The Innocent Behind The Scandal - Abby Green Page 0,5

broken glass and he handed her an envelope. His rage was icy, but his face was even redder now.

‘Do you have any idea who that was?’

Zoe’s stomach sank. This wasn’t going to end well. ‘Unfortunately, I do know who that was.’

‘What on earth were you doing, tussling over a tray with him?’ He waved a hand, as if he didn’t even want to hear her answer, then said, ‘Maks Marchetti is one of the most important people in the fashion and luxury industry. And not only that, but his brother Nikos is here too this evening.’ He handed her an envelope. ‘I’m sorry, Zoe, but we can’t keep you on this evening—not after this. We won’t be contacting you again.’

Zoe’s mouth dropped open. She started to formulate her defence and stopped. Nothing she could say would reverse this. They wouldn’t forgive her for this public humiliation.

Before he left, Steven glanced at her hand. ‘You’re dripping blood everywhere. Clean yourself up, please, and leave.’ Then he swept out.

Zoe looked at her hand stupidly. At her cut finger. Numbly she searched for and found a first aid kit, and cleaned the cut and put a plaster on her finger, wincing as it throbbed. She welcomed the pain. Damn Maks Marchetti anyway. Now she really hoped she never saw him again.

But unfortunately that was not to be the case. When she stepped into the street from the staff entrance a short while later, she saw a sleek low-slung silver car by the kerb. The door opened and a man uncoiled his tall, lean body from the driver’s seat.

Maks Marchetti.

She started walking away, but he kept pace easily beside her. She was aware of her worn black trousers, white shirt—still damp from the wine—and her even more worn leather jacket. Flat shoes. Backpack on her back. She couldn’t have been less like one of the women in that glittering space. And why did that even matter to her?

She stopped and rounded on Maks Marchetti. ‘Look, what do you want now? I’ve been fired—isn’t that enough for you? The last time I heard, streets were public spaces, so I don’t think I’m actually infringing on hallowed Marchetti Group property now, am I?’ She stopped, surprised at the depth of emotion she was feeling.

Maks put up a hand. To her surprise, he looked slightly...sheepish. He lowered his hand. ‘I owe you an apology.’

Stupidly, Zoe said, ‘You do?’ And then she remembered what had happened. ‘Yes, you do, actually.’

‘I didn’t mean for you to get fired. I saw you across the room and I...’

Maks trailed off, rendered uncharacteristically inarticulate for the first time in his life. He hadn’t been able to get the woman in front of him out of his head for the past two weeks. She’d dominated his waking and sleeping moments.

When he’d spotted her across that room he’d been so surprised to see her that any kind of rationality had gone out of the window. He’d even forgotten that he’d come to the grudging conclusion that she wasn’t actually paparazzi.

The truth was that she’d got to him. On some visceral level. From the moment he’d seen her camera lens pointed straight at him, provoking an extreme reaction. Not everyone would have reacted the way he had. His brother Nikos would have smiled and posed.

For Maks, though, camera lenses represented an intrusion of his privacy, and he’d spent the last two weeks wondering if he’d massively overreacted. A knee-jerk reaction to old trauma.

Yet when he’d seen her this evening, the mere sight of her had sparked that visceral reaction again. A need to see her up close juxtaposed with a need to push her away. And this time she hadn’t even had a camera.

Because you took it.

Whatever it was about the way she made him react, he knew he couldn’t let her walk away again. As much because he owed her this apology as for other, deeper and less coherent reasons.

Because you want her, whispered an inner voice.

He ignored it. She’d taken her hair down, but it couldn’t hide her exquisite bone structure or delicate beauty. Or the scars. The one above her lip and the other one at her cheek. He wanted to reach out and trace them.

He curled his hand into a fist.

Abruptly he asked, ‘Why did you sneak into the fashion show in Paris if it wasn’t to take shots of celebrities and sell them?’

She swallowed. ‘Do you believe I am not paparazzi?’

He nodded once. ‘I looked through your photos. Street fashion