‘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 to show weakness and break down. ‘I can’t marry a man I can’t trust!’
‘That is, of 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