The Gold Collection. Maggie Cox

reeling. ‘Even if I finish my degree, I’m not sufficiently fluent in French to find a job that would pay rent on a property here. Aimee’s home is in England and that’s where I’m taking her. If you’re serious about wanting a relationship with her, you can easily afford to visit as often as it suits you.’ Her tone plainly indicated that she believed he would soon lose interest in playing daddy, and Zac’s jaw hardened.

      ‘I wasn’t suggesting that we live in separate homes and pass our daughter between us like a parcel. A child needs two parents and I want you and Aimee to move into the penthouse with me.’

      For the sum total of twenty seconds Freya experienced a surge of incandescent joy—quickly followed by the feeling that her heart was plummeting towards her toes with the speed of an express elevator. Of course he wanted her to move back in with him—it would be much more convenient for him than having to travel back to England to visit Aimee. She was still stunned by Zac’s declaration that he intended to be a proper father. Undoubtedly Aimee would benefit from having both her parents around, but what role was he expecting her to play in his life?

      ‘Won’t that cramp your style?’ she queried sarcastically. ‘You can hardly maintain your reputation as Monaco’s most eligible bachelor with an ex-lover and a baby in tow.’

      His slow, sensual smile sent a tremor of awareness through her. ‘Since last night, you’re no longer an ex-lover, are you?’ he murmured softly, his warm breath fanning her ear.

      Freya suddenly became aware that he was too close; she could feel the heat from his body and the waves of sexual energy emanating from him triggered alarm bells in her head. She took a jerky step backwards, but his arm snaked around her waist to draw her inexorably towards him.

      ‘You know how it was between us, Freya. Don’t deny it,’ he said fiercely when she opened her mouth to remonstrate. ‘The passion we shared was explosive for both of us, chérie.’

      ‘No.’ Freya made an inarticulate sound low in her throat as she watched his head descend. Any second now his mouth would touch hers and she would be lost to the simmering, burning need that only Zac could arouse. Outrage battled with desire and won by a narrow margin. ‘Do you honestly think you can click your fingers and I’ll fall into your arms?’ she demanded, shamefully aware that she had done exactly that the previous night. ‘Yesterday I was a common slut with a predilection for wealthy lovers—’

      ‘That was before I knew the truth,’ he interrupted harshly. ‘I know now that I was wrong and I am willing to accept that you didn’t sleep with Brooks.’

      ‘That’s big of you,’ Freya muttered bitterly, ‘but you’re too late, Zac. It’s a pity you didn’t believe me two years ago—when I needed you. Instead you almost destroyed me with your distrust, and, to be frank, I wouldn’t come back to you if you were the last man on the planet.’

      His slow smile disarmed her and she missed the warning gleam of battle in his eyes. ‘We’ll see, shall we?’ he said softly, tightening his arm around her until her face was pressed against his chest.

      ‘Let go of me, you…brute.’ She hammered her fists on his shoulders, like a wild bird frantically beating its wings against the bars of a cage, but he ignored her blows and threaded his other hand through her hair, tilting her face to his. The scorching heat in his gaze sent a quiver of excitement through her and she gave a silent groan of despair. How could she fight him when this was the only place she wanted to be? Clutching the remnants of her pride, she tried to turn her head, but lean fingers held her chin as he angled her mouth to his satisfaction before claiming it with his own in a searing kiss that drove all thoughts of resistance from her mind.

      His tongue explored the contours of her lips, stroking, caressing, until he judged the moment she relaxed her guard and thrust into the moist warmth of her mouth in a flagrantly erotic gesture. Freya felt the drugging sweetness of desire flood through her veins, leaving her limp and boneless with longing. Her fists unfurled and she laid her hands flat against his chest, feeling the erratic thud of his heart beneath her fingertips.

      ‘Last night was a mistake. We can’t simply take up where we left off two years ago,’ she protested when he eased the pressure of his mouth and traced her swollen lips with the tip of his tongue. ‘Too much has happened, Zac. You hurt me so badly,’ she whispered as she relived the agony of his rejection and the countless nights when she had cried herself to sleep. She was appalled by her weakness—how could she be such a pushover? He was probably congratulating himself that he had demolished her resistance with one kiss, but when she stared into his eyes and saw the undisguised hunger flare in his blue depths she felt a heady sense of elation. He felt it too, this pagan drumbeat of desire that pounded in her veins until she was conscious of nothing but the desperate, overwhelming need to surrender her soul to passion.

      ‘Then let me try to make amends,’ he growled against her throat. ‘Let me remind you of how good it was between us and show you how good it can be again. We always communicated better without words, chérie.’ He slid his hands down and curled them possessively around her buttocks, drawing her up against him so that her pelvis was in direct contact with the throbbing force of his arousal.

      Freya gasped and he captured the faint sound, grinding his lips on hers with a primitive passion that whipped her senses into a feverish state of anticipation. She was on fire for him and nothing else mattered—not the past and all the pain he’d caused her and not the future and all its uncertainties. She wanted him now, the only man she had ever loved, and when he lifted her into his arms she clung to him, her fingers tearing at his shirt buttons until she was able to part the material and run her hands over the dark hairs that covered his chest.

      Zac cleared the surface of his desk with one sweep of his arm before laying her down on the polished wood and immediately covering her body with his own. He deftly removed her blouse and muttered his satisfaction that she wasn’t wearing a bra, his voice hoarse as he bent his head and captured the tip of one pink nipple between his lips. The effect on Freya was electric and she arched her back so that her breasts thrust provocatively towards him, the taut, swollen peaks begging for his possession.

      She was shaking—or was it him? she wondered feverishly as she pushed his shirt over his shoulders and ran her hands over his smooth, tanned skin. This was madness but they were both caught up in the conflagration that threatened to consume them in a flame of white-hot need. With a rough, almost violent movement he grabbed the hem of her skirt and jerked it up to her waist before skimming his hand over the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs.

      ‘Zac.’ His name escaped her lips as a plea rather than a protest. She lifted her hips and he dragged her knickers down before spreading her legs with a deliberate intent that made her tremble with anticipation. When he touched her she thrust against his hand and moaned when his skilful fingers slid into her and began to explore her with a thoroughness that made her clench her teeth as her pleasure built. Through heavy lids she watched his hand move to the zip of his trousers, no thought in her head other than that he should hurry before she died with the urgent need to feel the full length of him inside her.

      ‘You see, Freya, some things never change,’ he groaned as he came down on top of her, supporting his weight on his elbows so that the rigid strength of his penis pushed intimately against her eager body. He slid his hand beneath her bottom to lift her towards him, but his words penetrated the haze of sexual heat surrounding her and she bunched her hands on his shoulders to hold him back.

      Was it the element of satisfaction in his voice that she had capitulated so easily—yet again? Or was it his arrogant assumption that nothing had changed and she was still a slave to his touch, despite the way he had treated her? She closed her eyes as a wave of nausea swept over her—how could she be so stupid? Zac hadn’t changed—he said he believed that she hadn’t had an affair with Simon Brooks, but only because the DNA test proved that Aimee was his child. Two years ago he had been so ready to believe the worst of her and if other issues arose between them in the future she had no faith that he would trust her word above all else.

      ‘You’re wrong, Zac,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I’ve changed. I’m not the pathetic, lovesick girl