course, your decision but, considering that our marriage was supposed to be more based on practicality than sentiment, I don’t see where the problem arises.’
‘No, and the fact you can’t see it only proves that we shouldn’t marry!’ Freddie threw back at him vehemently. ‘You said you had never gone so long without sex and yet you were with other women only two weeks ago.’
Zac decided that he wasn’t going to get involved in such dangerous trifles when she was acting like a rocket about to go off and light the night skies for miles around. Never apologise, never explain, he reminded himself stubbornly, angry with her, disappointed in her inability to cool down, face facts and see his point of view. She was in no fit state to grasp any explanation while she was still screaming at him. ‘You need to calm down and think this through,’ he murmured grimly, his firm sensual mouth compressing with steely self-control.
‘I don’t have to think about anything,’ Freddie told him woodenly, misery creeping over her like a toxic cloud that shut out all the light. ‘I can’t marry an untrustworthy, unreliable womaniser. There’s no coming back from that.’
‘All that speech is telling me is that you have never been realistic about our marriage. Not only have you not recognised the boundaries I set, but you have also decided to judge me for sins I haven’t committed,’ Zac concluded grittily. ‘Even so, when you fall off your soapbox I’ll be waiting.’
‘And that’s all you’ve got to say to me?’ Freddie ranted back at him, because she was far from finished and he was shutting her down.
‘This is not a productive dialogue,’ Zac growled, yanking open the door for her departure. ‘The car’s waiting downstairs to take you home.’
And the pain didn’t engulf Freddie until she climbed back into the car and slumped like a doll who had had the stuffing beaten out of her. She travelled from thwarted rage to devastated hurt in the space of seconds. So, it was over. She tasted the concept, reeled from it, wondered vaguely what else she had expected when she’d chosen to confront him. It had been too like a fairy tale anyway, she told herself... Zac coming along and seemingly offering her a lifeline when everything was falling apart.
When had anything that unexpectedly good ever happened to her before? She wasn’t a lucky person, never had been. She hadn’t been lucky when her parents died, hadn’t been lucky when it came to getting Lauren off drugs and she had been even less lucky when it came to retaining custody of the children. And that was the moment when Freddie realised that she had forgotten where her niece and nephew fitted into their marriage plans. Aghast, she felt a chill running up over her entire body, driving out the heat of anger, bitterness and pain.
She would lose Eloise and Jack and they would lose Zac. Zac might be no good in the fidelity stakes but he was already demonstrating sterling traits as a father. And wasn’t that why she was supposed to be marrying him?
Practicality rather than sentiment, Zac had reminded her lethally. A marriage of convenience for both of them, not a marriage based on love or the finer feelings, not even a marriage supposed to last for ever. Her tummy gave a nauseous twist. What had she done? What had she done?
She had reacted personally to what she had overheard in the corridor at the restaurant. She had reacted as if she were marrying for love and had behaved as though she had been betrayed. Deep down inside herself, she had been bitterly hurt by the idea of other women getting intimate with Zac, imagining them touching him and being touched by him. But was she entitled to such feelings?
On one score, Zac had been correct: they had broken up before the ball. Learning that he had had sex with someone else might upset her but he had not betrayed her and he had not broken any promises he made her. Soberly contemplating those facts filled Freddie with chagrin because she had faced Zac in a spirit of angry condemnation.
Yet they weren’t in love with each other or even lovers as yet. Practicality rather than sentiment, she reflected with an inner shiver of recoil, for, now that she was actually thinking about it, that struck her as a very chilly recipe for a relationship. No wonder Zac had accused her of not taking a realistic view of their marriage. She had reacted emotionally and gone way out of line, driven by her overwhelming need to express her anguished sense of rejection and hurt. But he had neither needed nor wanted such feelings thrown at him. He was not responsible for what she felt, she was.
‘I had a fight with Zac. The wedding’s off as we speak,’ she confessed chokily to Claire when she got home.
‘Family get-togethers can put people on edge,’ Claire remarked with a roll of her eyes. ‘Did someone say something that upset you?’
‘Something like that,’ Freddie mumbled.
‘Well, you’d better get round to the hotel and sort it out first thing tomorrow morning with him. If you give the kids breakfast, I’ll take over. You have to go for your dress fitting at noon anyway and Richard and I are organised to accompany Zac and the kids to the zoo,’ the brunette reminded her drily.
Claire crept into bed, listening to Jack’s little snuffles and Eloise’s slow peaceful breathing. How could she have forgotten even for a moment what her marrying Zac would mean for the children? Shame dug talon claws of guilt into her tender flesh. She hadn’t been willing to have sex with Zac. Was she to blame him for taking what some other woman offered after she had rejected him? Was she really that much of a hypocrite? And why, oh, why had she taken it all so personally when feelings weren’t supposed to come into their agreement? She closed her eyes and cringed and wondered if he’d make her grovel and whether she would grovel if he made it impossible to do otherwise. It was hardly surprising that she didn’t get a wink of sleep that night and was waiting with breakfast on the table before the children even got up.
When she walked into the hotel foyer that morning, Marco immediately approached her. ‘The boss expecting you?’ he asked.
‘Er...no,’ Freddie admitted.
‘He’s in a meeting right now. I’ll check.’ He spoke in his own language into his headpiece before returning to her side. ‘That’s fine, Miss Lassiter. Go on up,’ he told her, showing her into the lift and putting the card in the slot for her.
Freddie breathed in slow and deep to gather herself. A young woman she didn’t recognise opened the penthouse door and ushered her out onto the big balcony where Zac was clearly enjoying a working breakfast while checking over documents with a young dark-haired man. The woman hovered and then sat down beside the man. Zac was back in jeans and a shirt, black hair rippling back from his lean bronzed features, his big powerful body poised in a relaxed sprawl.
‘Freddie...meet my personal assistants, Abilio and Catina,’ Zac introduced, rising fluidly upright, his eyes a cool luminous pale blue as they always seemed to be in sunlight, roaming over Freddie’s stiff little figure with no expression that she could see. If he was surprised at her arrival, he gave no sign of it.
Zac betrayed not an ounce of the relief he’d experienced when he’d heard she was in the hotel. She had worked it all out for herself and he wasn’t surprised at that. The night before she had acted on impulse with a temper that was quick to rise but equally quick to subside. Practicality had triumphed. But what would he have done had she not come back? Would he have chased after her? No, he was done with that, he decided decisively. She had to marry him of her own free will, knowing and accepting the limitations of such a marriage. Nothing else would work. But the shadows beneath her eyes, the evidence of a sleepless night troubled him all the same. He was finally beginning to appreciate that nothing about getting married and living with another person was
