The Innocent Behind The Scandal - Abby Green Page 0,52

thought she saw a flash of something in his eyes, but she told herself she was imagining things. He reached out and ran a knuckle across her jaw. Her traitorous body sizzled with awareness.

‘I had fun, Zoe. More fun than I’ve had in a long time—I won’t deny it. But this was never going to go any further. I lost perspective for a short time. But better that it ends here. Now.’

Zoe’s brain wouldn’t work. She felt pain—incredible pain—deep inside. The kind of pain she’d only ever felt once before. The kind of pain she’d vowed never to feel again. Yet here she was. Being eviscerated.

Her instinct was to get away as fast as possible. Curl up into a ball and push the pain back down.

He got too close. He’s doing you a favour.

Somehow she managed to formulate words, to sound normal. ‘I think you’re right. Better for both of us to put this behind us and move on.’

Maks smiled, but it was a kind of smile she’d never seen before. Tight.

‘Goodbye, Zoe.’

He walked to the door, picked up a small bag and didn’t look back.

Zoe wasn’t sure how long she stood there, breathless from the speed at which Maks had ruthlessly cut her out of his life.

She walked over to the balcony and marvelled at how, within twenty-four hours, this view that had felt so full of promise and wonder now felt tawdry and mocking.

She turned back into the suite. Empty. No trace left of the man who had dominated it so easily.

No, his trace was left inside her. A wound that would be added to her other wounds and which would, in time, become a scar. But not visible, like the scars on her face. Invisible.

Anger rose inside her. Anger at herself. For stepping into the blazing centre of a fire that she had known would consume her.

She’d already learnt a lesson at the hands of Dean Simpson—a lesson in not letting herself be weak. How could she have let it happen again? So soon? So fatally?

Because Maks didn’t make you feel weak, said an inner voice.

He’d made her feel strong. Empowered. And yet even now she could hear Maks’s voice in her head, denying that he’d given her those things, those feelings. They’d been within her—all he’d done was encourage her to find them.

And he’d not held back from telling her what his life had been like. Why he had no interest in a relationship or anything more permanent. He’d been scarred too. Except, unlike Zoe, he’d not let himself get lost in a fantasy. He’d not let his innate weakness rise up to drown him. Again.

CHAPTER NINE

‘ARE YOU TAKING Nikos’s place in the tabloids now that he’s an apparently happily settled married man?’

Sharif’s tone was mocking. Maks curbed his urge to scowl at his older brother.

Downtown Manhattan was laid out all around them, visible through the huge windows, people were like industrious ants on the sidewalks. But it was wasted on Maks.

‘I hardly think a couple of photos in a few tabloids is up to Nikos’s standards. Or yours, I might add. You’re racking up quite the tally of kiss-and-tells. Not the best judge of women who can be discreet, hmm?’

Now Sharif did scowl. Not that it marred the handsomeness of his dark good looks. ‘Who is she, anyway?’

Maks bristled at his question. ‘You don’t need to worry about who she is. It’s over.’

Sharif cocked an eyebrow. ‘Pity. The board are still skittish, in spite of Nikos’s reformation. If you were to settle down too...?’

Maks waited for the inevitable sense of rejection that usually accompanied any suggestion or notion of permanence, but all he felt was hollow. Irritation made him say, ‘There’s as much likelihood of that happening as of you getting married.’

To his surprise, Sharif didn’t immediately rebut that statement. When Maks looked at him, his brother’s expression was one he couldn’t read. Almost...resigned.

Maks frowned. ‘Sharif?’

The expression passed as if Maks had imagined it. And a familiar mocking arrogance animated his brother’s face again as he said, ‘That’s enough gossiping, let’s get on with it.’

‘By all means,’ Maks responded, more than happy to focus on work.

A few hours later, in his hotel suite in Manhattan, Maks nursed a whisky as he looked out over the glittering lights of the city that never slept. He felt as if he might never sleep again. Restless under his skin. Hungry in his blood. For her.

He still wanted Zoe.

He’d never wanted a woman for longer than a brief period.

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