more while she kissed him back with both hands laced tightly into the luxuriant depths of his long black hair.

In a sudden movement, Zac tore himself free, breathing heavily and raking a hand roughly through his tousled hair as he sprang upright again. ‘So, why do you lie about how I make you feel? What’s your game?’ he demanded rawly.

‘G-Game?’ she stammered blankly, focusing on the prominent bulge at his denim-clad groin, and then on the stray black hairs still caught between her greedily clutching fingertips.

‘Your agenda, because obviously there is one,’ Zac bit out. ‘Evidently it’s not money.’

‘No, it’s not,’ she agreed, stricken, hastily unfolding her legs and sliding upright on knees that wobbled because sheer shock was still rocking her. Shock that he could make her feel like that and that he should be the one with sufficient control to back off, not her, as it should have been in all fairness, she acknowledged guiltily. ‘I don’t have an agenda, Zac.’

Zac shot her a chillingly angry appraisal. ‘Oh, I think you do. I think you’re one of those archaic women who thinks the longer she says no, the keener I’ll become!’ he spelt out with derision, thinking of how she had become rather more encouraging since she had learned that he owned the hotel that employed her. ‘That doesn’t work for me. I don’t do keen with women.’

‘I didn’t think you did,’ Freddie told him, lifting her chin in a defiant signal of intent that Zac was unaccustomed to receiving from a woman. ‘I’ve known from the start that all you want is a one-night stand and I certainly wouldn’t waste my time or yours playing games with you. I don’t want or need a man in my life right now but I don’t mind admitting...just so you can see how very unsuited we are...that I would want more caring and commitment than a one-night stand. So, anyway, thanks for the evening out and the food.’

And with that, Freddie sidestepped him and stalked out of the door in high dudgeon.

Her eyes were stinging with tears and she furiously dashed them away in the lift. He had only confirmed what she had already guessed about the level of his interest and it was at rock-bottom level: sex. Talking about caring and commitment to a guy like that was undignified and humiliating, she censured herself angrily. Why had she bothered saying those stupid things? You couldn’t ask or magically wish into being what wasn’t being offered and Zac wasn’t chasing a waitress for anything more lasting than a spirited toss between the sheets. Of course, there was also his crazy wager, which his stupid brother had involved her in by choosing her as the target of a bad joke. The royal brother had seen her hostility towards Zac and had known it would be a very tall order for Zac to bring her to the ball acting ‘lovelorn’. Lovelorn, what a very outdated word, she thought wearily as she climbed on a bus home, planning the little white lie she would give Claire and certainly not the unlovely truth that she wasn’t prepared to be quite as much fun as other young women her age.

Should she have considered a one-night stand? No, no, where was her brain travelling now? Yes, she had been very attracted to him but not enough to ditch long-held convictions. She would have felt used and foolish if she had slept with him; she also would have wanted more from him than he was prepared to give and that would have hurt her. And she might already be feeling hurt, but she rather suspected she would have felt even worse had she become intimate with Zac and then had to serve drinks to his next casual lover. It was better to play safe, she reasoned, wiser to stand by her beliefs and stay on an even keel.

When she got home, Claire was out and a babysitter was installed. Just managing to pay the babysitter with what she had in her purse, she was too restless to slide into bed and go straight to sleep the way she always did. Instead she went browsing on her aunt’s laptop, snooping online to satisfy the curiosity that Zac had aroused. That exercise piled shock on shock! The Quintal da Rocha diamond mines in Russia and South Africa belonged to Zac and his brother was a Crown Prince. She recalled the diamond studs in one of his ears and his charismatic confidence and slowly marvelled that she had simply not worked out for herself that Zac’s striking level of blazing assurance was only innate in someone of wealth.

Yet she, biased as she was against men, had immediately assumed he was some sort of chancer up to no good when she’d first seen him, she conceded ruefully, condemning him on the slender facts that he was breathtakingly good-looking and bold because Lauren’s vicious boyfriend, Cruz, had had rather similar characteristics. Annoyed by her misconceptions and even more annoyed by the unhappiness dogging her, she forced herself to go to bed. Her sole consolation was that Zac would surely soon be off on his travels again to attend his royal brother’s ball. She had satisfied almost all her curiosity with a series of searches. But she also knew that she would find it easier to get back to normal if Zac left the hotel for a while...or stopped using the hotel bar.

* * *

When Freddie walked out on him, Zac punched the wall with so much force that blood dripped down it and then he swore in every language he knew even though he knew that on one level she was right and there was no way on earth they could meld their respective wants and wishes. Caring? Commitment? Zac very nearly shuddered with distaste at the concept. He didn’t know how to do either and he had no desire to learn. As he was, he was free as a bird and he had no plans to change that pleasurable state, certainly not for a woman. Women were always available, tall, short, curvy, thin—he wasn’t particular. At least he hadn’t been until he had met her. He would get drunk and wash her out of his mind, he decided with grim determination.

What he could not understand was what he had found so attractive about her in the first place! Possibly a man reached a certain age and was programmed to crave a different kind of woman. Maybe it could even be his father’s genes at play. Charles Russell was certainly a man who liked to settle down with women in committed relationships. He had freely admitted that he would have married Zac’s mother if he had got the chance and was currently seriously spending time with Angel’s very glam grandma-in-law, Sybil.

Zac shook his head in bewildered anger while arrogantly marvelling at Freddie’s resistance to him. Then he found himself wondering abstractedly if anyone would ever take the time to read Eloise that dragon story and, with another curse word of finality, rolled his eyes heavenward and consigned the whole Freddie debacle to history and oblivion. He would attend the ball alone...so what? No big deal, was it? He liked being alone; he preferred his own company.