An Heir To Make A Marriage

Rose glared at Zac and the anger bubbling up inside her was projected easily onto his arrogant tone.

She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Not everyone has to bow down to the mighty Zac Valenti.’

Zac’s cheeks flushed with dull colour. ‘I don’t expect everyone to bow down to me.’

But they always will just because of who you are.

That wasn’t fair. Rose’s anger drained away. He was not the object of her ire. He was the object of something else—something much darker and hotter. And if she didn’t get out now... Panic made her jerky as she looked around for her small clutch bag.

She couldn’t see it, and she stopped and took a breath, looked back at Zac. ‘I’m sorry. But I just...really have to go.’

Something in his expression hardened—again that glimpse of a more intimidating side. Intractability.

‘You’re married? You have a lover?’

Shocked, Rose answered with affront. ‘No! Nothing like that.’

Now he folded his arms across his chest. ‘Then tell me, Rose, why do you have to run?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Because it might be approaching midnight, but I don’t think you’ll turn into a pumpkin when the clock strikes, and you still have both your shoes.’

Something weakened inside Rose—some resistance she was desperately clinging on to. Zac filled her vision, filled every sense with his sheer charisma and masculine allure. And all of it was fixated on her.

She heard herself admitting, ‘I don’t want to leave.’

His stern expression immediately relaxed. He uncrossed his arms and stepped close to her again, cupping her jaw with a hand. ‘Then don’t. Stay, sweet Rose. Stay with me for tonight.’

She looked up into fathoms-deep, clear blue eyes and fell headlong into a dream where she did stay, and spent one beautiful, illicit night with the most exciting man she’d ever met.

A seductive voice whispered over her feverishly hot skin. You can do this if you really want to...take this night and keep it your secret forever.

Just then a shrill sound pierced the thick silence. Rose blinked out of the fantasy being woven in her head and saw Zac’s face tighten with irritation as he plucked a small phone out of his pocket. He looked at the screen and issued a curse.

He glanced at her. ‘I’m sorry, I have to take this for a moment...it’s an important call I’ve been waiting for. But don’t move...’

The phone kept ringing—insistent. Zac was looking at her, commanding her to his will, waiting for her promise that she wouldn’t leave.

Rose finally said, huskily, ‘Okay...’

But as she watched him walk away from her, with that powerful, lithe grace, she knew she’d just uttered a lie. This was her last chance. She had to leave—now.

At least, she told herself as she found her bag and stole out of the apartment, she wouldn’t be adding any further transgressions to her already blackened soul. She wouldn’t be betraying this man.

And she would never see him again.

Her chest grew tight and she bit her lip hard in the lift on her way back down to the ground level—a not so subtle reminder of where she belonged in the world. Not in the lofty heights of fantasy land, but here on the streets, among the millions of other anonymous New Yorkers who never got to taste the rarefied world inhabited by people like Zac Valenti.

Rose left through the main lobby and sent up silent thanks that George, the doorman, appeared to be busy with other residents. He barely spared her a glance.

When she emerged into the street she saw Zac’s car and driver nearby and quickly took off in the other direction, hailing a cab. She knew what she had to do now.

When she returned to the Lyndon-Holt residence, she slipped in through the staff entrance and went straight to the staffroom, where she’d left her own clothes after dressing earlier.

When she’d changed, at the last minute she obeyed a rogue urge, packing up the beautiful sparkly dress, knowing that it was wrong. But it would be the only tangible reminder she would have of a beautiful night with a beautiful man when the possibilities had seemed endless—even if just for a moment.

She crept back out of the house, after leaving a note for Mrs Lyndon-Holt.

I’m sorry, the plan didn’t work.

I’m resigning with immediate effect.

A short while later, on the subway back out to Queens, Rose swayed with the carriage and clutched her bag close on her lap, telling herself that it was ridiculous to feel such a sense of loss. She’d met Zac Valenti and been bathed in the sun of his incredible aura like thousands of other women—for a brief moment.

She was nothing special to him. She’d intrigued him, that was all, with her gauche manners and unsophistication. She was doing the right thing. The only thing she could do. She wanted her father to get better more than anything, but not at the expense of playing with someone else’s life.

* * *

A week later Rose was walking home from doing some shopping with her fast-dwindling savings. Luckily she’d got a job working a few hours a week in a local health food store, but she would need other work—and fast—if she was to try and add to their health insurance so her father would be in with a shot to get on a waiting list for the operation he needed.

But that will take months, a small voice reminded her. Months he doesn’t have.

Rose willed down the panic. She could do this. She was young, healthy. Relatively strong. She would work five jobs if she could find them.

She didn’t regret walking away from her job in the Lyndon-Holt house. No way could she face that woman again. She felt tarnished even knowing what she’d agreed to, knowing what she’d almost done.

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she barely noticed the sleek black car crawling beside her and coming to a stop at the same time as she did when she went to cross the road.

A prickling sensation stopped her in her tracks, though, and she looked to see an all too familiar figure emerging from the back of the car, where the door was being held open by a driver.

As if conjured straight out of her thoughts by some nefarious alchemy, Mrs Lyndon-Holt stood resplendent in her designer clothes against the backdrop of the tired Queens street and said superciliously, ‘Won’t you join me in the car, Rose? I think we have some things to discuss.’

* * *

Hours later, dressed in a white shirt, black bow tie and knee-length black skirt, with her unruly hair in a neat bun on the top of her head, Rose held a tray of hors d’oeuvres aloft so that guests could help themselves.

Mrs Lyndon-Holt’s cold voice still rang in her head. ‘Do I need to remind you that you signed a legal document? I could sue you for breach of contract if you give up now.’

Rose had protested vociferously in the back of the car, to no avail. She’d even tried to convince the woman that Zac had asked her to leave.

The response to that had been, ‘If Zachary isn’t interested in you then why has he spent the week looking for you?’

Rose’s heart had palpitated, and she’d asked shakily, ‘How can you even know that?’

The other woman had waved a hand dismissively. ‘I know everything my son is involved in. Believe me. And he wants you.’

Stupidly, Rose had given herself away by saying, ‘He does?’

Mrs Lyndon-Holt had snapped impatiently, ‘Of course he’s interested, you stupid girl. By running away from him you’ve ensured his interest. Women do not evade Zachary Lyndon-Holt, and my son seems to have found your particular brand of unsophistication intriguing.’

As if Rose needed that reminder.