The Frenchman's Marriage Demand. Chantelle Shaw

few months both had died from an incurable genetic disorder and after their deaths doctors had warned his parents there was a fifty-per-cent chance that he had also been affected. He had escaped the illness but there was no test available to show if he carried the gene.

      The trauma of watching his sisters die and witnessing his parents’ grief had never faded. As an adult he had made the decision that he could not risk the slightest chance of passing on the gene to his own children and had taken the necessary steps to ensure that he would never be a father. The faint regret he’d felt at the time had soon faded and he had moved on, determined to enjoy his life and take advantage of the benefits his billion-pound fortune afforded him.

      He couldn’t have children, but why would he want to be tied down to the responsibilities of a family when he could afford fast cars, power boats and all the trappings of his wealth? He enjoyed an endless supply of beautiful women who entertained him briefly before he grew bored and looked around for new pleasures.

      Freya had intrigued him for longer than most but he had never viewed her as becoming a permanent feature in his life. It hadn’t occurred to him to mention his vasectomy when she had been his mistress and he felt under no obligation to explain the reason for it now.

      Freya stared wildly at Zac, feeling as though the world had actually shifted on its axis. ‘The operation must have failed,’ she croaked, struggling to assimilate his shocking announcement. ‘I don’t understand how it could have happened, but Aimee is your child,’ she insisted desperately.

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Zac snapped irritably. ‘It’s impossible.’ Although that wasn’t strictly true, he acknowledged silently. He’d always known that the procedure carried a one-in-two-thousand chance of reversal, but when Freya had sprung the news of her pregnancy, less than an hour after his security guard, Michel, had seen her with Simon Brooks, he had angrily assumed that she’d been having an affair with the Englishman for weeks and that the baby she was carrying couldn’t possibly be his own. He was still convinced that this was the case and he felt a surge of disgust for Freya and her pathetic excuses.

      He would have marginally more respect for her if she stopped lying and admitted that she’d been caught out, he brooded darkly, his lip curling in contempt. She was beautiful—more so, if anything, than she had been two years ago—but beneath her exquisite shell she was rotten to the core and once he had the proof he would have nothing more to do with her.

      ‘The nurse informed me that you’ve been discharged,’ he said tersely, raking his eyes over Freya’s pale face as he strode towards the door. ‘Hurry up and get dressed. We’re flying to Monaco immediately where I’ll make the necessary arrangements to carry out the DNA test and end this wild speculation once and for all.’

      

      Half an hour later, Freya’s temper was at boiling point. Zac seemed to think he could just waltz back into her life and take over. ‘I am not going to Monaco with you,’ she repeated for the twentieth time as she followed him across the hospital car park and watched him strap Aimee into the child-seat that his secretary had apparently lent him when he’d driven down from London. It was still raining hard and he had turned up the collar of his leather jacket. With his hair slicked back from his face and his black brows lowered in an ominous scowl he looked more gorgeous than ever and she groaned silently at her body’s traitorous response to him.

      He was mean, moody and magnificent, she thought bleakly, not to mention the most arrogant, overbearing man she had ever met. Two years ago he had swept her away on his boat and straight into his bed. She had given him her virginity but he had stolen her heart, she thought sadly. After a lifetime devoid of any emotional security she had willingly become his mistress, but his cruel rejection had almost destroyed her and she could not risk returning to the place where she had once been so happy.

      ‘I agree that we need to do a paternity test,’ she said when he made no reply. ‘But why can’t we do it here in England? I don’t want to go anywhere with you.’

      ‘Tough.’ Zac checked Aimee was secure and then opened the driver’s door and slid into the car. ‘I have an urgent meeting with the Deverell board tomorrow at the Monaco office and so it’s more convenient for me to have it done in my private clinic at home. Get in the car,’ he snapped testily when she continued to stand outside in the rain. ‘I’ve chartered a private jet and my pilot can’t wait all day.’

      Freya glowered at him as she climbed reluctantly into the passenger seat. Her heart was thumping painfully in her chest and she wished she had the nerve to snatch Aimee and run. The torrential rain, her injured wrist and the bitter knowledge that he could effortlessly outmatch her in speed and strength made her stay put, but she edged as far away as possible from him once inside the car and stared pointedly out of the window.

      ‘You’ll have to give me directions to your flat,’ he said when he turned out of the hospital gates. ‘Aimee’s pushchair and a bag of her clothes are in the boot, courtesy of your grandmother,’ he added, his voice simmering with barely concealed anger. ‘You can have twenty minutes to pack, but I intend to leave within the next hour.’

      Freya leaned back and closed her eyes wearily, overwhelmed by his determination. When Zac wanted his own way he invariably got it—but unless he intended to kidnap her and Aimee, he couldn’t make them get on his plane.

      She was acutely conscious of him sitting beside her and when she peeped at him from beneath her lashes, the sight of his strong, tanned hands on the wheel made her feel weaker than ever. Once those hands had skimmed every inch of her body and explored her so intimately that the memory made her blush. He smelled of rain and damp leather, and the subtle scent of the cologne he favoured was achingly familiar, tantalising her senses and forcing her to remember the mind-blowing passion they had once shared.

      It was over, she reminded herself angrily as she tore her gaze from his stern profile. He had tried and convicted her before she’d even understood the crime she was supposed to have committed. In a strange way his revelation about his vasectomy was almost a relief. His savage anger and rejection two years ago had destroyed her, but now at least she could understand why he had been so ready to believe that she’d been having an affair with Simon.

      The fact that he had never mentioned his vasectomy when she’d lived with him emphasised how little she’d meant to him. The question of children had never arisen because she’d been Zac’s mistress and he hadn’t wanted a permanent relationship with her.

      But the operation must have reversed. She didn’t know much about the procedure but presumably it hadn’t worked properly because Aimee was undoubtedly his daughter, she thought on a wave of near hysteria. What other explanation could there be?

      After Aimee was born she had briefly considered asking Zac for a DNA test, but had decided against it. His reaction to her pregnancy had shown that he abhorred the idea of fatherhood and she had feared he would only take a reluctant role in his daughter’s upbringing.

      At eighteen months old, Aimee was a happy, loving child whose confidence was built on the instinctive knowledge that she was loved unconditionally. She would not allow Zac to destroy that confidence, Freya thought fiercely, and she would do everything in her power to ensure that her child grew up with a sense of self-worth that she herself had been denied.

      But now Zac had his own reasons for insisting on a paternity test. He was convinced that the results would absolve him of any responsibility for Aimee and she feared his reaction when he was finally forced to accept the truth.

      After fifteen minutes, during which Zac barely contained his frustration as they crawled through the traffic, he pulled up outside the house where Freya occupied the top-floor flat and frowned at the peeling paintwork and general air of decay. ‘You live here? Mon Dieu, I assume it’s in better condition inside.’

      ‘Don’t bank on it,’ she muttered, feeling a peculiar pain around her heart as she watched Aimee raise her arms for Zac to lift her out of her seat. The little girl was usually shy with strangers. Did she feel a subconscious bond with her father? Freya wondered as she led the way up the front path. Once inside she preceded him up the stairs, aware