# A Passionate Night With The Greek

KIM LAWRENCE

He’s supposed to find her… …not seduce her! Greek tycoon Zach Gavros has one mission: to track down the long-lost granddaughter of the mentor who helped him rise from the streets of Athens to unrivalled success. But Zach quickly realises that introducing feisty Katina to Greek society could be more trouble—and temptation—than anticipated! Especially when their startling passion only confirms the power this untouched heiress has to undo him…

He’s supposed to find her...

...not seduce her!

Greek tycoon Zach Gavros has one mission: to track down the long-lost granddaughter of the mentor who helped him rise from the streets of Athens to unrivaled success. But Zach quickly realizes that introducing feisty Katina to Greek society could be more trouble—and temptation—than anticipated! Especially when their startling passion only confirms the power this untouched heiress has to undo him...

A captivating tale of innocence and desire

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in Anglesey with her university lecturer husband, assorted pets who arrived as strays and never left, and sometimes one or both of her boomerang sons. When she’s not writing she loves to be outdoors gardening, or walking on one of the beaches for which the island is famous—along with being the place where Prince William and Catherine made their first home!

Also by Kim Lawrence

Maid for Montero

Captivated by Her Innocence

A Secret Until Now

The Heartbreaker Prince

One Night with Morelli

Her Nine Month Confession

One Night to Wedding Vows

Surrendering to the Italian’s Command

A Ring to Secure His Crown

The Greek’s Ultimate Conquest

A Cinderella for the Desert King

A Wedding at the Italian’s Demand

Seven Sexy Sins Collection

The Sins of Sebastian Rey-Defoe

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

A Passionate Night with the Greek

Kim Lawrence


www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08804-6

A PASSIONATE NIGHT WITH THE GREEK

© 2019 Kim Lawrence

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

## Note to Readers

This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

> Change of font size and line height

> Change of background and font colours

> Change of font

> Change justification

> Text to speech

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

## CHAPTER ONE

ZACH HAD RECEIVED the message he had been waiting for while he was stuck in traffic. Sometimes a first-hand knowledge of the back streets of Athens, combined with a flexible attitude to rules, came in useful.

Zach possessed both.

For some of his formative years he had lived by his wits on those streets, finding it infinitely preferable to living with the grandmother who had resented having her daughter’s bastard foisted on her, and the drunken uncle who had perfected bullying into an art form.

It took him just under half an hour and a few probable speeding fines to reach the hospital. He remained oblivious to the covetous stares that followed his long-legged progress from his car and through the building. It took him three more minutes to reach the intensive care unit where Alekis Azaria had spent three days in a medically induced coma after being successfully resuscitated following his last cardiac arrest.

Zach, as the closest thing the older man had to either friend or family, had been there the previous day when they’d brought him out of the coma. Despite the warnings that he had chosen not to hear, he had fully anticipated that Alekis would simply open his eyes.

The consultant had explained this sometimes happened but admitted there was a possibility that Alekis might never wake up.

Given the fact that the Greek shipping tycoon’s presence here was on a strict need-to-know basis, it was no surprise that the same consultant who had issued this gloomy prognosis was waiting for him now, at the entrance to the intensive care unit.

The medic, used to being a figure of respect and authority, found himself straightening up and taking a deep steadying breath when the younger, tall, athletically built figure approached.

Zach didn’t respond to the older man’s greeting; instead, head tilted at a questioning angle, he arched a thick dark brow and waited, jaw clenched, to hear what was coming.

‘He has woken and is breathing independently.’

Impatient with the drip-feed delivery Zach could sense coming, he cut across the other man, impatience edging his deep voice.

‘Look, just give it to me straight.’

Straight had never been a problem for Zach. His ability to compartmentalise meant personal issues did not affect his professional ability.

‘There seems to be no problem with Mr Azaria’s cognitive abilities.’

A flicker of relief flashed in Zach’s dark eyes. Intellectual impairment would have been Alekis’s worst nightmare; for that matter it would have been his own.

‘Always supposing that he was fairly...demanding previously?’ the doctor tacked on drily.

Zach gave a rare smile that softened the austere lines of his chiselled, handsome features, causing a passing pretty nurse to walk into a door.

‘He is accustomed to being in charge. I can see him...?’

The cardiologist nodded. ‘He is stable, but you do understand this is early days?’ he cautioned.

‘Understood.’

‘This way.’

Alekis had been moved from a cubicle in the intensive care unit to a private suite of rooms. Zach found him propped up on a pile of pillows. The events of the last week had gouged deep lines in the leathered skin of his face and hollowed out his cheeks, but his voice still sounded pretty robust!

Zach stood in the doorway for a moment, listening, a smile playing gently across his firm lips.

‘Have you never heard of human rights? I’ll have your job. I want my damned phone!’

The nurse, recovering her professional poise that had slipped when she’d seen Zach appear, lifted a hand to her flushed cheek and twitched a pillow, but looked calm in the face of the peevish demand and stream of belligerent threats.

‘Oh, it’s way above my pay grade to make a decision like that, Mr Azaria.’

‘Then get me someone who can make a decision—’ Alekis broke off as he registered Zach’s presence. ‘Good, give me your phone, and a brandy wouldn’t come amiss.’

‘I must have mislaid it.’ Zach’s response earned him a look of approval from the flush-faced nurse.

Alekis snorted. ‘It’s a conspiracy!’ he grumbled. ‘So, what are you waiting for? Take a seat, then. Don’t stand there towering over me.’

Zach did as he was bade, lowering his immaculately clad, long and lean, six-foot-five athletic frame into one of the room’s easy chairs. Stretching his legs out in front of him, he crossed one ankle over the other.

‘You look—’

‘I look like a dying man,’ came the impatient response. ‘But not yet—I have things to do and so do you. I assume you do actually have your phone?’

Zach’s relief at the business-as-usual attitude was cancelled out by his concern at the shaking of the blue-veined hand extended to him.

He hid his concern beneath a layer of irony as he scrolled down the screen to find the best of the requested snapshots he’d taken several days earlier for Alekis.

‘So how long before the news that I’m in here surfaces and the sharks start circling?’

Zach selected the best of the head shots he had taken and glanced up. ‘Who knows?’

‘Damage limitation is the order of the day, then.’

Zach nodded and extended the phone. ‘I suppose if you’re going to have another heart attack, you’re in the right place. I’m assuming that you will tell me at some point why you sent me to a graveyard in London to stalk some woman.’

‘Not stalk, take a photo...’

Zach’s half-smile held irony as he responded to the correction. ‘All the difference in the world. I’m curious—did it ever occur to you I’d say no?’

Zach had been due to address a prestigious international conference in London as guest speaker to an audience consisting of the cream of the financial world when Alekis had rung him with his bizarre demand, thinly disguised as a request.

Should he ever start believing his own press he could always rely on Alekis to keep his ego in check, Zach mused with wry affection as the short conversation of several days before flickered through his head.

‘You want me to go where and do what?’

‘You heard me. Just give the address of the church to your driver—the cemetery is opposite—then take a photo of the woman who arrives at four-thirty.’

‘Try not to let it give you a heart attack this time,’ Zach advised now, placing his phone into the older man’s waiting hand.

‘Waiting for you to deliver this picture didn’t give me a heart attack. Seventy-five years of over-indulgence did, according to the doctors who tell me I should have been six feet under years ago. They also said that if I want to last even another week I should deprive myself of everything that gives life meaning.’

‘I’m sure they were much more tactful.’

‘I have no use for tact.’

Greedy floated into Zach’s head as he watched the older man stare at the phone.

‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’

Zach deemed a response unnecessary. There was no question mark over the haunting beauty of the woman captured by his phone. What he had questioned was not Alekis’s interest, but his own fascination, bordering on obsession, with the face he couldn’t stop thinking about. Until, that was, he had realised it wasn’t the face, it was the puzzle of her identity, the mystery of the affair, that had tweaked his imagination, not those golden eyes.

‘I’m always willing to lend a hand to a friend in need. I assume that you have lost all your fortune and no longer have access to your own personal team of private investigators in order to have needed me? How did you know she’d be there at four-thirty?’

‘I have had her followed for the past two weeks.’ He looked bemused that Zach would ask such an obvious question. ‘And hardly a team was required... Actually I had reasons for not wanting to use in-house expertise. I was employing someone who proved to be an idiot...’

‘The same person you had following her?’

‘And he can whistle for his money. He was utterly inept, took any number of photographs, mostly of her back or lamp posts. And as for covert? She noticed him and threatened to report him for stalking... Took his photo, then hit him with her shopping bag. Did she see you?’

‘No, I’m thinking of taking up espionage as my second career. I had no idea I was signing up for such a dangerous task. So, who is this scary lady?’

‘My granddaughter.’

A quiver of surprise widened Zach’s dark eyes as his ebony lashes lifted off the angle of his cheekbones. He really hadn’t seen that one coming!

‘Her mother was beautiful too...’ The older man seemed oblivious to Zach’s reaction as he considered the photograph, his fingers shaking as he held it up. ‘I think she has a look of Mia, around the mouth.’ His hooded gaze lifted. ‘You knew I had a daughter?’

Zach tipped his head in acknowledgement. He had of course heard the stories of the wild-child daughter. There was talk of drugs and men, but no one knew if Alekis had seen her since she’d married against his wishes, and so the story went that she’d been disinherited. This was the first time Zach had heard mention of a granddaughter, or, for that matter, heard Alekis speak of his family at all; though a portrait of his long-dead wife hung in the hallway of his palatial home on the island he owned.

‘She married some loser, Parvati, threw herself away on him—to spite me, I think,’ the older man brooded darkly. ‘I was right. He was a useless waster, but would she listen? No, he left her when she got pregnant. All she had to do was ask and I’d have...’ He shook his head, looking tired in the aftermath of emotional outburst. ‘No matter, she always was as stubborn and...’ His voice trailed away until he sat there, eyes half closed.

Zach began to wonder if he had fallen asleep. ‘Sounds like the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.’

To Zach’s relief, the older man opened his eyes and directed a scowl up at Zach, which slowly faded. The smile that replaced it held a hint of pride. ‘Mia was a fiery one. Like her mother to look at but...’ His voice trailed away again.

If the likeness in the painting he had seen was accurate, Alekis’s wife had been beautiful, though not in the same style as the granddaughter with the glowing amber eyes. Zach could see no similarity between the two. The portrait was of a beautiful woman with a beautiful face but not a face to haunt a man. Unlike the face of the woman with the golden eyes. She was Alekis’s granddaughter—he was still struggling to get his head around that.

Alekis’s lack of family had been something they’d had in common, part of their unlikely bond that had grown through the years. Now it turned out that there was family and he was assuming Alekis wanted to be reunited. If the older man had asked his advice, Zach would have told him it was a bad idea. But Alekis wouldn’t ask or listen any more than Zach would have if someone had told him beforehand that reconnecting with his own past would leave him with memories that would offer no answers and no comfort.

‘I suppose I could have made the first move. I was just waiting but she never...’ He wiped a hand across his eyes and when it fell away Zach pretended not to see the moisture on the old man’s cheeks.

The truth was, he was finding it uncomfortable to see the man he had always considered self-contained and unsentimental and way past being a victim of his emotions show such vulnerability. But then maybe that was what a reminder of his own mortality did to a man?

‘I suppose everyone has regrets.’

‘Do you?’

Zach raised his brows at the question and considered it. ‘We all make mistakes,’ he said, thinking of his grandmother staring out of the window with blank eyes on his last visit to the home. ‘But never the same one twice.’ Twice made you a fool or in love—in his eyes the latter made you the former.

He could not imagine ever allowing his heart, or at least his hormones, to rule his head. Not that he was a monk; sex was healthy and necessary but he never mixed it with sentiment, which had given him a reputation for being heartless, but he could live with that. Living with the same woman for the rest of his life? Less so!

‘I regret...but it’s too late for that.’ Alekis’s voice firmed. ‘I want to make amends. I intend to leave her everything. Sorry if you thought you were getting it.’

‘I don’t need your money.’

‘You and your damned pride! If you’d let me help you’d have got to the top a lot quicker, or at least with a lot less effort.’

‘Where would be the fun in that? And you did help. You gave me an education and your advice.’ Zach spoke lightly but he knew how much he owed to Alekis, and so did the shipping magnate.

‘A gift beyond price, wouldn’t you say?’

Zach’s lips quivered into an appreciative smile. ‘You really are feeling more yourself, but the moral blackmail is unnecessary, Alekis.’ He spoke without heat. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Bring her to me.’

The face with the golden eyes floated into his head and Zach felt some nameless emotion flare inside him at the idea of seeing that face again.

The older man was staring again at the image on the screen.

‘Will you?’

Zach’s thickly defined sable brows lifted. ‘Bring, as in...?’ He shook his head, adding in an attempt to lighten the rather intense atmosphere that couldn’t be doing Alekis’s heart any good, ‘I’m assuming we are not talking kidnap here.’

‘It shouldn’t come to that.’

‘That wasn’t actually an offer.’

The older man didn’t appear to hear him.

‘Does she have a name?’ Zach asked, pretending not to see the moisture the older man wiped from the corners of his eyes.

‘Katina.’ Alekis’s lips tightened. ‘Greek only in name, she was born in England. Her history is...’

Zach was amazed to see a look close to shame wash over the older man’s face.

‘She has been alone for a long time. She thinks she still is. I intend to make it up to her, but I’m concerned that the shock will...’

‘I’m sure she’ll cope,’ Zach soothed, repressing the cynical retort on the tip of his tongue. Discovering you were set to become wealthy beyond anyone’s wildest dreams was the sort of shock most people recovered from quite quickly.

‘It will be a culture shock. She’s about to become an heiress and the target of vicious tongues and gold-diggers. She’ll need to be protected...’

‘From what you say she seems pretty well able to protect herself,’ Zach inserted drily.

‘Oh, she’s clearly got spirit, but it takes more than spirit. She needs to be taught how things operate,’ her grandfather continued. ‘And I’m stuck in here, which is why I’m—’

Zach, who had listened with growing unease at the direction of this, cut in quickly. ‘I’d love to help but that sounds pretty much like a full-time job to me.’

His mentor gave a deep sigh that made Zach’s teeth clench; the smile that accompanied it was a nice blend of understanding and sadness. ‘And you have every right to refuse.’ Another sigh. ‘You owe me nothing. Please don’t run away with the idea I’m calling in a debt. I will discharge myself and—’

Zach lowered his shoulders. He knew when he was beaten.

‘You know, sometimes I forget it was me that saved your life.’

The first lesson you learnt on the streets was to look after number one, the second was walk, or preferably run, away from trouble. Zach’s problem was bullies. He hated them, and seeing those knife-wielding thugs surrounding the foolish old guy who was refusing to hand over his wallet had produced a red-mist moment that had led him to run towards danger and not away from it.

Zach believed nothing positive could be achieved by reflecting on the past, but if he had, his objective view would have been that there hadn’t been anything remotely brave about his actions. Though stupid had flashed through his head at the first cut that had slipped between his ribs.

He might have saved the older man’s life, but Alekis had given him a life and until this point asked for very little in return.

He watched, an expression of wry resignation twisting his lips, as the man’s air of weary defeat melted away in a beat of his damaged heart.

The elderly Greek’s smile oozed smug satisfaction. ‘If you’re sure?’

‘Don’t push it,’ Zach growled out, torn between exasperation that he had been so expertly manipulated and amusement.

‘It is important to control the flow of information when the news does leak. I know I can rely on you for that. The media will be all over her like a rash. We must be ready; she must be ready. Go away!’

The loud addition was directed to an unwary nurse who, to give her her due, stood her ground.

‘I’ll leave him to you. Good luck,’ Zach added as he rose to his feet. ‘You can email me the necessary,’ he added before the exhausted-looking patient could react to his intention. ‘Just give me her details and I’ll do the rest, and in the meantime you get some rest.’

* * *

Kat danced around her small office and punched the air in triumph, before controlling the fizz of excitement still bubbling in her veins enough to retrieve the letter that she had tossed in the air after she had read it.

She read it again now, anxious that she hadn’t misinterpreted it. That really would be awful. The tension that had slipped into her shoulders fell away as she came to the end.

It really did say what she’d thought, but what puckered her smooth brow into a slight frown was what it didn’t say. There was a time she was expected to be there, at the address of the law firm, but no clue as to who was looking forward to meeting her.

She shrugged. Presumably a representative of one of the individuals or businesses known for their philanthropy to whom she had pitched her appeal—or wasted her time with, as some of her less optimistic-minded colleagues and volunteers had put it. Fighting against the negativity, she’d pointed out that she wasn’t expecting any one person or organisation to step into the breach, but if she could persuade a handful to make some sort of donation it could mean a stay of execution for the refuge once the local authority funding was pulled the coming month.

Who knew? This could be the first of many.

There was a short tap on the door before Sue, with her nose stud, stuck her orange-streaked head around the door. ‘Oh, God!’ She sighed when she saw Kat’s face. ‘I know that look.’

‘What look?’

The older woman stepped inside the room and, after closing the door, said, ‘Your “campaign for a good cause” face.’

Kat blinked. ‘Do I have a...?’

‘Oh, you sure do, and I love—we all love—that you’re a fighter, but there comes a time...’ She sighed again, her skinny shoulders lifting before they fell. ‘You’ve got to be a realist, love,’ she told Kat earnestly. ‘This place...’ Her expansive gesture took in the small office with its cardboard-box system of filing—there always seemed to be something better to spend the limited resources on than office furniture. ‘It’s a lost cause. I’ve got an interview Monday. Just giving you the heads-up that I’ll need the morning off.’

Kat was unable to hide her shock; her face fell. ‘You’re looking for another job?’ If Sue, who was as upbeat as she was hard-working, had already given in... Am I the only one who hasn’t?

‘Too right I am, and I suggest you do too. There’s always bills to pay and in my case mouths to feed. I care about this place too, you know, Kat.’

Kat felt a stab of contrition that her reaction might be read as judgement. ‘I know that.’ But the point was she didn’t know what it was to be like Sue, a single parent bringing up five children and holding down two jobs.

On the brink of sharing the good news, she pulled back and moderated her response. She didn’t want to raise hopes if nothing came of this.

‘I know you think I’m mad, but I really think there’s a realistic prospect someone out there cares.’

The other woman grinned. ‘I know you do, and I really hope life never knocks that starry-eyed optimism out of you.’

‘It hasn’t so far,’ Kat retorted. ‘And Monday’s fine. I’ll cover... Good luck.’

She waited until the other woman had left before she sat down at her desk—actually, it was a table with one wobbly leg—and thought about who she might be meeting. Whoever it was didn’t hang around. The meeting was scheduled for the following morning and the letter had been sent recorded delivery.

Well, she could cross the two off her list who had already sent a sympathetic but negative response, so who did that leave?

But then, did the identity of the potential donor actually matter? What mattered was that someone out there was interested enough for a meeting. So there was no beacon of light at the end of a tunnel but there was a definite flicker. Her small chin lifted in an attitude of determination. Whoever it turned out to be, she would sell her cause to them. Because the alternative was not something she wanted to contemplate—failure.

So for the rest of the day she resisted the temptation to share her news with the rest of her gloomy-looking colleagues. Not until she knew what was on offer, or maybe she just didn’t want to have anyone dampen her enthusiasm with a bucket of cold-water realism? Either way there was no one to turn to for advice when she searched her wardrobe for something appropriate that evening.

There wasn’t a lot to search. Her wardrobe was what designers called capsule, though maybe capsule was being generous.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love clothes and fashion, it was just that her budget was tight and in the past used up by impulse bargain buys, which inevitably sat in her wardrobe untouched and were eventually donated to a charity chop.

After a mega charity shop clear-out at the beginning of the summer and an unseasonal resolution to avoid sale racks, she had adopted a pared-down wardrobe. There had been the one slip. She looked at it now, hanging beside the eminently practical items. She rubbed the deep midnight-blue soft cashmere silk fabric between her fingers and gave a tiny nod; it was perfect for tomorrow’s ‘dress to impress’.

Smiling because her moment of weakness had been vindicated, she extracted the dress that stood out among the white shirts, T-shirts, black trousers and jeans, and hung it on the hook at the back of the bedroom door. Smoothing down the fabric, she checked it for creases, but everything about the dress managed to combine fluid draping with classic tailoring and the look screamed designer. The only fault she’d been able to find that had caused it to be downgraded to a second was the belt loop that needed a few stitches.

It had fitted so perfectly when she’d tried it on and had been marked down so much that, even though her practical head had told her there would never be an occasion in her life where the beautifully cut dress would come into it, she had bought it.

If she’d believed in fate—well, actually she did; the problem, in her experience, was not always recognising the door left ajar by fate as a golden opportunity.

It took her a little longer to dig out the heels buried among the piles in the back of the wardrobe, and she was ready. All she needed now was to go through her plan of attack. If she wanted to sell her case, make it stand out amongst the many deserving cases, she needed facts at her fingertips and a winning smile and someone with a heart to direct it at. The smile that flashed out was genuine as she caught sight of her face in the mirror...her eyes narrowed and her forehead creased in a frown of fierce determination.

So her winning smile could do with some work!

## CHAPTER TWO

ZACH WAS EXPECTED. The moment he strode into the foyer his reception committee materialised. He was shown up to the empty boardroom by the senior partner—the only Asquith left in the law firm of Asquith, Lowe and Urquhart—and three underlings of the senior variety.

If Zach had thought about it—which he hadn’t, because he’d had other things on his mind—he would have expected no less, considering that the amount of business Alekis sent this firm’s way had to be worth enough to keep the Englishman’s Caribbean tan topped up for the next millennium and then some, not to mention add a few more inches to his expanding girth.

‘I will bring Miss Parvati up when she arrives. How is Mr Alekis? There have been rumours...’

Zach responded to this carefully casual addition with a fluid shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘There are always rumours.’

The older man tilted his head and gave a can’t blame a man for trying nod as he backed towards the door, an action mirrored by the three underlings, who had tagged along at a respectful distance.

Zach unfastened the button on his tailored grey jacket and, smoothing his silk tie, called after the other man before he exited the room. ‘Inform me when she arrives. I’ll let you know when to show her up.’

‘Of course. Shall I have coffee brought in?’

His gesture took in the long table, empty but for the water and glasses at the end where Zach had pulled out a chair. Watching him, the older man found himself, hand on his ample middle, breathing in. The sharp intake of stomach-fluttering breath came with an unaccustomed pang of wistful envy that he recognised as totally irrational—you couldn’t be wistful about something you had never had, and he had never had the sort of lean, hard, toned physique this man possessed. His own physical presence had a lot more to do with expensive tailoring, which permitted him to indulge his love of good food and fine wine.

‘The water will be fine.’ Zach reached for one of the iced bottles of designer water to illustrate the point and tipped it into a glass before he took his seat.

The door closed, and Zach glanced around the room without much interest. The room had a gentlemen’s club vibe with high ceilings and dark wooden panelled walls—not really his usual sort of environment. He had never been in a position to utilise the old-school-tie network, but he had never been intimidated by it and, more importantly, not belonging to this world had not ultimately hindered his progress. If he was viewed in some quarters as an outsider, it didn’t keep him awake nights, and even if it had he could function pretty well on four hours’ sleep.

He opened his tablet and scrolled onto the file that Alekis’s office had forwarded. It was not lengthy, presumably an edited version of the full warts and all document. Zach had no problem with that; he didn’t need the dirt to make a judgement. The details he did have were sufficient to give him a pretty good idea of the sort of childhood the young woman he was about to meet had had.

The fact that, like him, she had not had an easy childhood did not make him feel any connection, any more than he would have felt connected to someone who shared a physical characteristic with him. But he did feel it gave him an insight others might lack, the same way he knew that the innocence that had seemed to shine out from her eyes in the snapshot had been an illusion. Innocence was one of the first casualties of the sort of childhood she had had.

She had been abandoned and passed through the care system; he could see why Alekis thought he had a lot to make up for—he did. Zach was not shocked by what the mother had done—he was rarely shocked by the depths to which humans could sink—but he was mildly surprised that Alekis, who presumably had had ways of keeping tabs on his estranged daughter, had not chosen to intervene, a decision he was clearly trying to make up for now.

While many might say never too late, Zach would not. He believed there was definitely too late to undo the damage. He supposed in this instance it depended on how much damage had been done. What was not in question was the fact that the woman he was about to meet would know how to look after herself.

She was a survivor, he could admire that, but he was a realist. He knew you didn’t survive the sort of childhood she’d had without learning how to put your own interests first, and he should know.

The indent between his dark brows deepened. It concerned him that Alekis, who would normally have been the first to realise this, seemed to be in denial. The grandfather in him was putting sentiment ahead of facts, and the fact was anyone who had experienced what this woman had was never going to fit into her grandfather’s world without being a magnet for scandal.

As Zach knew, you didn’t escape your past; you carried it with you and learnt to look after number one. When had he last put someone else’s needs ahead of his own?

There was no occasion to remember.

The acknowledgement didn’t cause him any qualms of conscience. You didn’t get to be one of life’s survivors by not prioritising your own interests.

And Zach was a survivor. In his book it was preferable to be considered selfish than a victim, and rather than feel bitter about his past he was in some ways grateful for it and the mental toughness it had gifted him, without which he would not have enjoyed the success he had today.

He responded to the message on his phone, his fingers flying as he texted back. He looked down at the screen of his tablet. The vividness of the woman’s golden eyes, even more intense against the rest of the picture that seemed washed of colour, stared out at him before he closed it with a decisive click.

Maybe he was painting a bleaker picture. He might be pleasantly surprised—unless Alekis had deliberately hidden them, it seemed the granddaughter hadn’t had any brushes with the law. Of course, that might simply mean she had stayed under the radar of the authorities, but she did seem to hold down a steady job. Perhaps the best thing the mother had ever done for her child was to abandon her.

There was the lightest of taps on the door before Asquith stepped inside the room, his hand hovering in a paternal way an inch away from the small of the back of the woman who walked in beside him.

This wasn’t the fey creature from the misty graveyard, neither was it a woman prematurely hardened by life and experience.

Theos! This was possibly the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on.

For a full ten seconds after she walked in, Zach’s entire nervous system went into shutdown and when it flickered back into life, he had no control over the heat that scorched through his body. The sexual afterglow of the blast leaving his every nerve ending taut.

He studied her, his eyes shielded by his half-lowered eyelids and the veil of his sooty eyelashes. He felt himself resenting that it was a struggle to access even a fraction of the objectivity he took for granted as he studied her. He expected his self-control to be his for the asking, irrespective of a bloodstream with hormone levels that were off the scale.

He forced the tension from his spine, only to have it settle in his jaw, finding release in the ticcing muscle that clenched and unclenched spasmodically as he studied her. She was wearing heels, which made her almost as tall as the lawyer, who was just under six feet. She was dressed with the sort of simplicity that didn’t come cheap, but to be fair the long, supple lines of her slim body would have looked just as good dressed in generic jeans and a T-shirt.

He categorised the immediate impression she projected as elegance, poise and sex...

Her attention was on the man speaking to her, so Zach had the opportunity to prolong his study of her. She stood sideways on, presenting him with her profile as she nodded gravely at something the other man was saying, eyelashes that made him think of butterfly wings fluttering against her soft, rounded, slightly flushed cheeks. It was a pretty whimsical analogy for him.

Stick to the facts, Zach, suggested the voice in his head.

He did, silently describing what he saw.

Her profile was clear cut, almost delicate. There was the suggestion of a tilt on the end of her nose, her brow high and wide. The fey creature in the snapshot had a face framed by a cloud of ebony hair; this elegant young woman’s hair was drawn smoothly back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck to fall like a slither of silk between her shoulder blades almost to waist level. Dark and cloud-like in the photos, in real life it was a rich warm brown, interspersed with warm toffee streaks.

The slight tilt of her head emphasised the slender length of her swan-like dancer’s neck; the same grace was echoed in her slim curves and long limbs, beautifully framed by the simplicity of the figure-skimming calf-length dress. The length of her shapely legs was further emphasised by a pair of high, spiky heels.

‘I’ll leave you.’

‘Leave?’ Kat echoed.

Zach registered the soft musicality of her voice as her feathery brows lifted in enquiry, then, the moment he had been anticipating, she turned her head. Yes, her eyes really were that impossible colour, a rich deep amber, the tilt at the corners creating an exotic slant and lending her beautiful face a memorable quality.

Kat had been aware of the man in the periphery of her vision, sitting at the head of the long table. Up to that point, good manners had prevented her from responding to her curiosity and looking while her escort was speaking.

She did so now, just as the figure was rising to his feet.

The first thing she had noticed about her escort was his expensive tailoring, his plummy accent and old-school tie. This man was equally perfectly tailored—minus the old-school tie. His was silk and narrow, dark against the pale of his shirt. But what he wore was irrelevant alongside the impression of raw male power that hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.

She actually swayed!

He made the massive room suddenly seem a lot smaller; in fact, she experienced a wave of claustrophobia along with a cowardly impulse to beg her escort to wait for her.

You’re not a wimp, Kat, or a quitter. Appearances and first impressions, she reminded herself, were invariably misleading. She’d found the first man’s air of sleek, well-tailored affluence and accent off-putting initially, and yet now, a few floors up, he appeared cosy and benevolent. In a few minutes this dark stranger might seem cosy too. Her dark-lashed gaze moved in an assessing covert sweep from his feet to the top of his sleek dark head. Or maybe not!

Unless you considered large sleek predators cosy, and there was something of the jungle cat about him, in the way he moved with the fluid grace, the restless vitality you sensed beneath the stillness that a feral creature might feel in an enclosed space.

Aware she was in danger of overreacting and allowing her imagination to run riot, she huffed out a steadying breath between her stiff lips.

‘Good morning.’ She gave her best businesslike smile, aiming for a blend of warm but impersonal.

Easier said than done, when there were so many conflicting emotions jostling for supremacy in her head. Not to mention the fluttery pit of her stomach. She had no idea what she had been expecting, but it hadn’t been this, or him!

She never rushed to judgement. She prided herself on her ability not to judge by appearances, so the rush of antagonism she had felt the moment his dark eyes had locked on hers was bewildering—and it hadn’t gone away.

Her heart was racing, and it wasn’t the only thing that had sped up. Everything had, including her perceptions, which were heightened to an extraordinary, almost painful degree, though they were focused less on the room with its background scent of leather and wood and more on the man who dominated with such effortless ease.

She had taken in everything about him in that first stunned ten seconds. The man stood several inches over six feet, and inside the elegant suit his build was lean yet athletic, with broad shoulders that were balanced perfectly by long, long legs. The strong column of his neck was the same deep shade of gold as his face, the warm and vibrant colour of his skin emphasised by the contrasting paleness of his shirt.

He was sinfully good-looking, if your taste ran to perfect. Such uncompromising masculinity attached to perfect symmetry, hard angles and carved planes, a wide mouth that was disturbingly sensual and the dark-as-night eyes framed by incredible jet lashes set under dark, strongly delineated brows.

There was no reaction to the smile she somehow kept pasted in place. She told herself to keep it together as she struggled to make the mental adjustments required.

‘Oh, God!’ It wasn’t the pain in her knee when she hit the chair leg that made her cry out, it was the sight of the carefully arranged contents of the folder she carried sliding to the floor. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered as she bent to pick up the scattered papers, jamming them haphazardly into the folder.

Walk, think and string two syllables together, Kat. It’s not exactly multitasking! It’s all on your phone so it’s not a disaster!

Cheeks hot, she straightened up. Forget old-school tie, this was who she was dealing with. Fine. Except, of course, it wasn’t fine; she was making an impression, but not the intended one. Having gathered the papers, she promptly dropped them again. She bit her tongue literally to stop herself blurting a very unladylike curse.

* * *

Zach watched her silky hair fall over one shoulder as she fumbled for the scattered papers. The action drew attention to the curve of her behind, and as the soft, silky dark material of her dress stretched tight so did his nerve endings.

He could not recall the last time he had needed to fight his way through a fog of blind lust. If Alekis had had a window into his mind at that moment he might have doubted casting him in the role of protector and mentor. Or maybe not. There was some sense in it. Who better to guard the fluffy chick than a fox? Always supposing the fox in question could keep his own baser instincts in check.

Not that this creature was fluffy, she was more silky-smooth. Smooth all over?

Calming down this illicit line of distracting speculation, he let the silence stretch. It was amazing how many people felt the need to fill a silence, saying things that revealed more than a myriad searching questions.

Unfortunately, and uncomfortably on this occasion, in a moment of role reversal his own mind felt the need to fill the silence.

Alekis trusted him. The question was, did he trust himself?

The moment of self-doubt passed; even taking the trust issue with Alekis out of the equation, the logic of keeping the personal and professional separate remained inescapable.

‘Won’t you take a seat?’

She responded to the offer with relief; her knees were literally shaking. ‘Thank you.’ At least the table between them meant she was not obliged to offer her hand. Instead, she tipped her head and smiled. ‘I’m Kat.’

‘Take a seat, Katina.’ He watched the surprise flare in her amazing eyes and slide into wariness before she brought her lashes down enough to veil her expression momentarily.

The use of her full name, which no one ever used, threw her slightly. Well, actually, more than slightly.

He couldn’t know it, but the last person to call her that had been her mother.

For many years Kat had believed that while she could hear her mother’s voice in her head, her mother was not gone...she was coming back. Nowadays the childhood conviction was gone and so was her mother’s voice. The memory might be lost but she did know that her name on her mother’s lips had not sounded anything like it did when this man rolled his tongue around the syllables.

‘Th-thank you,’ she stuttered. Recovering from the shaky moment, she gathered her poise around herself, protective-blanket style. ‘Just Kat is fine,’ she added finally, taking the seat he had gestured towards and reflecting that it wasn’t at all fine.

Though she was normally all for informality, she would have been much happier with a formal, distant Miss...or Ms or maybe even, hey, you. It wasn’t just her physical distance she felt the need to keep from this man. His dark gaze seemed able to penetrate her very soul.

She forced herself to forget his disturbing mouth, equally disturbing eyes, the almost explosive quality he projected, and move past the weird inexplicable antagonism. She was here to make a pitch, and save the precious resource that the community was in danger of losing. This was not about her—she just had to stay focused on the prize.

All great advice in theory, but in reality, with those eyes drilling into her like lasers... Were lasers cold? She pushed away the thought and tried to dampen the stream of random thoughts that kept popping into her head down to a slow trickle.

Reminding herself that a lot of people were relying on her helped; the fact she was distracted by the muscle that was clenching and unclenching in his lean cheek did not.

‘Water?’

Repressing the impulse to ask him if he had anything stronger, she shook her head.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, thinking, If only!

Nervous was actually how she was feeling and this man was probably wondering why the hell she was here.

She cleared her throat. ‘I’m sure you have a lot of questions?’

His dark brows lifted; there was nothing feigned about his surprised reaction. ‘I would have thought you’d have a lot of questions.’

True, she did. She gave voice to the first one that popped into her head. ‘What do I call you?’

It wasn’t really a change of expression, but his heavy eyelids flickered and left her with the distinct impression this wasn’t the sort of question he had anticipated. She took a deep breath and tried again.

‘It really doesn’t matter to us who you represent—when I say it doesn’t matter I don’t mean... We would never accept anything from a...an...illegitimate source—obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ Zach said, realising for the first time that she wasn’t wondering why she was there, because she thought she knew.

He was intrigued.

His eyes slid to her plump lips. Intrigued had a much better ring to it than fascinated.

‘Not that you look like a criminal or anything,’ she hastened to assure him.

His lips twitched. ‘Would you like to see character references...?’

She chose to ignore the sarcasm while observing that even when his mouth smiled his eyes remained as expressionless and hard as black glass. There was no warmth there at all. She found herself wondering what warmed that chill, and then gathered her wandering thoughts back to the moment and her reason for being here, which wasn’t thinking about his eyes, or, for that matter, any other part of his dauntingly perfect body.

‘We are just grateful that you are willing to consider contributing.’

‘We?’

She flushed and refused to be put off by his sardonic tone. ‘This we...’ Kat pulled the folder from her bag and pointed to the logo on the cover. ‘The Hinsdale project and family refuge. Dame Laura...’ she put a gentle emphasis on the title; it was hard to tell sometimes but some people were impressed by such things, not that she had to pretend pride or enthusiasm as she told him ‘...began it back in the sixties when there was just the one house, a mid-terrace, a two-up two-down. It was all a bit basic.’

‘And now?’

‘We have extended into the houses both sides, the entire row, and can take thirty-five women at any one time, depending, obviously, on the number of children. In the eighties the chapel across the road came up for sale and we bought it. Now it houses the nursery and crèche, which is available for women when they have moved out. It also contains a drop-in centre, which provides legal help and so forth. Dame Laura was personally involved, right up to her death.’

Had her own mother found Hinsdale, or a similar place, both their lives might have been very different.

Zach watched the wave of sadness flicker across her expressive face. Letting this interview play out a little longer might be on shaky ground morally, but practically it would provide a swifter insight into this woman whom he was meant to be babysitting.

‘And what is your role?’ Zach was experiencing a strange reluctance to abandon his mental image of a person so damaged they never looked at anything other than their own self-interest—a person, in short, much like himself.

The frown that came with the unbidden flicker of self-awareness faded as he watched her beautiful face light up with a glow of conviction and resolution as she leaned forward in her seat, losing the nervousness as she answered proudly.

‘I run the refuge, along with a great team, many of whom are volunteers, as was I initially. I began by volunteering at the crèche when I was at school, and after I left I was offered a salaried position. I like to think Dame Laura would have been proud of what we have achieved.’ Kat had met the redoubtable lady once; she had been frail but as sharp as a tack and totally inspirational. ‘Her legacy lives on.’ Embarrassed, Kat swallowed the emotional lump in her throat and reminded herself that there was a fine line between enthusiasm and looking a little unhinged. ‘We have a dedicated staff and, as I said, so many volunteers. We are part of the community and don’t turn anyone away.’

‘That must make forward planning difficult.’

‘We build in flexibility—’

He felt a twinge of admiration that, despite the starry-eyed enthusiasm, she was not so naive that she didn’t know how to sidestep a difficult answer.

‘Is that possible fiscally?’

‘Obviously in the present financial climate—’

‘How much do you need?’

The hard note of cold cynicism in his interruption made her blink, then rush to reassure. ‘Oh, please, don’t think for one moment we are expecting you to cover the total shortfall.’

‘As negotiating tactics go, that, Kat...’ the way he drawled her name made the fine hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end ‘...was not good—it was bad. It was abysmal.’

Her expression stiffened and grew defensive. ‘I came here under the impression that you wanted to contribute to the refuge.’ She struggled to contain the antagonism that sparkled in her eyes as she planted her hands on the table and leaned in. ‘Look, if this is about me... There are other people who could do my job. The important thing is the work.’

‘Do you think everything is about you?’

Kat felt her face flush. ‘Of course not, it just felt...feels as if you find me...’

‘So you are saying you’d sacrifice yourself to save this place?’

She swallowed, wondering if that was what it was going to take. Obviously it was a price she would be willing to pay, but only as a last resort. Crawl and grovel if that’s what he wants, Kat. She heaved a deep sigh and managed an almost smile.

‘You don’t like me, fine.’ Because I really don’t like you.

Zach watched the internal struggle reflected on her face. This was a woman who should never play poker. As a born risk-taker, he enjoyed that form of relaxation.

She left a space for him to deny the claim.

He didn’t.

‘But, please,’ she begged, ‘don’t allow that to influence your decision. I am one person easy to replace, but there is a dedicated staff who work incredibly hard.’ Breathing hard, she waited for a response, the slightest hint of softening, but there was none.

Her chin went up; she was in nothing-to-lose territory.

She flicked to the first page of the thin folder, except the first page was now somewhere in the middle so it took her a few moments to locate it. ‘I have the facts and figures; the average stay of a client is...’ With a sigh she turned the page of figures over. It wasn’t the right one. ‘The average doesn’t matter. Everyone who comes is different and we try to cater to their individual needs. The woman who is my deputy first arrived as a client. She was in an abusive relationship...’

A nerve along his jaw quivered. ‘Her partner hit her?’

The hairs on the nape of her neck lifted in response to the danger in his deceptively soft question. Underneath the beautiful tailoring she sensed something dangerous, almost feral, about this man. A shiver traced a sticky path up her spine as she struggled to break contact with his dark eyes.

‘No, he didn’t.’ He hadn’t needed to. He had isolated Sue from her family and friends and had controlled every aspect of her life before she’d finally left. Even her thoughts had not been her own. ‘It’s not always about violence. Sometimes the abuse is emotional,’ she said quietly. ‘But she now works for us full-time, is a fantastic mum and was voted onto the local council. The refuge has helped so many and it will again in future, the cash-flow situation is—’

Her own earnest flow was stemmed by his upheld hand. ‘I am sure your cause is very worthy, but that is not why you were invited here.’

‘I don’t understand...’

‘I had never heard of your refuge, or your Dame Laura.’

As his words sank in, the throb of anger in her head got louder; her voice became correspondingly softer. ‘Then why the hell am I here?’

It was an indulgence, but he took a moment to enjoy the flashing amber eyes that viewed him with utter contempt.

‘I am here to represent Alekis Azaria.’

The name seemed vaguely familiar to Kat but she had no idea why. She leaned forward, arching a questioning brow. ‘Greek...?’

He nodded. He had seen several reactions to Alekis’s name before, ranging from awe to fear, but hers was a first. She clearly didn’t have a clue who he was.

‘Like you.’

She frowned, then realised his mistake. ‘Oh, not really. The name, you mean? Oh, I suppose I must have some Greek blood, but I’ve never been there. Are you...?’ she asked, searching for some sort of explanation, some sort of connection to explain him and this interview.

‘I am Greek, like Alekis.’

‘So why did this man who I have never heard of invite me here?’ The entire thing made no sense to her. ‘Who is he?’

## CHAPTER THREE

‘HE’S YOUR GRANDFATHER.’

He watched as the bemused confusion drawn on her face froze and congealed. As her wide eyes flickered wide in shock.

It took a conscious effort for Zach to hold on to his objectivity as she gasped like a drowning person searching for air. She sucked in a succession of deep breaths.

‘I have no family.’ Her voice was flat, her expression empty of the animation that had previously lit it. ‘I have no one, so I can’t have a grandfather.’

He pushed away an intrusive sliver of compassion and the squeeze of his heart and hardened his voice as he fell back on facts, always more reliable than sentiment.

‘We all have two grandfathers, even me.’

Another time she might have questioned the significance of the even me but Kat was in shock. The sheer unexpectedness of what he had said had felt like walking...no, running full pelt into a brick wall that had suddenly appeared in the middle of a flower-filled meadow.

‘I don’t even know who my father is, other than a name on a birth certificate.’ It had never crossed her mind to track down the man who had abandoned her pregnant mother. The decision to search for her mother had not been one she had taken lightly, though, as it turned out, she had already been five years too late. ‘Why should I want any contact with his family?’

Zach narrowed his eyes, recalling the one line in the file on the man Alekis’s daughter had married in defiance of her father’s wishes. ‘He might have a family, but I don’t have that information.’

‘I don’t understand...’

‘It is your mother’s family, or rather her father, that I am representing.’

She listened to his cold, dispassionate explanation before sitting there in silence for several moments, allowing her disjointed thoughts to coalesce.

‘She had a family...’ She faltered, remembering bedtime stories, the tall tales of a sun-drenched childhood. Was even a tiny part of that fantasy based on reality? The thought made her ache for her mother, far away from home and rejected.

‘Your grandfather is reaching out to you.’

Shaking her head, Kat rose to her feet, then subsided abruptly as her shaking legs felt too insubstantial to support her.

‘Reaching...’ She shook her head and the slither of silk down her back rippled, making Zach wonder what it would look like loose and spread against her pale gold skin. ‘I don’t want anyone reaching out to me.’ Her angry amber eyes came to rest accusingly on his handsome face. She knew there was a reason she had never trusted too-good-looking men besides prejudice and the fact the man who had spiked her drink all those years ago had been the one all the girls in the nightclub had been drooling over. ‘Is this some sort of joke?’

‘It is real.’ As real as the colour of those pain-filled, angry, magnificent eyes.

‘He’s rich?’

Her words did make it sound as though a yes would be a good thing. This was not avarice speaking, he realised, but anger. The former would have made his life a lot easier.

‘He is not poor.’

Her trembling lips clamped tight, the pressure blanching the colour from her skin as she fought visibly for composure.

‘My mum was... She was poor, you see...very poor.’ She eyed him with contempt, not even bothering to attempt to describe the abject hand-to-mouth existence that had driven her mother to drugs and the men who supplied them. A man who looked like him, dressed like him and oozed the confidence that came from success and affluence could not even begin to understand that life and the events that trapped people in the living hell of degradation.

‘Yes.’

One of the reasons she rarely mentioned her early years was the way people reacted. She mentally filed them into two camps: the ones that looked at her with pity and those that felt uneasy and embarrassed.

His monosyllabic response held none of the above, just a statement of fact. Ironic, really, that a response she would normally have welcomed only added another layer to the antagonism that swirled inside her head as she looked at him. By the second he was becoming the personification of everything she disliked most in a person. Someone born to privilege and power without any seeming moral compass.

Ignoring the voice in her head that told her she was guilty of making the exact sort of rush or, in this case, more a stampede to judgement that she’d be the first to condemn, she sucked in a deep sustaining breath through flared nostrils.

Despite her best efforts, her voice quivered with emotion that this man would definitely see as a weakness. ‘He didn’t reach out to her...’

‘No.’

Her even white teeth clenched. ‘Where was he when his daughter needed him? If he makes the same sort of grandfather as he made father, why would I want to know him?’

‘I don’t know...’ He arched a satiric brow and pretended to consider the answer. ‘He’s rich?’

Her chin lifted to the defiant angle he was getting very familiar with. It was a long time since Zach had been regarded with such open contempt.

Better than indifference!

The knee-jerk reaction of his inner voice brought a brief frown to his brow before he turned his critical attention to the play of expression across her flawless features. He had never encountered anyone who broadcast every thought in their heads quite so obviously before.

The concept of a professional guard would be alien to her. Though in her defence, this wasn’t professional to her—it was very personal. He was getting the idea that everything with this woman might be.

For someone who compartmentalised every aspect of his life, the emotional blurring was something that appalled him.

‘So you’re of the “everyone has a price” school of thought,’ she sneered.

‘They do.’

His man-of-few-words act was really starting to get under her skin.

‘I don’t. I’m not interested in money and...and...things!’

He arched a satiric brow. ‘That might be a more impressive statement if you hadn’t come here with a begging bowl.’

She fought off the angry flush she could feel rising up her neck. ‘That is not the same.’

He dragged his eyes up from the blue-veined pulse that was beating like a trapped wild bird at the base of her slender throat. This might be the moment he told himself to remember that the untouched, fragile look had never been a draw for him. He had no protective instincts to arouse.

‘If you say so.’

His sceptical drawl was an insult in itself.

‘I am not begging. This isn’t for me.’

He cut her off with a bored, ‘I know, it is for the greater good. So consider that for the moment—consider how much you could help the greater good if you had access to the sort of funds that your grandfather has.’

He allowed himself the indulgence of watching the expressions flicker across her face for several seconds before speaking.

‘You see, everyone does have a price—even you.’

‘There is no even me. And I’m not suggesting I’m a better person than anyone else!’ she fired back.

Zach watched her bite her lip before lifting her chin and found himself regretting his taunt. As exasperating as her attitude was, she had just received news that was the verbal equivalent of a gut punch.

And she had come out fighting.

‘If you say so.’

She blinked hard, not prepared to let it go. ‘I do say so, and,’ she choked out, ‘I really don’t want to know the sort of person who would abandon his daughter.’

‘Maybe she abandoned him?’

The suggestion drew a ferocious glare. On one level he registered how magnificent she looked furious, on another he realised that he was now in uncharted territory—he was playing it by ear. Zach trusted his instincts; his confidence was justified but, in this instance, it had turned out to be massively misplaced.

The unorthodox role assigned to him had been unwelcome, but he had approached it as he would anything. He’d thought that he had factored in all the possibilities...had considered every reaction and how to counter them to bring about the desired outcome with the least effort on his part.