The Frenchman's Marriage Demand. Chantelle Shaw

his black brows drawn together in a harsh frown. ‘It was easier to tell the hospital staff that I’m a relative—or would you rather I’d explained that I’m the man you tried to trick into believing was the father of your child?’ he queried pleasantly, aware that any hint of aggression in his tone could frighten the little girl sitting on his hip.

      Freya gave a bitter laugh. ‘It was no trick, Zac—Aimee is your daughter.’

      ‘The hell she is!’ The denial came out as a low hiss and Zac abruptly lowered Aimee onto the bed. He smiled reassuringly at the toddler, making a Herculean effort to mask his impatience from her. It wasn’t the child’s fault, he reminded himself. With her halo of golden curls and enormous blue eyes, Aimee was angelic. It was her mother who was a cheat and a liar and if Freya hadn’t looked so damned fragile he’d be tempted to throttle her for manipulating him into this situation.

      ‘We went through this two years ago, Freya, when you sprang the news that you were pregnant. My response is the same now as it was then,’ he told her coldly. ‘You might have convinced your grandmother of my paternity but you and I both know you weren’t telling the truth—don’t we?’

      ‘I’ve never lied to you,’ Freya snapped, stung by the contempt in Zac’s eyes. It was the same expression that she’d seen when she’d told him she was expecting his baby—contemptuous disbelief, followed by his devastating accusation that she had obviously cheated on him. The pain in her heart was no less intense, despite the passing of time. In a strange way it was worse. The mental wounds Zac had inflicted on her were far more painful than her injuries. Seeing him again had re-ignited her agony and she wished he would go, before she suffered the ultimate humiliation of breaking down in front of him.

      ‘I no longer care what you think,’ she told him wearily, unable to stifle a groan when Aimee scrambled over her and knocked against her sore ribs—bruised in the accident by the force of her seat belt locking against her. ‘I can’t imagine what you’re doing here, but I think it’s best if you leave.’

      ‘Believe me, I’m not here through choice,’ Zac ground out savagely. ‘I was at Deverell’s London office this morning to give a press conference announcing record profits made by the Oxford Street store, when your grandmother turned up with your daughter. Presumably you’d planned the timing of her visit to create maximum impact,’ he added harshly. ‘Her accusation, that Aimee is my child, was overheard by several journalists as well as members of my staff and rumours have already got back to the Deverell board.’

      ‘Aimee was in London? I don’t understand,’ Freya said sharply, frowning in confusion. ‘The hospital phoned my grandmother yesterday and asked her to look after Aimee. Where is Nana Joyce now?’

      ‘Jetting off across the Atlantic for the start of her cruise, I imagine,’ Zac replied. ‘She went on about how she’d saved for years for a round-the-world trip and that nothing, not even the fact that you were in hospital, would induce her to miss it.’

      His eyes darkened as he remembered his meeting with Joyce Addison.

      ‘I’m sick to death of feckless fathers,’ she told him when she marched into his office wheeling a pushchair in front of her and handed him an enormous holdall, which, she informed him, contained all the necessary paraphernalia for an eighteen-month-old child. ‘I was left to bring up Freya after her mother got herself pregnant at sixteen by some shiftless Lothario she’d met at a funfair. Sadie soon got bored of motherhood and went off, leaving me stuck with a child I didn’t want.

      ‘I thought I’d warned Freya of the dangers of handsome men who want nothing more than a good time,’ Joyce continued, trailing her eyes over him as if he were some sort of stud, Zac recalled furiously. ‘I told her when you offered her a job on that fancy boat of yours that you were only after one thing, and evidently you both got more than you bargained for. But now it’s time you took responsibility for your actions.

      ‘I don’t know how long Freya is going to be in hospital and I’m not waiting to find out. If you won’t look after Aimee, you’d better hand her over to social services, because I refuse to be landed with another baby.’

      Joyce Addison’s vitriolic tirade had captured the attention of everyone at the Deverell offices—although his staff had done their best to hide their curiosity, Zac conceded darkly. The whole, unbelievable scenario had been bloody humiliating, he thought bitterly—and there was only one person he could blame.

      ‘You can drop the act, Freya,’ he said coldly. ‘It’s quite obvious you told your grandmother to bring Aimee to me, and, having met Joyce, I can’t even blame you,’ he went on, ignoring Freya’s gasp. ‘I wouldn’t leave a dog in your grandmother’s care, let alone a young child. But if all this is a ploy to get money out of me in the form of maintenance—you can forget it.’

      He glared at her, his anger increasing when he felt his body’s response to Freya, with her small, heart-shaped face and mass of silky honey-blonde hair. She had intrigued him for barely three months, but two years on he could instantly recall her slender, pale limbs and small, firm breasts. The passion they had shared had been explosive, he acknowledged, aware of an uncomfortable tightening in his groin as unbidden memories surfaced. He had wanted her from the moment she’d first joined the crew of his luxury yacht, The Isis, and the attraction between them had been mutual.

      Shy, innocent Freya had been unable to hide her awareness of him and he had wasted no time persuading her into his bed. Although it had been a shock to discover just how innocent she was, he thought grimly. He liked his women to be self-confident and experienced in bed—willing participants in the mutual exchange of sexual pleasure without the pressure of emotional ties. But the temptation of her satiny skin as she curled her legs around him and the enticement of her breathless whispers begging him to make love to her had been impossible to resist. She had proved a willing pupil and he had delighted in tutoring her. Her shyness and inexperience had been refreshing and against his better judgement he had invited her to move into his penthouse apartment as his mistress.

      It was a decision he had later regretted and after discovering her to have slept with another man behind his back he had evicted her from his life with ruthless efficiency. His bed had not remained empty for very long. His vast fortune meant that there would always be a queue of willing candidates vying to be his mistress, he acknowledged cynically.

      He had hardly given Freya a thought since he’d dismissed her back to England and it irritated him to realise that the chemistry between them still burned as fiercely as ever.

      ‘I did not instruct my grandmother to bring Aimee to you,’ Freya said shakily, still struggling to accept that Zac was really standing in front of her. ‘Trust me; you’re the last person I’d ever turn to for help.’ She glared at him, her green eyes blazing with anger and unconcealed hurt. He was so beautiful, she thought painfully. She couldn’t tear her eyes from him and the sight of his broad chest and powerful abdominal muscles, delineated by his close-fitting, fine-knit jumper, made her insides melt.

      Zac was utterly gorgeous but fatally flawed, she reminded herself. His arrogance and cynicism had almost destroyed her, but her body seemed to have a short memory and was responding to his closeness with humiliating eagerness. He had treated her diabolically. When she had needed him most, he had let her down and demolished her pride with his foul accusations that she had been a two-timing whore. Two years ago he’d made it clear that she meant nothing to him, so why was her heart racing? And why was her brain intent on recalling every detail of his kiss, the feel of his hands on her body…?

      Frantically she dragged her mind from her memories. ‘I admit I once told Nana Joyce that you’re Aimee’s father—she kept on and on about it, and it’s the truth, whatever you might think,’ she stated with quiet dignity. ‘You were the first and only man I’ve ever slept with, Zac,’ she whispered sadly, ‘but you had your own reasons for choosing not to believe me, didn’t you?’

      Zac’s expression of cool disinterest did not flicker and his only reaction to her last statement was a slight quirk of his brows. ‘And what was that, chérie?’

      ‘You’d