Chantelle Shaw
THE FRENCHMAN’S MARRIAGE DEMAND

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

ZACHARIE DEVERELL swept along the hospital corridor, paused briefly to check the name above the door before he entered a ward and strode purposefully towards the nurse seated behind the reception desk.

‘I’m here to see Freya Addison. I understand she was admitted yesterday,’ he added, the hint of impatience in his voice making his accent seem more pronounced. The nurse gaped at him but Zac was used to being stared at. Women had stared at him since he was a teenager and at thirty-five his stunning looks, combined with an aura of wealth and power, meant that he was accustomed to being the centre of attention.

When it suited him he would respond to a flirtatious look with one of his devastating smiles, but today he had other things on his mind. There was only one reason why he was here, he acknowledged grimly, and the sooner he saw Freya and told her exactly what he thought of her latest stunt, the better.

‘Um…Miss Addison…’ Thoroughly flustered by the presence of six feet four of brooding Frenchman holding an angelic-looking child in his arms, the nurse hurriedly flicked through the pile of papers in front of her. ‘Oh, yes, down the corridor, third door on the left—but you can’t see her at the moment, the doctor is with her. Please, wait a minute, Mr…?’

The Frenchman was already striding along the corridor and the nurse scooted around the desk and chased after him.

‘Deverell,’ he murmured coolly, not slowing his steps. ‘My name is Zac Deverell and it is imperative that I see Miss Addison immediately.’

Freya sat on her hospital bed and stared gloomily at her bandaged wrist. The past twenty-four hours had been hellish and she hoped that any minute now she would wake up and find that it had all been a nightmare. Instead the throbbing ache of her badly sprained wrist and a splitting headache were evidence of the force with which her car had ploughed into a fallen tree, brought down during the ferocious storm that had hit the south coast.

She had been on her way home from the yacht club where she worked as a receptionist and fortunately hadn’t yet collected her little daughter from the day nursery when the accident had happened. Aimee was safe, and she was lucky to be alive, she acknowledged with a shudder, but her car was damaged beyond repair and she was going to have to take time off work, which was not going to help her ailing finances.

She had spent the night in the hospital with mild concussion and the doctor had explained that the ligaments in her wrist had been torn and she would need to wear a support bandage for several weeks. After prescribing strong painkillers he had told her she could go home, but she was worried about how she was going to manage to carry Aimee and her pushchair up and down the four flights of stairs to their attic flat when she only had the use of one hand.

She would have to ask her grandmother for help, she fretted, her thoughts turning to the woman who had brought her up after her mother had abandoned her when she was a baby. But Joyce Addison had taken on the role of parent out of a sense of duty rather than affection. Freya had endured a loveless childhood and when she had fallen pregnant and immediately been dumped by her baby’s father, her grandmother had made it clear that she would not support her or her child.

She guessed Joyce had been furious when the hospital contacted her yesterday and passed on her request that she should collect Aimee from nursery. She had half expected her grandmother to turn up at the hospital last night with the toddler in tow, but there had been no word from the older woman and Freya was growing increasingly anxious. She glanced up expectantly when the door opened and felt a sharp pang of disappointment when a nurse entered the small side ward.

‘Have you heard anything from my grandmother? Has she phoned? She’s looking after my daughter but she’s due to fly to New York any day now.’

‘As far as I know, there has been no word from your grandmother, but your daughter is here at the hospital,’ the nurse said cheerfully. ‘Her uncle’s looking after her. I’ll tell him he can come in.’

‘Uncle?’ Freya stared at the nurse in bewilderment. Aimee didn’t have an uncle.

‘Yes, I asked Mr Deverell to wait in the visitor’s lounge while the doctor was with you, but I know he’s impatient to see you,’ the nurse added wryly. The Frenchman had to be the sexiest male on the planet, but it had been evident from the haughty expression in his flashing blue eyes that patience wasn’t one of his strong points.

The nurse disappeared before Freya could question her further. The world had gone mad, she decided as she ran a shaky hand through her hair. The name Deverell conjured up a face from the past that she had spent the past two years desperately trying to forget and hearing it again caused a peculiar cramping sensation in the pit of her stomach. The nurse must have made a mistake. But who was this mysterious uncle—who exactly was looking after Aimee?

‘Mum-mum!’

She glanced towards the door at the sound of her daughter’s gurgling laughter and focused on Aimee’s cherubic face, a heady mixture of love and relief coursing through her veins. But almost instantly her gaze moved higher and clashed with the cool blue stare of the man who had haunted her dreams for the past two years.

‘Zac?’ she whispered disbelievingly.

Zac Deverell; billionaire businessman, renowned playboy and chief executive of the globally successful company Deverell’s, which owned exclusive department stores around the world, instantly seemed to dominate the room. He was even more gorgeous than she remembered, she thought numbly as her brain struggled to assimilate the shocking reality of his presence at the end of her bed. He was tall, lean and devastatingly good-looking, his black jeans and matching sweater were effortlessly stylish and accentuated his athletic build.

Weakly Freya closed her eyes. For a few seconds the image of his bronzed, muscular torso and the covering of fine black hairs that arrowed down over his flat stomach flooded her mind. Zac was the epitome of male perfection. For a few brief, incredible months she’d enjoyed free access to his body and had revelled in the feel of his satiny skin beneath her fingertips as she’d trailed a daring path over the solid strength of his thighs. She had a vivid recall of how it had felt to lie beneath him, skin on skin, their limbs entwined so that two became one…

With a low murmur she released her breath and stared at his face, noting the male beauty of his sharp cheekbones and square chin, and the way a lock of his jet-black hair had fallen over his brow. His eyes were the deep, dense blue of a Mediterranean summer sky—the same shade as Aimee’s eyes. The thought sent her crashing back to reality and she frowned at the way her daughter was sitting contentedly in his arms. It was a sight she had dreamed of frequently, but never in her wildest fantasies had she expected it to happen.

‘What are you doing here? And since when did you become Aimee’s uncle?’ Shock seemed to have robbed her of her strength and to her chagrin her voice sounded pathetically weak.

Zac regarded her silently for a moment, his black brows drawn together in a harsh frown. ‘It was easier to tell the hospital staff that I’m a relative—or would you rather I’d explained that I’m the man you tried to trick into believing was the father of your child?’ he queried pleasantly, aware that any hint of aggression in his tone could frighten the little girl sitting on his hip.

Freya gave a bitter laugh. ‘It was no trick, Zac—Aimee is your daughter.’

‘The hell she is!’ The denial came out as a low hiss and Zac abruptly lowered Aimee onto the bed. He smiled reassuringly at the toddler, making a Herculean effort to mask his impatience from her. It wasn’t the child’s fault, he reminded himself. With her halo of golden curls and enormous blue eyes, Aimee was angelic. It was her mother who was a cheat and a liar and if Freya hadn’t looked so damned fragile he’d be tempted to throttle her for manipulating him into this situation.

‘We went through this two years ago, Freya, when you sprang the news that you were pregnant. My response is the same now as it was then,’ he told her coldly. ‘You might have convinced your grandmother of my paternity but you and I both know you weren’t telling the truth—don’t we?’

‘I’ve never lied to you,’ Freya snapped, stung by the contempt in Zac’s eyes. It was the same expression that she’d seen when she’d told him she was expecting his baby—contemptuous disbelief, followed by his devastating accusation that she had obviously cheated on him. The pain in her heart was no less intense, despite the passing of time. In a strange way it was worse. The mental wounds Zac had inflicted on her were far more painful than her injuries. Seeing him again had re-ignited her agony and she wished he would go, before she suffered the ultimate humiliation of breaking down in front of him.

‘I no longer care what you think,’ she told him wearily, unable to stifle a groan when Aimee scrambled over her and knocked against her sore ribs—bruised in the accident by the force of her seat belt locking against her. ‘I can’t imagine what you’re doing here, but I think it’s best if you leave.’

‘Believe me, I’m not here through choice,’ Zac ground out savagely. ‘I was at Deverell’s London office this morning to give a press conference announcing record profits made by the Oxford Street store, when your grandmother turned up with your daughter. Presumably you’d planned the timing of her visit to create maximum impact,’ he added harshly. ‘Her accusation, that Aimee is my child, was overheard by several journalists as well as members of my staff and rumours have already got back to the Deverell board.’

‘Aimee was in London? I don’t understand,’ Freya said sharply, frowning in confusion. ‘The hospital phoned my grandmother yesterday and asked her to look after Aimee. Where is Nana Joyce now?’

‘Jetting off across the Atlantic for the start of her cruise, I imagine,’ Zac replied. ‘She went on about how she’d saved for years for a round-the-world trip and that nothing, not even the fact that you were in hospital, would induce her to miss it.’

His eyes darkened as he remembered his meeting with Joyce Addison.

‘I’m sick to death of feckless fathers,’ she told him when she marched into his office wheeling a pushchair in front of her and handed him an enormous holdall, which, she informed him, contained all the necessary paraphernalia for an eighteen-month-old child. ‘I was left to bring up Freya after her mother got herself pregnant at sixteen by some shiftless Lothario she’d met at a funfair. Sadie soon got bored of motherhood and went off, leaving me stuck with a child I didn’t want.

‘I thought I’d warned Freya of the dangers of handsome men who want nothing more than a good time,’ Joyce continued, trailing her eyes over him as if he were some sort of stud, Zac recalled furiously. ‘I told her when you offered her a job on that fancy boat of yours that you were only after one thing, and evidently you both got more than you bargained for. But now it’s time you took responsibility for your actions.

‘I don’t know how long Freya is going to be in hospital and I’m not waiting to find out. If you won’t look after Aimee, you’d better hand her over to social services, because I refuse to be landed with another baby.’

Joyce Addison’s vitriolic tirade had captured the attention of everyone at the Deverell offices—although his staff had done their best to hide their curiosity, Zac conceded darkly. The whole, unbelievable scenario had been bloody humiliating, he thought bitterly—and there was only one person he could blame.

‘You can drop the act, Freya,’ he said coldly. ‘It’s quite obvious you told your grandmother to bring Aimee to me, and, having met Joyce, I can’t even blame you,’ he went on, ignoring Freya’s gasp. ‘I wouldn’t leave a dog in your grandmother’s care, let alone a young child. But if all this is a ploy to get money out of me in the form of maintenance—you can forget it.’

He glared at her, his anger increasing when he felt his body’s response to Freya, with her small, heart-shaped face and mass of silky honey-blonde hair. She had intrigued him for barely three months, but two years on he could instantly recall her slender, pale limbs and small, firm breasts. The passion they had shared had been explosive, he acknowledged, aware of an uncomfortable tightening in his groin as unbidden memories surfaced. He had wanted her from the moment she’d first joined the crew of his luxury yacht, The Isis, and the attraction between them had been mutual.

Shy, innocent Freya had been unable to hide her awareness of him and he had wasted no time persuading her into his bed. Although it had been a shock to discover just how innocent she was, he thought grimly. He liked his women to be self-confident and experienced in bed—willing participants in the mutual exchange of sexual pleasure without the pressure of emotional ties. But the temptation of her satiny skin as she curled her legs around him and the enticement of her breathless whispers begging him to make love to her had been impossible to resist. She had proved a willing pupil and he had delighted in tutoring her. Her shyness and inexperience had been refreshing and against his better judgement he had invited her to move into his penthouse apartment as his mistress.

It was a decision he had later regretted and after discovering her to have slept with another man behind his back he had evicted her from his life with ruthless efficiency. His bed had not remained empty for very long. His vast fortune meant that there would always be a queue of willing candidates vying to be his mistress, he acknowledged cynically.

He had hardly given Freya a thought since he’d dismissed her back to England and it irritated him to realise that the chemistry between them still burned as fiercely as ever.

‘I did not instruct my grandmother to bring Aimee to you,’ Freya said shakily, still struggling to accept that Zac was really standing in front of her. ‘Trust me; you’re the last person I’d ever turn to for help.’ She glared at him, her green eyes blazing with anger and unconcealed hurt. He was so beautiful, she thought painfully. She couldn’t tear her eyes from him and the sight of his broad chest and powerful abdominal muscles, delineated by his close-fitting, fine-knit jumper, made her insides melt.

Zac was utterly gorgeous but fatally flawed, she reminded herself. His arrogance and cynicism had almost destroyed her, but her body seemed to have a short memory and was responding to his closeness with humiliating eagerness. He had treated her diabolically. When she had needed him most, he had let her down and demolished her pride with his foul accusations that she had been a two-timing whore. Two years ago he’d made it clear that she meant nothing to him, so why was her heart racing? And why was her brain intent on recalling every detail of his kiss, the feel of his hands on her body…?

Frantically she dragged her mind from her memories. ‘I admit I once told Nana Joyce that you’re Aimee’s father—she kept on and on about it, and it’s the truth, whatever you might think,’ she stated with quiet dignity. ‘You were the first and only man I’ve ever slept with, Zac,’ she whispered sadly, ‘but you had your own reasons for choosing not to believe me, didn’t you?’

Zac’s expression of cool disinterest did not flicker and his only reaction to her last statement was a slight quirk of his brows. ‘And what was that, chérie?’

‘You’d decided before I told you I was pregnant that you wanted to end our relationship. After three months together you’d grown tired of me. Don’t deny it,’ she said fiercely. ‘I recognised the signs, the way you mentally withdrew from me during those last few weeks that we were together. The only time we were close was in bed, and even then you were…distant.’

‘Not that distant,’ Zac replied mockingly. ‘Your voracious appetite for sex wouldn’t allow any distance between us, would it, Freya? I still find it amazing that you had the energy to sleep with anyone else when you put so much effort into sleeping with me.’

His deliberate cruelty skewered Freya’s heart and she blinked back the rush of tears that burned her eyelids. ‘How dare you?’ she whispered thickly. ‘Don’t try and appease your guilty conscience by blaming me. You wanted rid of me because you’d set your sights on Annalise Dubois. You were determined to make her your next mistress, but an ex who was pregnant with your baby would have seriously cramped your style.’

In her agitation she leapt off the bed and her head spun. The blood drained from her face and she swayed unsteadily before collapsing back onto the mattress.

‘Enough,’ Zac growled as he stepped forwards and caught Aimee who was determinedly trying to wriggle off the bed. ‘You’re upsetting the child.’ He set Aimee down on the floor and stared speculatively at her blonde curls for a moment before glancing back at her mother.

‘I don’t want anything from you,’ Freya stated angrily. ‘Certainly not money,’ she added, unable to hide the flare of contempt in her eyes. ‘I just want you to accept that I’m telling the truth.’

She stared into his brilliant blue eyes, that were so like Aimee’s, and gave an angry sigh. She had no intention of pursuing him through the courts for a slice of his vast fortune as her grandmother had frequently suggested. He didn’t want her and he didn’t want Aimee, and that was fine, she’d manage without him. She just wanted him to accept that she had never lied to him. ‘Why can’t you be honest with me?’ she pleaded.

Zac glanced down at her and tensed. Her thin hospital nightgown had come unfastened so that he could see the curve of one small, pale breast. To his utter disgust he felt his body’s involuntary reaction—a shaming surge of heat in his loins as desire corkscrewed in his gut.

She’d proved herself to be a faithless whore, damn it, who was still brazenly trying to pass off another man’s child as his. It was humiliating to realise the effect she still had on him. He didn’t want to want her; it dented his pride to know that he was seriously tempted to wind his hand into her hair, angle her head and plunder the softness of her moist pink lips in a kiss that would remind her of the passion they had once shared.

Instead he forced himself to move away from the bed and stared out of the window at the rain lashing against the pane. ‘What would you know of honesty, Freya?’ he demanded coldly, his facial muscles tightening so that his skin was stretched taut over his cheekbones. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out about your secret assignations with that anaemic-looking street artist Simon Brooks?

‘Monaco is a small place and gossip runs rife. I am—’he shrugged his shoulders in a typically Gallic gesture ‘—well known in the principality and the speculation that I was being cuckolded by my mistress soon reached my ears. I might even have found the situation amusing,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘It was certainly a novelty. But your attempts to saddle me with another man’s child were not so funny, chérie.’

‘I swear I never slept with Simon,’ Freya said urgently. ‘The bodyguard you’d assigned to protect me made a mistake that day. But at the time—when you said all those terrible things to me—I couldn’t think straight.’ She had been so devastated by Zac’s refusal to believe that she was carrying his baby and so shocked by his accusation that she had slept with Simon that her mind had gone blank and she had simply walked out of his apartment without even trying to defend herself. ‘I’ve had a long time to think about things since then,’ she added bitterly, ‘and now I believe I know what happened.’ She paused for a moment and stared at Zac, faint hope bubbling in her chest when he remained silent. It was the first time since the fateful night two years ago that they had actually spoken properly. The first time he had listened.

‘It’s true I spent a lot of time with Simon, but he was my friend, nothing more. You were always busy working and I was lonely,’ she admitted quietly, thinking of the young English art student who had befriended her during her stay in Monaco. Simon had been touring the Mediterranean coast, scraping a living selling his paintings. Unlike Zac’s glamorous friends, he’d seemed refreshingly ordinary and down to earth, and she had enjoyed his company. ‘We weren’t lovers—he was just someone from home that I liked to talk to.’

‘And I suppose Michel was lying when he told me he’d seen you and Brooks leave the beach arm in arm to return to his camper van?’ Zac drawled. ‘Sacré bleu! I paid Michel to protect you, but when he saw your distinctive pink jacket hanging on the van door and glimpsed you and your floppy-haired artist rolling around inside, he didn’t know what to do. He certainly didn’t want to be seen as a voyeur,’ he added, his lip curling in distaste. ‘My wealth brings with it a very real threat of kidnap and Michel knew that, as my mistress, you were vulnerable. He didn’t want to leave you without protection, but neither did he want to hang around watching your sexual gymnastics with Brooks. In the end he phoned me to ask my advice—while I was hurrying back from a business trip to take you out to dinner,’ Zac finished grimly.

‘Your announcement as soon as I walked through the door that you were pregnant was ill-timed to say the least, chérie,’ he continued when it was evident that she was beyond words. ‘I’d just learned from a man I trusted implicitly that you and Brooks were lovers, and I was certain that I wasn’t the child’s father. It wasn’t difficult to work out that you were pregnant by your penniless artist and hoping to pass the baby off as mine.’

The cold fury in his eyes caused Freya to shiver but this was possibly the only chance she would ever have to defend herself and make Zac see that he was wrong about her. ‘Michel didn’t see me,’ she insisted desperately. ‘He just thought he did. I’d gone to the beach to meet Simon and a group of his friends, including his girlfriend. Kirsten was feeling cold and I lent her my jacket before I walked into the town. She has blonde hair like mine and Michel must have mistaken her for me…’ She stumbled to a halt, her heart sinking at the mockery in Zac’s eyes. ‘I didn’t go to Simon’s van that day and I was never unfaithful to you, Zac,’ she insisted. ‘You have to believe me.’

He stared at her in silence for a few moments and then laughed unpleasantly. ‘You’ve had two years to think of a story. Is that really the best you can do, chérie?’ He paced the room like a caged tiger, his pent up aggression almost tangible. ‘Non!’ he stated fiercely, slicing his hand through the air to emphasise his anger. ‘I refuse to be manipulated by you. I want a paternity test and once I’ve proved conclusively that you are a liar, I never want to see you or hear from you again. Do you understand?’

‘How can you be so sure that I’m lying?’ Freya whispered numbly. Clearly Zac’s opinion of her couldn’t sink any lower and she was shocked by how much it hurt. The contempt in his tone made her want to shrivel but pride brought her head up. The silence between them vibrated with a tension that shredded her nerves and she visibly flinched when he swung round and stared at her.

His expression filled her with a curious sense of foreboding and she felt her stomach churn. She could not tear her gaze from the sculpted beauty of his face but his eyes were hard and cold and, despite the stifling warmth of the hospital ward, she shivered.

Zac paused and then said unemotionally, ‘Because I had a vasectomy—years before we met. The truth is, chérie, that it’s medically impossible for Aimee to be my daughter.’

CHAPTER TWO

ZAC watched the shock and confusion on Freya’s face with clinical detachment before he glanced at Aimee. The little girl stared up at him solemnly, her pretty little face surrounded by her mass of curls and her pink cheeks glowing with health. She was not a Deverell, thank God, he thought with quiet certainty. This child would not suffer the way his twin sisters had suffered—victims of the devastating illness that had taken their lives before they were a year old.

He had been a teenager when his mother had given birth to twins. The babies had appeared normal but within a few months both had died from an incurable genetic disorder and after their deaths doctors had warned his parents there was a fifty-per-cent chance that he had also been affected. He had escaped the illness but there was no test available to show if he carried the gene.

The trauma of watching his sisters die and witnessing his parents’ grief had never faded. As an adult he had made the decision that he could not risk the slightest chance of passing on the gene to his own children and had taken the necessary steps to ensure that he would never be a father. The faint regret he’d felt at the time had soon faded and he had moved on, determined to enjoy his life and take advantage of the benefits his billion-pound fortune afforded him.

He couldn’t have children, but why would he want to be tied down to the responsibilities of a family when he could afford fast cars, power boats and all the trappings of his wealth? He enjoyed an endless supply of beautiful women who entertained him briefly before he grew bored and looked around for new pleasures.

Freya had intrigued him for longer than most but he had never viewed her as becoming a permanent feature in his life. It hadn’t occurred to him to mention his vasectomy when she had been his mistress and he felt under no obligation to explain the reason for it now.

Freya stared wildly at Zac, feeling as though the world had actually shifted on its axis. ‘The operation must have failed,’ she croaked, struggling to assimilate his shocking announcement. ‘I don’t understand how it could have happened, but Aimee is your child,’ she insisted desperately.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Zac snapped irritably. ‘It’s impossible.’ Although that wasn’t strictly true, he acknowledged silently. He’d always known that the procedure carried a one-in-two-thousand chance of reversal, but when Freya had sprung the news of her pregnancy, less than an hour after his security guard, Michel, had seen her with Simon Brooks, he had angrily assumed that she’d been having an affair with the Englishman for weeks and that the baby she was carrying couldn’t possibly be his own. He was still convinced that this was the case and he felt a surge of disgust for Freya and her pathetic excuses.

He would have marginally more respect for her if she stopped lying and admitted that she’d been caught out, he brooded darkly, his lip curling in contempt. She was beautiful—more so, if anything, than she had been two years ago—but beneath her exquisite shell she was rotten to the core and once he had the proof he would have nothing more to do with her.

‘The nurse informed me that you’ve been discharged,’ he said tersely, raking his eyes over Freya’s pale face as he strode towards the door. ‘Hurry up and get dressed. We’re flying to Monaco immediately where I’ll make the necessary arrangements to carry out the DNA test and end this wild speculation once and for all.’

Half an hour later, Freya’s temper was at boiling point. Zac seemed to think he could just waltz back into her life and take over. ‘I am not going to Monaco with you,’ she repeated for the twentieth time as she followed him across the hospital car park and watched him strap Aimee into the child-seat that his secretary had apparently lent him when he’d driven down from London. It was still raining hard and he had turned up the collar of his leather jacket. With his hair slicked back from his face and his black brows lowered in an ominous scowl he looked more gorgeous than ever and she groaned silently at her body’s traitorous response to him.

He was mean, moody and magnificent, she thought bleakly, not to mention the most arrogant, overbearing man she had ever met. Two years ago he had swept her away on his boat and straight into his bed. She had given him her virginity but he had stolen her heart, she thought sadly. After a lifetime devoid of any emotional security she had willingly become his mistress, but his cruel rejection had almost destroyed her and she could not risk returning to the place where she had once been so happy.

‘I agree that we need to do a paternity test,’ she said when he made no reply. ‘But why can’t we do it here in England? I don’t want to go anywhere with you.’

‘Tough.’ Zac checked Aimee was secure and then opened the driver’s door and slid into the car. ‘I have an urgent meeting with the Deverell board tomorrow at the Monaco office and so it’s more convenient for me to have it done in my private clinic at home. Get in the car,’ he snapped testily when she continued to stand outside in the rain. ‘I’ve chartered a private jet and my pilot can’t wait all day.’

Freya glowered at him as she climbed reluctantly into the passenger seat. Her heart was thumping painfully in her chest and she wished she had the nerve to snatch Aimee and run. The torrential rain, her injured wrist and the bitter knowledge that he could effortlessly outmatch her in speed and strength made her stay put, but she edged as far away as possible from him once inside the car and stared pointedly out of the window.

‘You’ll have to give me directions to your flat,’ he said when he turned out of the hospital gates. ‘Aimee’s pushchair and a bag of her clothes are in the boot, courtesy of your grandmother,’ he added, his voice simmering with barely concealed anger. ‘You can have twenty minutes to pack, but I intend to leave within the next hour.’

Freya leaned back and closed her eyes wearily, overwhelmed by his determination. When Zac wanted his own way he invariably got it—but unless he intended to kidnap her and Aimee, he couldn’t make them get on his plane.

She was acutely conscious of him sitting beside her and when she peeped at him from beneath her lashes, the sight of his strong, tanned hands on the wheel made her feel weaker than ever. Once those hands had skimmed every inch of her body and explored her so intimately that the memory made her blush. He smelled of rain and damp leather, and the subtle scent of the cologne he favoured was achingly familiar, tantalising her senses and forcing her to remember the mind-blowing passion they had once shared.

It was over, she reminded herself angrily as she tore her gaze from his stern profile. He had tried and convicted her before she’d even understood the crime she was supposed to have committed. In a strange way his revelation about his vasectomy was almost a relief. His savage anger and rejection two years ago had destroyed her, but now at least she could understand why he had been so ready to believe that she’d been having an affair with Simon.

The fact that he had never mentioned his vasectomy when she’d lived with him emphasised how little she’d meant to him. The question of children had never arisen because she’d been Zac’s mistress and he hadn’t wanted a permanent relationship with her.

But the operation must have reversed. She didn’t know much about the procedure but presumably it hadn’t worked properly because Aimee was undoubtedly his daughter, she thought on a wave of near hysteria. What other explanation could there be?

After Aimee was born she had briefly considered asking Zac for a DNA test, but had decided against it. His reaction to her pregnancy had shown that he abhorred the idea of fatherhood and she had feared he would only take a reluctant role in his daughter’s upbringing.

At eighteen months old, Aimee was a happy, loving child whose confidence was built on the instinctive knowledge that she was loved unconditionally. She would not allow Zac to destroy that confidence, Freya thought fiercely, and she would do everything in her power to ensure that her child grew up with a sense of self-worth that she herself had been denied.

But now Zac had his own reasons for insisting on a paternity test. He was convinced that the results would absolve him of any responsibility for Aimee and she feared his reaction when he was finally forced to accept the truth.

After fifteen minutes, during which Zac barely contained his frustration as they crawled through the traffic, he pulled up outside the house where Freya occupied the top-floor flat and frowned at the peeling paintwork and general air of decay. ‘You live here? Mon Dieu, I assume it’s in better condition inside.’

‘Don’t bank on it,’ she muttered, feeling a peculiar pain around her heart as she watched Aimee raise her arms for Zac to lift her out of her seat. The little girl was usually shy with strangers. Did she feel a subconscious bond with her father? Freya wondered as she led the way up the front path. Once inside she preceded him up the stairs, aware that his silence was growing more ominous by the minute.

‘How were you planning to carry Aimee up and down four flights of stairs with your injured wrist?’ he enquired when they finally reached her front door. ‘What would you do if there was a fire? You’d never be able to evacuate quickly.’

‘I’d manage somehow, just as I always have,’ she replied stiffly, hovering in the narrow hallway in a vain attempt to block his way. She didn’t want him here, intruding on her life, but he ignored her and stepped past her into the cramped bedsit.

The flat was a mess—it seemed a lifetime ago that she had flown out of the door to drop Aimee at the nursery and continue on to work. Yesterday’s breakfast dishes were still piled up in the sink and the clothes-rack was festooned with a selection of her underwear. Zac was glancing around the room with a faint air of disbelief and she wished he would go away. She hated him seeing how she lived. ‘It’s not ideal, I admit,’ she mumbled, ‘but it’s all I can afford.’

‘I can’t believe you’re bringing a child up here,’ Zac said grimly, genuinely shocked by the squalid flat. Freya had obviously done her best to make the place feel homely with brightly coloured cushions scattered on the sofa and Aimee’s collection of teddies arranged on the dresser. But nothing could disguise the musty smell of damp plaster, and the bucket strategically placed to catch the rain leaking through the ceiling provided stark evidence that the old house was in a bad state of repair.

Her living conditions were none of his business, he reminded himself as he set Aimee down and she trotted over to her toy box. But now at least he could understand why she was so adamant that he was Aimee’s father—perhaps she had genuinely deluded herself into believing it in the hope that he would provide for her child?

Freya shrugged listlessly. ‘My living conditions have never bothered you before, Zac. Why the sudden concern?’ she asked coolly. She shrugged out of her wet jacket and belatedly remembered that she’d been unable to put on her bra when she had struggled into her clothes at the hospital. Zac’s eyes moved over her and to her horror she felt her breasts tighten.

The atmosphere in her tiny flat changed imperceptibly and she was aware of his sudden tension as she hastily folded her arms across her chest to hide the prominent peaks of her nipples. Now was not a good time to remember the connection they had once shared. She tore her gaze from the sensual curve of his mouth and tried to banish the memory of how it had felt when he had crushed her lips beneath his own.

‘I meant what I said earlier—I’m not coming to Monaco with you,’ she told him firmly, feeling more confident on her home territory. ‘You can’t make me, unless you intend to bind and gag me and bundle me onto your plane,’ she added when he said nothing and simply stared at her as if he could read the thoughts whirling around in her head.

He seemed to dominate the small room and she swallowed when he strolled towards her. ‘It’s tempting,’ he drawled, his blue eyes glinting dangerously. ‘Don’t goad me, chérie, or I might think you are trying to anger me on purpose.’

‘Why would I do that?’ Freya demanded, despising herself for the way her nerve endings sprang into urgent life at his closeness.

‘We always had the most amazing sex after an argument,’ he replied silkily, the sudden flare of amusement in his eyes warning her that he was aware of the effect he had on her. Freya blushed furiously and itched to slap him.

‘I don’t remember sex between us being anything more than mediocre,’ she lied. ‘Perhaps you’re thinking of one of your other lovers Zac. You’ve had plenty, after all.’

She almost jumped out of her skin when his hand suddenly shot out and he caught hold of her chin, tilting her head so that she had no option but to meet his gaze. ‘Nothing about our relationship in the bedroom was mediocre, chérie, and if we had more time I’d be tempted to prove that fact.’ The flare of heat in his eyes scorched her skin and she focused helplessly on his mouth, her tongue darting out to trace the curve of her bottom lip in an unconscious invitation. The atmosphere was electric, she could almost feel the sparks shooting between them, but then he abruptly released her and moved away, his expression unfathomable.

‘Be thankful that I am in a hurry to get back for a dinner date tonight,’ he growled as he scooped her underwear from the clothes rack and dumped the pile of pretty lace knickers in her hands. ‘And hurry up and pack or you’ll find yourself travelling to Monaco sans your lingerie.’

Freya glared at him, her jaw aching with the effort of holding back her furious retort. He was so smug, and, as usual, so in control of the situation, nothing ever dented his supreme self-confidence. She hated him for every foul accusation he’d flung at her, every scathing insult that she was an unfaithful, gold-digging tramp. But even though he was looking at her as if she were something unpleasant that had crawled from beneath a stone, she could not deny the inexorable tug of desire that coiled low in her stomach.

It was devastating to realise that, despite everything he had done to her, she still wanted him. Where was her pride? she asked herself. Zac had used her body for sex and abused her fragile heart with his cruelty and contempt. But seeing him again had opened up the feelings she had tried so hard to suppress since he had ruthlessly dismissed her from his life.

She had never got over him, she acknowledged dismally. He had been the love of her life, but the molten heat surging through her veins was caused by lust, not love, she assured herself frantically. She’d learned the hard way never to waste her emotions on him because he had certainly never loved her and he never would.

The last thing she wanted to do was go to Monaco with him, but what choice did she have? she brooded as her gaze fell on her little daughter. As usual, Zac was right; she was never going to manage the stairs with Aimee and the pushchair while her wrist was so painful, and she had lain awake for most of the previous night worrying about how she would cope.

Her heart jolted in her chest as she accepted the unpalatable truth that she would have to go with him for now. She had no idea how long it would take for Zac to arrange a paternity test and await the results but it couldn’t be more than a week or two, she consoled herself. And by then her wrist would be stronger and she would be able to return home.

She would go to Monaco, but this time she would be on her guard and would not give in to the undeniable sexual attraction that still smouldered between them, she vowed fiercely. She was no longer a naïve girl, she was an independent woman, and she would not be tempted by the sizzling sexual promise in Zac’s bold gaze.

The bright lights of Monaco blazed against a backdrop of black velvet. As the helicopter swooped low over the coastline Zac glanced over his shoulder. Aimee was fast asleep, sitting next to the nanny he had hired. ‘We’re almost there,’ he murmured reassuringly to the uniformed woman. ‘May I say how grateful I am that you were able to join us at such short notice, Mrs Lewis.’

Jean Lewis smiled. ‘I’m glad to help. With any luck I’ll be able to put Aimee straight to bed without waking her. She’s worn out, poor poppet.’

With a brief nod, Zac turned back and glanced at Freya who was sitting stiffly beside him, the mutinous tilt of her chin causing him to curse irritably beneath his breath. If anyone had told him when he’d set out for Deverell’s London offices that he would return to Monaco with his ex-mistress and her child in tow, he would have laughed out loud, he thought with a humourless smile.

His eyes trailed over her and he felt his body’s involuntary reaction to the sight of her small breasts outlined beneath her blouse. Once again Freya had turned his life upside down. After their bitter parting two years ago, he had neither wanted nor expected to see her again, but, even knowing what she had done, he was finding it impossible to ignore her.

Freya felt Zac’s eyes on her and stiffened when he shifted slightly in his seat so that his thigh brushed against hers. When they had left England aboard the private jet, he had sat at the front of the plane, his attention focused exclusively on his laptop. It had suited her fine—she had nothing to say to him that wouldn’t blister his ears anyway—but when they’d arrived in Nice and boarded his helicopter for the short journey to Monaco, her heart had sunk when he had sat down next to her.

She had tried her best to ignore him but unfortunately her senses refused to fall into line and she was agonisingly aware of his closeness. The subtle tang of his cologne was tantalisingly familiar, causing her nerve endings to prickle.

She did not want to feel like this, she thought angrily as she edged away from him. It was humiliating to realise that he could still affect her so strongly, despite everything he had done to her. But it had always been the same; she had never been able to resist him and unfortunately just about every other woman on the planet shared her fascination.

The months she had spent with him had been the happiest but also the most nerve-racking of her life and her ever-present fear that he would tire of her had added to her deep insecurity.

Zac was one of Monaco’s most eligible bachelors and at the many parties they had attended he had always been the centre of attention. Women had flocked around him and made their interest clear with a bold smile or knowing glance loaded with sensual invitation. He had responded to their blatant flirting with one of his cool, faintly sardonic smiles, and she’d felt reassured. But Annalise Dubois had been different.

The stunning glamour model had pursued Zac with relentless determination and had shamelessly flaunted her spectacular figure in clingy silks and satins that made the most of her eye-catching cleavage.

Beside her, Freya had felt pale and insipid and she hadn’t been able to help but notice the way Zac’s eyes had lingered appreciatively on the Frenchwoman’s curves. Jealousy had been a green-eyed monster that festered in her soul, making her edgy and paranoid. She’d hated to be apart from him and had questioned his every move—every late night at the office or business trip that had taken him away for days at a time.

She’d known that her behaviour had angered him, but as he’d grown increasingly distant from her, so her terror had increased that he had been tiring of her. The only time she had felt secure was when they had been in bed. There at least his passion for her had shown no sign of diminishing, but he had shut her out of every other aspect of his life and she’d felt as though her only role had been to provide convenient sex on demand.

Choking back a cry, she dragged her mind from the past. She had spent the past two years determinedly trying to forget the life she’d shared with Zac and she must be mad to have agreed to return to Monaco with him.

‘Do you still live at the penthouse?’ she asked stiffly, seizing on the faint hope that he had moved from the elegant, marble-floored apartment where she had once kidded herself that he might fall in love with her.

‘Oui. The location suits me and I enjoy the view over the harbour,’ he replied coolly.

Freya recalled the spectacular view from the penthouse over Monaco’s busy port and the vast stretch of the Mediterranean beyond. ‘Do you still keep The Isis moored there?’

Zac nodded. ‘Unfortunately I don’t get to spend as much time on her as I’d like. Deverell’s is expanding and we’re opening several outlets around the world, including the new store in Mayfair. If your grandmother had picked any other day, I would not have been in London,’ he added tersely.

His frown told her that he was cursing his bad luck to have been in London on the same day that Joyce Addison had arrived with Aimee, but Freya shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been there.

‘I’m glad Nana Joyce found you,’ she admitted quietly, forgetting for a moment that they were enemies. ‘I don’t know what would have happened to Aimee otherwise.’

‘Your grandmother would have cared for her, surely?’

Freya’s face twisted. ‘I don’t know. When she found out that I was going to be an unmarried mother, she was adamant that she would have nothing to do with me or my baby. She bitterly resented having to bring me up and when I was a child I lived with foster parents for a while,’ she confided dully. ‘My mother had married and was moving to South Africa and my grandmother assumed she would take me with her. They had a furious argument when it turned out that I wasn’t included in Sadie’s new life.’

Zac’s mouth tightened and he was aware of a faint tug of compassion. No wonder Freya’s self-esteem was nonexistent when she had been so cruelly rejected by her own mother. ‘Is that when you were put into care?’

Freya nodded. ‘I think my grandmother believed that once social services were involved, Sadie would finally take responsibility for me—but instead she flew out to Durban without even saying goodbye.’ Now that she was a mother herself she found it impossible to understand how her own mother had been able to abandon her so easily. It was obvious that Sadie had never loved her, she acknowledged bleakly, but even after all this time, it still hurt.

‘After about six months I went back to live with my grandmother…but I was always afraid that she would send me away again and I tried my hardest not to annoy her.’ She thought of the years she’d spent skirting around her grandmother like a timid mouse, desperate not to bring attention to herself and pathetically grateful that Nana Joyce allowed her to live with her. It had been a dismal childhood and she was determined that her daughter would never feel so worthless or unloved.

She jerked her head round and stared at Zac. ‘I love Aimee more than anything and I won’t allow anyone to hurt her. I agree we should do a paternity test—it’s time to set the record straight. I just hope you’re prepared for the result.’

The fierceness of her tone shook Zac more than he cared to admit, but he immediately dismissed his doubts. She was bluffing, he reassured himself; or else her desperate financial situation had deluded her into believing he was Aimee’s father. Either way, he was not going to be drawn into believing her lies.

‘I’m prepared for the test results to confirm that you’re a common tramp,’ he said aggressively. ‘Finally you’ll have to accept the truth and move on with your life, as I intend to move on with mine.’ And ignoring her furious gasp, he turned his head and stared into the dark for the remainder of the flight.

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