Da Rocha's Convenient Heir. Jane Porter

do you have to give them up?’ Zac prompted quietly.

      Freddie lost colour and gave him a speaking look of reproach, her eyes burning with tears. ‘The end of the month, before Claire leaves the UK. They’ll go into foster care initially, unless the authorities identify a potential adoptive couple beforehand,’ she told him painfully. ‘And perhaps they will because they’re attractive children, young enough to become part of a new family. It’s probably horribly selfish of me to want to keep them with me when I don’t have much to offer in terms of material things.’

      Zac studied her swimming eyes and grimaced, feeling guilty without reason. ‘You love them.’

      ‘But, unfortunately, my love doesn’t have a value in the same way because Eloise and Jack are still young enough to forget me and learn to love other people.’ Freddie sighed in grudging acknowledgement of that reality. ‘I would have to be contributing a lot more...and I don’t have more yet there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep them!’

      Zac watched tears trickle down her taut cheeks, tears she wasn’t even aware that she was shedding because she was resolutely swigging the coffee she had got herself and keeping on talking earnestly, struggling to politely hide her anguish. He wished his mother had been capable of feeling even half as much after she had left him as a little boy marooned on the fazenda month after month, year after year, living in hope of visits or phone calls that had rarely happened. But, sadly for him, Antonella had craved her husband’s child and no other and in all the years that had followed fate had only given her Zac and an endless stream of miscarriages and other disappointments.

      There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep them.

      The words echoed afresh in Zac’s mind. And a subtle illuminating shift took place in his attitude at that point as a recollection of his father’s advice surfaced simultaneously: choose a woman who at least wants a child. His lean, strong face tensed and shadowed. How was he to view a woman willing to make any sacrifice to keep children that were not even hers?

      ‘You must love children,’ Zac commented with forced casualness.

      ‘I don’t know about that,’ Freddie demurred uncertainly. ‘But I loved Eloise from the minute she was born...and Jack. He had to be weaned off drugs before he was allowed to leave hospital and I was so worried about his development at first but he’s done so very well.’

      ‘Jack’s full of life,’ Zac agreed lazily, deep in thought and struggling against so unfamiliar an exercise. He had skimmed along the shallow surface of life for a very long time, having learned far too young that caring too much about anything, wanting anything too much and setting hopes too high invariably hurt like hell. An intelligent man, therefore, should avoid optimistic goals, emotional entanglements and complications.

      He needed a child. Freddie, however, needed a husband, willing to take on two children. The prospect of being a parent to three children shattered Zac and drew him up short in his ruminations. To adopt Eloise and Jack, he would definitely have to marry Freddie and meet all conventional expectations to satisfy the authorities involved and it would scarcely be an easy process. In all likelihood that process would also be hedged with regulations likely to curtail his every move. Was he prepared to go to such punitive lengths to solve his inheritance problem?

      After all, he could choose virtually any woman to have his child. Zac had few illusions about his own worth on the matrimonial front. He was filthy rich and ambitious women targeted men who could provide a fantasy lifestyle. But in spite of being poor, Freddie didn’t seem mercenary. In fact, she had infuriating principles set in stone that had held Zac to ransom and actually forced him into retreat. He didn’t do caring and commitment, but he also knew that any child would require caring and commitment from him to thrive. He could try to meet those obligations though, couldn’t he? He was not so divorced from humanity that change was impossible, he told himself stubbornly.

      Zac focussed on Freddie, tousled dark blonde hair skimming her taut cheekbones, dark chocolate eyes surrounded by wet clogged eyelashes, which signally failed to diminish her appeal. Raw hunger rippled through him, hot as a river of lava, pushing and pulling at him even though he was far too shaken by the concept of becoming a father of three to really want to continue.

      ‘When you finish work tonight, come up to the penthouse and we’ll talk,’ Zac murmured almost hoarsely through clenched teeth. ‘There’s a possibility that I could be able to help you retain custody of Eloise and Jack.’

      Dumbfounded by that claim, which had come at her out of nowhere, Freddie stared in bewilderment back at him, her full pink lips parting in surprise to show pearly teeth. ‘How?’ she asked baldly.

      ‘We’ll discuss that later.’ Zac dealt her a brooding appraisal. ‘But I can tell you now that it’ll come down to how much you’re willing to give up to hang onto those kids.’

      Freddie’s gaze had widened. ‘Anything.’

      ‘People often say stuff like that but they don’t really mean it,’ Zac dismissed with a sceptical glance. ‘We’ll talk about it and see if we can help each other.’

      ‘Help each other?’ she queried in wonderment.

      Zac compressed his wide sensual mouth and finished his black coffee, refusing to expand on the topic.

      In a complete daze, Freddie went back to work and watched Zac stride out of the bar twenty minutes later without even looking her way. How could he possibly help her? And how could she possibly help him? Her mind whirled with fantastical supposition, none of which made sense or seemed remotely likely. Meanwhile she was conscious of the stares of her co-workers and a new disturbing wariness in their attitude towards her.

      ‘Obviously he’s nailing her and you can’t blame her, can you? I’d have him in a heartbeat!’ one of the bar staff was opining when Freddie entered the locker room after work to change.

      A horrible silence fell when her presence was noted and the other two women got very busy with their lockers before leaving in haste. Freddie’s face was burning but such speculation was only to be expected. Of course, the staff was gossiping about Zac’s apparent interest in her, and his intervention earlier on her behalf had only encouraged conjecture. Naturally everyone would assume that she was having sex with him. And if Zac had had anything to do with it, she thought ruefully, she would have been. No, it would have happened only once, she reasoned, unable to imagine that any more enduring relationship would have developed between them. Zac bore all the hallmarks of a man who got easily bored.

      She slid through the door that communicated with the hotel foyer, her cheeks warm with discomfiture. She was shabbily dressed, a hoodie pulled on over her top and skinny jeans and sneakers in place of the shorts and high heels. She had put some concealer over her swollen eyes and she was depressingly conscious that she looked tired and washed out. She entered the lift Zac had used and a burly man in a suit stepped in straight after her and stuck a card in a slot.

      ‘The penthouse?’ he queried, looking her over doubtfully. ‘Miss 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