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'Want to tell me about it?' His arm slid comfortingly around her shoulders, and the sheer will-power that had carried her through the past two days finally deserted her. Zoe turned her face into his broad chest and let the tears fall.
Neither of them saw the powerfully built, black-haired man enter the lounge and stop just inside the door; nor did they see the look of devastation in his eyes before he turned and left.
Zoe pulled on her cut-off jeans and slipped a Lycra bandeau around her breasts. She found a large, brightly coloured bath-towel and slung it over her shoulder; she picked up a paperback, and a sun-block cream, then wandered out of the house on to the wide sundeck.
Her gaze swept along the sandy beach; a couple of joggers lifted their hands and waved. She waved back, a tiny smile lighting her huge eyes. She breathed deeply, relishing the scent of sand and the sea, the pacific rollers rhythmically lapping the beach—a soothing music to her trouble mind.
On arriving in America two months ago, she had gratefully accepted Wayne's offer of accommodation at his Malibu beach-house. He had listened to her tearful story of her ill-fated marriage, had comforted her, and in a more practical way had handed over to her the quite substantial amount of money in her trust fund.
She dropped the book and the sun lotion on the table, and the towel on a nearby lounger, before stretching her scantily clad body out on top of it. She had acquired a light tan in the past few weeks, but this was to be her last day in the Californian sun. Tomorrow she was moving to Maine. It was for the best; she had to make a life for herself—she placed a protective hand over her stomach—especially now that she knew she was pregnant.
Wayne was an extremely attractive man, and a true friend, but she had realised very quickly that she did not fit into the free-and-easy, party-going lifestyle that her parents had enjoyed and Wayne still pursued. She had been a teenager when she'd left America; she had returned from England a badly hurt, disillusioned young woman, and somewhere along the way she had fallen between the two lifestyles.
She was luckier than most—she had money—but her own pride and sense of self-worth would not allow her to sit around doing nothing for very long. She had to make a new start.
She liked Wayne, but over the last few weeks she had had a sneaking suspicion that he would not be averse to something more. She was finished with men for good, but she had no desire to lose Wayne's friendship, so, as tactfully as she could, she had told him that she was moving to Maine. Her excuse that the Californian climate was too hot for her he appeared to accept, and anyway she had gone to school in Portland; she loved the area.
Once Wayne had realise
d that she was serious he had done everything he could to help her. He had flown her up to Portland in his own private jet, and in a whirlwind drive up the coast she had fallen in love with the tiny village of Rowena Cove, situated on a spindly peninsula pointing out into the sea midway between Brunswick and Bath.
She had viewed and signed a lease on a lovely old white-painted, double-fronted eighteenth-century house. Dark green shutters framed windows that looked out over Casco Bay and the clincher for her had been a large, airy attic, fitted out as a studio.
Zoe stretched and yawned widely. The afternoon heat was wonderful but she was too fair to tan easily; she would have to go in shortly. She sat up and hitched up her top. Her clothes were packed and ready; the house she had leased was part-furnished and even had a daily housekeeper—a Mrs Bacon from the village—so she would not be entirely alone.
A shadow darkened her lovely eyes. Not so long ago she had thought that she would never be alone again; she had been a fool to herself, loving a ruthless, ambitious man: Justin. Simply thinking of him took all the sunshine out of the day. It still hurt. She had the horrible conviction that it always would. . .
Two days ago when the local medical centre had confirmed her pregnancy she had been elated and terrified in equal proportion. But, once she had recovered from the initial shock, reaction had set in.
In her heart of hearts she knew she should tell Justin- he was the father and entitled to know. She had even considered swallowing her pride and returning to England to try and make some kind of marriage for the sake of their unborn child.
But she was no longer the girl who had fled so hastily from England; she had had time to think, to absorb the pain of her husband's betrayal. She accepted that Justin did not, nor ever had loved her, and, thinking clearly and realistically, she dared not take the risk of returning to England.
Justin was a powerful man in the judicial system of the country, a high-flyer with all the right connections. If he decided he wanted the child and not her, she knew that if it came to a custody battle, she would not stand a chance, and she wasn't prepared to take the risk.
'So this is your hide-away.' The deep, melodious voice echoed on the still air.
For a second she thought she was hallucinating as her startled gaze fell on the man ascending the steps from the beach to the deck. Justin here? In California? She couldn't believe it. . .
But it was true. He stopped a mere foot away from where she sat frozen in shock. His brown eyes took in every detail of the way she looked—her long blonde hair falling around her face in a tangled mass, the skimpy green band around her full breasts, her cut-off jeans hanging low on her hips. She knew she looked a mess— bare-legged, barefoot and, if he did but know it, pregnant.
A guilty tide of red flooded up her face, but she tilted her chin defiantly and forced herself to withstand his insulting perusal, her own eyes cold as ice. 'A hide-away? I think not. . . You're here.' She was proud of her steady voice, but she had to clasp her hands together to hide their trembling.
He looked thinner, she thought. His thick black hair curled over the collar of a cream silk shirt, and a leather belt low on his hips supported matching chinos. He needed a haircut, she thought inconsequentially, but nothing could detract from his air of ruthless power nor his vibrant sexuality.
Except herself, she realised sadly, he had never had any trouble controlling his sexy body around her. . . Which only confirmed what she had been forced to accept when she'd left him. He had never really cared about her.
'Or should I call it a love-nest?' he sneered contemptuously.
'Love-nest?' she parroted, tearing her gaze away from his hard body. What on earth was he talking about? 'Are you off your trolley?'
'I must have been to believe in you, you wanton, adulterous little whore.' His dark eyes flared with rage, his Latin ancestry overcoming his usual, practised British restraint. 'My God! The man is even older than I am, and has apparently been lusting after you since you were a child. It's disgusting.'
Zoe caught her breath, a reciprocal anger flooding her veins. How dared he try to smear her simply to cover his own guilt? But, thinking fast, she guessed where he had got the perverted idea from immediately, and in a cold fury she challenged him.
'Ah! The valentine cards—the last one you claimed you had sent me. But then they do say an honest lawyer is hard to find,' she prompted sarcastically.
'Bitch.' He reached for her, his eyes savage, and for a second she was terrified, but she refused to show it.
