LITMIR.BIZ

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everything by the book,’ Zac’s legal team had advised him, and that seemed to entail doing stuff that Zac’s unconventional heart rebelled against. He had been told to give her an engagement ring, introduce her to his family and play up his family connections, not one of which acts came naturally to him. So, Freddie could not feel flattered by anything Zac had done or arranged although she was grateful that he was willing to do it to facilitate their application to adopt Eloise and Jack.

      ‘You do what you have to do,’ Zac had enunciated through gritted teeth as he had slid that extraordinarily opulent ring onto her ring finger.

      No, there had been no risk of Freddie suspecting that Zac cherished more romantic feelings for her than he was willing to share with her. And shopping with him even for one morning was a bit of a nightmare for a shy, introverted young woman. Evidently, he liked women clad in skimpy lingerie, and he had been wildly disconcerted by her mortification when he had discussed his preferences for what she was to wear with the saleswoman. More than ever, it had made Freddie feel as though she was just a body to Zac, a body for him to dress and impregnate at the same speed with which he did everything else. That very evening they were joining his family for what he had described as ‘an informal dinner’. Yet the event obviously required her to wear a designer dress with all the trimmings.

      ‘Those shoes,’ Zac indicated to the hovering assistant with a careless sweep of one bronzed hand. ‘That bag.’

      ‘You have to get more into the spirit of this,’ Zac censured as he herded her back out to the limousine like a wayward sheep, who might stray. ‘You’ve got a fitting for your wedding dress tomorrow.’

      Two days earlier, Freddie had chosen the dress in a breathtakingly impressive designer atelier while Zac had turned Jack upside down to keep him amused and strings of baby chuckles had filled the air and Eloise had stood by awaiting her turn.

      ‘I don’t see why it matters what I wear when I meet your family,’ Freddie admitted. ‘It’s not as if you even want me to meet them!’

      ‘I’m not close to my half-brothers but over time that could change, particularly when all of us have young children. I would like the connection for our children,’ Zac admitted with emphasis. ‘Growing up, I had virtually no family and it made me a loner. I want the kids to have a different experience. And it does matter what you wear when you meet my family.’

      ‘How?’

      ‘Angel’s wife, Merry, and my father’s girlfriend, Sybil, will look as if they walked straight off a Paris catwalk. I will not have you look less than them in any way,’ Zac completed grimly, his pride on the line. No way would he allow Freddie to be patronised or labelled unfit for such exclusive company. Without effort she would outshine all of them, he thought with satisfaction, surveying her delicate triangular face and her warm brown eyes.

      She would be the perfect wife for him, he savoured. She wouldn’t be clingy or needy because she would be far too wrapped up in the children to worry about what he was doing. She wouldn’t make demands or throw temperamental jealous or possessive tantrums. She would just get on with things the way he did without making a big song and dance about them. Freddie was wonderfully practical, so she wouldn’t go falling for him or anything inconvenient like that either. She had already signed the pre-nuptial agreement without the smallest difficulty. ‘A woman in a million,’ one of his lawyers had commented afterwards and Zac had felt very real pride in his future wife, who was so gloriously free of avarice and ambition.

      Unaware of the unspoken accolades coming her way, Freddie settled into a corner of the opulent limo and studied Zac’s lean, darkly handsome face. He looked so different from the man she had first met. He had abandoned his jeans and worn sharply tailored suits for all their official appointments and, ironically, he wore a suit with the panache of one born to such formality. Exquisitely tailored in a fine grey wool and silk blend, his present dark grey suit outlined his broad shoulders and wide chest and enhanced his lean hips and long powerful legs to perfection. In jeans he looked incredibly masculine and sexy but in a suit he was to die for.

      Her body was all of a quiver in his radius because it didn’t matter how much he annoyed or confused her, he still fascinated her. Her temperature rose, her heartbeat quickened, her sensitive breasts feeling constricted by her bra. She pressed her slender jeans-clad thighs together tightly, struggling to contain the swelling heat at the heart of her.

      ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Zac husked. ‘Not when you don’t want me to do anything about it.’

      Freddie turned pink, striving to look inviting and flirtatious rather than desperate to be touched. ‘You can still kiss me.’

      ‘No, I can’t,’ Zac contradicted. ‘I won’t start anything we can’t finish. I’ve already had enough cold showers to last me a lifetime.’

      That blunt response sent a tide of hot colour washing up over her disconcerted face. Her eyes evaded the allure of his glittering and all too compelling light grey gaze. Something tightened low in her pelvis, a contracting thread of very physical yearning that was strong enough to unnerve her.

      ‘You can’t still believe that I’m going to jilt you at the altar,’ Zac intoned thickly.

      Freddie swallowed with difficulty. ‘Not any more,’ she conceded reluctantly.

      ‘Then come back to the penthouse with me tonight. I’m dying here.’ Zac groaned that feeling admission without a shade of inhibition. ‘I’ve never gone without sex for as long as this.’

      ‘I’d prefer not to,’ she muttered tightly, that gruff, innately sexual intonation making her body burn hotly from head to toe. ‘Because it’ll be my first time and I just think it’ll feel more relaxed once we’re married.’

      Zac frowned, ebony brows drawing together. ‘Your first time at what?’ he queried.

      ‘At sex,’ Freddie framed, her soft pink lips compressing with embarrassment.

      Zac looked back at her, stunned, the riddle Freddie had occasionally shown herself to be suddenly clarified. ‘You’re a virgin...a virgin?’ he said again as if she now fell into the same unlikely category as a unicorn. ‘Are you joking?’

      ‘No,’ she confirmed flatly.

      ‘OK.’ Zac rolled his eyes, attempting to compute this new information and utterly failing because he was so startled. ‘But why are you still a virgin?’ he persisted.

      ‘I don’t want to talk about that, right now,’ Freddie told him hastily, hugely relieved to see that the limo had come to a halt near Claire’s terraced home and that escape into the company of others, where even Zac could not continue such a conversation, was within reach.

      ‘You can hardly blame me for being surprised,’ Zac murmured in reproof. ‘I had no idea.’

      ‘It’s not something I feel a need to talk about,’ Freddie parried in frustration.

      And Zac looked back to their very first meeting and barely managed to suppress a groan of frustration. Without even knowing it he had blown his chances with her right from the start by assuming that she would be as laid-back and casual about sex as he was. Now he knew differently, now he knew why her barriers went up the instant he got too close, but he still could not even begin to understand why she had retained her inexperience into her twenties. It was a complication he hadn’t expected and he didn’t know how he felt about it. But obviously, any plans to enjoy a sexual marathon to satisfy his currently rampant libido would be out of the question.

      Eloise and Jack engulfed him in the narrow hallway. Jack clutched at his knees and Zac hoisted the baby high, ruffling Eloise’s hair as she sucked her thumb and rested her head sleepily against his thigh. The kids were so trusting and openly affectionate with him that it touched even his hard heart. Claire had said enough for him to know that Freddie had dealt with a lot of stuff she shouldn’t have had to deal with in an effort to shield the children from lasting damage at her sister’s hands.

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