by Abby Green
Short and hot. That was why. Tomorrow was Monday. They’d go back to London...and that would be that.
‘Did you ever meet your father?’
Zach’s question took her off-guard. She looked at him, and deflected for a moment by saying, ‘It’s okay for you to ask me, but not for me to ask you?’
He was unrepentant. ‘Absolutely.’
Ashling hated talking about her father. Even though her mother had done her best to try and help Ashling not to feel bitter about him. But bitterness and anger at being rejected lingered. Especially after that last time.
‘I’ve met him three times. When I was four—too young to really remember much, except him and my mother fighting. And then when I was nine. It was a disaster.’
‘Why?’
Ashling focused on stirring the rice. ‘He took me to an expensive toyshop and couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t pick a toy. I wanted to talk to him, but he just wanted to fob me off with stuff. I wasn’t into toys. He didn’t understand me—I’d worn a bright red dress and he made a comment about me attracting attention. He was probably terrified someone would recognise him. And I cried because I’d made him angry, attracting even more attention. For years after that I refused to wear anything too bright or outlandish, because I thought if I faded into the background then he might come back...give me another chance.’
‘And now you wear bright colours to show him you don’t care?’
Emotion at Zach’s far too incisive remark almost closed Ashling’s throat. When she felt she could speak again she said lightly, ‘Maybe you should have gone into therapy. You could give my mother a run for her money.’
‘You said there were three times you’d met him. What was the third?’
Ashling wanted to scowl at Zach, but she was afraid of the emotion bubbling under the surface. ‘The third time wasn’t long before that night...the night...’ She sneaked him a look.
He raised a brow, ‘Go on.’
‘I was at the theatre with Cassie and I saw him in the crowd. I got such a shock. I acted without thinking. Cassie tried to stop me, but I went over and tapped him on the shoulder. He didn’t even recognise me. I had to tell him who I was.’
Ashling rubbed her arm as if she could still feel the pain of his hand gripping her, hauling her to one side.
‘What happened?’
Again, Ashling forced a lightness into her voice that she wasn’t feeling. ‘Let’s just say that he made it clear I wasn’t welcome in his milieu. I hadn’t realised it, but he was with his family. He was afraid I’d cause a scene.’
Zach sounded disgusted. ‘His milieu? You had as much of a right to be there as he did.’
‘That’s what Cassie said.’
‘Some people aren’t fit to be parents.’ Zach’s tone was stark.
Ashling forced a smile, wanting to banish the toxic memories. ‘My mum is amazing. I’m lucky to have her. What was your mum like?’
Zach got up and took his glass to stand at the open French doors that led out to a kitchen garden full of plants and herbs. Ashling could still smell the thyme she’d picked earlier for the risotto.
She thought for a second that he was going to ignore her, but then he said, ‘She was driven.’
Ashling carefully added the prepared seafood to the rice mixture. ‘What do you mean? She was ambitious?’
Zach let out a short, harsh laugh. ‘No! As she liked to tell me often, she didn’t have the luxury of being ambitious because she was a single parent.’
Ashling’s heart clenched. She’d witnessed how tough it was for single parents. ‘She couldn’t afford to get qualifications?’
‘She was intelligent. Intelligent enough to get a place at university. She would have been the first in her family. She came from a working-class town in the north of England. She had plans to go. She was working three different jobs to make enough money. That’s how she met my father. She was a cleaner at the House of Commons.’
Ashling stopped stirring the risotto. ‘Your father is a politician?’
‘He’s retired now. A peer of the realm.’ The sneer in Zach’s voice was unmistakable.
Ashling put down the spoon. ‘That’s why he didn’t want anything to do with you?’
‘He didn’t want an illegitimate child messing up his very public life. He gave my mother money to get rid of me, but she was too proud. She sent the money back to him, told him she’d be keeping me.’
The risotto started hissing, Ashling stirred it again.
Zach said, ‘I grew up very aware of the fact that I had to justify my existence. To prove myself. To pay her back for her sacrifice. She didn’t have a life because of me.’
Ashling bit her lip. Then she said, ‘You were her life. She must have been so proud of you.’
Zach’s mouth compressed. ‘I don’t think she ever saw much past the fact that I’d sent my father a message that I’d thrived in spite of his rejection. That he hadn’t broken her with his treatment of her. She was obsessed with the fact that I’d succeeded enough to be accepted into his world. My “rightful world”, according to her.’
‘Did you ever meet him?’
Zach walked away from the open door and put his glass of wine down on the island. He avoided her eyes.
It was so unlike him not to look her in the eye that she said, ‘Zach...?’
He looked at her. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, but something sent a shiver down her spine.
He said, ‘We’ve moved in the same circles for some time now...we tend to avoid each other.’
‘But...’ Ashling trailed off as something occurred to her. She felt sick. ‘He was there that night, wasn’t he? Four years ago? He was there and he saw the whole thing and...’ Ashling stopped stirring and sat on a stool, feeling weak at the thought.
Zach nodded. Grim. ‘He wasn’t just there—he was the one who set me up.’
She looked at Zach, horrified. But it made a kind of sick sense. Humiliate your illegitimate son to send him a lesson. And she’d played a role in that lesson.
Ashling shook her head, ‘Zach, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’
‘How could you? I only found out after the fact. If I’d seriously suspected that you knew any of this we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’
A smell of burning tickled Ashling’s nostrils. She gave a gasp of dismay and turned off the heat, reaching for the pan handle before stopping to think.
The pain of the burn registered at about the same time as Zach moved like lightning and had her hand under the running cold water tap.
‘It’s fine...honestly.’
But Zach kept her hand there, numbing the pain.
Emotion welled inside Ashling before she could stop it. Emotion at the thought of Zach overcoming serious adversity to achieve above and beyond what anyone could have imagined. The thought of his mother...giving up her life for her son, but also sending him a toxic message about revenge and retribution.
And Ashling’s own part in it all. And, even worse, her quick and easy judgement of him. Assuming the worst. Because it had been easier than believing things might be more complex—that he might be more complex. Because that would make him...so dangerous.
He turned off the water and wrapped Ashling’s palm in a damp towel. She was embarrassed now, and feeling intensely vulnerable. ‘That’s really not necessary.’
He tipped up her chin. She blinked back the emotion, drowning in his dark eyes. She had no defences left.
His mouth quirked. ‘See what happens when we talk? It’s dangerous.’
She smiled, but it felt wobbly. And then Zach led her over to the dining table and sat her down. He went back over to the stove, dumped the burnt risotto in the bin, making Ashling wince, and then she watched, fascinated, as he tied an apron over his jeans and expertly rustled up a fluf
fy cheese and mushroom omelette served with warm crusty bread and wine.
By the time he sat down she was very afraid that the revelations of the evening and Zach’s easy charm had left her no place to hide from the truth. The truth that she was falling in love with him. With a man who had just told her in no uncertain terms that he might come from her world, but he had no intention of going back there again.
And she couldn’t even blame him, after what he’d told her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Ashling made an unintelligible grunting sound at the persistent calling of her name. She felt so deliciously lethargic and relaxed, and she squealed when the sheet was ripped off her body, leaving her naked and exposed. The fact that the culprit was very much responsible for her exposed and naked state wasn’t much comfort.
Zach was standing at the end of the bed in jeans and a long-sleeved polo shirt, hair damp from a shower. ‘Come on.’
Ashling squinted. ‘It’s not even light outside.’ A thought struck her. Her heart sank. ‘We’re leaving for London already?’
Zach must have early meetings lined up.
But he said, ‘Not quite yet. We’re doing something first.’
He pointed to the end of the bed. ‘I’ve laid out some clothes. Get dressed and meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes.’
Ashling came up on one elbow. ‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see. Hurry up.’
Ashling hauled herself out of bed and had a quick shower, relishing the smell of Zach’s spicy gel. Wrapped in a towel, she looked at the clothes he’d laid out. They were from the dressing room. Jeans and a stripy Breton top...sneakers.
Ashling got dressed and went downstairs. Zach greeted her with a cup of coffee and a croissant. He said, ‘I’ll be outside when you’re ready.’
Intrigued, Ashling gulped down some coffee and a couple of bites of croissant, then went outside—and nearly tripped over her own feet. Zach was shrugging on a leather jacket and standing beside a beast of a motorbike. Dawn was just starting to appear in the sky.
He handed her a leather jacket. ‘It’s probably a bit big, but it’ll do.’
Ashling took it. She was wide awake now, and speechless. She’d imagined Zach on a motorbike, but nothing could have prepared her for the reality when he zipped up the jacket and swung a leg over to straddle the machine.
He handed her a helmet and showed her where to step to help her hitch a leg over so she could sit behind him. She put a hand on his shoulder. When she was behind him her body naturally slid down right behind his. Her pelvis tucked against his backside. She automatically put her hands around his waist.
He put a hand on her thigh and turned to look at her, straightened her helmet. ‘Okay?’
She nodded. She was exhilarated, and they hadn’t even started moving yet. He started the bike and the engine roared to life underneath her. Between her legs where she was still tender.
They drove out of the estate and onto the empty main road. As Zach drove the sky lightened more and more. Ashling felt as if they were the only people in the world.
After about fifteen minutes Zach drove the bike through a gate where there was a huge hangar and a small plane in a huge field. He stopped the bike. They got off. He took off her helmet. She felt a little wobbly after the adrenalin of the bike-ride. He took her hand and led her over to where a man was waiting by the plane. Zach introduced him as the tow pilot.
Ashling was beginning to wonder if this was a dream. ‘Tow pilot?’
Zach took her around to the other side of the plane, where she saw the most delicate flimsy-looking glider.
She looked from it to Zach. ‘No way...’
He said, ‘Do you trust me?’
Ashling wished she didn’t. She wished she still had some tiny bit of distrust left. But he’d eroded it. The problem was that she didn’t believe for a second that he trusted her. He wanted her. But that was it. And today they’d go back to London and this would be over.
Short and hot and over.
She nodded. ‘Yes—yes, I do.’ He didn’t have to know that she meant it in a deeper sense. That she trusted him with her life. With her heart.
He helped her into the glider. which looked like a toy. She sat in the back seat and he got into the front. She watched, struck dumb, as the tow pilot got into the small plane and another man did something with the rope attached to their glider.
Then the other plane was moving, tugging their glider plane along behind it, and then suddenly they were off the ground, soaring into the sky behind the plane. And then the rope must have been detached, because the plane was banking left and they were going straight on, gliding higher and higher.
The thing that struck Ashling was the silence. All she could hear was the pounding of her heart. She was too afraid to move for a moment, and then she took in her surroundings, the countryside around them, as dawn broke over the horizon bathing everything pink and golden.
‘Okay?’ Zach half turned his head.
Euphoria gripped Ashling as the shock of what they were doing wore off. She nodded, emotion gripping her throat. ‘Yes—yes! It’s amazing.’
It was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Transcendental.
Ashling had no idea how long they stayed in the air...only that she would have happily stayed up there for ever.
When they got back to the field and landed, Ashling was mortified to find tears on her cheeks. She quickly wiped at them as Zach undid his seatbelt and got out.
He turned around and reached for her. He saw her face and frowned. ‘Hey, are you okay?’
Ashling nodded and stood beside him on rubbery legs. Lingering emotion made her voice husky. ‘I’ve never experienced anything like that...it was beautiful. Thank you.’
She reached up and put her mouth to his jaw. Disconcertingly, she was reminded of that fateful night, of kissing him in the same spot. Zach pulled back. A shiver of foreboding went down her spine. She told herself she was being ridiculous. Paranoid.
After a quick chat with the pilots who ran the company, Zach led her back over to the motorbike. She couldn’t explain it, but something had shifted between them since they’d landed. Zach didn’t meet her eye as he put on her helmet, made sure she was secure. His touch was brisk. Impersonal.
She clung to him on the way back to the house, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that Zach was regretting that impetuous move.
It had been impossibly romantic. And this wasn’t about romance.
* * *
In the end, no amount of premonition could have warned Ashling just how brutally efficient Zach could be when dispensing with a lover.
The beautiful glider experience had obviously been a goodbye gift. As soon as they’d got back to the house Zach had turned distant in a way that he hadn’t been since that night four years ago. Because since she’d met him again he’d been far too vengeful to be distant and then...then it had turned into something else.
Diana had been back at the house when they’d returned from their glider experience. Had it been Ashling’s imagination or had she taken one look at Zach and Ashling and then looked at Ashling with sympathy? As if she had intuited exactly what was happening.
Zach had said, ‘We’ll be leaving within the hour. You should pack and get ready.’
And now they were in the back of his chauffeur driven car returning to London. No helicopter this time. Zach was in a three-piece suit. Ashling was in the laundered clothes she’d worn on her arrival.
He was on his phone now, speaking in French. It made her think of how far he’d come. From nothing. And how much it must mean to him to be considered equal by his peers and, more importantly, his father who’d rejected him.
To her surprise she felt her phone vibrate in her bag. She took it out. It was just a random text from her phone provider about bill
ing. She read the last text exchange she’d had with Cassie over the weekend, when she’d last checked her phone.
Cassie had been wondering how she was, and Ashling—feeling inordinately guilty—had mentioned something vague about doing errands for Zach while Gwen was still away. Cassie had rung her then, and Ashling had tried to ascertain what was going on with Luke, the guy she was sleeping with, but her friend had been unusually elusive.
But then, Ashling hadn’t been able to speak either, and she’d been equally elusive about what was really going on with her and Zach. She longed to talk to her friend now, though. But she’d have to wait.
Cassie would be back soon. Order would be restored.
For Zach, it would be as if nothing had happened—except for the fact that he’d settled an old score.
For Ashling, though... She couldn’t even go there.
* * *
‘I can get the tube.’
‘Gerard will drop you home. No argument.’
The driver caught Ashling’s eye in the mirror. ‘No problem, miss.’
Weakly, Ashling smiled, ‘Thanks, Gerard.’
They were almost at Zach’s Mayfair townhouse. The city looked busy and intimidating to Ashling after the last few days in a bucolic paradise. She felt as if a layer of skin had been removed.
Zach pushed a button and the privacy partition went up between them and Gerard. He turned to her. She noticed that he must have shaved since they’d taken the glider flight that morning. It struck her then, in a moment of insight, that Zach must love the rush of adrenalin because he’d had to be so careful for his whole life not to make waves. To succeed and excel.
The fact that she’d recognised that only made this moment even harder.
She spoke first, to stall whatever it was he was going to say. ‘Thank you... This morning was amazing. The whole weekend...’
‘Thank you for being there. The deal with Georgios Stephanides... I don’t know if it would have happened without you.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true, but it was the least I could do, considering the destruction I caused in the past.’