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you without your permission.’

      A maddening need to apologise assailed Freddie and she fought it off, examining her behaviour, conceding that she might have come off a little hysterical in her rigid need to protect herself around a man. ‘Look, I have to work here, and obviously I don’t want to be seen inside your penthouse.’

      ‘And maybe, just maybe,’ Zac incised in a lethal undertone, those eyes luminous and cold as polar stars, ‘I’m tired of doing everything your way, meu pequenino.’

      Freddie compressed her lips and studied her scuffed trainers in the rushing silence. Her muscles ached with the tension in the air and her tummy performed a nauseous flip.

      ‘When were you in foster care?’ Zac continued smoothly as he thrust open the door of what she assumed to be the penthouse suite, because a superb wall of glass overlooked the twinkling lights of the city skyline that bounded one side of the huge room.

      Freddie was busy looking around herself at a level of luxury way beyond her experience. There was a tiny elegant kitchen alcove in one corner, not one to be taken seriously, for few who could afford the rates for the penthouse would wish to cook for themselves in a hotel renowned for its cuisine. Another couple of doors led off the main area, which was furnished with a massive wall television and buttery soft leather sofas, currently strewn with car magazines.

      ‘Freddie?’ he prompted, amused by her frank curiosity about her surroundings.

      Freddie relocated her wits, still careful not to look at him. ‘My parents were killed in a car crash when I was ten. I had a completely happy childhood up until then, not so much after that,’ she admitted stiffly, food scents tugging at her nostrils, provoking an embarrassingly loud and needy growl from her stomach.

      Freddie spoke quickly, fearful that he had heard her tummy grumble. ‘What about you? Where did you grow up?’

      ‘A fazenda...a ranch in Brazil.’ Zac lifted the cover on the food trolley with a flourish. ‘Help yourself,’ he urged.

      Grateful to have something to do with her knotted hands, Freddie reached for a plate while scolding herself for her nerves. Being alone with a man was no big deal and it was time she got over her hang-ups from the years spent living with her sister. In any case, Lauren had been the victim of the abuse, not Freddie, who had merely been a powerless shrinking presence. Zac had probably done her a favour by calling her on her attitude to him. After all, some day in the future, she might want a man of her own and she wouldn’t want to scare him off by acting weird, would she? Her spine stretching out of the stiffness she had maintained, she struggled to relax her defences.

      ‘I would never have picked you out as a country boy,’ Freddie confided as she ate the convenient mini finger foods she had piled on her plate, perched on the edge of a too comfortable sofa.

      Zac’s beautifully shaped mouth quirked. ‘I’m not, although I’m quite interested in breeding pedigree horses,’ he admitted, startling her afresh.

      Zac watched her ease back into the sofa as though it were a potentially dangerous manoeuvre. Her feet left the floor and she crossed her legs like an elf, making herself at home with him for the first time, and he got a rush out of that display of relaxation, which unsettled him. It was only that she was prickly, difficult and an unknown quantity and he loved a challenge, he told himself squarely. Maybe without really noticing he had got bored with the constant sexual come-ons and the easy conquests. And Freddie was different, so very different from the sort of women he usually bedded. She also looked ridiculously cute sitting there, he acknowledged uneasily, frowning at that aberrant thought.

      ‘I also wanted to ask if you’ve thought any more about joining me in that bet I mentioned this morning,’ Zac delivered, getting back down to business with a strong sense of relief.

      Her vivid little face screwed up tight and she studied him in surprise. ‘You’re still on about that?’ she questioned.

      Zac shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘I don’t give up on anything easily.’

      No, if she could peel him apart Freddie was convinced she would find the word ‘determined’ stamped through him as though he were a stick of rock. She parted her lips to protest and then closed them again, wanting to be civil. ‘I have the children to look after,’ she said finally.

      ‘And I could easily hire a nanny,’ Zac traded, once again refusing to take no for an answer. ‘We could have a lot of fun at Vitale’s royal ball. I’m sure you’d enjoy getting all togged up in a fancy designer dress as much as any woman.’

      ‘No, sorry,’ Freddie muttered, crushing down the temptation offered by that treacherous word, ‘fun’. For a split second, she considered the offer of a nanny’s help and then suppressed the idea again because, with Claire’s current mood, she did not want to risk rocking the boat. It was out of the question. Certainly not while Claire was currently saddled with a boyfriend flying out to Spain whenever he could to help his parents set up their new business. It would be the worst possible time for Freddie to start demonstrating a desire to fly free on her own behalf.

      Zac sank down beside her on the sofa, suddenly way too close for comfort, she told herself anxiously. Or was that prickling fullness in her breasts and the sudden tiny betraying burst of heat between her thighs a mortifying wish for him to get closer still? Colour bled up beneath her skin, heating her all over.

      ‘But that’s crazy,’ Zac argued.

      ‘You don’t know when to quit, do you?’ Freddie remarked in reproach. ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’

      ‘But I do,’ Zac parried with irrepressible enthusiasm, light eyes shimmering like stars in the dusk light. ‘I’d like to spend more time with you and I can’t understand why you would fight that when you want it too.’

      Eloise and Jack, Freddie reflected without speaking. ‘I don’t want to spend more time with you, though,’ she told him drily, running for her only possible escape hatch.

      ‘Why do you lie about it?’ Zac demanded with sudden lancing impatience.

      Freddie breathed in deep. ‘I’m not lying,’ she told him, looking back at him steadily, literally willing him to believe what she was saying.

      His big hands came up to cup her cheekbones, long controlling fingers sliding into her hair to fasten to her skull, and she couldn’t move an inch, brown eyes dilating with an enervating mixture of excitement and dismay.

      ‘Liar,’ he growled again.

      ‘Just because I won’t say what you want to hear doesn’t mean I’m lying!’ Freddie proclaimed in desperation.

      The silence between them smouldered as if someone had set it on fire, brown eyes clashing with volatile light grey condemnation, and then he took her mouth with a wild, seething passion unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was like being swept away by a tidal wave, like sticking a finger in an electric socket or hitching a ride on a rocket because one minute she was grounded, the next she was flying high on a hunger that consumed her with its ferocious urgency. Sensation roared through her trembling body with every delving exploration of his tongue. He lowered a hand to crush the slight pout of her aching breast and she almost spontaneously combusted inside the prison of her flesh, her body screaming for more while she kissed him back with both hands laced tightly into the luxuriant depths of his long black hair.

      In a sudden movement, Zac tore himself free, breathing heavily and raking a hand roughly through his tousled hair as he sprang upright again. ‘So, why do you lie about how I make you feel? What’s your game?’ he demanded rawly.

      ‘G-Game?’ she stammered blankly, focusing on the prominent bulge at his denim-clad groin, and then on the stray black hairs still caught between her greedily clutching fingertips.

      ‘Your agenda, because obviously there is one,’ Zac bit out. ‘Evidently it’s not money.’

      ‘No, it’s not,’ she agreed,

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