Of course, there was also his crazy wager, which his stupid brother had involved her in by choosing her as the target of a bad joke. The royal brother had seen her hostility towards Zac and had known it would be a very tall order for Zac to bring her to the ball acting ‘lovelorn’. Lovelorn, what a very outdated word, she thought wearily as she climbed on a bus home, planning the little white lie she would give Claire and certainly not the unlovely truth that she wasn’t prepared to be quite as much fun as other young women her age.
Should she have considered a one-night stand? No, no, where was her brain travelling now? Yes, she had been very attracted to him but not enough to ditch long-held convictions. She would have felt used and foolish if she had slept with him; she also would have wanted more from him than he was prepared to give and that would have hurt her. And she might already be feeling hurt, but she rather suspected she would have felt even worse had she become intimate with Zac and then had to serve drinks to his next casual lover. It was better to play safe, she reasoned, wiser to stand by her beliefs and stay on an even keel.
When she got home, Claire was out and a babysitter was installed. Just managing to pay the babysitter with what she had in her purse, she was too restless to slide into bed and go straight to sleep the way she always did. Instead she went browsing on her aunt’s laptop, snooping online to satisfy the curiosity that Zac had aroused. That exercise piled shock on shock! The Quintal da Rocha diamond mines in Russia and South Africa belonged to Zac and his brother was a Crown Prince. She recalled the diamond studs in one of his ears and his charismatic confidence and slowly marvelled that she had simply not worked out for herself that Zac’s striking level of blazing assurance was only innate in someone of wealth.
Yet she, biased as she was against men, had immediately assumed he was some sort of chancer up to no good when she’d first seen him, she conceded ruefully, condemning him on the slender facts that he was breathtakingly good-looking and bold because Lauren’s vicious boyfriend, Cruz, had had rather similar characteristics. Annoyed by her misconceptions and even more annoyed by the unhappiness dogging her, she forced herself to go to bed. Her sole consolation was that Zac would surely soon be off on his travels again to attend his royal brother’s ball. She had satisfied almost all her curiosity with a series of searches. But she also knew that she would find it easier to get back to normal if Zac left the hotel for a while...or stopped using the hotel bar.
* * *
When Freddie walked out on him, Zac punched the wall with so much force that blood dripped down it and then he swore in every language he knew even though he knew that on one level she was right and there was no way on earth they could meld their respective wants and wishes. Caring? Commitment? Zac very nearly shuddered with distaste at the concept. He didn’t know how to do either and he had no desire to learn. As he was, he was free as a bird and he had no plans to change that pleasurable state, certainly not for a woman. Women were always available, tall, short, curvy, thin—he wasn’t particular. At least he hadn’t been until he had met her. He would get drunk and wash her out of his mind, he decided with grim determination.
What he could not understand was what he had found so attractive about her in the first place! Possibly a man reached a certain age and was programmed to crave a different kind of woman. Maybe it could even be his father’s genes at play. Charles Russell was certainly a man who liked to settle down with women in committed relationships. He had freely admitted that he would have married Zac’s mother if he had got the chance and was currently seriously spending time with Angel’s very glam grandma-in-law, Sybil.
Zac shook his head in bewildered anger while arrogantly marvelling at Freddie’s resistance to him. Then he found himself wondering abstractedly if anyone would ever take the time to read Eloise that dragon story and, with another curse word of finality, rolled his eyes heavenward and consigned the whole Freddie debacle to history and oblivion. He would attend the ball alone...so what? No big deal, was it? He liked being alone; he preferred his own company.
ONLY TWO DAYS LATER, Freddie’s whole world imploded.
‘I did warn you last year that I wouldn’t do this for ever,’ Claire reminded the younger woman briskly, having announced her imminent plans to move to Spain with her boyfriend. ‘I’ve already given social services a month’s notice, so they’ll be looking for a new foster home for Eloise and Jack...although I got the impression they’re actually hoping to put them up for adoption now. Cruz finally acknowledged paternity and signed off any interest in them. Oh, Freddie, for heaven’s sake, don’t look at me like I’m a monster!’
Freddie was trembling and biting her lip hard, determined not to vent any of the very emotional feelings flying through her head and brimming on her lips. ‘I’m not. I’m shocked, that’s all, but you did warn me before we got the kids,’ she conceded, striving to be fair. ‘It’s just I thought our arrangement would last a bit longer—’
‘And maybe it would’ve done if I hadn’t met Richard,’ Claire cut in with a grimace. ‘I was in a bad place when I agreed to take on the kids with you but now my life’s opening up again. Richard will be the chef in his parents’ restaurant and I’ll work front of house. We’re getting the little apartment above the restaurant to live in...it’s nothing fancy but it’ll do us fine and it will be a fresh start for me.’
Freddie tried very hard not to be selfish and not to surrender to a heart that felt as if it were being torn apart inside her. When she had begun living with Claire, Claire had been getting over a broken engagement and she had been unemployed. Fostering the children had suited the brunette back then, giving her the breathing space she had needed to rethink her future, and then Richard had entered her life.
‘Yes,’ Freddie agreed, struggling to block out the upsetting images of Eloise’s and Jack’s distress at being parted from her, because they had never lived without her in their lives. It would be her job to try and prepare the children for the changes ahead, she warned herself sternly, her role to ensure that any move went as smoothly as possible.
Claire planted her hand firmly on the back of her niece’s tautly spread fingers. ‘They’re not our kids, Freddie.’
‘But they feel like it.’ Tears were openly swimming in Freddie’s eyes.
‘To you, not to me, I’m afraid.’ Claire sighed. ‘They’re Lauren’s kids. She chose to have them.’
‘I don’t think she chose anything,’ Freddie protested.
‘She was an addict. She made her mistakes and I don’t feel the need to make sacrifices in her memory and neither should you,’ Claire emphasised stridently. ‘Haven’t you already given up enough for those kids? OK...grieve, but let them go and live your own life now.’
‘That’s the problem. I don’t want to let them go!’ Freddie sobbed helplessly. ‘I love them like they’re my own!’
‘But they’re not yours or mine,’ Claire reminded her single-mindedly. ‘I don’t even know yet if I want to have children! Why aren’t you thinking about how Lauren’s lifestyle destroyed yours? You should’ve gone to university, should’ve let her go but instead you hung in there trying to save someone who refused to be saved.’
‘I know... I know,’ Freddie gasped in grudging acknowledgement and sniffed into the tissue she had grabbed, struggling to master her turbulent emotions, for Claire’s reminder had roused deep sadness for the once loving sister she had lost. ‘But I couldn’t turn my back on Eloise.’
