Da Rocha's Convenient Heir: Da Rocha's Convenient Heir

Freddie spoke quickly, fearful that he had heard her tummy grumble. ‘What about you? Where did you grow up?’

‘A fazenda...a ranch in Brazil.’ Zac lifted the cover on the food trolley with a flourish. ‘Help yourself,’ he urged.

Grateful to have something to do with her knotted hands, Freddie reached for a plate while scolding herself for her nerves. Being alone with a man was no big deal and it was time she got over her hang-ups from the years spent living with her sister. In any case, Lauren had been the victim of the abuse, not Freddie, who had merely been a powerless shrinking presence. Zac had probably done her a favour by calling her on her attitude to him. After all, some day in the future, she might want a man of her own and she wouldn’t want to scare him off by acting weird, would she? Her spine stretching out of the stiffness she had maintained, she struggled to relax her defences.

‘I would never have picked you out as a country boy,’ Freddie confided as she ate the convenient mini finger foods she had piled on her plate, perched on the edge of a too comfortable sofa.

Zac’s beautifully shaped mouth quirked. ‘I’m not, although I’m quite interested in breeding pedigree horses,’ he admitted, startling her afresh.

Zac watched her ease back into the sofa as though it were a potentially dangerous manoeuvre. Her feet left the floor and she crossed her legs like an elf, making herself at home with him for the first time, and he got a rush out of that display of relaxation, which unsettled him. It was only that she was prickly, difficult and an unknown quantity and he loved a challenge, he told himself squarely. Maybe without really noticing he had got bored with the constant sexual come-ons and the easy conquests. And Freddie was different, so very different from the sort of women he usually bedded. She also looked ridiculously cute sitting there, he acknowledged uneasily, frowning at that aberrant thought.

‘I also wanted to ask if you’ve thought any more about joining me in that bet I mentioned this morning,’ Zac delivered, getting back down to business with a strong sense of relief.

Her vivid little face screwed up tight and she studied him in surprise. ‘You’re still on about that?’ she questioned.

Zac shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘I don’t give up on anything easily.’

No, if she could peel him apart Freddie was convinced she would find the word ‘determined’ stamped through him as though he were a stick of rock. She parted her lips to protest and then closed them again, wanting to be civil. ‘I have the children to look after,’ she said finally.

‘And I could easily hire a nanny,’ Zac traded, once again refusing to take no for an answer. ‘We could have a lot of fun at Vitale’s royal ball. I’m sure you’d enjoy getting all togged up in a fancy designer dress as much as any woman.’

‘No, sorry,’ Freddie muttered, crushing down the temptation offered by that treacherous word, ‘fun’. For a split second, she considered the offer of a nanny’s help and then suppressed the idea again because, with Claire’s current mood, she did not want to risk rocking the boat. It was out of the question. Certainly not while Claire was currently saddled with a boyfriend flying out to Spain whenever he could to help his parents set up their new business. It would be the worst possible time for Freddie to start demonstrating a desire to fly free on her own behalf.

Zac sank down beside her on the sofa, suddenly way too close for comfort, she told herself anxiously. Or was that prickling fullness in her breasts and the sudden tiny betraying burst of heat between her thighs a mortifying wish for him to get closer still? Colour bled up beneath her skin, heating her all over.

‘But that’s crazy,’ Zac argued.

‘You don’t know when to quit, do you?’ Freddie remarked in reproach. ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’

‘But I do,’ Zac parried with irrepressible enthusiasm, light eyes shimmering like stars in the dusk light. ‘I’d like to spend more time with you and I can’t understand why you would fight that when you want it too.’

Eloise and Jack, Freddie reflected without speaking. ‘I don’t want to spend more time with you, though,’ she told him drily, running for her only possible escape hatch.

‘Why do you lie about it?’ Zac demanded with sudden lancing impatience.

Freddie breathed in deep. ‘I’m not lying,’ she told him, looking back at him steadily, literally willing him to believe what she was saying.

His big hands came up to cup her cheekbones, long controlling fingers sliding into her hair to fasten to her skull, and she couldn’t move an inch, brown eyes dilating with an enervating mixture of excitement and dismay.

‘Liar,’ he growled again.

‘Just because I won’t say what you want to hear doesn’t mean I’m lying!’ Freddie proclaimed in desperation.

The silence between them smouldered as if someone had set it on fire, brown eyes clashing with volatile light grey condemnation, and then he took her mouth with a wild, seething passion unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was like being swept away by a tidal wave, like sticking a finger in an electric socket or hitching a ride on a rocket because one minute she was grounded, the next she was flying high on a hunger that consumed her with its ferocious urgency. Sensation roared through her trembling body with every delving exploration of his tongue. He lowered a hand to crush the slight pout of her aching breast and she almost spontaneously combusted inside the prison of her flesh, her body screaming for more while she kissed him back with both hands laced tightly into the luxuriant depths of his long black hair.

In a sudden movement, Zac tore himself free, breathing heavily and raking a hand roughly through his tousled hair as he sprang upright again. ‘So, why do you lie about how I make you feel? What’s your game?’ he demanded rawly.

‘G-Game?’ she stammered blankly, focusing on the prominent bulge at his denim-clad groin, and then on the stray black hairs still caught between her greedily clutching fingertips.

‘Your agenda, because obviously there is one,’ Zac bit out. ‘Evidently it’s not money.’

‘No, it’s not,’ she agreed, stricken, hastily unfolding her legs and sliding upright on knees that wobbled because sheer shock was still rocking her. Shock that he could make her feel like that and that he should be the one with sufficient control to back off, not her, as it should have been in all fairness, she acknowledged guiltily. ‘I don’t have an agenda, Zac.’

Zac shot her a chillingly angry appraisal. ‘Oh, I think you do. I think you’re one of those archaic women who thinks the longer she says no, the keener I’ll become!’ he spelt out with derision, thinking of how she had become rather more encouraging since she had learned that he owned the hotel that employed her. ‘That doesn’t work for me. I don’t do keen with women.’

‘I didn’t think you did,’ Freddie told him, lifting her chin in a defiant signal of intent that Zac was unaccustomed to receiving from a woman. ‘I’ve known from the start that all you want is a one-night stand and I certainly wouldn’t waste my time or yours playing games with you. I don’t want or need a man in my life right now but I don’t mind admitting...just so you can see how very unsuited we are...that I would want more caring and commitment than a one-night stand. So, anyway, thanks for the evening out and the food.’

And with that, Freddie sidestepped him and stalked out of the door in high dudgeon.

Her eyes were stinging with tears and she furiously dashed them away in the lift. He had only confirmed what she had already guessed about the level of his interest and it was at rock-bottom level: sex. Talking about caring and commitment to a guy like that was undignified and humiliating, she censured herself angrily. Why had she bothered saying those stupid things? You couldn’t ask or magically wish into being what wasn’t being offered and Zac wasn’t chasing a waitress for anything more lasting than a spirited toss between the sheets. 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.

CHAPTER FOUR (#u6fac2da5-b995-58d5-96cd-7c4e8d50df77)

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.’