then set it on a passing tray.
He never drank at functions like this. It was something he’d learned growing up. Always keep your head and always be prepared for any eventuality. His father hadn’t made a career in politics out of being imprudent, and Zach had learned the lesson well.
These days, however, he was less concerned with the good impression than he was with the opportunity to escape. Once he’d done his duty—made the speech, shook the hands, accepted the honor, cut the ribbon, got the promised funding for the Scott Foundation’s causes—he was gone.
Tonight, he’d had to give a speech. And right now, his father was holding court with a group of people he no doubt hoped would become campaign donors. His mother was circulating with the skill of a career politician’s wife, smiling and making polite small talk.
There were reporters in the room—there were always reporters—but the cameras were thankfully stowed at the moment. They’d come out during his speech, of course, and he’d had to work hard to concentrate on the crowd and not the flashes. A matron came over and started to talk to him. He nodded politely, spoke when necessary and kept his eye on the exit. The second he could excuse himself, he was gone. He’d already been here too long, and he was beginning to feel as if the walls were closing in.
He scanned the crowd out of habit, his gaze landing on a woman who made him think of Sicily. She was standing near the door, her head bowed so he couldn’t see her face. The crowd moved, closing off his view of her. His pulse started to thrum, but of course, she wasn’t Lia Corretti. Lia was in Sicily, no doubt making love to some other lucky bastard. A current of heat slid through him as he remembered her lush body arrayed before him.
If he’d been a different man, he’d have stayed in Sicily and kept her in his bed until they’d grown tired of each other. It’s what the old Zach would have done.
But the man he was now couldn’t take that chance. He’d spent two nights with her and she’d made him feel almost normal again. Yet it was a lie, and he’d known it.
He didn’t know Lia at all, really, but he knew she deserved better than that. Better than him.
“Zach?”
His head whipped around, his gaze clashing with the woman’s who’d moved through the crowd unseen and now stood before him. Shock coursed through him. It was as if he’d blinked and found himself whisked back to a different party. Almost against his will, his body responded to the stimulus of seeing her again. He wasn’t so inexperienced as to allow an unwanted erection, but a tingle of excitement buzzed in his veins nevertheless.
Lia Corretti gazed up at him, her blue-green eyes filled with some emotion he couldn’t place. Her dark red hair was twisted on her head, a few strands falling free to dangle over one shoulder. She was wearing a black dress with high heels and a simple pair of diamond earrings.
She wasn’t dripping in jewels like so many of the women in this room, yet she looked as if she belonged. The woman who’d been talking to him had thankfully melted away, her attention caught by someone else.
“Hello, Lia,” he said, covering his shock with a blandness that belied the turmoil raging inside him. He spoke as if it hadn’t been a month, as if they’d never spent two blissful nights together. As if he didn’t care that she was standing before him when what he really wanted to ask her was what the hell she was doing here.
But he was afraid he knew. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman he’d slept with had gotten the wrong idea. He was a Scott, and Scotts were accustomed to dealing with fortune hunters. She hadn’t seemed to be that type of woman, but clearly he’d been wrong.
He noticed that her golden skin somehow managed to look pale in the ballroom lights. Tight. There were lines around her lips, her eyes. She looked as if she’d been sick. And then she closed her eyes, her skin growing even paler. Instinctively, Zach reached for her arm.
He didn’t count on the electricity sizzling through him at that single touch, or at the way she jerked in response.
“I’m sorry,” she said in English, her accent sliding over the words. “I shouldn’t have come here. I should have found another way.”
“Why are you here?” he demanded, his voice more abrupt than he’d intended it to be.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and earnest. Innocent. Why did he think of innocence when he thought of Lia? They’d had a one-night—correction, two-night—stand, but he couldn’t shake the idea that the woman he’d made love to had somehow been innocent before he’d corrupted her.
“I—I need to tell you something.”
“You could have called,” he said coolly.
She shook her head. “Even if you had given me your number …” She seemed to stiffen, her chin coming up defiantly. “It is not the kind of thing one can say over the phone.”
Zach took her by the elbow, firmly but gently, and steered her toward the nearest exit. She didn’t resist. They emerged from the crowded ballroom onto a terrace that overlooked the golf course. It was dark, but the putting green was lit and there were still players practicing their swings.
He let her go and moved out of her orbit, his entire body tight with anger and restlessness. “And what do you wish to say to me, Lia?”
He sounded cold and in control. Inhuman. It was precisely what he needed to be in order to deal with her. He’d let himself feel softer emotions when he’d been with her before, and look where that had gotten him. If he’d been more direct, she wouldn’t be here now. She would know that her chances of anything besides sex from him were nonexistent.
He would not make that mistake again.
Lia blinked. Her tongue darted out over her lower lip, and a bolt of sensation shot through him at that singular movement. His body wanted to react, but he refused to let it. She was a woman like any other, he reminded himself. If sex was what he wanted, he had only to walk back in that ballroom and select a partner.
Her gaze flicked to the door. “Perhaps we should go somewhere more private.”
“No. Tell me what you came to say, and then go back to your hotel.”
She seemed taken aback at the intensity of his tone. She ran a hand down her dress nervously, and then lifted it to tuck one of the dangling locks of hair behind her ear. “You’ve changed,” she said.
He shook his head. “I’d think, rather, that you do not know me.” He spread his hands wide. “This is who I am, Lia. What I am.”
She looked hurt, and he felt an uncharacteristic pinch in his heart. But he knew how to handle this. He knew the words to say because he’d said a variation of them countless times before.
“Palermo was fun. But there can be nothing more between us. I’m sorry you came all this way.”
He’d expected her to crumple beneath the weight of his words. She didn’t. For a long moment, she only stared at him. And then she drew herself up, her eyes flashing. It was not the response he expected, and it surprised him. Intrigued him, too, if he were willing to admit it.
“There can be more,” she said firmly. “There must be more.”
Zach
