by Kim Lawrence
Zach tensed and kept his eyes closed as he felt her fingers move down the scar on his chest; he’d known it was coming. In a moment she’d find the more messy, less surgically precise scars on his ribs, which the knife, luckily for him, had just glanced off, not penetrated. It was the one underneath that had thrust upwards, severing some major vessels, that had caused all the damage.
The only people who knew the truth of the scars were Alekis and Selene, plus the surgical team who had saved his life, the real heroes. He was indulgent of a little morbid curiosity from his bed partners. He even had a few ridiculous lies he wheeled out on occasion to amuse himself, safe in the knowledge they really didn’t care about his pain or his trauma or the fact his uncle had knocked seven bells out of him—these were all pluses.
This was different. Kat’s curiosity would not be morbid. Her empathy had quite a different quality and would include sympathy and pity, two things he had a strong allergic reaction to.
He opened his eyes and turned his head and, despite everything, experienced a shock-level surge of possessiveness as his eyes slid over her lovely face and beautiful body.
She smiled.
You made a mistake that was human and, if not, forgivable as such, but at least you could have a free pass; you repeated it and there were no free passes because you were a fool.
He was not a fool.
He’d made a mistake and he was not about to repeat it. This was going nowhere, because he didn’t do tomorrow and she very definitely did. The kindest thing in the long run—and she might appreciate it one day, when she had her family and her brood of children—was a clean cut. Not that there would be anything clean about it if Alekis found out.
She had edged a little closer, planning to put her head on his chest, pushing her long leg against his hair-roughened thigh, enjoying the contrast in their bodies. They were two very different halves that had made a total perfect whole. At the last moment something in his face, or rather the lack of it, made her pause.
‘Is something wrong?’ Fear of losing this happiness made her tense.
‘I didn’t protect you.’ The only time in his life.
It took a moment for his words and the self-contempt in his voice to make sense.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I was there, too,’ she reminded him quietly. ‘It was my responsibility, too.’
He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘You would say that.’ Because she was good...too good for him, but the truth was she had given and he had taken.
She reached out again and touched the scar, pale against the deep gold of his skin. ‘What happened?’ she asked, her tender heart aching as she thought of the pain those marks represented.
He took her hand off his chest, dropped it as if it were something contagious and sat up. ‘One of those “wrong place wrong time” things.’
She blinked and felt the trace of unease already stirring in her belly take serious hold. ‘Is that all I get...?’ She smiled to lighten her words and added half jokingly, ‘You really could do with some lessons in sharing.’
He looked at her again; the coldness in his eyes made her stomach quiver in apprehension. She reached for her dress as the self-consciousness she had shrugged off returned. Pulling herself onto her knees, she slipped it over her head but didn’t attempt the zip.
He didn’t offer so she knelt back down again.
‘We are not sharing, Katina. Yes, we had sex, but it was not the beginning of some special sharing, caring relationship. But if you want to know, the scars are why I am who I am. I was in the wrong place but so was Alekis.’
‘You saved him.’
‘I am not a hero, Kat. Do not look at me that way. I hate bullies and I didn’t think before I acted...much like tonight.’
It wasn’t just what he said, it was the fact he seemed to want to hurt her.
‘You sound as though you regret it.’
She left him the space to say no, that it had been one of the best things that had ever happened to him, but the space stayed empty and instead his eyes drifted away from hers as if the contact was something that made him uncomfortable. ‘It was a mistake—you must see that.’
Kat said nothing. She was actually afraid if she tried to speak she’d start crying.
‘For starters, Alekis trusted me. I have betrayed that trust and betrayed someone I respect.’ But, man, is he good to hide behind. Ignoring the sly insert of his subconscious, he appealed for her understanding. ‘You must see that.’
‘Why should I care about what Alekis thinks?’ she flared back. ‘Anyway, what about me? Don’t I deserve a little bit of respect?’ she choked out.
‘Please do not become emotional...’
‘Seriously! We just made love.’
‘Had sex.’
The rebuttal made her pale.
‘And do not imagine this is the start of some sort of love affair.’
She sat there shivering while he got to his feet and dragged his clothes on. There was a pause before he extended his hand to her; she ignored it and got to her feet.
‘I know you want a happy-ever-after thing, a husband and children, which is fine, but I’m not the man for that and if I’d known you were so inexperienced I would have—’ Innate honesty made him pause. If he’d known he would not have stopped—nothing would have stopped him.
‘Don’t put me in one of your little boxes, and don’t presume to know what I want from life! You know something, Zach, I really don’t think I’m the one with the problem. I didn’t expect you to declare undying love. I just wanted a little bit of...well, respect would have been nice. But no, you had to spoil what happened by turning it into something nasty and sordid, because you’re too scared to risk feeling anything that you can’t control. You know what I think?’
His jaw clenched as he struggled to control his anger. ‘Is there any way I can stop you telling me?’
‘You won’t have any sort of a future until you come to terms with your past and stop letting it rule you.’
‘Who’s presuming now?’ he growled out.
She picked up her skirts in one hand, decided not to look for her shoes—they had killed anyway—and started back across the sand toward the lights of the house.
Zach, who experienced a stab of visceral longing as he watched her progress, dignified despite the fact her entire back, including the upper slopes of her pert bottom, was exposed, managed to wipe his face of expression as she suddenly swung back, her anger cancelling out mental censorship as she had the last word.
‘You’re not the only one with trust issues, Zach. Why the hell do you think I was inexperienced? Though, for the record, I was a virgin! And as it turns out a stupid one because I thought I had found someone I could let my guard down with. You know what, though, I’d prefer to be me and make a mistake than you, who spends his life pretending you don’t feel anything...’ Her eyes searched his face. ‘But I don’t believe that—you did and for me!’
The level of his self-loathing went up several notches as he watched her flounce away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘HOW DID IT GO?’
Selene saw Kat’s face and her own melted into one of concern. ‘Oh, dear, is it bad news?’
Kat shook her head as she laid her handbag down on the table and turned back to the housekeeper. ‘No, no, nothing like that really.’ She was not ready to share just yet what the something was that had put the worried look on her face. ‘The doctors are really pleased with his progress. If all goes well with his next round of tests, they are willing to discharge him next week.’
Kat was visiting the clinic in Athens once a week, but talking to her grandfather during the week online. This time she had taken herself off to see another specialist after seeing her grandfather.
‘Things are definitely getting more relaxed.’
‘
He must be pleased he’s coming home.’
‘No, he’s mad as hell that he can’t escort me to this charity auction.’
‘Never mind, there’s next year.’
‘That’s what I said only he...yes, thanks, tea would be lovely,’ she said with gratitude to a maid who brought in a tea tray.
‘Only?’
‘He has roped in a stand-in. He says as he has donated a sports car, an Azaria should be there. I said I’m not an Azaria but, well...’ She shrugged. She had discovered her grandfather was a hard man to argue with and when faced with a defeat he fell back on chest pain, and who was going to risk disbelieving him?
Not Kat.
‘Join me,’ Kat begged when the woman poured her tea.
Smiling, Selene poured another and took a seat. ‘So who is the stand-in? Anyone we know?’
Selene had already guessed, the way she had figured out at least some of what had gone on between Zach and Kat.
‘Zach,’ Kat said quietly. Unlike for Selene, the news had come as a massive shock when Alekis had announced his stand-in for the charity auction.
Kat had excused herself and gone to the ladies’ room to cry her eyes out, but then she had an excuse for being over-emotional. Her hormones were all over the place—she was pregnant.
She’d had her suspicions for a few days and the consultant had officially confirmed it today.
To keep things private—the island was a very small place—she’d asked Sue to post her the test kit. Her friend had been sympathetic but she had promised her that nobody knew that early, but Kat had, and she’d been right.
Two weeks to the day since Zach had left, never, it seemed, to return, she knew she was carrying his child. The shock was still there, even the occasional moment of blind panic, but a level of acceptance had started to kick in and, to her surprise, excitement.
While her emotions were all over the place, she was totally sure of one thing. This baby would have a mother who loved her or him. Her baby would never feel alone and be scared. She was absolutely determined to give this child the childhood she had not had.
Sadly, she could not guarantee the baby a father. And the great-grandfather? Well, the jury was still out, but she suspected, hoped, that Alekis would be over the moon about having a great-grandchild.
And if he wasn’t, well, she would deal with it. The baby came first as far as she was concerned and if other people had a problem with that—tough!
It was the father’s identity her grandfather might have a problem with. It was a problem the father himself might have, too. She had lain awake half of last night trying to decide when and how to tell Zach and had come to the conclusion that she needed to get used to the idea herself before she shared.
It made sense.
Or she might just be a big coward!
‘It’s a really stunning event with the cream of society and—’
‘But Zach...’ Kat wailed, still blaming her hormones.
Kat had taken to her room and cried for a day when Zach had left, claiming a migraine, and when she had emerged she had known that Zach wasn’t the only person in denial.
Hard enough to accept she had wanted him physically, but accepting that she had fallen in love with Zach had been one of the hardest things in her life. She prided herself on being truthful but this was one truth she had been avoiding because she had known it would hurt—she just hadn’t known how much!
‘You could make an excuse...’
Kat’s chin went up. ‘Why should I?’ She wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong.
* * *
Zach, drawing eyes and more than a few camera clicks in his dress suit, stepped back into the shadows, and the limo that drew up disgorged the members of a new girl-band group.
The paparazzi went crazy and Zach’s patience grew thin. His offer to travel over to Tackyntha to escort Kat had been politely refused by someone who was not Kat or even Selene.
He was being given the runaround. The only surprise was that nothing of what had happened between he and Kat seemed to have filtered through to Alekis as yet.
The past two weeks had been a sort of hell Zach had never experienced before. Normally in times of stress he was able to bury himself in work until it passed, but not on this occasion. He couldn’t concentrate, a unique experience for him, so work was impossible.
His volatile mood had swung from anger and frustration—he hadn’t asked for any of this—and then on to black despair. It was crazy but he was missing her, not just the physical stuff, although that had been incredible, but stupid things like the sound of her voice...her laugh, the way she wrinkled up her nose.
The woman was haunting him.
Logic told him that a man couldn’t fall in love so quickly, but the same logic told him that love, the romantic variety, didn’t exist outside romance novels.
He’d believed that before Katina had walked into his life.
And now? Now he didn’t know what the hell he felt, and her words kept coming back to him. ‘You won’t have any sort of a future until you come to terms with your past.’
He was the one with the problem.
It still made him angry, but Zach had started to wonder if she could be right.
He had rejected the idea that he was a coward hiding behind his past and unable to face the future, but the more he thought about it... Tonight would give him a chance to connect again. Maybe there was some sort of middle ground?
He dashed a hand across his head. Middle ground? What the hell was he thinking?
He was thinking of kissing her—just sinking into her warmth—as he had been from the second she had walked away from him. He had struggled not to run after her. He had begun to wonder what would have happened if he had—maybe their passionate affair would already have burnt itself out?
Or she might have killed him.
A half-smile on his lips, he stepped forward again. This time the limos had arrived in a block of three.
The door to the first opened and a platinum blonde got out, wearing a glittery silver dress that was so figure-hugging it appeared painted on. She rocked a little on her heels as she paused to pose for cameras even though no one seemed that excited about her and her escort’s arrival.
‘Well, I hear that Alekis’s little heiress will be here tonight. I wonder if she’s as much of a slut as the mother was.’
‘Was she?’ the man asked.
‘God, yes, and a druggie... I hear that the girl is just like her. Alekis found her in some sort of refuge and I hear that before that she was actually living on the streets.’
The woman with the uniquely unattractive voice had begun talking as she emerged from the car. Standing at the top of a long flight of stone steps, Zach nonetheless heard every word of this conversation.
He stepped in front of the doormen.
The woman looked him up and down, her painted lips widening into a smile. ‘Oh, hello, how nice to see you again, Zach. Darling, it’s Zach.’
Zach, who had not to his knowledge ever seen either of them before, waited until she had finished listing to her long-suffering partner all the times they had met him previously.
‘I heard you speaking—actually I think several people heard you speaking—about Miss Katina Parvati,’ Zach observed, pitching his own voice to carry. It was a message he did not mind sharing. ‘I did not like what I heard. Obviously anyone with an ounce of sense will recognise spiteful lies and malice when they hear it. But I feel it only fair to warn you that should I hear those lies repeated anywhere online or in person I will have no compunction but to put the case in the hands of my very litigious legal team. And after they have finished with you I am sure that Alekis Azaria might enjoy watching his own team picking at your bones. His granddaughter is a person so superior to the likes of you that I find it offensive that you breathe the same air!’
‘Zach!’
At the sound of the voice he turned. Kat was standing at the bottom of the steps, wearing a dress a shade paler than the one he remembered stripping off her body. This one was much more formal: a strapless bodice that revealed the upper slopes of her breasts and the dazzle of a diamond necklace.
He rushed down to her, taking the steps two at a time, shedding his doubts with each step he took. What he felt for her was not going to burn itself out. She was part of him and if he ever won her back he would never let her go!
‘Do you make a habit of making public scenes?’ Oh, God, he looked so gorgeous she could not take her eyes off him. The ache of longing she had struggled to deny was a physical ache that went soul deep.
He looked blank for a moment, a little dazed, and then glanced up the stairs. The couple had vanished.
‘Not usually.’ His shoulders lifted in a shrug.
There was so much he needed to say but now she was here and he was acting like some tongue-tied kid, or maybe just the Neanderthal who had taken her virginity on a beach she probably thought he was.
Kat lowered her eyes and struggled to collect her fractured composure. Seeing him standing there had shaken loose a million conflicting emotions. The idea that she could distance herself from him emotionally or any other way had vanished.
He was the father of her child and she loved him.
‘I heard what you said,’ she said, not even bothering to try and project the illusion of calm control—who was going to believe it? ‘I think maybe a lot of people did.’
That was the problem: there were way too many people and he wanted her all alone. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said, taking her elbow and mentally figuring out just how soon they could reasonably leave without causing massive offence. While he had zero problem with offence, he suspected that Kat might not be on the same page as him with this.
‘You’ve not lost any of your charm,’ she said, hating the fact he had the ability to hurt her.
He looked down at her, frowning. ‘No, I didn’t mean... I need to talk to you alone and I avoid these things like the plague normally.’