His Brand of Passion (5 page)

She sniffed, then took a deep breath. ‘Pull yourself together,’ she told herself as she unlocked the door to her building and kicked aside the drift of takeaway menus that always littered the floor. ‘You can do this. You’re strong. You’ve survived a lot.’

She thought of Tim and how devastated she’d felt then. Nothing, obviously, compared to what Millie had been going through at the same time, with the loss of her husband and daughter. Yet the aching loneliness of his betrayal and her inability to tell anyone reminded her of how she’d endured it; she’d got through, got stronger.

She could do this.

She headed up the five narrow flights of stairs to her tiny shoebox of an apartment; each step felt like a burden. How would she manage these stairs when she was nine months’ pregnant? Or with a pram? And what would she do for childcare, for
money?

Oh, God, what she was doing? She reached the top of the stairs and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, willing
the tears to recede. She’d never cried so much in her life before.

‘Zoe.’

She dropped her hands, shock icing through her, freezing her to the floor. Aaron stood in front of her door.

She looked terrible, Aaron thought. Her face was pale and gaunt, her hair stringy. And, even more alarmingly, she seemed near to tears, which he’d never seen before. He’d thought of her as strong, invincible, yet now she looked like she needed protecting. He felt a surge of concern, an unfamiliar emotion, and he took a step towards her.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Clearly not,’ she answered tautly. ‘But why do you care?’ Without another word she pushed past him and unlocked the door to her apartment.

Aaron stood there, feeling weirdly and horribly uncertain. He hated doubt, hated how it crept inside him and poisoned everything he believed and knew. He hated feeling it now, and with it another rush of guilt for the way he’d acted. Of course Zoe didn’t want to see or talk to him. He’d asked her—he’d offered to pay her—to get rid of their child. It had been an impulse born of desperation, but there was no going back from it. No forgetting, and perhaps no forgiving.

He’d realised that as soon as he’d seen the look of horror and shock on her face and knew he was its cause. He’d known what he’d done was unforgivable and he’d felt a sudden, cringing shame. Was he going to let his own fear control him that much? Was he going to be that weak, that cruel?

Now he stood in the doorway of Zoe’s apartment and watched as she shrugged off her coat. She tossed it onto a chair and it slithered onto the floor. Her shoulders slumped.

‘May I come in?’

‘Why?’ She straightened, tension radiating through her lithe body.

‘I want to talk to you.’

‘If you’re going to try to strong arm me into—’

‘I’m not.’ Aaron cut her off. ‘That was—that was a bad idea.’

She laughed dryly, the sound without humour. ‘Quite a confession, coming from you.’

‘May I come in?’

She shrugged wearily and turned to face him. ‘Fine.’

Aaron stepped into the apartment, blinking in the gloom until Zoe switched on a light. The place was tiny, just one rectangle of a room with a bed, a sofa, a dresser and a tiny kitchen in the corner.

‘I’m sure,’ Zoe said dryly, ‘it horrifies you to realise people live like this.’

He glanced at her, saw her eyes sparking with some of her old fire, a sardonic smile on her lips. ‘“Horrifies” might be too strong a word.’

‘This is actually quite a nice apartment,’ she informed him. ‘According to some of my friends. At least I don’t have to share.’

He stepped over some pyjamas that had been left on the floor and returned her coat to the chair. ‘I can’t imagine sharing a place this size.’

She watched him for a moment, her face without expression. ‘What do you want, Aaron?’ She spoke flatly, the fire gone.

‘I want to discuss our child.’

‘
My child
,’ she corrected. ‘I think you gave up any paternal rights when you offered me that money.’

Anger flared but he forced it down. ‘I told you, that was a bad idea.’

‘Oh,
well
, then,’ she drawled. ‘Never mind.’

All right, fine. Maybe he deserved this. He most assuredly did, but that didn’t make accepting it any more pleasant. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Zoe. I acted on impulse.’

‘Some impulse.’

‘I wasn’t prepared to be a father.’

‘I wasn’t asking you to be a father,’ she shot back. ‘I was simply informing you that you’d unknowingly donated some DNA. You don’t have to be involved in this baby’s life. Frankly, I don’t want you to be involved in this baby’s life. I think he or she can do without a dad like you.’

Aaron blinked, her words wounding him far more than they should have. They
hurt
. ‘Probably,’ he said in a low voice, when he trusted himself to speak. ‘I’ll probably be a pretty lousy dad.’ He certainly didn’t have any good experience to draw from. He took a breath, let it out slowly. ‘But I still want to be involved.’

Her jaw slackened and she stared at him with wide, dark eyes.
‘What?’

‘I want to be involved, Zoe. I regret my earlier…suggestion. I told you, you caught me by surprise.’

‘Remind me never to do that again, then.’

‘I said,’ Aaron said, hearing the edge enter his voice, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘And sometimes, Aaron, it’s just not that easy. I can’t forget. And I’m still not sure I want you involved.’

‘I could—’ He stopped, knowing a threat wasn’t the right choice now.

‘You could what?’ she filled in. ‘Take me to court? Sue for custody? With your money you’d probably win, too.’

Aaron said, his teeth gritted, ‘I’d just like to have a civil conversation.’

Her shoulders sagged then and she sank onto the sofa, her head in her hands. He resisted the entirely ridiculous and inappropriate impulse to touch her, offer her some kind of
comfort. He wouldn’t even know how. ‘Look, it’s probably all irrelevant anyway.’

‘Irrelevant? What do you mean?’

She glanced up at him, and with a jolt of alarm he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. ‘I had some bleeding,’ she said dully. ‘I might be having a miscarriage.’

Considering his earlier stance, Aaron knew he should be feeling relieved. But he didn’t. He felt…alarmed. Worried. Maybe even sad.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said and Zoe’s mouth twisted.

‘Are you?’

‘Yes, Zoe, I actually am. Can you just—please stop with the little barbed comments? For a little while, at least?’

She glanced down again. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Have you been to the doctor?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he say?’

‘
She
said there wasn’t much I could do right now. Nature will take its course.’

‘That’s not much of an answer.’ Frustration fired through him. He’d never been the kind of person just to let things happen. From the moment he’d discovered Bryant Enterprises was virtually bankrupt, he’d been striving to bring it back from the brink. Even though several financial advisors had told him to just let it go, he’d refused. He’d worked endlessly to put his family’s firm in the black and he’d work just as hard now. He didn’t give up. He didn’t
fail
.

‘There must be something you can do,’ he said, keeping his tone reasonable. ‘Stay off your feet, rest.’

She shrugged. ‘My life isn’t like yours, you know. I can’t just become a lady of leisure.’

He stared at her, thinking of her on her feet all day at the café, then tramping up five flights of stairs every night to
this awful apartment. ‘Actually,’ he said slowly, the idea just starting to take shape, ‘You could.’

Her brow wrinkled and she shook her head. ‘What do you mean?’

Aaron, decisive now that a solution had presented itself, said, ‘You could come and live with me.’

Z
OE STARED AT
Aaron, his words, his offer, seeming to echo through the apartment.

‘You’re joking,’ she finally said, and he shook his head, the movement brisk and decisive.

‘I told you, I don’t joke.’

She shook her head, everything in her rejecting what he’d suggested. ‘Aaron, we barely know each other.’

‘We’re going to have a baby.’

She hated the thrill that coursed through her at his words, at that treacherous ‘we’. ‘A baby you don’t want.’ His dark brows came together in a frown but he said nothing and Zoe sighed. ‘I’d drive you crazy.’

‘Probably, but I work long hours.’

‘So I’d drive myself crazy, wandering around your awful apartment all day long by myself.’

His incredulous gaze swept around her tiny studio. ‘My awful apartment?’

‘All that cold chrome and steel. It’s heartless.’

‘So the reason you’re objecting to this arrangement is my choice of decor?’

‘No, of course not.’ Zoe folded her arms, hating how he’d already got her on the defensive. Hating how a part of her, a terrible, treacherous part, actually already wanted to say yes. How stupid was that, when they obviously had no future?
When staying with him would surely make her crazy, stubborn heart start thinking and hoping for things that were impossible? Things she shouldn’t even really want? ‘It’s just not…practical.’

‘This—’ Aaron said, sweeping an arm around her apartment ‘—is not practical.’

Zoe bit her lip. ‘It probably won’t make a difference, anyway. I mean…what will be, will be.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s never been my philosophy in life.’

‘No, I didn’t think so.’

‘Zoe.’ He took a step towards her, his voice lowering in a way that made her want to shiver. ‘Admittedly, there is a chance a bit of bed rest won’t make any difference. But what if it did? Would you deny our baby that chance?’

Our baby
. She bit her lip harder so it hurt. ‘You’re blackmailing me.’

‘I’m just showing you reason.’

‘It’s not very fair.’

‘Why don’t you want to come live with me, have a few weeks’ holiday?’ He sounded exasperated now, as if he’d expected her to fall in with his plans far more quickly than this. ‘You can have your own bedroom.’

‘Given.’

‘And we don’t—We don’t even have to talk to each other, if you don’t want to.’

Zoe stilled. He sounded so oddly vulnerable then, so unlike the autocratic man she’d told herself she should despise. ‘I think I could handle talking to you.’ She relented, if only a little.

Aaron lifted an eyebrow. ‘So what’s the problem?’

So much for vulnerability. ‘Why are you doing this? Offering this? Because it’s about one hundred and eighty degrees from what you were suggesting a week ago.’

‘I know that.’ He pressed his lips together, colour slashing his cheekbones. ‘I’ve had time to think, and I’ve…re-evaluated my position on the matter.’

‘You’ve re-evaluated your position,’ Zoe repeated. ‘This isn’t a board meeting, Aaron.’

‘Will you come or not?’

She hesitated. Told herself this was a bad idea…for her. But it was a good idea for the baby. It was giving her baby—their baby—a chance. ‘I could just go to Millie and Chase’s,’ she said. ‘Or my parents’.’

‘You could.’

But she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to admit to them how desperate and alone she was. How she’d messed up…again. And she knew, no matter what she’d said to Aaron about emotional blackmail, she couldn’t deny her baby this chance. Working on her feet all day and living in a fifth-floor walk-up was not advisable with a threatened miscarriage. She got that. She felt the fear, the guilt. She closed her eyes, then opened them again. Nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll come. For a few days, though. Maybe a week.’ She said this as much for herself, because Aaron didn’t respond to her addendum.

He slid his phone out of his pocket and issued a few terse instructions. Then he glanced at her, his gaze taking in the tiny apartment. ‘You can pack whatever you need. My car will be here in five minutes.’

‘Five
minutes?’

A look of impatience crossed his features. ‘I have to get back to work. And the sooner this situation is resolved, the better.’ He turned away, scrolling through his messages as Zoe stood there, her mind whirling.
This situation
. That was what she was to him, she realised, what her—their—baby was. A situation. A problem he intended to solve as quickly and expediently as possible.

Swallowing, she turned and began to gather her things.

Sure enough, they were speeding uptown in his limo a matter of minutes later, Zoe’s lone suitcase stowed in the back along with her house plant and one of her paintings. Aaron had eyed them askance and Zoe had said rather defiantly that she would not live in his morgue of an apartment without some colour.

‘You can call the café where you work and give notice,’ Aaron said, his gaze still on the little luminous screen of his phone.

‘Give notice? It’s only a leave of absence.’

He shrugged. ‘Whatever. Either way I’ll cover the rent on your apartment, so you don’t have to worry about money.’

Zoe sat back against the seat, a new and different kind of nausea roiling through her. It might as well be her notice, she realised. Molly, the owner of the café, would have to hire a new barista while she was gone, and it wasn’t as if Zoe was so valuable she’d dismiss that person when she was ready to return. Besides, when
would
she be ready to return? The future stretched in front of her, alarmingly unknown.

‘I don’t want to just sit around all day,’ she said abruptly and Aaron glanced up from his phone.

‘Even if that’s best for the baby?’

‘Enough with the emotional blackmail,’ she snapped. ‘I work afternoons as an art therapist, sitting down, very lowenergy. I’m keeping that up.’

Aaron glanced at her in consideration before turning back to his phone. ‘Fine. I’ll arrange a car to drive you there and return you to my apartment.’

‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly, although she wasn’t even sure what she was thanking him for. This
situation
felt uncomfortably like a prison sentence. She’d be let out for a few hours, but then swiftly returned to her cell.

Yet she’d agreed. She’d willingly put herself in Aaron’s
hands and, as the limo pulled up to the high rise she hadn’t seen since that fateful night, she wondered why she had.

They didn’t speak as they rode the lift up to the penthouse and the doors opened directly onto Aaron’s apartment. Zoe walked through the cold, modern rooms and felt a prickling of discomfort lodge between her shoulder blades.

‘This brings back memories,’ she said lightly, because not saying it felt ridiculous, like refusing to acknowledge the elephant lumbering alongside them.

‘New memories will take the place of those,’ Aaron answered without emotion. ‘Let me show you your bedroom.’

It was right across from his, and just as sumptuous, with a king-sized bed, a huge plasma-screen TV and an en suite bathroom with a sunken marble tub and walk-in shower. Zoe imagined soaking in that tub and felt some of her reservations start to crumble. It would be heavenly to relax for a little while, to have a break from all the worry and fear.

‘Thank you,’ she said, turning to Aaron. He stood in the doorway, dark and unsmiling. ‘This really is very kind of you,’ she continued awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry if I haven’t seemed gracious.’

‘It’s a difficult situation. And I haven’t exactly handled myself with aplomb either.’ He set her suitcase down. ‘Why don’t you unpack? I need to return to work but I should be back around dinner time. Order whatever you like. There are menus in the kitchen, and you can just charge it to my name.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’

Then with a nod of farewell he was gone, and Zoe was left alone in the huge, barren apartment, her mind spinning as she wondered just what she’d got herself into.

She unpacked her few things as Aaron had suggested and then, because she was so tired and the tub looked so heavenly, she ran a huge, steaming bath and sank into the decadent bubbles with a blissful sigh.

Soaking in the tub she was reminded, suddenly and piercingly, of the night she’d spent with Aaron. After that first time on the rug he’d taken her to the bed, and then to the shower, soaped her everywhere, and then driven himself inside her while she had wrapped her legs around his waist…

Zoe closed her eyes as the memories assailed her and fresh, ridiculous desire coursed through her. She didn’t want to remember the overwhelming passion of that night. It could only confuse what was between them now, which was essentially a business partnership. At least, that was how Aaron seemed determined to conduct it, and Zoe told herself it was sensible. She didn’t want to get mired in feelings she had no business having for Aaron Bryant. No matter how great a lover he was, no matter how sweet his few and surprising moments of kindness, he was still, and always would be, an arrogant and autocratic jerk.

It felt weirdly disloyal to think that now, especially considering she was soaking in his bath tub as his guest for the foreseeable future. Yet Zoe knew she had to remind herself because, knowing her track record, if she didn’t she just might start to fall in love with him—and that would be really, phenomenally stupid.

Aaron couldn’t concentrate on his work, which was an irritating first. He was used to being able to focus completely on business; nothing else in his life even came a close second. Yet now, as he scanned the latest reports on the stock market in Asia, he found his mind drifting to Zoe. Wondering what she was doing. Was she watching TV? Taking a bath?

Instantly his body hardened as images flashed through his mind of Zoe in his tub with nothing but a few strategically placed bubbles popping slowly and revealing the soft, tantalising skin underneath—skin he’d touched, kissed, remembered the satiny feel of.

With effort he stopped that vivid montage from reeling through his head. Unhelpful; he didn’t want to think about Zoe as anything other than…what? His brain scrambled to compartmentalise her. He liked things tidy, in his control, yet nothing about this situation—about Zoe—felt that way. It had been messy and uncontrollable from the moment he’d met her, when she’d taken his phone and he’d responded by putting his hand up her skirt.

Sighing, Aaron raked a hand through his hair and tried to focus on the report in front of him. His mind had been spinning ever since that confrontation with Zoe in his limo. The look on her face when he’d made his cold-blooded offer. He cringed in shame at the memory, even as the aftershocks of surprise and even fear rippled through him. A baby. A father.

He’d never wanted to be a father. Never wanted to be that important to somebody—that critical. The opportunity to make a mistake, to
fail
, was too huge. And he knew first-hand the lasting damage a father could have on his son.

Yet over the last week he’d realised that, if Zoe was going to have this baby, if he was going to be a father whether he liked it or not, then he needed to be in that child’s life. Being completely absent was surely one way to guarantee what he didn’t want: to hurt an innocent child’s life through his own faults and weaknesses.

Aaron glanced at the clock. It was nearly six, which was still several hours before he usually left the office, and then just to work more at home. Yet today he found himself closing his laptop, packing up his attaché case and heading outside into the still-warm September evening.

The apartment was quiet when he entered, alarmingly so. Had she left? Decided she didn’t want to do this after all? And why did that thought alarm him so damn much?

Taking a deep breath, Aaron set down his case and
shrugged off his jacket. He hated feeling this uncertain. This…worried.

‘Hey.’

He turned to see Zoe coming out of the kitchen dressed in a T-shirt and yoga pants, her hair tousled and damp around her shoulders. She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ears. ‘I had the most decadent afternoon. I probably should feel guilty.’

Decadent? His mind was leaping to possibilities and images he had no business thinking of. ‘You came here to rest,’ he said, intentionally noncommittal and even gruff. But Zoe didn’t seem to notice and walked closer to him instead, so he caught the vanilla scent of her hair as she waggled her fingers in front of him.

‘I spent two hours in the tub. My fingers still look like prunes.’

Aaron took a step away. ‘I’m sure you’ll recover.’

‘I ordered Chinese for dinner. I know it’s completely stereotypical for a pregnancy craving, but I really wanted some pork lo mein.’

‘Your body must be craving MSG.’

She raised her eyebrows, a teasing smile curling her lush mouth. ‘Wait a minute, did you actually make a joke?’

‘A poor one, since the local Chinese place I order from doesn’t even use MSG.’ He took another step away from her, needing the distance. ‘I think I’ll go shower and change.’ Wrong thing to say, he realised immediately. It made it sound as if they were going to have a cosy night in, eating Chinese food and watching TV. How ridiculous. How
impossible
.

This whole situation was incredibly awkward, Aaron thought as he escaped to the shower. He’d offered his apartment to Zoe on impulse, because when he saw a problem and he wanted to deal with it immediately. He hadn’t considered how uncomfortably intimate it would be, sharing his living
space, seeing her freshly showered and talking about Chinese food…

The whole thing was absurd. And messy. The sooner Zoe had a clean bill of health and could go back to her own life…

Except when would that be? he thought suddenly, his hands stilling in the process of scrubbing his hair. If the pregnancy continued to term, his life would always intersect with Zoe’s in a most critical way. He needed to develop a plan. A strategy for the future. Except he had no idea what that could be.

First things first, he decided as he stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. He’d get through the next few weeks of uncertainty—Hell, first he had to get through this evening. Then he could think about what the long-term future for this unexpected family of theirs would be.