by Lynne Graham
‘We’re only human. We can’t see the future but my motivation is good. I don’t want anyone harmed by this arrangement.’
‘But why did you pick me?’ she asked baldly.
‘I can be businesslike about this with you because you have as much to gain from the marriage as I do,’ Zac stated. ‘I like that because it gives us a better chance of making it work. Com certeza...of course, if I wasn’t attracted to you, it wouldn’t work on any level.’
Freddie reddened, lashes cloaking her gaze as she tore her attention from his lean, powerful figure, her body slowly heating. Her nipples prickled and tightened, her thighs pressing tightly together to ease the sudden compulsive ache between them. Wanting without any hope of satisfaction hurt, she finally acknowledged, but she still tensed at the prospect of giving way to that need.
But Zac was offering her what she wanted in return for what he wanted and she deemed it a fair bargain if he was willing to take on parenting her niece and nephew and any child they had of their own. She concentrated on the positives. Zac would give them security. Zac would be another parent to support her. After a while he would not be around on a daily basis as a father, but in a world where nothing was certain and marriages often broke down that was not unusual and at least he was being honest about his intentions from the outset.
She didn’t have an alternative choice. Nobody else was coming to rescue her. And even Zac wasn’t rescuing her, she reflected wryly. He was offering her a lifebelt on one hand and demanding his pound of flesh with the other. They would be equal partners in the marriage because both of them would be bringing something important to the table. Would she be able to conceive? How long would it take to accomplish that feat? And what would it feel like to have Zac as a husband and lover and then lose him again? But all those scary questions were for the future and not relevant to the present.
‘Yes. I am attracted to you,’ she said stiffly, reckoning that there was no longer any need to pretend otherwise.
A wide appreciative grin slashed Zac’s mouth. ‘No more lies, then.’
‘No more lies,’ she agreed ruefully. ‘I’m saying yes to your proposition because you’re the only hope I have of keeping Eloise and Jack and I’ll do whatever I have to do to facilitate that.’
‘Venha aqui...come here,’ Zac urged.
Stiff as a plank of wood, Freddie rose from her seat and approached him. He swept her up like a doll and held her high with the kind of controlled physical strength that shook her. ‘You won’t regret this decision,’ he told her and then he kissed her.
Hotly, extravagantly, passionately and with all the energy that drove him, he crushed her soft lips beneath his, both arms banded so tightly round her narrow ribcage that she could barely breathe. But she didn’t want to breathe, she just wanted to fall deeper into that kiss. His tongue ravaged the tender interior of her mouth and a shower of sparks flew up inside her, tingling along every nerve ending in her slender body. His tongue teased and flicked and darted and with a gasp she closed her arms dizzily round his neck.
‘We could get this project off to a flying start right now,’ Zac suggested thickly.
And Freddie froze and let go of him, pushing him away until he had to let her down to stand on her own feet again.
‘Problem?’ Zac quipped very drily, his eyes luminous and coolly enquiring in the dim lights.
‘I’m not getting into bed with you until we’re legally married,’ Freddie spelt out in a defiant rush as she fought for what little security she could retain, which to her meant staying safe and uncommitted to the last possible moment. ‘You could still be shooting me a crazy seduction line. After all, you are the guy who bets sports cars away! I won’t take the risk of getting pregnant until you’ve proved your commitment to our agreement.’
Zac stared at her in astonishment. ‘You think this could be a scam?’ he breathed incredulously, astonished by the level of her distrust. ‘I’ve never had to seduce a woman in my life!’
Freddie backed away another few steps, embarrassed now that she had voiced her reservations. ‘I’m naturally suspicious—’
‘Of men,’ Zac slotted in boldly. ‘You don’t trust my sex.’
‘My past experiences have not been good,’ Freddie conceded reluctantly.
‘Then tomorrow we’ll get this party started with a visit to my London lawyers. They’ll make a start on the adoption application and advise us on how soon we can get married here. Bring your birth certificate and your passport and the children’s,’ Zac advised, his lean, hard-boned face set with purpose.
Freddie groaned out loud. ‘Zac... I don’t have a passport and neither do the children. In any case the authorities wouldn’t allow us to take the children out of the UK without their permission.’
‘You’ve never been abroad?’ Zac asked in astonishment.
‘Never,’ Freddie confirmed.
‘My lawyers will deal with all the details,’ Zac pronounced with innate arrogance.
‘And I’ll have the children in tow,’ Freddie warned. ‘And they can’t go on a motorbike.’
‘Obviously not,’ Zac fielded drily. ‘Stop putting obstacles in my path, meu pequenino. When I want something, I allow nothing to get in my way...and I want you.’
Freddie went pink, disconcerted by that unequivocal statement of intent. And yet in the strangest way she found his determination to have her ridiculously flattering, because no man had ever wanted her with such stubborn, resolute intensity. Of course that wouldn’t last, she told herself ruefully, not once he realised how inexperienced and ordinary she was. No doubt he was expecting fireworks in the bedroom. How would he feel when he instead wakened to find Eloise and Jack in bed with them at some ungodly hour of the morning? Family life, she thought heavily, was likely to be a big culture shock for Zac.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘IT’S PERFECT,’ ZAC pronounced as Freddie smoothed an apprehensive finger down over the knee-length, shimmering silver sheath dress.
‘But what does it cost?’ Freddie hissed in an anxious undertone, fearful of attracting the attention of the saleswoman, who was grander than a queen.
Zac dealt her a silencing look that was equally intimidating. Requesting prices was apparently a vulgar act in his radius. Apparently, prices were no longer her business but his. Freddie sucked in a steadying breath but it didn’t work. From the instant she had agreed to marry Zac, her life had begun changing at warp speed.
The next morning, he had taken her straight into a meeting with his London lawyers. Freddie had tried to keep Eloise and Jack entertained in a corner while incomprehensible legal jargon interwoven with long voluble snatches of Portuguese had whirled round the room. Zac had made copious notes on his phone and dragged her out of there again, but only after she had filled in a sheaf of official documents. They had climbed back into the limousine that had picked them up that morning, a real genuine long black limousine complete with car seats for the children, and that was the first time Freddie had actually come to terms with the idea that Zac was very rich.
New experience after new experience had bombarded her ever since and she felt dizzy from the shock of it all. Without the children around to ground her, she felt lost. Claire had agreed to keep Eloise and Jack while they went shopping for a new outfit for Freddie. Zac had wanted to hire a nanny and had been exasperated when he had finally grasped that only Claire was officially allowed to take care of the children. That was Zac, infuriated by red tape and rules, always impatient to move quickly past them to the next challenge.
A giant blue diamond solitaire ring weighed down Freddie’s left hand and if she stirred even a finger it sparkled with blinding brilliance. It was a very beautiful and eye-catching ring.
‘Play everything by the book,’ Zac’s legal team had advised him, and that seemed to entail doing stuff that Zac’s unconventional heart rebelled against. He had been told to give her
an engagement ring, introduce her to his family and play up his family connections, not one of which acts came naturally to him. So, Freddie could not feel flattered by anything Zac had done or arranged although she was grateful that he was willing to do it to facilitate their application to adopt Eloise and Jack.
‘You do what you have to do,’ Zac had enunciated through gritted teeth as he had slid that extraordinarily opulent ring onto her ring finger.
No, there had been no risk of Freddie suspecting that Zac cherished more romantic feelings for her than he was willing to share with her. And shopping with him even for one morning was a bit of a nightmare for a shy, introverted young woman. Evidently, he liked women clad in skimpy lingerie, and he had been wildly disconcerted by her mortification when he had discussed his preferences for what she was to wear with the saleswoman. More than ever, it had made Freddie feel as though she was just a body to Zac, a body for him to dress and impregnate at the same speed with which he did everything else. That very evening they were joining his family for what he had described as ‘an informal dinner’. Yet the event obviously required her to wear a designer dress with all the trimmings.
‘Those shoes,’ Zac indicated to the hovering assistant with a careless sweep of one bronzed hand. ‘That bag.’
‘You have to get more into the spirit of this,’ Zac censured as he herded her back out to the limousine like a wayward sheep, who might stray. ‘You’ve got a fitting for your wedding dress tomorrow.’
Two days earlier, Freddie had chosen the dress in a breathtakingly impressive designer atelier while Zac had turned Jack upside down to keep him amused and strings of baby chuckles had filled the air and Eloise had stood by awaiting her turn.
‘I don’t see why it matters what I wear when I meet your family,’ Freddie admitted. ‘It’s not as if you even want me to meet them!’
‘I’m not close to my half-brothers but over time that could change, particularly when all of us have young children. I would like the connection for our children,’ Zac admitted with emphasis. ‘Growing up, I had virtually no family and it made me a loner. I want the kids to have a different experience. And it does matter what you wear when you meet my family.’
‘How?’
‘Angel’s wife, Merry, and my father’s girlfriend, Sybil, will look as if they walked straight off a Paris catwalk. I will not have you look less than them in any way,’ Zac completed grimly, his pride on the line. No way would he allow Freddie to be patronised or labelled unfit for such exclusive company. Without effort she would outshine all of them, he thought with satisfaction, surveying her delicate triangular face and her warm brown eyes.
She would be the perfect wife for him, he savoured. She wouldn’t be clingy or needy because she would be far too wrapped up in the children to worry about what he was doing. She wouldn’t make demands or throw temperamental jealous or possessive tantrums. She would just get on with things the way he did without making a big song and dance about them. Freddie was wonderfully practical, so she wouldn’t go falling for him or anything inconvenient like that either. She had already signed the pre-nuptial agreement without the smallest difficulty. ‘A woman in a million,’ one of his lawyers had commented afterwards and Zac had felt very real pride in his future wife, who was so gloriously free of avarice and ambition.
Unaware of the unspoken accolades coming her way, Freddie settled into a corner of the opulent limo and studied Zac’s lean, darkly handsome face. He looked so different from the man she had first met. He had abandoned his jeans and worn sharply tailored suits for all their official appointments and, ironically, he wore a suit with the panache of one born to such formality. Exquisitely tailored in a fine grey wool and silk blend, his present dark grey suit outlined his broad shoulders and wide chest and enhanced his lean hips and long powerful legs to perfection. In jeans he looked incredibly masculine and sexy but in a suit he was to die for.
Her body was all of a quiver in his radius because it didn’t matter how much he annoyed or confused her, he still fascinated her. Her temperature rose, her heartbeat quickened, her sensitive breasts feeling constricted by her bra. She pressed her slender jeans-clad thighs together tightly, struggling to contain the swelling heat at the heart of her.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Zac husked. ‘Not when you don’t want me to do anything about it.’
Freddie turned pink, striving to look inviting and flirtatious rather than desperate to be touched. ‘You can still kiss me.’
‘No, I can’t,’ Zac contradicted. ‘I won’t start anything we can’t finish. I’ve already had enough cold showers to last me a lifetime.’
That blunt response sent a tide of hot colour washing up over her disconcerted face. Her eyes evaded the allure of his glittering and all too compelling light grey gaze. Something tightened low in her pelvis, a contracting thread of very physical yearning that was strong enough to unnerve her.
‘You can’t still believe that I’m going to jilt you at the altar,’ Zac intoned thickly.
Freddie swallowed with difficulty. ‘Not any more,’ she conceded reluctantly.
‘Then come back to the penthouse with me tonight. I’m dying here.’ Zac groaned that feeling admission without a shade of inhibition. ‘I’ve never gone without sex for as long as this.’
‘I’d prefer not to,’ she muttered tightly, that gruff, innately sexual intonation making her body burn hotly from head to toe. ‘Because it’ll be my first time and I just think it’ll feel more relaxed once we’re married.’
Zac frowned, ebony brows drawing together. ‘Your first time at what?’ he queried.
‘At sex,’ Freddie framed, her soft pink lips compressing with embarrassment.
Zac looked back at her, stunned, the riddle Freddie had occasionally shown herself to be suddenly clarified. ‘You’re a virgin...a virgin?’ he said again as if she now fell into the same unlikely category as a unicorn. ‘Are you joking?’
‘No,’ she confirmed flatly.
‘OK.’ Zac rolled his eyes, attempting to compute this new information and utterly failing because he was so startled. ‘But why are you still a virgin?’ he persisted.
‘I don’t want to talk about that, right now,’ Freddie told him hastily, hugely relieved to see that the limo had come to a halt near Claire’s terraced home and that escape into the company of others, where even Zac could not continue such a conversation, was within reach.
‘You can hardly blame me for being surprised,’ Zac murmured in reproof. ‘I had no idea.’
‘It’s not something I feel a need to talk about,’ Freddie parried in frustration.
And Zac looked back to their very first meeting and barely managed to suppress a groan of frustration. Without even knowing it he had blown his chances with her right from the start by assuming that she would be as laid-back and casual about sex as he was. Now he knew differently, now he knew why her barriers went up the instant he got too close, but he still could not even begin to understand why she had retained her inexperience into her twenties. It was a complication he hadn’t expected and he didn’t know how he felt about it. But obviously, any plans to enjoy a sexual marathon to satisfy his currently rampant libido would be out of the question.
Eloise and Jack engulfed him in the narrow hallway. Jack clutched at his knees and Zac hoisted the baby high, ruffling Eloise’s hair as she sucked her thumb and rested her head sleepily against his thigh. The kids were so trusting and openly affectionate with him that it touched even his hard heart. Claire had said enough for him to know that Freddie had dealt with a lot of stuff she shouldn’t have had to deal with in an effort to shield the children from lasting damage at her sister’s hands. But Zac was beginning to recognise the damage done to Freddie, who, like a victim of abuse, was very nervous around men and found it very hard to trust.
‘I took them to the park,’ Claire told Freddie. ‘They’re exhausted an
d ready for a nap.’
‘I’ll take them upstairs,’ Freddie volunteered.
‘Want the dragon story,’ Eloise mumbled round her thumb, clutching at Zac’s jacket.
Over the past two weeks, Zac had not left the house without having to read the dragon story at least once and he gave way with grace, shepherding Eloise into the lounge where she quickly produced her favourite book. Jack went to sleep on his shoulder while Zac read and then Eloise announced her desire to go to the zoo to see a real dragon. Zac explained that dragons flew so fast and high in the sky that zookeepers couldn’t catch them. Eloise looked sad but cheered up when Zac reminded her that he was taking them to the zoo with Claire the next day while Freddie had her dress fitting.
Freddie watched and marvelled at the noticeable bond even now forming between Zac and her niece and nephew. Their interaction was very comfortable. Both she and Zac had already had initial interviews with social services and character references and basic documentation had been lodged. With their wedding only forty-eight hours away, Freddie believed that everything was progressing as well as could be expected. Zac had also requested permission to apply for passports for the children and to take them abroad for a trip after the wedding.
Claire had said that they were crazy to jump into marriage so fast simply in the hope of adopting the two children. Freddie had kept Zac’s need for a child of his own to herself, leaving the brunette to assume that Zac had fallen madly in love with her and she with him. And in truth, Freddie reckoned that she would’ve fallen for Zac had he not made such a disastrously bad first impression on her. Now when she saw him entertaining the children even for a few minutes, she blessed the quirk of fate that had brought him into their lives, for without him where would she have been? In despair at the threat of losing the children she loved.
Even so, she was nervous as anything at the prospect of meeting Zac’s rich and fancy relatives and their undoubtedly high standards. At least the royal pair would not be present, she thought with relief. Apparently, Prince Vitale’s mother had abdicated after a huge scandal and, now that Vitale was about to become King, he and his pregnant wife were much too involved in official business to spare the time for a family dinner in London.