Hollywood Hills Collection. Lynne Marshall

wasn’t it?’ Zack grinned. ‘Well, thank you for the test results. That was actually very good of you. So good of you that I’m here to service you. Get over here.’ He stamped the floor with his boot.

      ‘I thought we were never to discuss it again.’

      ‘At work it is never to be brought up,’ Zack said. ‘Out of work is a completely separate thing. So come here.’

      Oh, now she understood better his stance on not answering questions.

      ‘I can’t,’ Freya said. ‘I’m so embarrassed.’

      ‘Don’t be.’ He grinned. ‘Come here.’

      Freya made her way over and he pulled her onto his lap and she was just one burning blush but he was laughing.

      ‘I really don’t get involved with people I work with,’ Freya said. ‘Dating and—’

      ‘Guess what,’ Zack interrupted. ‘I don’t date.’

      ‘Never?’

      ‘Nope,’ Zack said. ‘So don’t worry about awkward stuff and holding hands and all that sort of thing. Poor us, just sex.’

      ‘Oh, no.’

      ‘Liar, liar...’ And her knickers were on fire because he slipped a hand up her dress.

      ‘And you don’t have to worry, no one will ever hear your secret from me.’

      ‘Secret?’ Freya frowned.

      ‘That the uptight Freya likes a bit of no-name spanky on the down-low.’

      ‘Zack,’ she said, ‘I didn’t know till last night that I liked that...’ She looked at him and could tell he didn’t believe her. ‘I’m not like that.’

      ‘Freya, you emailed me a couple of weeks ago and said you were very single and not to tell James.’

      ‘That was after a very difficult night being told by my soon-to-be-married and married friends that it would be my turn next. I’d had too much to drink and decided to live a little. Believe it or not, you’re the only person I’d been with for the whole of last year.’

      ‘Well, given we saw in the New Year downstairs, you had no one last year, Freya, so you have some catching up to do.’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ Freya said, yet she was fighting not to undo the buttons on his shirt.

      ‘I’m here for three months,’ Zack said, ‘and we’re both as clean as whistles. Though, given we couldn’t get through one night without tearing the rubber, you need to get on the Pill. I really don’t want to rely on your shot ovaries, as you so fondly refer to them.’

      ‘Zack, we can’t.’

      ‘But you know that we shall.’

      Freya said nothing, he was so assured they’d be back in bed.

      Sadly for her self-control, he was completely right—she was already unzipping him and taking it out.

      ‘Don’t tell James...’

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      ZACK REALLY WAS a master at keeping his private life separate from work.

      By day he was remote, perhaps even a bit unfriendly at times. There were absolutely no shared looks, or exchanges, not even behind closed doors.

      He dived straight into a very full schedule but occasionally Freya found herself back at the hotel, and, yes, the sex was amazing but they didn’t talk much. She knew some stuff, but the information he shared was as generous as a waiter with the cracked pepper—there was never enough.

      They lay there one morning and he was the monkey on her back, unknotting all her muscles, when he asked her something.

      ‘Why are you avoiding James?’

      ‘I’m not,’ Freya said, and he felt her shoulders stiffen.

      ‘Who were you speaking to on the phone the morning of my interview?’

      ‘I can’t remember.’

      ‘You got all flustered.’

      ‘Well, my one and only one-night stand suddenly had a name.’

      ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘were you on the phone to some guy?’

      ‘A woman, actually,’ Freya said, and he laughed.

      ‘Do tell.’

      ‘Nope.’ The fewer people who knew about Mila and James’s rocky past the better. And the fewer who knew about her and Zack’s torrid present, all the better too!

      ‘How come you stay here?’ Freya asked as breakfast was served. Coffee for him, green tea and avocado smash for Freya.

      ‘I just like it.’

      ‘But you could have an apartment.’

      ‘I don’t want one.’

      ‘Well, if you’ve got money to burn...’

      ‘I’ve been sleeping under a mosquito net for six months,’ Zack pointed out.

      ‘Even so...’

      Freya stayed quiet.

      It wasn’t money that was the issue, it was his transient existence that irked her.

      Everything he had was in this room and he could check out tomorrow, Freya knew. His time in one place was only as long as his theatre list.

      ‘Are you going to operate on Paulo?’

      He didn’t answer at first then he said, ‘Is that PR Freya or Freya asking?’

      ‘Freya.’

      ‘Yes, I’m just trying to get him at optimum health first. You know his mother lost another son?’

      Freya nodded.

      ‘I don’t want her losing two.’

      And he watched as she cracked a very generous amount of cracked pepper on her avocado.

      ‘My brother died nearly ten years ago. I saw what losing one kid did to my mother.’

      For Freya, to hear Zack suddenly reveal such a vital part of himself, it was like the cracker had fallen off the pepper mill.

      ‘Zack! I’m so sorry to hear that.’

      He grinned. ‘Don’t use your psychologist voice on me.’ Then he asked her something he was curious about. She’d told him about her psychology degree and he wanted to know why she didn’t use it. ‘I know you’re good at PR but do you really enjoy it?’

      ‘I do,’ Freya said, and she took a breath and told him her plans, wondering if he’d laugh. ‘I want to start seeing clients. I wasn’t ready to before.’

      ‘Ready?’

      ‘I just didn’t know if I had any right to advise on eating disorders when I was working so hard on myself. I’m not sure I’m ready even now.’

      ‘I’d say you’re ready.’ Zack smiled. ‘I’ve spoken more to you than I have to anyone. You’re very easy to talk to, Freya.’

      ‘You’re not.’ She smiled back, glowing on the inside that he thought she could do it, but then she was serious. She really wanted to know more about him. ‘How did your brother die?’ she asked.

      ‘How we all die,’ Zack said, refusing to open up on her demand. He told only what he wanted to. ‘His heart stopped beating.’

      Aaagh! He was so frustrating but when he shared a part of himself it just made her want