grew hot. ‘This isn’t the same.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s worse.’
His voice was like the crack of a whip. Zoe’s insides were clenched so tight she almost had a cramp.
‘I know how much you hate your privacy being invaded. You know me...you know I would never do something like this.’
Maks just looked at her, no expression on his face. Those silver eyes cold as mercury.
‘I thought I did. I thought you were an open book. I thought you were different. But you weren’t at all. I knew you weren’t happy when I broke things off,’ he continued. ‘But I had no idea you’d stoop so low to get back at me. Or that you were so mercenary. You had me fooled with your apparent lack of interest in anything material. Your humble but cosy flat.’
Zoe flinched inwardly. How could he think that had all been an act? But her conscience pricked hard. In a way he was right. It wasn’t the whole truth of her existence. But Maks would never want to hear about that. Not now.
All she could say was, ‘I didn’t do this.’
Maks stood up straight, folded his arms. ‘Stop with the lies, Zoe. They make fools of both of us. We know the money went into an account in a bank right beside where you live.’
Zoe stared at Maks, absorbing his words. Shock, dismay and confusion made her head throb. Who could have done this to her? To him?
Maks’s arms were locked so tight across his chest that Zoe could see his biceps bulging under the thin material of his shirt. The blood quickened in her veins. Even now, in the midst of all of this, when he was looking at her as if he wanted to—
His lip curled. ‘Take the grubby money that you got from the papers and get out. You won’t get anything more from me, so if that’s why you came it’s a wasted journey.’
‘Maks, I swear. I didn’t—’ But she stopped talking. Maks was a cold, remote statue. Not interested. Convinced of her guilt.
She felt incredible hurt that he could be so quick to misjudge her.
‘Get out,’ he said. ‘I never want to see you again.’
Something cracked apart inside her, breaking into a thousand pieces. She’d thought she’d protected herself so well, but she hadn’t protected herself at all.
It took a few seconds for the red haze to fade enough in Maks’s head for him to realise that Zoe had left. For a stomach-plummeting second he thought he might have actually imagined that she’d come here, that she’d stood in front of him protesting her innocence. Hair down. Those scars visible against her pale skin. Her eyes as big as he remembered. Her mouth as lush. As tempting.
No.
He unlocked his arms from his chest and unclenched his jaw. She had been here. He could smell her scent in the air and had to resist the urge to breathe it deep.
He picked up his glass and drained it in one gulp. He didn’t even wince as it flamed down his throat. He barely felt it. His fingers gripped the heavy crystal so tightly he had to relax them for fear of cracking it.
His skin still crawled when he thought of the look on his executive assistant’s face that morning when he’d arrived at the Marchetti offices shortly after dawn—and the fact that he hadn’t been sleeping well for the past few weeks was not something he wanted to associate with the women who had just left.
His assistant hadn’t been able to meet his eyes as he’d cleared his throat and said, ‘Have you seen the papers yet, sir?’
Maks, feeling irritable, had replied, ‘No. Why?’
‘There’s something you should see.’
His assistant had laid out a sheaf of the main tabloids on his desk and it had taken Maks a moment even to understand what he was looking at. Himself. Naked.
His first reaction hadn’t even been anger. Or shock. It had been to remember that morning, with the sun coming up on the Grand Canal in Venice, the breeze cooling his overheated body. The sense of contentment and sensual satisfaction that had oozed through him. Along with that delicious pique of anticipation.
The picture in the papers had captured that moment when he’d looked around and caught Zoe with her camera raised to her face. He’d smiled. Not minding in that first instance that she was taking his picture. And then reality had hit like a bucket of cold water. He’d realised just how lax he’d been. How