by Lynne Graham
‘Thanks,’ she said tautly, settling into the limo to fiddle unnecessarily with her clutch bag while studiously avoiding his attention. ‘So, your father married twice and that’s where Angel and Vitale come from but he had an affair with your mother and she was in love with someone else.’
Zac lounged back with a sigh. ‘Both Charles and Antonella were on the rebound when they met in Brazil. If Afonso hadn’t returned to my mother, Charles would’ve married her as soon as he was free to do so. My father seems to fall in love with every woman he sleeps with. He’s a very tender-hearted man.’
‘But your mother still loved your stepfather even though he treated her so badly? I mean, ditching her when they were engaged to go off with another woman?’ Freddie prompted in surprise, stealing a glance at him, loving how elegant he was in his dinner jacket. Clean-shaven for once without a hint of his usual stubble, his perfect features were revealed from the smooth planes of his high cheekbones to the strong angle of his jawline. His deep-set heavily lashed light eyes gleamed and, caught staring, she reddened, her mouth running dry, all concentration evaporating simultaneously.
Zac shrugged. ‘I never understood her obsession but Afonso Oliveira was it for my mother. She worshipped the ground he walked on and believed he had done a wonderful thing in overlooking her humble background to choose her as a wife.’
‘How was her background humble when she was born into so much wealth?’ Freddie asked in disbelief.
‘She was the illegitimate daughter of a black maid and some people, notably those of my stepfather’s ilk, looked down on her for that. My grandfather ignored my mother’s existence because he was equally snobbish. Afonso was from a similar aristocratic background. The Oliveiras had long since run through their family fortune but that was less important than their reputation and their impressive family tree.’
‘Your mother had a sad life.’ Freddie sighed reflectively. ‘She didn’t really fit anywhere.’
‘Life is what you make of it. Her attachment to Afonso was toxic. Getting too attached to anyone is dangerous,’ Zac pronounced grimly. ‘Think of how attached you are to Eloise and Jack and the sacrifices you’re prepared to make to keep them!’
Unexpectedly, Freddie smiled. ‘But, loving them has enriched my life in so many other ways. Yes, I could have made different choices but they’re my family and they make me happy. I have no regrets.’
The dinner was being held in a private room at an exclusive restaurant. Freddie remembered Charles Russell and his eldest son, Angel, joining Zac for coffee one morning. But the two women, one brunette and one elegant, much older blonde, were completely new to her. The blonde turned out to be Sybil, Charles’ girlfriend and also, it seemed, Merry’s grandmother.
Zac kept one arm wrapped protectively round Freddie’s spine as he introduced her to everyone. Angel’s wife, Merry, admired Freddie’s ring, but although both women were charming Merry seemed a little uncomfortable around Freddie and Zac, while Zac’s father treated Freddie for all the world as though she was his dream choice of bride for his youngest son.
They took their seats while Freddie noted what the other two women were wearing and recognised that Zac had not brought her to the party overdressed. Merry and Sybil sparkled with jewellery and sported stylish outfits sprinkled with the kind of little handmade embellishments that screamed haute couture. Merry talked about her little girl and asked her about Eloise and Jack. Zac shared Eloise’s current obsession with dragons. Charles was asking when he could hope to meet the children when Freddie rose at the last minute to follow the other two women out to the cloakroom.
‘I just felt so awkward meeting Freddie!’ Merry was exclaiming loudly in the corridor as she and her grandmother rounded a corner. ‘I wish Jazz hadn’t told me what Zac got up to at the royal ball.’
‘What did he get up to?’ the older woman asked as Freddie automatically speeded up in the hope of hearing the rest of the tantalising exchange.
‘Apparently, Zac disappeared into a private room with two women that work at the palace. Obviously, they went in there to have sex. Jazz said he didn’t even blush when he reappeared. He’s shameless,’ Merry contended in a pained voice. ‘But that was only two weeks ago. How am I supposed to treat Freddie like a happy bride-to-be when I know that Zac was still playing away so recently?’
‘Well, I think you have to give Zac the benefit of the doubt because only the individuals in that room know what actually happened there. I also think you need to remind yourself that you are very happy with a man who enjoyed an equally raunchy reputation before he married you,’ the other woman commented wryly.
Snatching in a breath, Freddie had frozen where she stood as she listened. Merry and her grandmother were talking about Zac. Apparently, he had had sex with two women at the Lerovian ball that Freddie had declined to attend. Two women. Shock rippled like a lightning bolt through Freddie, jarring every bone and muscle. A wave of fierce jealousy ripped through her in the aftermath as she realised that, without ever thinking too deeply about it, she had come to look on Zac as hers. Yet while coming on to her, pretending to want her, he had still been having sex with other women. That knowledge cut into her like a knife and made her feel like a fool. How many other women had he dallied with since they met? Appalled and deeply wounded, she walked stiffly into the cloakroom as the other women were leaving and managed a vague smile even though she felt like a zombie.
How could she marry a man she couldn’t even trust to be faithful? She had taken exclusivity for granted in their relationship but it was not something they had actually discussed. She had made stupid, naïve assumptions, she acknowledged painfully, and Zac had played on her lack of experience. Telling her that he had never gone so long without sex! Yet it was only two weeks since the ball. Was two weeks a long time for him? How did she know? And what did she care? How could she possibly care about a man that brazen?
Thankfully, she didn’t care about him, she told herself resolutely. She was wildly attracted to him but that was all, because she was cautious with her feelings and careful to protect herself from unhealthy attachments. She had watched, after all, what love did to her sister, Lauren. Lauren had bent every rule there was to justify keeping Cruz in her life, refusing to break away from him, excusing his infidelities as a trifling ‘man thing’.
Zac noticed how pale and quiet Freddie was when she returned to the table and decided that it was time to call it a night. She was probably tired, he thought wryly, knowing the kids woke her at the crack of dawn. He had seen the tiny room she shared with the children and marvelled that she could live in that confined space without complaint. He draped an arm round her as they said their goodbyes, but she pulled away from him on the pavement outside, slipping into the waiting limo like a little silvery ghost.
‘Can we go back to the hotel first?’ Freddie asked tautly. ‘We have to talk.’
Angel had once joked that the four deadliest words in Merry’s vocabulary were those words but Zac was nonchalant, cocooned as he was in his conviction that he was absolutely without a sin to his name. He wondered only absently what she wanted to talk about.
CHAPTER SIX
‘NO, THANKS,’ FREDDIE said flatly in answer to the offer of a drink.
Zac was already revising his belief that nothing could be seriously amiss because Freddie was posed in front of him with all the accusing stiffness and tension of a miniature St Joan of Arc. All she lacked was a sword and a burning torch. ‘What’s happening here?’ he demanded abruptly.
‘I overheard a conversation tonight,’ Freddie volunteered between gritted teeth, struggling to prevent herself from visibly trembling with rage. ‘I heard how you entertained yourself at the royal ball.’
Zac put the evidence together and within seconds he had the whole picture clear in his mind. Vitale’s wife, Jazz, had probably gossiped to Merry and then Merry had talked and somehow Freddie had got to listen. His macho pride had been his downfall, he registered, his teeth grittin
g. Losing the bet, not even being able to persuade Freddie to join him at the ball, had hit his ego hard and when his brothers had assumed he was partaking of a little al fresco sex, he had seen no reason to put the record straight.
Now Freddie had judged him and found him wanting and it was far from the first time he had endured the experience of others believing the worst of him. As a child he had come up with his own defence strategy and it had only hardened to steel as he matured. Never apologise, never explain. In point of fact he didn’t owe Freddie any explanations as they had not been together at the time. He had done nothing he was ashamed of doing. He had told no lies, had caused no injury to anyone and he refused to apologise for something he hadn’t done to keep the peace.
If Freddie was going to be his wife, she had to respect his boundaries. He loathed emotional blackmail and had no scruples about fighting fire with fire.
‘Was it educational?’ Zac countered softly, his sibilant Brazilian accent roughening his vowel sounds with the hint that he might not be as cool and calm as he appeared.
His apparent complete lack of reaction infuriated Freddie. He stood there, lean, powerful body balanced and strong in his beautifully cut suit, his eyes glittering like crushed ice below his luxuriant black lashes.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say to me?’ Freddie launched at him furiously.
‘I don’t know what else I can say since you still haven’t clarified the issue,’ Zac responded with sardonic bite.
Colour spattered her cheeks, chasing away the pallor induced by shock. ‘You went into a private room at the ball to have sex with two women.’
‘No, that’s incorrect,’ Zac contradicted. ‘I went into the room first to make a phone call and two women followed me in.’
‘If you think that that makes a difference to my feelings—’ Freddie began heatedly, incensed that he still seemed in absolute stress-free control. He wasn’t embarrassed. He wasn’t angry at being found out. He wasn’t even defensive. And even worse, if he had a drop of guilt in him he wasn’t showing it.
Zac threw his arrogant dark head back. ‘That’s how it happened, but I don’t understand what your feelings have to do with it—’
‘Oh, you don’t, don’t you?’ Freddie broke in, almost bouncing on her high heels as she threw herself as tall as she could, slight shoulders squaring with hostility.
‘No, I don’t,’ Zac repeated. ‘We were not in a relationship at the time. In fact, forty-eight hours before the ball you walked out on me, making it clear that you wanted nothing more to do with me.’
That reminder flashed through Freddie like paraffin thrown on a bonfire and only sent the rage clawing up inside her climbing higher. ‘You said you wanted me and then you went off and had sleazy sex with another woman the first opportunity you got!’ she slung back at him in disgust.
‘No, that wasn’t the first opportunity,’ Zac corrected with a reflective air and a cynical set to his sensual mouth. ‘I was approached in the VIP lounge at the airport by a woman, propositioned by a stewardess on my flight and given at least two phone numbers after I landed in Lerovia. So, no, not my first opportunity to let loose.’
Freddie stared at him in mounting disbelief and horror. The one undeniable truth about Zac da Rocha was that he was gorgeous and many women didn’t wait for him to demonstrate interest before going into pursuit. She had watched that happening in the bar when women became frustrated at failing to attract his attention and then made more aggressive moves. But the concrete proof that Zac was targeted by so many other women only sent Freddie plunging even deeper into panic mode. How could someone as ordinary as she was ever hope to hold onto the interest of such a spectacular male specimen? It was obvious that she could not and that getting out before she got in any deeper was her sole option.
‘Fidelity is very, very important to me,’ Freddie declared shakily, struggling to breathe evenly and stay calm even when she felt like an over-shaken cocktail of drama inside herself.
‘Yet we’re getting married the day after tomorrow and this is the first time you’ve mentioned it,’ Zac pointed out, pouring himself a malt whiskey and tossing it back without hesitation because when it came to the issue of fidelity there was really nothing he wanted to say. He had never had to be faithful because he had never stayed long enough with any one woman for that to become a concern. But that confession would scarcely soothe Freddie.
‘I just assumed...you know...’ Freddie forced out the words because her throat was closing over and aching ‘...that I could trust you and now I’ve found out I can’t trust you.’
Zac swung back to her, his lean, powerful limbs compellingly graceful in motion, stunning eyes like blazing polar stars, his anger unhidden now. ‘We broke up before I even left for Lerovia. Anything I did there is my business. Obviously, I have a past. I can’t change that.’
‘This wasn’t the past...this was only two weeks ago!’ Freddie condemned stridently, fighting the tears threatening her, refusing to show weakness and break down. ‘I can’t marry a man I can’t trust!’
‘That is, of course, your decision but, considering that our marriage was supposed to be more based on practicality than sentiment, I don’t see where the problem arises.’
‘No, and the fact you can’t see it only proves that we shouldn’t marry!’ Freddie threw back at him vehemently. ‘You said you had never gone so long without sex and yet you were with other women only two weeks ago.’
Zac decided that he wasn’t going to get involved in such dangerous trifles when she was acting like a rocket about to go off and light the night skies for miles around. Never apologise, never explain, he reminded himself stubbornly, angry with her, disappointed in her inability to cool down, face facts and see his point of view. She was in no fit state to grasp any explanation while she was still screaming at him. ‘You need to calm down and think this through,’ he murmured grimly, his firm sensual mouth compressing with steely self-control.
‘I don’t have to think about anything,’ Freddie told him woodenly, misery creeping over her like a toxic cloud that shut out all the light. ‘I can’t marry an untrustworthy, unreliable womaniser. There’s no coming back from that.’
‘All that speech is telling me is that you have never been realistic about our marriage. Not only have you not recognised the boundaries I set, but you have also decided to judge me for sins I haven’t committed,’ Zac concluded grittily. ‘Even so, when you fall off your soapbox I’ll be waiting.’
‘And that’s all you’ve got to say to me?’ Freddie ranted back at him, because she was far from finished and he was shutting her down.
‘This is not a productive dialogue,’ Zac growled, yanking open the door for her departure. ‘The car’s waiting downstairs to take you home.’
And the pain didn’t engulf Freddie until she climbed back into the car and slumped like a doll who had had the stuffing beaten out of her. She travelled from thwarted rage to devastated hurt in the space of seconds. So, it was over. She tasted the concept, reeled from it, wondered vaguely what else she had expected when she’d chosen to confront him. It had been too like a fairy tale anyway, she told herself... Zac coming along and seemingly offering her a lifeline when everything was falling apart.
When had anything that unexpectedly good ever happened to her before? She wasn’t a lucky person, never had been. She hadn’t been lucky when her parents died, hadn’t been lucky when it came to getting Lauren off drugs and she had been even less lucky when it came to retaining custody of the children. And that was the moment when Freddie realised that she had forgotten where her niece and nephew fitted into their marriage plans. Aghast, she felt a chill running up over her entire body, driving out the heat of anger, bitterness and pain.
She would lose Eloise and Jack and they would lose Zac. Zac might be no good in the fidelity stakes but he was already demonstrating sterling traits as a father. And wasn’t that why she was supposed to be marrying him?
Practicality rathe
r than sentiment, Zac had reminded her lethally. A marriage of convenience for both of them, not a marriage based on love or the finer feelings, not even a marriage supposed to last for ever. Her tummy gave a nauseous twist. What had she done? What had she done?
She had reacted personally to what she had overheard in the corridor at the restaurant. She had reacted as if she were marrying for love and had behaved as though she had been betrayed. Deep down inside herself, she had been bitterly hurt by the idea of other women getting intimate with Zac, imagining them touching him and being touched by him. But was she entitled to such feelings?
On one score, Zac had been correct: they had broken up before the ball. Learning that he had had sex with someone else might upset her but he had not betrayed her and he had not broken any promises he made her. Soberly contemplating those facts filled Freddie with chagrin because she had faced Zac in a spirit of angry condemnation.
Yet they weren’t in love with each other or even lovers as yet. Practicality rather than sentiment, she reflected with an inner shiver of recoil, for, now that she was actually thinking about it, that struck her as a very chilly recipe for a relationship. No wonder Zac had accused her of not taking a realistic view of their marriage. She had reacted emotionally and gone way out of line, driven by her overwhelming need to express her anguished sense of rejection and hurt. But he had neither needed nor wanted such feelings thrown at him. He was not responsible for what she felt, she was.
‘I had a fight with Zac. The wedding’s off as we speak,’ she confessed chokily to Claire when she got home.