The Gold Collection. Maggie Cox

still on the roof-garden, she thought as she raced along to his study and scooted across to his desk to search for her and Aimee’s passports. One thing was certain, after her humiliating capitulation in his bed she could not risk remaining in Monaco for another night.

      ‘Looking for something?’ His lazy drawl brought her head up and she blushed and jumped guiltily away from the desk to find him standing in the doorway.

      ‘Passports,’ she replied, swallowing at the sight of him in chinos and a cream shirt, open at the neck to reveal the tanned column of his throat. ‘Aimee and I are leaving. I refuse to stay here and be subjected to your vile accusations any more,’ she said heatedly.

      ‘Ah.’ He stepped into the room and her heart lurched when he shut the door behind him and turned the key in the lock.

      She could not look at him without remembering how she had writhed beneath him in abject surrender just hours before and she gave a silent groan of despair as her body stirred into instant life. Her palms felt suddenly damp and she wiped them down her skirt. ‘Elise said you wanted to see me about something,’ she muttered, tension prickling her skin when he moved towards her. As he walked around his desk she edged away from him, and at his terse command to sit down she subsided into the chair facing him.

      He studied her speculatively for a few moments, but his gaze did not quite meet hers and she gained the curious impression that he felt awkward.

      ‘I owe you an apology,’ he said brusquely.

      Astounded, she stared at him, wondering if she had heard him correctly. Zac apologising to her had to be a first, but the fact that he felt the need to made her realise how much he obviously regretted making love to her. ‘It’s all right,’ she mumbled as she inspected her lap with sudden fascination. ‘I’m not proud of my behaviour either. We just got carried away, but obviously it’s an experience neither of us wants to repeat.’

      Black eyebrows winged upwards. ‘I was not apologising for last night, chérie,’ he said silkily, his eyes glinting with amusement. ‘It was an incredible experience that I have every intention of repeating. You enjoyed it too,’ he added before she could comment, ‘so don’t play the innocent martyr with me because you’re a wildcat in bed and I have the scratches on my back to prove it.’

      ‘Oh!’ Scarlet-faced, she wished a hole would open up and swallow her, and more than anything she longed to wipe his smug grin from his face.

      ‘My only regret about last night is that I was rough with you,’ he continued, his husky, accented voice sliding over her like a velvet cloak. ‘I was, as you so succinctly put it, carried away, and I’m afraid that in my urgency to possess you I might have hurt you. Did I, ma petite?’

      His words evoked a stark image in Freya’s mind of how she had begged him to take her; how she had enticed him with her desperate pleas to move faster and thrust deeper into her as he took her to the heights of sexual ecstasy. Zac’s regrets had nothing on hers, she thought sickly, tearing her gaze from the knowing gleam in his. ‘No,’ she choked thickly, ‘you didn’t hurt me, but last night was a mistake I regret bitterly.’

      She ran a shaky hand through her hair and forced herself to look at him. ‘If it wasn’t…that, then what are you apologising for?’

      In reply he took a folded document from the drawer and handed it to her. For a few seconds Freya’s heart stopped beating and then started again at twice its normal rate. She knew instinctively that it was the results of the paternity test and she stared at him without opening it. ‘I already know what it says,’ she told him quietly. ‘And now, so do you.’

      She searched his face for some sign that would tell her how he felt about learning that Aimee was his child, but his expression was shuttered. This should be her moment of triumph, but she felt empty inside. For two years she’d played out a stupid daydream in her head that one day he would discover he was Aimee’s father and would immediately beg her to forgive him for the way he had treated her, before sweeping her into his arms and pleading for a chance for them to live together as a family—in true happy-ever-after tradition. His grim face shattered her dream and the little seed of hope she’d carried in her heart withered and died. He didn’t want their child any more than he wanted her, and it was about time she accepted that fact.

      ‘Damn you, Zac,’ she burst out when his silence became intolerable. ‘There’s no need to look so horrified,’ she muttered bitterly. ‘I don’t want a penny of your wretched money. All I ever wanted was for Aimee to have a daddy who would love and protect her, and that clearly isn’t going to be you. But I can do those things. I’ll be a mother and a father to her and right now I’m taking her home.’ She glared at him, and a frisson of unease ran the length of her spine when he stood up and strode around the desk.

      ‘No, chérie, you are not,’ he said steadily, his eyes narrowing when she jumped up and backed away from him. He could see the hurt and confusion in her eyes and felt a flicker of remorse. But when he closed the gap between them and noted how her pulse was jerking frantically at the base of her throat, he felt a surge of quiet satisfaction. Sexual alchemy was a potent force that held her in its thrall, however much she might resent its power.

      There was no point in denying that he was deeply shocked by the results of the paternity test. Aimee was his child, a Deverell who, like him, was a possible carrier of the gene that had caused the illness and deaths of his baby sisters. His one relief was that Aimee was eighteen months old and safe from the risk of developing the disease, which caused death in infants usually before they were a year old.

      Discovering that he was a father was something he hadn’t been prepared for, but he had felt protective of Freya’s child from the moment Joyce Addison had abandoned her to his care and he knew without doubt that he would love Aimee unconditionally for the rest of his life. Aimee was adorable and, having missed the first eighteen months of her life, he was determined not to miss another day.

      His feelings towards Freya were more complicated. On the few occasions that she had crept into his mind during the past two years, he had angrily dismissed her, reminding himself of her true colours. But the moment he had seen her again he’d been forced to accept that his desire for her was as fierce as it had been in the past. He had made love to her last night because he couldn’t resist her, and now it seemed that he didn’t have to try. She hadn’t lied to him, she was the mother of his child and she wanted him with the same urgency that he wanted her. All he had to do now was persuade her to resume her place in his bed.

      ‘It seems that I am one of the rare cases for whom the vasectomy reversed, but now I know Aimee is my child and I accept that I have a responsibility for her.’ he began, but Freya interrupted him.

      ‘No, you don’t.’ She shook her head fiercely, hating the fact that he felt a duty towards Aimee. Her grandmother had tolerated her out of a sense of duty, but it had been a loveless upbringing and she would do everything in her power to prevent her daughter from feeling the same sense of worthlessness that she had felt as a child. ‘I hereby absolve you of all responsibility. What were you planning to do, Zac—appease your conscience by arranging regular maintenance payments and maybe send her a birthday card once a year?’ she demanded sarcastically. ‘Aimee’s conception was the result of a freak chance, it wasn’t your fault and there’s no reason for you to feel obligated towards either of us.’

      ‘It’s not a question of obligation,’ Zac said forcefully. ‘I want to play an active role in my daughter’s life.’ The ring of steely determination in his voice caused Freya’s heart to jerk in her chest and she stared at him, bemused by his unexpected statement.

      ‘You mean you want to arrange visitation rights? Think carefully, Zac. A child is for life, not just for Christmas,’ she said sharply. ‘It’s all very well for you to decide you want to see Aimee occasionally, but what happens when the novelty of fatherhood wears off? I remember how excited I used to feel when my mother promised to visit, and the crushing sense of disappointment when she let me down yet again. I won’t allow you to do that to Aimee.’

      ‘That’s not how it will be,’ he stated angrily. ‘Aimee