When Zac walked into the kitchen, she was munching on a half-cooked oven chip, and in shock at his sudden appearance she almost swallowed it whole. He looked so achingly familiar in black jeans and a dark green shirt that accentuated every lean line of his muscular physique. And she looked such a mess. Stupid to care about that, a little voice sniped inside her, but she did care at being caught without make-up with her hair in her mess and wearing her oldest clothes.
‘I thought it was time I came for a visit,’ he told her, his gaze roaming over her very slowly as though he didn’t quite recognise her, and probably he didn’t because she looked dreadful.
‘You should’ve phoned, given me some warning. I hope you’ve eaten already because we’re out of food,’ she told him shakily, battling to steady herself and rise to the challenge of greeting Zac as if he were merely an old friend.
‘How can you be out of food?’ he demanded, and she explained about her not being able to drive and Jen being ill and Izzy off while his lean, darkly handsome face grew more and more grim.
About then she noticed the silence and peered out of the door. ‘Where are the builders?’
‘I told them to pack up for the day.’
‘Oh...’ Freddie could think of nothing to say to that, beyond, ‘Maybe the water’s back on!’
And mercifully it was, she discovered by dint of turning on a tap. By then Zac’s presence had drawn Eloise and Jack and they threw themselves at him as if he had been absent for weeks rather than days. He produced a bag from the hall behind him and dug into it to bestow a fluffy unicorn on Eloise, her latest craze, and some kind of robot ball that was self-propelled, and which Jack immediately went off to chase round the room.
‘I want to forget about the agreement we made before we married,’ Zac informed her.
‘But why?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘Because I’ve changed and I’m hoping you’ve changed too.’ Zac rested his stunning eyes on her, thinking that she looked frazzled and feeling guilty because he had allowed that to happen when he was responsible for her well-being.
‘What way have you changed?’ she asked nervously.
‘You changed my priorities. I don’t want my freedom back. I’ve had ten years of complete freedom and it didn’t bring me half as much happiness as you and the children have in two months. Two months of you wasn’t enough,’ he added, in case she had still not caught his drift because she was staring back at him with an expression as blank as a clean page.
‘So...er...’ Thoroughly confused by that speech, because her tired brain was malfunctioning, Freddie fumbled for words. ‘You don’t want a divorce any more?’ she checked.
Zac lunged at the oven as the smell of burning assailed him, and grabbed up a dishcloth to pull a smoking selection of burning nuggets out of the oven.
‘Auntie forgot them again,’ Eloise told him forlornly. ‘I’m hungry but now they burnt.’
‘No problem.’ Zac dug out his phone and spoke to his bodyguards. ‘We’ll order in tonight. What would you like, meu pequenino?’
‘Anything,’ she framed, too tied up in noticing that he hadn’t answered her question about the divorce he had originally planned. ‘But there isn’t much choice of takeout round here.’
‘Marco will find us something. We won’t go hungry,’ Zac declared, gathering Eloise up in his arms. ‘Now, why don’t you go and get some rest while I look after these two?’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Yes, you can. You’re ready to pass out standing up and you shouldn’t be in that condition,’ Zac told her censoriously. ‘You’re supposed to be looking after yourself but, by the looks of it, you’re not doing it very well.’
‘Always the soul of tact!’ Freddie snapped back at him, her colour roused, her brown eyes angry. ‘I have bad days and good days and this has been one of the bad ones.’
‘Which is why you need to lie down and let me take care of things,’ Zac interjected impatiently.
The nagging tiredness that Freddie realised was a feature of early pregnancy, and which reduced her brain to mush, pushed Freddie up the stairs to the bedroom. He would ensure the kids ate and for one night it really didn’t matter if they went to bed in the wrong pyjamas or he let them eat unhealthy stuff. But, exhausted as she was, she still trudged into the bathroom. She turned on the shower to check that both water supply and heating element were functioning before she washed herself from head to toe, slowly mulling over what Zac had said. Did the three of them make Zac happy? Had he missed them? Or had he simply missed the constant supply of sex? Was it possible that he had changed?
She fell into bed with hair that was still damp and thought about how she had changed. She had been so sure that she could keep control of her emotions and yet she had failed dismally. She had changed, learning what it was like to love someone even if she hadn’t realise that she had loved him at the time and then learning what it was like to lose him again. She must’ve loved Zac when she’d offered him that annulment because she hadn’t been able to bear the idea of him feeling trapped and unhappy in their marriage. Unable to reach a conclusion, she let sleep take over.
When she wakened again, it was dark outside and the bedside lamp was lit. Zac rose from the chair in the corner. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘I’ll bring you something.’ And he was gone and clattering down the stairs before she could say another word.
She checked her watch. She had been asleep for hours. It was after eleven now and Zac was still on the premises, which meant that he was definitely staying the night. Her hopes rose exponentially and by the time he came back upstairs with a tray she was able to smile more normally at him. She looked down at the perfectly presented steak and salad in surprise.
‘Marco. He used to be a chef,’ Zac explained. ‘He couldn’t find a decent takeout place, so he bought food and cooked it for all of us, including Jen.’
Freddie picked up her knife and fork. ‘Do you or do you not still want a divorce?’ she demanded bluntly.
Zac leant back against the wall by the door. ‘Don’t...don’t want to lose you,’ he extended with precision.
‘And when did this change take place?’ Freddie asked helplessly, because she was afraid to believe in what he was saying. ‘Only a few days ago, you were telling me that—’
‘I didn’t know I’d changed until you walked out. I wasn’t exactly on the ball with that,’ Zac conceded with a sardonic twist of his mouth that could have signified embarrassment. ‘I was just sailing along from day to day with you, perfectly happy, and then you exploded me out of my comfort zone.’
‘By telling you that I was pregnant?’ Freddie prodded.
‘No, by leaving me,’ Zac emphasised. ‘I want you back. I have this big Freddie-shaped hole in my life and nothing other than you will fill it. I’m sorry that it took me so long to realise how I felt about you, but I was enjoying myself far too much with you to waste my energy psychoanalysing my...er...emotions.’
Freddie tried hard not to smile. ‘And how long did it take you to work out that little speech?’
‘The whole trip here,’ Zac admitted with a grimace.
Freddie bent down to set the tray on the floor, her appetite having receded. She rested back against the pillows and surveyed him. He was nervous, long brown fingers clenching and unclenching, his glorious eyes intent on her. ‘And how do you feel about me?’
‘I love you. I’ve never said that to a woman before. I’ve never felt what you make me feel and I want to hang onto it with both hands,’ he confessed in a driven undertone. ‘I have a question for you.’
‘No, if you tell me you love me, you have to throw yourself on the bed and kiss me passionately,’ Freddie instructed gently. ‘Then you can ask all the questions you like.’
An unholy grin lit up Zac’s unusually sombre features and he stalked as fluidly as a jungle cat across the room to throw himself down on the bed with alacrity. ‘This is wh
y I love you. You always say the right thing at the right time...like asking me to do what I want to do anyway.’
Freddie leant primly forward, keeping the duvet locked beneath her arms, as if making it clear that a kiss was all she was offering. His big hands spread across her cheekbones, his beautiful eyes full of tenderness. ‘You don’t believe me yet, do you?’ he guessed.
‘I’m working on it,’ she mumbled, and then he kissed her and she fell into that kiss like ice cream sliding down a hot griddle, both hands clutching the front of his shirt as if she would never let him go again. She tasted him and savoured him, her head falling back as he ravaged her mouth with all the hunger she welcomed.
‘So that question...’ Zac dragged out the last word, his attention welded to the lush, inviting line of her swollen mouth. ‘Did you walk out because you assumed that that would make me happy? Or were you teaching me a lesson?’
‘I thought it would make you happy and cut out the emotional awkwardness of you having to tell me you wanted a divorce at some point. I really wasn’t trying to teach you a lesson.’
‘Even though I deserved it after all the times I told you not to fall in love with me? Please tell me you didn’t listen. Please tell me that you feel the same way and that I can keep you for good,’ he breathed raggedly.
‘Yes, I love you, of course, I do,’ she soothed him, running a gentle fingertip along the tense and vulnerable line of his full lower lip. ‘I really, really love you and I want to be with you for ever.’
He tasted her ripe pink mouth with sexy, hungry brevity and gazed down at her with devouring crystalline eyes.
‘No, we can’t,’ she told him as if he had asked a question, scanning his lean, darkly handsome features with a heady combination of longing and admiration. ‘Later.’
‘Why do we have two nannies?’ Zac breathed in exasperation.
‘We have your family here. Right now, we’re hosts and we are not sneaking off like randy teenagers,’ she declared. ‘Lift a beer and be sociable round the barbecue instead.’
‘I want you so much,’ Zac husked in Portuguese and she could feel her bones turning to water, but at the same time she was also remembering the cracks the last time they had disappeared at such an event and the ensuing embarrassment. Sadly, Zac didn’t get embarrassed about stuff of that nature. ‘And I promise to make you very, very happy.’