The Gold Collection. Maggie Cox

but I didn’t expect you to parade around in the very dress you were wearing on the night you tried to seduce me into believing the child you were carrying was mine,’ he hissed contemptuously.

      Had she really worn this dress on the worst night of her life? Freya’s brow knotted as she tried to remember, but all she could recall was Zac’s savage condemnation of her. At the beginning of that fateful evening she had dressed to please him, but after it had all gone so spectacularly wrong she had fled to her dressing room and hastily changed into her jeans before he had ignominiously evicted her from the penthouse.

      ‘I didn’t try to seduce you,’ she said, her temper flaring when she saw the acrid condemnation in his eyes.

      ‘Non?’ He gave a harsh laugh as he strolled towards her with a lithe grace that reminded her of a panther stalking its kill. ‘I remember the way you flew into my arms the moment I stepped through the door. We were supposed to be going out to dinner but you clung to me. I couldn’t resist you, chérie, and you knew it, but you overplayed your hand when you thought you could fool me into believing your lies.’

      He was so close that she could feel the anger emanating from his body and when she tilted her head to look up at him, the stark emotion in his eyes made her tremble. Passion and fury—together they were a volatile mixture that filled her with trepidation and an undeniable excitement that had been building all week. She recognised his hunger; saw the way his eyes darkened with desire, and when his head descended she stood stock still, like a hare trapped in the headlights of a speeding car, waiting for the inevitable.

      Voices from the hall shattered the haze of sexual tension and he jerked back from her, muttering a savage oath beneath his breath. ‘My guests are here and it’s too late for you to change now. But be aware, chérie, that every time I look at you tonight I’ll be imagining you with Brooks.’ His deliberate crudity made her wince, but when she attempted to move away from him he slid his arm around her waist and held her in a vice like grip. ‘Why aren’t you wearing the support bandage on your wrist?’ he demanded roughly.

      ‘I thought I’d manage without it for a couple of hours.’ The butler, Laurent, was heading down the hall followed by Zac’s guests and, despite feeling as though her heart had been put through a pulping machine, she forced a brittle smile. ‘At least the necessity to go and put it on again will give me a reason to excuse myself from your vile company.’

      From that moment on the evening became a hellish ordeal that Freya longed to end. Fortunately no one attending the dinner had known her during the few months she had lived with Zac and awkward explanations were avoided. His guests were frighteningly sophisticated but friendly—although in some cases, too friendly, she thought darkly when she caught sight of him deep in conversation with an attractive brunette. Mimi Joubert had arrived alone, but from the easy familiarity she shared with Zac it seemed likely that she would not be returning home tonight.

      Freya swallowed the bile that burned her throat and forced herself to smile at the man at her side. Lucien Giraud had also arrived at the dinner party unaccompanied, but Freya was sure that had been through choice rather than because he could not find a date. He was good-looking and charming and had flirted with her outrageously throughout dinner. Fearful of appearing rude, she had called on all her acting skills to respond warmly to him, but her laughter had disguised the misery that swamped her every time she felt Zac’s eyes on her. The blistering contempt in his gaze reminded her of his taunt that he was picturing her with Simon Brooks and she felt the crazy urge to jump onto the table and shout out her innocence. It would certainly be the talking point of the evening, she thought bitterly.

      By midnight, she’d had enough. She was fast running out of patience with Lucien’s none-too-subtle attempts to place his hand on her thigh—the man had an ego the size of Mount Everest—and she glared at him when he leaned close and whispered in her ear.

      ‘So, Freya, what will it take to persuade you to have dinner with me?’ he murmured seductively, clearly convinced that the route from the dining room to his bedroom would be completed in minimum time.

      ‘More than you can imagine,’ Freya replied sharply, trying to edge along the sofa when she felt his gaze settle on her cleavage. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me,’ she said as she slapped away his roaming hand and jumped to her feet. ‘My arm is beginning to ache and I need to take some painkillers. It was nice to meet you,’ she lied, stifling an impatient groan when Lucien stood and captured her hand.

      ‘It has been a pleasure for me also, Freya,’ he replied, lifting her hand to his mouth with a theatrical flourish that caught the attention of everyone in the room. ‘I hope very much that we will meet again.’

      Not in this lifetime—if she could help it, Freya vowed silently as she repeated her excuse for leaving the party to the other guests and hurried from the room, acutely conscious of Zac’s gaze burning like a laser between her shoulder blades. As his hostess she supposed she should have remained on hand until his guests departed, but watching him smile and flirt with Miss Joubert was sheer agony and she couldn’t stand another five minutes of it.

      Despite Freya feeling bone-weary, sleep proved elusive and two hours later she gave up her restless tossing beneath the sheets and headed for the kitchen to make a milky drink. She had heard Zac’s guests depart soon after she’d left the party, but the light streaming from beneath his bedroom door and the muted sound of a woman’s voice caused her to pause in the hallway. Obviously not everyone had gone home. The image of Zac and the gorgeous Mimi Joubert filled her with sick misery and she stumbled on towards the kitchen feeling as though she had been kicked in the stomach.

      Oh, God! How could it hurt so much? After all this time and all the terrible accusations he had flung at her? She wanted to cry like a baby and tears blinded her as she poured milk into a saucepan and set it on the hob to heat. Of course he had a lover. There had probably been a steady stream of sophisticated beauties in his bed during the past two years—but the stark reality that he was at this moment making love to another woman was more than she could bear.

      She mopped her wet face frantically with a paper towel. It was time she toughened up and stopped being so pathetic. She had coped with rejection all her life—she should be used to it by now, she thought bleakly, recalling the years of her childhood when she had tried so hard to win her grandmother’s love. But Nana Joyce hadn’t wanted her any more than her mother had done, and Zac had never made any pretence that he loved her. It was her own stupid fault that she had given him her heart and it should have come as no surprise that he had treated it with callous disregard.

      Too late she heard the hiss of scalding hot milk as it frothed onto the hob. With a cry she grabbed the saucepan handle as a smell of burning filled the kitchen and, to her horror, the smoke alarm activated.

      ‘What the hell are you playing at? I thought you were in bed.’

      ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ Freya jerked her gaze from Zac’s furious face and ran cold water over the ruined pan while he reached up and switched off the alarm. His hair was ruffled and his robe loosely fastened, as if he had leapt up from bed and dragged it around him. He looked indecently sexy and the knowledge that he was naked beneath the black silk caused her heart to thud unevenly.

      ‘That’s no reason to wake the rest of the household,’ he said tersely, his eyes narrowing as he noted the streaks of tears on her face.

      ‘I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ she muttered miserably, unable to dismiss the picture of him tearing himself out of Mimi Joubert’s arms. ‘I think the pan’s salvageable if I scrub it.’

      ‘Leave it.’ He snatched the pan that she had filled with soapsuds and, infuriated by his highhandedness, she grabbed it back again.

      ‘Let me do it. Go back to bed. You don’t want to keep Miss Joubert waiting,’ she hissed beneath her breath, and then gasped when he forcibly removed the saucepan from her hand and spun her round to face him.

      ‘What?’ His tone was deceptively mild, but the glinting fury in his gaze warned that he had reached the limits of his patience.

      ‘Miss