The Frenchman's Marriage Demand. Chantelle Shaw

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      The bright lights of Monaco blazed against a backdrop of black velvet. As the helicopter swooped low over the coastline Zac glanced over his shoulder. Aimee was fast asleep, sitting next to the nanny he had hired. ‘We’re almost there,’ he murmured reassuringly to the uniformed woman. ‘May I say how grateful I am that you were able to join us at such short notice, Mrs Lewis.’

      Jean Lewis smiled. ‘I’m glad to help. With any luck I’ll be able to put Aimee straight to bed without waking her. She’s worn out, poor poppet.’

      With a brief nod, Zac turned back and glanced at Freya who was sitting stiffly beside him, the mutinous tilt of her chin causing him to curse irritably beneath his breath. If anyone had told him when he’d set out for Deverell’s London offices that he would return to Monaco with his ex-mistress and her child in tow, he would have laughed out loud, he thought with a humourless smile.

      His eyes trailed over her and he felt his body’s involuntary reaction to the sight of her small breasts outlined beneath her blouse. Once again Freya had turned his life upside down. After their bitter parting two years ago, he had neither wanted nor expected to see her again, but, even knowing what she had done, he was finding it impossible to ignore her.

      Freya felt Zac’s eyes on her and stiffened when he shifted slightly in his seat so that his thigh brushed against hers. When they had left England aboard the private jet, he had sat at the front of the plane, his attention focused exclusively on his laptop. It had suited her fine—she had nothing to say to him that wouldn’t blister his ears anyway—but when they’d arrived in Nice and boarded his helicopter for the short journey to Monaco, her heart had sunk when he had sat down next to her.

      She had tried her best to ignore him but unfortunately her senses refused to fall into line and she was agonisingly aware of his closeness. The subtle tang of his cologne was tantalisingly familiar, causing her nerve endings to prickle.

      She did not want to feel like this, she thought angrily as she edged away from him. It was humiliating to realise that he could still affect her so strongly, despite everything he had done to her. But it had always been the same; she had never been able to resist him and unfortunately just about every other woman on the planet shared her fascination.

      The months she had spent with him had been the happiest but also the most nerve-racking of her life and her ever-present fear that he would tire of her had added to her deep insecurity.

      Zac was one of Monaco’s most eligible bachelors and at the many parties they had attended he had always been the centre of attention. Women had flocked around him and made their interest clear with a bold smile or knowing glance loaded with sensual invitation. He had responded to their blatant flirting with one of his cool, faintly sardonic smiles, and she’d felt reassured. But Annalise Dubois had been different.

      The stunning glamour model had pursued Zac with relentless determination and had shamelessly flaunted her spectacular figure in clingy silks and satins that made the most of her eye-catching cleavage.

      Beside her, Freya had felt pale and insipid and she hadn’t been able to help but notice the way Zac’s eyes had lingered appreciatively on the Frenchwoman’s curves. Jealousy had been a green-eyed monster that festered in her soul, making her edgy and paranoid. She’d hated to be apart from him and had questioned his every move—every late night at the office or business trip that had taken him away for days at a time.

      She’d known that her behaviour had angered him, but as he’d grown increasingly distant from her, so her terror had increased that he had been tiring of her. The only time she had felt secure was when they had been in bed. There at least his passion for her had shown no sign of diminishing, but he had shut her out of every other aspect of his life and she’d felt as though her only role had been to provide convenient sex on demand.

      Choking back a cry, she dragged her mind from the past. She had spent the past two years determinedly trying to forget the life she’d shared with Zac and she must be mad to have agreed to return to Monaco with him.

      ‘Do you still live at the penthouse?’ she asked stiffly, seizing on the faint hope that he had moved from the elegant, marble-floored apartment where she had once kidded herself that he might fall in love with her.

      ‘Oui. The location suits me and I enjoy the view over the harbour,’ he replied coolly.

      Freya recalled the spectacular view from the penthouse over Monaco’s busy port and the vast stretch of the Mediterranean beyond. ‘Do you still keep The Isis moored there?’

      Zac nodded. ‘Unfortunately I don’t get to spend as much time on her as I’d like. Deverell’s is expanding and we’re opening several outlets around the world, including the new store in Mayfair. If your grandmother had picked any other day, I would not have been in London,’ he added tersely.

      His frown told her that he was cursing his bad luck to have been in London on the same day that Joyce Addison had arrived with Aimee, but Freya shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been there.

      ‘I’m glad Nana Joyce found you,’ she admitted quietly, forgetting for a moment that they were enemies. ‘I don’t know what would have happened to Aimee otherwise.’

      ‘Your grandmother would have cared for her, surely?’

      Freya’s face twisted. ‘I don’t know. When she found out that I was going to be an unmarried mother, she was adamant that she would have nothing to do with me or my baby. She bitterly resented having to bring me up and when I was a child I lived with foster parents for a while,’ she confided dully. ‘My mother had married and was moving to South Africa and my grandmother assumed she would take me with her. They had a furious argument when it turned out that I wasn’t included in Sadie’s new life.’

      Zac’s mouth tightened and he was aware of a faint tug of compassion. No wonder Freya’s self-esteem СКАЧАТЬ