Lassiter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr da Rocha is expecting you,’ he informed her as the doors closed. ‘I’m Marco, one of his security team, and I work for him.’
Freddie realised that the private lift would not have worked for her without that all important card. When the lift stopped Marco led the way, opening the door to the penthouse and standing back for her to enter before closing the door on her heels. A door inside the suite opened and Zac strolled out, half naked, a pair of jeans hanging loose and unbuttoned on his lean hips.
‘Oh, it’s you. Make yourself at home,’ he urged casually. ‘Pour yourself a drink.’
And with that careless suggestion he stalked back barefoot into the bedroom, leaving her breathless because Zac half naked was an unforgettable sight: an expanse of ripped, incredibly muscled torso liberally inked with intricate designs leading down to a V of muscle that emphasised his flat, hard stomach and his narrow waist. Flustered and more nervous than ever, she tugged off her hoodie because she was too warm, and finger-combed her hair before approaching the well-stocked bar and choosing a juice. She was very grateful that he hadn’t hung around long enough to notice that she had been welded to the floor and staring at him like an awestricken schoolgirl.
Annoyance that she was so easily overwhelmed by Zac’s sheer impact licked at her. Yes, he was utterly, absolutely gorgeous but surely she was capable of acting normally around him? Had she ever acted normally around him? She didn’t think she had. From that very first glimpse, he had unsettled her, then he had outraged her and from that point on she had become nervous, judgemental and oversensitive in his radius.
Zac reappeared fully dressed in a black shirt and jeans. His attention went straight to the glass in her hand. ‘Tomato juice...really?’
‘Alcohol would send me to sleep at this time of night,’ she said defensively.
‘I was teasing,’ Zac assured her while he studied her and asked himself if access to her was worth what he would be sacrificing. Of course, it wouldn’t be, his intelligence told him. No woman would ever be worth his freedom. But he had to be practical and work with the system, and if he married her and she didn’t conceive his lawyers would be able to move to break the trust. One way or another marriage would be a step forward and he would move closer to his goal of complete independence and control of the diamond mines that were his family heritage.
‘Why did you say that we might be able to help each other?’ Freddie pressed tautly.
Zac settled down carelessly opposite her on the arm of a sofa and leant back, wide shoulders squared, long, powerful thighs spread and braced. ‘I’m the heir to the Quintal da Rocha diamond mines. I receive the profits but I won’t be able to control the business until I have produced an heir of my own. That iniquitous arrangement was laid down in a legal trust by my great-great-grandfather a long time ago and I deeply resent it.’
‘You have to have a child?’ Freddie whispered with disconcerted emphasis.
‘Yes, and if you are willing to try and give me that child I am willing to marry you and attempt to adopt Eloise and Jack with you,’ Zac completed smoothly.
The mention of marriage shocked Freddie so much that she took a great desperate gulp of her tomato juice and almost choked on it, coughing and then clearing her throat with a painful swallow while Zac continued to steadily watch her. ‘You’d be willing to adopt Eloise and Jack?’ she prompted shakily, careening wildly from one thought to the next, all her thoughts disjointed and incomplete.
‘If you also agree to meet my condition by giving me a child,’ Zac responded with measured cool.
‘Do you have a criminal record?’ Freddie demanded, disconcerting him with the staggering abruptness of that question.
Ebony brows drew together in perplexity. ‘Of course not.’
Freddie went pink. ‘Just asking. You probably couldn’t be considered as an adoptive parent with a record.’
Zac was entertained by that tactless leap-frogging question that revealed that she was already considering his proposition. ‘Have you ever been pregnant?’ he traded in return.
Freddie stiffened and shook her head. ‘Er...no, I’m afraid, no proven fertility record here.’
Zac lifted and dropped a fatalistic shoulder. ‘Either of us could be infertile. At this point, it doesn’t really matter because I have to go through the motions...marry and try to have a child, and if it doesn’t happen for us I can then go to court and ask for the trust to be set aside.’
‘You would truly be prepared to adopt Eloise and Jack with me?’ Freddie prompted, sudden tears burning the backs of her eyes at the idea that there could possibly be a solution that would enable her to keep her sister’s children.
‘Yes, if you agree. You said you’d do anything to keep them and I will also pretty much do anything it takes to gain control of the da Rocha business empire,’ Zac admitted grimly.
As if she had been winded by a feverish sprint, Freddie coiled back almost bonelessly into the sofa and snatched in a deep shuddering breath, striving to calm down and think with clarity. She had to set down her glass because her hand was shaking so badly. ‘Do you think we’d have a chance of adopting the kids together?’ she asked anxiously, refusing to plunge herself into the turmoil of considering what it would be like to marry Zac and have a child with him and instead concentrating on what was most important to her at that moment.
‘I don’t see why not if we present ourselves as a loving couple. I’m wealthy enough to buy us a home. I’m also mixed race, like the children.’
‘Are you?’ Freddie studied him in surprise.
‘My grandmother on my mother’s side is black. My grandfather was white,’ Zac explained. ‘Brazil is a huge melting pot of ethnic diversity and if you’re like me you can’t choose your genes when you reproduce. I’m telling you that now because any child we have could take after either side of my family.’
Freddie nodded understanding.
‘Not every woman could comfortably accept that possibility,’ Zac admitted, involuntarily amused by Freddie’s complete lack of reaction to his frankness.
His mother had been haunted by the spectre of her husband’s racism and her fear of having a child of a darker complexion than her own while Zac had been relentlessly bullied at an almost exclusively white school for being the only child that was different. He had learned to fight to protect himself at an early age, but he had also had to learn how to back down when there were too many ranged against him. The trouble that had erupted around Zac then had led to him being labelled an agitator, a tag he had fiercely resented.
Silence fell while Zac surveyed Freddie, coiling tendrils of lust curling up hotly through him. He remembered the rounded little curve of her bottom in the shorts, the shapely length of her legs, and pictured her spread across his bed in various different positions, anticipation and hunger leaping through his veins. He could not remember ever wanting a woman with such fierce immediacy. Had her reluctance sustained his desire? Was he truly so basic that he needed the challenge she had represented? And why did the idea of getting her pregnant turn him on as hard and fast as a bullet? Wasn’t that a little kinky? A hard line of colour suffused his exotic, high cheekbones and, sliding upright, he strode over to the bar to pour himself a drink.
‘Not for me, thanks,’ Freddie framed when he glanced at her enquiringly.
‘You’re very quiet,’ he murmured warily.
‘Shocked,’ Freddie contradicted. ‘Marriage...seriously, you and me?’
‘Not a for-ever kind of marriage,’ Zac qualified softly. ‘But I would still continue to be involved in the children’s lives, regardless of what happens between us.’
The marriage would not be permanent, Freddie interpreted, but he was still