The Frenchman's Marriage Demand

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘What’s wrong—do you have a headache, chérie?’ Zac queried when he glanced at her drawn expression.

  It was tempting to seize on the excuse. She knew it would evoke his sympathetic response and that the moment they reached the penthouse he would insist that she went straight to sleep rather than make love to her.

  She needed to be alone tonight. Her mind was spinning and her run-in with Annalise had stirred up all her old insecurities. Was Zac against the idea of more children because he did not want to increase his links to her? she wondered, recalling his expression when Camille Fournier had asked if they would like more children. And was he sleeping with Annalise? If so, it gave her an insight on how he viewed their forthcoming marriage. Perhaps he was he intending to play at happy families while conducting a series of affairs behind her back.

  ‘I feel fine,’ she said shortly, refusing to admit that her emotions felt as bruised as her body had been after the accident that had brought Zac back into her life. It was strange to think that if she had been driving down that road a few minutes earlier the tree would not have fallen yet and she would not have crashed her car. It was likely she would never have seen or heard from Zac again, but in the course of a split second her life had changed for ever and now here she was, about to marry the man she loved and feeling as though her heart would break.

  She was silent for the rest of the journey and as the lift whisked them up to the penthouse she was aware of Zac’s sharp glances. Once inside, she headed straight for her room, but he caught up with her and swung her round to face him.

  ‘You seem to have lost your sense of direction,’ he drawled. ‘My bedroom is along the hall. What’s wrong with you?’ he demanded tersely, when she simply stared up at him with huge, overbright eyes. ‘You’ve looked like a ghost for most of the night. Are you ill? If you won’t tell me what’s wrong, I can’t help you, chérie,’ he added impatiently, the gleam of frustration in his eyes telling her that he was fast losing his patience and was tempted to shake the truth from her.

  The truth—that loving him was tearing her apart—was impossible to reveal. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she lied. ‘I’d just rather sleep on my own tonight.’ Her pride refused to allow her to confront him about Annalise’s allegations. If he suspected she was jealous of the glamour model, he might realise that she was in love with him and she would rather die than have him feel sorry for her.

  Zac briefly considered hauling her into his arms and kissing her until he broke through the barriers she had erected, but she looked achingly vulnerable and he accepted that, for once, making love to her was not the answer. Instead he gave an angry shrug of his shoulders. ‘Fine,’ he snapped, ‘sleep on your own, but a week from now you will be my wife and you’ll share my bed every night. There will be no separate rooms, do you understand?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she flung at him bitterly. ‘I understand that my role in our marriage will be to provide sex whenever and wherever you want it—less of a wife, more like a glorified whore. Tell me, Zac,’ she demanded, her heart fluttering fearfully at the savage anger in his eyes, ‘why are you marrying me? Being tied down with a wife and child is not what you really want, is it? I saw your face tonight when Camille mentioned the possibility of us having more children,’ she said quietly, ‘and I realise that you’ll soon feel trapped by the responsibilities of being a husband and father.’

  ‘That’s a ridiculous thing to say,’ he growled, but he refused to meet her gaze and despair washed over her.

  ‘Is it? Be honest with me, Zac. A few years from now can you see yourself as a contented family man? Can you see us having other children who will be brothers and sisters for Aimee?’

  The silence was agonising, dividing them as decisively as a ravine opening up between them. ‘No,’ he admitted heavily, and the single word shattered her.

  So now she knew. But the realisation that he viewed their marriage as a temporary contract while Aimee was growing up was unbearable and with a muffled sob she spun on her heel and raced out of the door.

  ‘Freya!’ He caught up with her just as she reached her room and she shook wildly in his grasp as if she could not bear for him to touch her. ‘I will be a good father to Aimee, and a good husband.’

  He sounded as though he was making a state proclamation and she could not disguise her bitterness. ‘I don’t doubt that you’ll do your duty, Zac. I’m sure you’ll take your responsibilities seriously, just as my grandmother did when she brought me up after my mother abandoned me. But I’ve realised that I want more than that. Is it really too much to want to be loved?’ she cried. ‘Is it too much to ask that one day someone will find a place for me in their heart, not because of duty or convenience, but because I’m actually special to them? Or is there something about me that fails to inspire love and affection—some genetic fault that makes me unlovable?’

  Zac tensed at her words and a shutter seemed to come down over his face so that she had no idea what he was thinking. He probably thought she was a silly, hysterical mass of insecurities, she thought bleakly, and he was probably right. He had never pretended that he’d asked her to marry him for any other reason than to provide their daughter with a stable upbringing and he was looking at her now as if she had taken leave of her senses.

  ‘You’re talking nonsense,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re tired and over-emotional. Come to bed and let me show you how good our marriage will be.’

  ‘You mean you want sex.’ Freya resisted the temptation to bury her pride and allow him to sweep her off to their special world where they communicated without the need for words. She had spent the past weeks since she’d agreed to marry him kidding herself that one day she would make him love her. It was time to face reality, but she couldn’t do that while she was in his bed. ‘Not tonight, Zac. I don’t think I could bear it,’ she whispered before she stepped into her room and shut him out.

  In the morning he had gone. She was trying to persuade Aimee to eat her breakfast when Laurent informed her that Zac had been called away to deal with an urgent company matter. Freya absorbed the news silently and refrained from pointing out that it seemed unlikely he would hold a business meeting on a Sunday. She spent the day in a curiously numbed state and obligingly smiled and nodded when Yvette regaled her with the plans for their forthcoming wedding.

  Zac had employed the services of a top wedding planner as well as involving his mother in organising the ceremony, which was to be held in the garden at La Maison des Fleurs. An exquisite ivory silk bridal gown was now waiting for a final fitting and Aimee was going to steal the day in a confection of pink tulle. It had all the ingredients of a fairy-tale wedding—apart from one vital fact, Freya mused bleakly. Love was missing, and, at this precise moment, so was the groom.

  Sunday dragged into Monday and there was still no word from him. On Tuesday six dozen red roses were delivered to the penthouse—no accompanying note, simply a card with his name scrawled across it. Why had he sent them? she mused tearfully as she buried her face in the velvety petals and inhaled their delicate perfume. It was the first time anyone had ever sent her flowers, and she wondered if Zac had any idea how much the simple gesture meant to her. Red roses were for love but she refused to read anything into his choice of flowers. She was tired of hoping and she sternly told herself that he’d probably just instructed the florist to send a bouquet.

  She missed him so much that it hurt and that night she gave up trying to sleep in her bed and moved into his, no longer caring what he might think if he returned home and found her there. The nights she’d spent without him had been purgatory, but the faint, lingering scent of him on the sheets comforted her and she fell asleep with her face pressed against his pillow.

  Some time in the early hours she was woken by the faint sound of the front door closing, followed by footsteps in the hall. Zac was home and her spirits soared as she held her breath and waited for him to enter the room. She was nervous of facing him after her bout of hysteria the night before he
’d left and screwed her eyes shut, hoping he would assume she was asleep. With any luck he would slide between the sheets and take her in his arms, she thought weakly as a tremor ran through her. She wouldn’t reject him. Pride was a lonely bedfellow and she couldn’t fight her feelings for him any more.

  But he didn’t come. Minutes passed and she opened her eyes and stared at the door, willing him to open it. Maybe he had poured himself a nightcap and had fallen asleep on the sofa? Unable to stand the tension any longer, she shoved her arms into her robe and crept into the hall. Aimee and the staff were all asleep and the sitting room was deserted, but a light shone on the staircase leading to the roof-garden and after a moment’s hesitation she hurried up the steps.

  ‘Zac!’

  He was sitting at the far end of the pool, slumped in a chair with his legs outstretched and a bottle of cognac on the low table in front of him. He looked…wrecked, Freya noted as her eyes skimmed over his dishevelled appearance. He had lost his tie and his shirt was open at the neck, while the full day’s stubble shading his jaw only added to his raw sex appeal.

  ‘You’re home,’ she said inanely. ‘I heard you come in and I…thought you would come to bed.’ She walked around the pool towards him and gave him a tentative, hopeful smile.

  Zac’s eyes narrowed and he took a gulp from the glass in his hand. ‘I find it hard to believe you were waiting for me, chérie? And I think it’s probably safer for both of us if I remain here tonight.’

  ‘So you can get drunk?’ she asked sharply, glaring at him when he poured a generous measure into the glass.

  ‘I prefer to think of it as a necessary anaesthetic,’ he drawled laconically. ‘I’ve discovered over the last few days that life is easier to cope with if you’re numb from the neck up.’

  ‘You’re not making any sense.’ She took a deep breath. ‘What’s the matter, Zac?’

  He was silent for so long that she wondered if he had heard her, but then he suddenly got to his feet and sounded the death knell to all her foolish dreams when he coldly announced, ‘I’ve decided to postpone the wedding.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FOR a few seconds the floor beneath Freya’s feet seemed to sway and she inhaled sharply. ‘I see,’ she managed at last, past the constriction in her throat.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Zac murmured, and his light, almost casual tone opened the floodgates of sheer agonising pain.

  ‘All right, I don’t see, and I certainly don’t understand.’ She flew across the remaining few feet that separated them and halted in front of him, bewilderment, hurt and sheer fury blazing in her eyes. ‘I thought we’d agreed that we could make our marriage work—for Aimee’s sake.’

  ‘I thought so too, but I realise that I can’t go through with it right now,’ he said grimly, a nerve jumping in his cheek as he stared down at her. The patio lights cast long shadows and she saw the weariness in his gaze, as if he hadn’t slept for days.

  Reaction was setting in, leaving her feeling numb. ‘Why not?’ she whispered, her voice cracking.

  The silence shredded her nerves and when he finally spoke his voice was raw, as if his throat were lined with broken glass. ‘Because I haven’t been honest with you—and you more than anyone, Freya, deserve honesty.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Pain tore through her and her hand flew to her mouth as if she could somehow hold back her betraying cry. ‘It’s Annalise, isn’t it?’ She couldn’t prevent the tears from sliding unchecked down her face; her world was crumbling and her heart felt as though it had splintered in two. ‘You don’t have to tell me, Zac, because I already know you’re having an affair with her. She took great delight in revealing your little secret when I met her at the party the night before you went away.’

  His head jerked up and he stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m not having an affair with Annalise—or any other woman,’ he said in astonishment. ‘Mon Dieu, chérie, when would I find the time or the energy after spending my nights having the most incredible sex with you?’

  He seemed so genuinely astounded by her accusation that Freya blinked at him through her tears. ‘Annalise said…’ she began falteringly.

  ‘I don’t care what she said, she was lying.’ Seeing her abject misery, he made a huge effort to contain his impatience. ‘We had a brief affair about six months after you and I split up, but that’s all, and it meant as little to me as all my other relationships,’ he told her bluntly.

  Freya stared at him uncertainly. ‘But why did she say it, if it wasn’t true?’

  He shrugged dismissively, as if he was bored of the subject of Annalise Dubois. ‘Because she enjoys making trouble and I imagine because she’s jealous of you.’

  No one could lie so convincingly. He had to be telling the truth, Freya decided, but her spurt of relief quickly died. ‘Well, if it’s not Annalise, then in what way haven’t you been honest with me?’ she asked fearfully when his face became shuttered once more. ‘If it concerns us, our relationship, then you don’t have to worry,’ she said as understanding slowly dawned. He must have guessed that she was in love with him and knew that he must be honest and tell her he would never return her feelings. ‘I know you don’t love me,’ she whispered, ‘and I accept that you never will.’ She looked away from him and willed herself not to cry any more, but his next words brought her head round.

  ‘But I do love you, Freya,’ he said in a low voice that seemed to be torn from the depths of his soul. ‘Although for a long time I did not know it. You lighten my day…my life, in a way that no other woman has ever done, but it was only when Aimee was ill and you were so distraught that I realised I wanted to hold you and protect you from hurt, because you are infinitely precious to me.

  ‘I can’t imagine my life without you,’ he admitted huskily. ‘Subconsciously I think I must have loved you for ever, and that’s why I was so determined to marry you, but it was easier not to question my motives too closely. Instead I selfishly took pleasure in making love to you; took everything that you gave so generously and never offered you anything in return.

  ‘Je t’adore, mon ange,’ he groaned, his voice throbbing with emotions, ‘but loving you beyond reason doesn’t make it right.’ His face twisted as if he was in pain. ‘I haven’t been honest about me. There are things I should have told you, things that you have the right to know, and it would be morally wrong for me to marry you when you don’t know all the facts. Don’t cry, mon coeur,’ he pleaded, wiping away a tear with his thumb, only to see it replaced with another.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she choked. She felt as though she were balanced on the edge of a precipice, looking down into the abyss. Zac had said the words she’d dreamed of hearing, but she found it impossible to believe him. He looked drawn and haggard and if he really did love her, then he clearly did not welcome the emotion.

  ‘Two years ago I had everything money could buy and nothing that really mattered to me—until a shy English girl with green eyes and the sweetest smile turned my life upside down,’ he revealed quietly. ‘I was drawn to you in a way that had never happened to me before, although I told myself it was simply good sex,’ he admitted harshly. ‘I wasted no time in making you my mistress and, despite coping with the loss of my father, my mother’s grief and an intolerable workload, I was happy.

  ‘You made me happy, Freya, but then you dropped the bombshell that you were pregnant and I was certain the baby wasn’t mine because, unbeknown to you, I’d had a vasectomy to ensure I would never father a child.’

  ‘Zac…’ The raw emotion in his eyes made her heart stand still. How could she ever have thought him cold, or believed that he didn’t care? she wondered.

  He shook his head and placed a finger gently across her lips. ‘What I have to tell you has been burning a hole inside me for what seems like a lifetime and I need to speak now, while I have the courage.’

  Fear settled over Freya like a shroud and she shivered. What on earth did Zac
have to tell her that demanded his courage?

  ‘I’ve already told you that I was in my teens when my mother gave birth to my twin sisters. They appeared to be healthy babies, but died when they were a few months old,’ he said flatly. ‘Doctors discovered that both my parents carried a gene that resulted in a high chance of their children developing a rare, incurable illness. I did not develop the disease, but my parents were advised that there was a possibility I had inherited the gene and could pass it on to my own children.’

  As his words slowly penetrated her brain Freya felt her blood congeal in her veins and her legs buckled as terror swept through her. ‘Could Aimee develop the illness?’

  ‘Non,’ Zac gripped her arms and quickly sought to reassure her. ‘A child can only be affected if both parents carry the gene, and if you were also a carrier Aimee would have shown signs of the disease by now. But there is a fifty-percent chance that I am a carrier. I had a vasectomy because I was determined that I would be the last in the genetic link—the last Deverell. But the vasectomy reversed. When I discovered that Aimee is my child I knew she might also carry the gene and I despaired of telling you.’ The lines of strain around his eyes were plainly evident and Freya’s heart ached for him. He had carried the burden of worry for their child alone in an attempt to protect her.

  Finally she could understand Zac’s decision never to father a child and his adamant refusal to believe that the baby she had conceived was his, and now that she knew the whole tragic story she wanted to weep for him—for the young boy who had witnessed his parents’ devastation when they had lost their twin daughters and for the man who had done everything in his power to prevent another child from suffering.

  She looked up at him and caught the flare of pain in his eyes before he quickly masked his thoughts. He’d said that he loved her and he adored Aimee…‘I understand everything you’ve told me, but not why you want to postpone the wedding,’ she murmured. ‘If you love me…’