by Helen Brooks
'Not.' Her indignation was transparently honest. 'I can take care of myself, thank you very much. I don't need William or…or anyone.' She eyed him militantly, her eyes flashing.
'A questionable comment—' his eyes moved to her stomach before returning to her face '—but we won't argue the point now.' He closed the front door behind him before taking the two steps across the hall that brought him into the pretty, slightly ultra-feminine sitting room that reminded Victoria of a chocolate box.
'When are you going to tell Coral she is going to be a grandmother?' he asked without preamble as Victoria sat down carefully in one of the deeply cushioned bucket chairs and gestured for him to do the same in the other one. The sitting room was tiny—as were the other three rooms that made up the elegant little flat—and the two chairs, a coffee table, a portable TV and small midi system with a few CDs stacked in the built-in unit that ran across all of one wall made up the sum total of furniture in the neat little room. Even then it felt crowded, especially with Zac in residence.
'I…I don't know. Soon, I suppose.' The question had taken Victoria aback. She had half expected that Zac would have already paraded his account of the result of her supposed unfaithfulness to her mother, but obviously that wasn't so.
'Why haven't you told her before this, Victoria?'
His voice was quite without expression but intimidating none the less, and again she spoke perfectly truthfully as she said, 'Because she won't be interested other than feeling annoyed at being forced to acknowledge she has reached an age where a grandchild is possible. She'll treat it as a personal affront.'
'It's not the fact that the child will be a bastard that is holding your tongue?' he asked coldly.
Oh, he was good. He knew exactly which button to press to get the maximum pain, Victoria thought bitterly. She waited a moment until she could trust her voice not to shake before she answered, 'No, it's not that. And I don't really care what she thinks.'
He nodded slowly. 'But you do intend to tell her the truth?' he asked softly. 'The whole truth, including the honourable William?'
The truth? How could she tell her mother the baby was Zac's without Coral getting right on the phone the moment she left and relating their conversation word for word to Zac? But she couldn't say it was William's either, she thought wildly. She hadn't even told William yet what Zac suspected—the other man had been sent to some skirmish or other in the Middle East a few days after her devastating row with Zac, and he had no idea he was now the honorary father of a four-and-a-half-month-old foetus.
'Victoria?' He wasn't going to let her off the hook.
'Leave it, Zac, please.' She raised tortured eyes to his narrowed black ones. 'I shan't lie to my mother if that's what you're asking.' But apart from that she didn't have a clue what to say.
He nodded again, standing for a moment more before he seated himself in the chair she had indicated. 'I take it this admirable honesty was extended to your employer too?' he asked smoothly, leaning back in the chair as though he was utterly at ease with himself and his surroundings, and crossing one leg over the knee of the other. 'Mrs Bretton, isn't it?'
It was a very male pose, and with his considerable height and breadth his dark masculinity became even more flagrant than normal, causing her breath to catch in her throat.
In the twenty-four-hours-a-day 'morning sickness' days of her pregnancy, her general discomfort had taken care of any feelings of desire more than adequately—Victoria had found that constant nausea was the greatest anti-aphrodisiac there was—but since she had been feeling better she'd been horrified to find her thoughts, and certainly her dreams at night, had been nothing short of erotic at times. And all very definitely featuring Zac.
Which—in the circumstances—was incredibly humiliating, she thought bitterly. But it was his fault—he was such a lean, hard, sexy man, with that extra something that was indefinable but which could make any woman from the age of sixteen to sixty weak at the knees with just one glance. He was…well, he was Zac Harding. And there weren't too many around.
Victoria forced her mind away from the big powerful body, and hoped Zac would attribute her burning cheeks to distress at his sudden appearance or the awkwardness of the situation—anything but lust—and tried to make her voice as smooth as his as she said, 'If you are asking me if Mrs Bretton knows I'm expecting a baby, of course she does. The position is only temporary anyway, until her daughter comes back from a trip to America at the beginning of November.'
'And then you intend to do what?' Zac asked quietly, his narrowed eyes tight on her flushed face.
'I…I'm not sure,' Victoria prevaricated stumblingly. She wished she'd had a chance to freshen up after getting home, change her crumpled dress for one of the new ones perhaps, and renew her make-up, brush her hair… Oh, stop it. The voice of condemnation was loud in her head. Who are you trying to impress anyway? Do you think any amount of titivation on your part would make him want you when there's Gina—warm and passionate and very definitely not pregnant—to hand? She took a deep breath, and her voice was firmer when she continued, 'Mrs Bretton said there's the chance of a few mornings a week in the run-up to Christmas when they are usually rushed off their feet.'
'Oh, good,' Zac drawled with hateful sarcasm. 'You might even be able to have the baby in the back of the shop and then get straight up and continue with whatever it is you do there.'
Well, the truce hadn't lasted long. 'Now look, Zac—'
'No, you look, Victoria,' he said sharply, straightening up abruptly and causing her to shrink back against the chair before she checked herself and raised her chin, staring back into his angry face bravely. 'There is absolutely no need for you to work; you know it and I know it. I'm quite prepared to pay you a set amount until the divorce goes through and the financial side of things is settled.'
'Why?' She hadn't meant to ask, but she had been astounded when the cheque had arrived in the first place, and now his insistence that he support her and perhaps— if he was saying what she thought he was saying—pay her some generous maintenance when they were divorced was confusing her still more.
As far as Zac understood she had got pregnant by William Howard and was going to have his baby. And Zac Harding was not a magnanimous man at the best of times. This just didn't make sense but she couldn't work out what he was up to.
'Why?' He shrugged broad, powerful shoulders, and then, as his eyes flickered, stood abruptly and walked across to the small sash window where he stood looking out into the quiet, sun-dappled mews, his hands resting on the wide wooden windowsill and his back towards her. 'Because you are my wife, you are entitled by law to a part of my estate of course,' he said flatly. 'Why else?'
'I don't want it,' she said, and now her voice was very firm. By law? She didn't want a penny off him, not a penny.
'That's ridiculous and you don't really mean it,' he said flatly without turning round. 'You'll need the money.'
'It is not ridiculous, and I do mean it,' she shot back quickly. 'We were only married for twenty-four hours, not even that, and I don't consider myself married in the true sense.'
'But the marriage was consummated, Victoria.' He turned, and the inflexion in his voice brought hot colour surging up into her face until it reached her hair. 'You haven't forgotten that, have you?' he taunted softly, his face hard and merciless.
'Of course I haven't forgotten.' Her voice was stiff, but the images in her mind were breathtakingly vivid. Her cheeks were burning as she recalled how it had been, and partly because of the devastating vulnerableness she was feeling, and also because of the love and hurt and pain that were making her ache as she looked at him, she said something unforgivable. 'But you don't have to pay me indefinitely for one night of sex, Zac.'
He was quite still for an endless moment, and then his voice was a soft snarl as he said, 'What a fool I was. I never really knew you, did I?'
She was appalled at what she'd said, but she wasn't going to admit it as she stared at him,
her face scarlet.
'Is that all it was to you, Victoria? An initiation process into sex? What happened? Did you suddenly realise you had married the wrong man? Was that it? Was that why you ran to him the next morning?' Zac asked with grim control.
'It wasn't like that,' she protested shakily. 'You know it wasn't. And I only left because of you and Gina—'
'Leave Gina out of this,' he rasped bitterly. 'The facts are that you left my bed and went to his within—as you have so succinctly pointed out—twenty-four hours. You knew he was crazy about you, you've probably enjoyed the thrill of keeping the poor dumb clown dangling on the end of a string for years, and you knew exactly what would happen when you turned up on his doorstep like a maiden in distress. It's the classic come-on.'
'I was a maiden in distress!' It was a ridiculous turn of phrase but it didn't occur to either of them. 'And how can you say 'leave Gina out of this' when you…when…?' Oh, she didn't want to cry, she didn't, Victoria thought wildly as her lips began to quiver so much she couldn't go on.
'Damn it all.' Zac had moved across the room and pulled her up out of the chair before she realised what was happening, his face black with rage as he shook her slightly. 'How can you be so many different women in as many minutes?' he growled resentfully. 'Who are you? What are you? You've turned my life upside down, you tell me black is white and white is black—'
'I don't, I don't. And don't you dare blame me!'
And then he kissed her, a dark, angry, savage kiss, his body as hard as steel and his arms unrelenting as he ground her into him until she could hardly breathe and her head was spinning.
Her tears were vanquished by the shock of it, by the age-old challenge his body was throwing out to hers, and, to her eternal shame, she responded like a thirst-crazed mortal being offered life-giving water as a desire that was elemental gripped her.
His tongue was firing the nerves all over her body, and now, as she began to kiss him back with total abandon, he groaned deep in his throat, his hands exploring the full ripeness of her breasts through her thin summer dress, their points hard and straining against the hindrance of the soft, flimsy material.
She felt the already overloaded buttons pop as his hands sought mote intimacy, and then he had peeled back the upper part of her dress, imprisoning her arms as he did so, and moved the straps of her bra down her arms as he took the voluptuously swollen weight of her breasts in his hands, his eyes devouring her.
Victoria thought she would faint at the sensations that were shooting through her body, and then, as his mouth claimed what his hands had already aroused, she gasped helplessly.
'Zac, Zac…' She moaned his name in an agony of need.
Her legs were trembling so much she could hardly stand and she could feel the tremors that were shaking his body, and she knew that in another moment he would lower her onto the carpet and take her, right here, in the tiny sitting room. And she wasn't going to stop him—couldn't stop him…
And then the telephone rang. And continued to ring.
It was Zac who took control of himself first, raising his head and pulling her bra into place as he said, his voice belying his command of himself, 'You'd better answer that.'
Victoria couldn't move for a moment, her head swimming and a dizziness making her ears ring, and then she slowly straightened her dress as she walked across to the telephone in one corner of the wall unit. She had to breathe deeply for a moment or two before she could pull herself together and lift the receiver.
It took all her will-power to speak normally, but even then her voice must have sounded strange as she gave the number, because William's deep tones were anxious as he said, 'Victoria? That is you, isn't it? Is anything wrong? Are you all right?'
'Yes, it's me. I…I'm fine, William. I've just…I've just got in from work. It's been a long day.'
She was aware of a sharp movement behind her, and then absolute silence, but she could feel Zac's eyes burning into the back of her head as William said, 'I hope you're not overdoing it, Blue-eyes; there's no need, you know. I've said I can help out You've had a hell of a packet these last few months.'
She had got two men trying to ply her with money— two men who were prepared to keep her—and she couldn't live with either one of them, Victoria thought with a touch of hysteria. 'No, really, I'm fine.' Please, please, William, don't prolong this now, not now of all times, she prayed silently.
'Okay.' William didn't sound convinced. 'Look, I was just phoning to tell you I'm still in the land of the living and in be back in a week or two. Things are a sight more complicated than we thought here, and we're following up on a couple of leads that'll take a little more time, so don't worry—all right?'
'All right Be…be careful, won't you?' she managed weakly. The back of her neck was reaching ignition point.
'You know me, Blue-eyes, careful is my middle name. Now, take care of yourself, and don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it. You've got plenty of good friends— use 'em if you need to,' William said softly. 'I'll call you when I get back. Goodbye for now and take it easy, okay?'
Victoria could hear what sounded like shouts in the background, along with a great deal of other noise and deafening commotion, and a sudden concern for this dear friend's safety made her voice as soft as his when she said, 'Don't take any chances, William. Promise me. A story is one thing but don't try to be a hero.'
'I promise.' There was a smile in his voice as he added, 'You've gone into earth mother role already, I can tell. I've got to go, Blue-eyes…'
'Okay, thank you for ringing,' Victoria murmured quietly. She replaced the receiver very slowly, and now the silence was profound as she turned to face Zac's tense frame. 'That was William.' It was inane, but anything was better than the deafening silence. 'He's out following up a story somewhere or other.'
'So I gathered.'
The metamorphosis into ice man was complete—his eyes were black chips of glass, his face like granite. It was chilling.
'He…he was just wondering how I was getting on—'
'I'm not interested, Victoria. Not in you, not in him. We'll let the solicitors take it from here, okay?' Zac said tightly.
She could sense the black fury that was gripping him, feel the suffocating force of it as she stared into the glittering ebony eyes, and she wasn't to know that the main nub of his rage was against what he saw as his own weakness. She only knew that she loved him, and that in this minute—if it could take that terrible look off his face and transport them back to that eternity ago when they had first met—she would forgive him anything. Gina, the deal with her mother, anything.
But he had never asked for forgiveness. The truth was stark, and bitter on her tongue. And he never would. The knowledge froze her heart and body as she watched him leave without another word, and it was only some hours later, when she lay in the chaste isolation of her narrow single bed, that the ice began to melt.
Perhaps she had needed to go through this last searing meeting? Sleep was a million miles away, and some time after midnight she flung back the tangled covers and made her way into the kitchen, making a pot of strong black coffee. She wasn't going to get any sleep tonight so she might as well indulge herself.
They had no meeting point—that was clear enough, she told herself as she walked into the sitting room without turning on the light, and stood looking out of the window into the dark mews as she sipped the fragrant coffee. And she didn't want his money; that was the last thing she wanted. Just one word of regret, one indication that he had been stupid. Was that too much to ask? The answer came back loud and clear.
Two people in different worlds. He had said he didn't know her, but she knew him even less. The consuming flood of pain and loss was almost more than she could bear, and she put the coffee mug down on the floor as she began to shake with reaction.
She had known all about the fast, jet-style lifestyle he lived—her parents had existed in the same mode, hadn't they?—but she had thought he was diff
erent. But perhaps that was her fault? Maybe she'd assumed things she'd had no right to take for granted? Whatever, she knew she would never, never open up the door of her heart or her body to Zac again.
And it was only in that dark moment of supreme desolation that she acknowledged the small flame of reconciliation she'd kept burning deep inside, and watched— dry-eyed and heartsore—as it slowly flickered, and then died.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was, in fact, a full three weeks before William returned to London, and by then—at twenty-one weeks pregnant— Victoria had reconciled herself to telling her mother about her condition, knowing that, whatever Coral's reaction, it couldn't hurt her.
The main component of this new strength had come from the baby itself; Victoria had felt it kick a few days before when she had been luxuriating in a long lazy bath, and the fierce rush of consuming mother love had amazed her with its intensity. Her scan at sixteen weeks had been thrilling, when she had watched the machine glide over her wet gelled stomach and outline the tiny baby hidden deep in her womb, but the emotion that had gripped her at the feel of those strong little feet had been indescribable, outdoing the picture of the scan she kept propped by her bed.
She had seen nothing of Coral for well over a month— their last meeting had been a particularly acrimonious one—but now Victoria had made up her mind that once she had seen William, and put him fully in the picture as to Zac's assumption about the father of her baby, she would then inform her mother she was going to be a grandmother. She wasn't looking forward to it, but she'd do it. But it would be a flat statement—Coral, like Zac, could assume whatever she liked; there would be no explanations from Victoria—as long as William was happy to go along with that.
True to his word, William phoned her the evening he got back to England, and they arranged to meet for lunch later in the week when William had had time to deal with tidying up the loose ends of his assignment. So Victoria was a little surprised when, the following morning just as she was about to leave for work, William phoned again.