weeks since the ball. Was two weeks a long time for him? How did she know? And what did she care? How could she possibly care about a man that brazen?
Thankfully, she didn’t care about him, she told herself resolutely. She was wildly attracted to him but that was all, because she was cautious with her feelings and careful to protect herself from unhealthy attachments. She had watched, after all, what love did to her sister, Lauren. Lauren had bent every rule there was to justify keeping Cruz in her life, refusing to break away from him, excusing his infidelities as a trifling ‘man thing’.
Zac noticed how pale and quiet Freddie was when she returned to the table and decided that it was time to call it a night. She was probably tired, he thought wryly, knowing the kids woke her at the crack of dawn. He had seen the tiny room she shared with the children and marvelled that she could live in that confined space without complaint. He draped an arm round her as they said their goodbyes, but she pulled away from him on the pavement outside, slipping into the waiting limo like a little silvery ghost.
‘Can we go back to the hotel first?’ Freddie asked tautly. ‘We have to talk.’
Angel had once joked that the four deadliest words in Merry’s vocabulary were those words but Zac was nonchalant, cocooned as he was in his conviction that he was absolutely without a sin to his name. He wondered only absently what she wanted to talk about.
‘NO, THANKS,’ FREDDIE said flatly in answer to the offer of a drink.
Zac was already revising his belief that nothing could be seriously amiss because Freddie was posed in front of him with all the accusing stiffness and tension of a miniature St Joan of Arc. All she lacked was a sword and a burning torch. ‘What’s happening here?’ he demanded abruptly.
‘I overheard a conversation tonight,’ Freddie volunteered between gritted teeth, struggling to prevent herself from visibly trembling with rage. ‘I heard how you entertained yourself at the royal ball.’
Zac put the evidence together and within seconds he had the whole picture clear in his mind. Vitale’s wife, Jazz, had probably gossiped to Merry and then Merry had talked and somehow Freddie had got to listen. His macho pride had been his downfall, he registered, his teeth gritting. Losing the bet, not even being able to persuade Freddie to join him at the ball, had hit his ego hard and when his brothers had assumed he was partaking of a little al fresco sex, he had seen no reason to put the record straight.
Now Freddie had judged him and found him wanting and it was far from the first time he had endured the experience of others believing the worst of him. As a child he had come up with his own defence strategy and it had only hardened to steel as he matured. Never apologise, never explain. In point of fact he didn’t owe Freddie any explanations as they had not been together at the time. He had done nothing he was ashamed of doing. He had told no lies, had caused no injury to anyone and he refused to apologise for something he hadn’t done to keep the peace.
If Freddie was going to be his wife, she had to respect his boundaries. He loathed emotional blackmail and had no scruples about fighting fire with fire.
‘Was it educational?’ Zac countered softly, his sibilant Brazilian accent roughening his vowel sounds with the hint that he might not be as cool and calm as he appeared.
His apparent complete lack of reaction infuriated Freddie. He stood there, lean, powerful body balanced and strong in his beautifully cut suit, his eyes glittering like crushed ice below his luxuriant black lashes.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say to me?’ Freddie launched at him furiously.
‘I don’t know what else I can say since you still haven’t clarified the issue,’ Zac responded with sardonic bite.
Colour spattered her cheeks, chasing away the pallor induced by shock. ‘You went into a private room at the ball to have sex with two women.’
‘No, that’s incorrect,’ Zac contradicted. ‘I went into the room first to make a phone call and two women followed me in.’
‘If you think that that makes a difference to my feelings—’ Freddie began heatedly, incensed that he still seemed in absolute stress-free control. He wasn’t embarrassed. He wasn’t angry at being found out. He wasn’t even defensive. And even worse, if he had a drop of guilt in him he wasn’t showing it.
Zac threw his arrogant dark head back. ‘That’s how it happened, but I don’t understand what your feelings have to do with it—’
‘Oh, you don’t, don’t you?’ Freddie broke in, almost bouncing on her high heels as she threw herself as tall as she could, slight shoulders squaring with hostility.
‘No, I don’t,’ Zac repeated. ‘We were not in a relationship at the time. In fact, forty-eight hours before the ball you walked out on me, making it clear that you wanted nothing more to do with me.’
That reminder flashed through Freddie like paraffin thrown on a bonfire and only sent the rage clawing up inside her climbing higher. ‘You said you wanted me and then you went off and had sleazy sex with another woman the first opportunity you got!’ she slung back at him in disgust.
‘No, that wasn’t the first opportunity,’ Zac corrected with a reflective air and a cynical set to his sensual mouth. ‘I was approached in the VIP lounge at the airport by a woman, propositioned by a stewardess on my flight and given at least two phone numbers after I landed in Lerovia. So, no, not my first opportunity to let loose.’
Freddie stared at him in mounting disbelief and horror. The one undeniable truth about Zac da Rocha was that he was gorgeous and many women didn’t wait for him to demonstrate interest before going into pursuit. She had watched that happening in the bar when women became frustrated at failing to attract his attention and then made more aggressive moves. But the concrete proof that Zac was targeted by so many other women only sent Freddie plunging even deeper into panic mode. How could someone as ordinary as she was ever hope to hold onto the interest of such a spectacular male specimen? It was obvious that she could not and that getting out before she got in any deeper was her sole option.
‘Fidelity is very, very important to me,’ Freddie declared shakily, struggling to breathe evenly and stay calm even when she felt like an over-shaken cocktail of drama inside herself.
‘Yet we’re getting married the day after tomorrow and this is the first time you’ve mentioned it,’ Zac pointed out, pouring himself a malt whiskey and tossing it back without hesitation because when it came to the issue of fidelity there was really nothing he wanted to say. He had never had to be faithful because he had never stayed long enough with any one woman for that to become a concern. But that confession would scarcely soothe Freddie.
‘I just assumed...you know...’ Freddie forced out the words because her throat was closing over and aching ‘...that I could trust you and now I’ve found out I can’t trust you.’
Zac swung back to her, his lean, powerful limbs compellingly graceful in motion, stunning eyes like blazing polar stars, his anger unhidden now. ‘We broke up before I even left for Lerovia. Anything I did there is my business. Obviously, I have a past. I can’t change that.’
‘This wasn’t the past...this was only two weeks ago!’ Freddie condemned stridently, fighting the tears threatening her, refusing
