Zoe and the Tormented Tycoon (13 page)

Max stretched his legs out and sipped his coffee while Zoe nursed her glass of water, wanting to make the moment last.

‘So how did you make your millions, then?' she asked a bit pertly, and was gratified to see a flicker of a smile in return.

‘I'm brilliant, of course,' he replied drily, and she let out a surprised laugh. ‘And I will confess to a bit of luck. I made the right investment at the right time.'

‘More than once, I should think.'

Max acknowledged her remark with a nod. ‘A few times.'

‘Do you like what you do?' It was an impulsive question, and Zoe watched as Max gazed almost somberly into his coffee mug.

‘Yes,' he said after a long moment. ‘I like it very
much.' He glanced up, his eyes narrowing slightly even though he smiled. ‘And what about you, Zoe? Do you like what you do?'

Zoe smiled ruefully, keeping her voice light. ‘You mean shopping and partying and spending my…my father's money?' She stumbled ever so slightly over the word.

‘If that's what you do,' Max said after a moment. His head was cocked to one side, his expression alert and yet also approachable.

She took a sip of water, suddenly self-conscious, unprepared for honesty. ‘It's what I've always done,' she finally said with a shrug, and even managed a little laugh. ‘I suppose I can't imagine doing anything else.'

‘You suppose?' Max repeated, one eyebrow arched. ‘Aren't you sure?'

She looked up. ‘I thought you said last night I had plenty of time to figure out what I want to do with my life.'

‘A few questions could get you started,' Max returned with the hint of a smile. ‘What did you want to be when you were a little girl? A ballerina?'

She laughed ruefully. ‘No, I'm afraid I'm way too clumsy for that.'

‘You weren't clumsy when we danced,' Max said quietly, and Zoe felt her heart contract as if a giant fist were squeezing it.

‘No, but we were barely moving,' she said after a moment. ‘That's about as much dancing as I can manage.' She kept her voice light even though her whole body hummed with the memory of that dance, and swayed instinctively as if she could still hear the lonely wail of the saxophone.

‘Well, then,' Max asked. ‘Did you want to be a rock star?'

Zoe rolled her glass, beaded with moisture, between her palms. ‘When I was little, I wanted to be a scientist actually.'

Max raised his brows. ‘A scientist? That's not what most little girls dream of.'

Zoe gave a reluctant little laugh. ‘No, it isn't. But I loved science—I used to sit in my…my father's study and read his encyclopedias.' To her embarrassment, her throat was tight with an emotion she couldn't even name. Somehow she made herself continue. ‘I loved the entries about exotic plants. I used to memorise facts to tell my sisters at the dinner table.' She paused. ‘They thought I was making it up.'

‘Why would they think that?' Max asked softly.

Zoe shrugged. ‘I'm not very bright. I barely scraped through my GCSEs, to tell you the truth. University was quite beyond me.' She turned away, her cheeks flushing with the remembered shame, as well as the new humiliation of Max knowing. She didn't like to admit she'd as good as failed out of school—and an exclusive boarding school at that! She still remembered her science teacher saying kindly, ‘Some girls aren't meant for university, Zoe. You have other talents…'

And so she did. She was
particularly
talented at having a good time.

‘I'm sorry,' Max said quietly. ‘It hurts to have a childhood dream taken away.'

He sounded as if he spoke from experience, and it made Zoe curious. ‘What about you? What did you want to be when you grew up?'

‘A soldier,' Max said, and his voice sounded a bit flat. ‘Always a soldier.'

‘And you were as good as, in the air force.'

‘I discovered the beauty of flying when I was fourteen,' Max admitted. A smile flickered across his face, lightening the moment. ‘My friend's father took us out in his little
biplane.' His voice sounded faraway and wistful, lost in memory. ‘It was magical, soaring above the clouds, away from everything. I didn't want to ever come down.'

Away from everything…
What had Max been escaping? Zoe wondered. His description of flying reminded her of her own escape of choice, into the books in her father's study. And then later, when her form of escape had been the endless social circuit. When you were so busy having a good time, you didn't have to think. She'd hidden from her self—from her
lack
of self—for years.

The realisation shocked her. She knew she'd been running away ever since the news of her birth broke; she hadn't realised until now that she'd been running long before that. Running from disappointment, from fear, from a sense of failure that she hadn't seemed to turn out the way she'd wanted to. Meant to. That little girl who curled up in her father's armchair and dreamed about discovering things…knowing things— Where had she gone? And, Zoe wondered sadly, could she get her back?

‘Flying sounds wonderful,' she said quietly. ‘Do you think you'll fly again?'

‘No.' This was said with such matter-of-fact certainty that Zoe sat back, a little startled.

‘Never?'

‘No. Never.' They both fell into silence, and then Max leant forward, a look of bleak determination on his face, harshening his features. Zoe's breath dried in her throat. She knew instinctively that they were both poised on a new threshold, that Max was about to say something…tell her something. The knowledge of it crackled in the air and she felt a thrill of trepidation, a tremor of fear, at what he might say. The look on his face heralded nothing good. ‘Zoe…'

‘Yes?' she whispered after a long moment when Max
didn't speak, even though his whole body was tense, as hers was, with expectation.

‘I need to tell you…' He stopped, and a look of uncertainty passed over his face like a shadow before it was replaced by a grim determination. He reached for her hand, and they remained silent, sitting, joined by their fingers. Even as she drew comfort from his touch, a wave of dread was rolling through her.

‘Max…?' Zoe whispered, and heard a wobble of uncertainty in her own voice. What was Max going to say? Zoe was suddenly startled by a shaft of fearful realisation that, whatever it was, it could change everything. And not in a way she wanted or was ready for. Without even considering what she was doing—or its consequences—she gave a light little laugh, the sound like the striking of crystal. ‘Max, you look positively grim. Surely it can't be that bad?' She smiled, tilting her head to one side, and for a moment Max looked as if he'd been struck, as if she'd somehow hurt him. And Zoe knew she had; she'd defused the tension of the moment because it had been too much for her, and kept Max from saying whatever terrible thing he'd been going to say.

A look of almost relief softened his features and darkened his eyes, and he shook his head. ‘No,' he said quietly, rising from the table. ‘It's nothing. Nothing at all.'

Zoe watched him walk away, regret swamping her. She was so weak, she thought savagely, and afraid. Her father was wrong; she
wasn't
strong. As much as she sought Max's confidences, wanted to know his heart, she also feared she wasn't strong enough to bear up under yet another rejection.

‘I need to work,' Max said, pausing by the doorway, and Zoe didn't think she was imagining the bleak note in his voice.

‘Fine,' she'd said as brightly as ever. ‘I'll do the washing up since you made the breakfast.'

Max paused. ‘Thank you,' he said finally, and walked stiffly from the kitchen.

Disconsolately Zoe gazed at the dirty plates and cups and wondered how, when only moments before she'd felt so wonderful, she now felt so utterly flat.

 

‘You want to what?' Max's fingers stilled on the handle of his telephone. He'd just been about to make a call; he did all his business by phone these days, using the radio and the voice-activated software on his computer to keep him up to date and fully functional. He dropped his hand and sat back in his chair, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head so he could see as much of Zoe as possible.

She stood in the doorway of his study, wearing something floaty and pink, her hair a blonde cloud around her face. He couldn't tell much more, but even so his gut clenched with an unexpected spasm of desire and he remembered the taste and touch of her last night—how her lips had felt against his, so soft and sweetly pliant, her body curling naturally into his.

Max forced the memories away. Whatever had happened last night, this morning had tainted it, destroyed any sense of hope Max had been nurturing that he and Zoe could have something. Build something together. The way she'd shied away from even the possibility of truth had hammered home the realisation of who she was. Who he was.

‘I want to go into town.' Her voice was light, bright and airy. ‘See a bit of this place. Or were you planning on keeping me shut up here while you beavered away in your study?'

‘We've been here one day,' Max said, an edge to his voice. ‘I hardly think you're shut up.'

He felt her shrug, heard the slide of fabric against skin. ‘Still, Max, if we're going to get to know each other…' She trailed off, whether in innuendo or uncertainty Max couldn't say. ‘Find a way forward…' she finished quietly, her voice sounding small.

Max looked away.
Was
there a way forward? He'd felt hope this morning, felt a freedom in knowing Zoe had seen him in his weakness and had not turned away. Yet still, they hadn't spoken of that night—both of them were complicit in the lie, acting as if it hadn't happened at all.

And it might as well have not happened, for the despair he felt now, as he squinted to see and wondered how on earth he could tell her the truth. The truth terrified him; what would it do to Zoe?

He'd tried to tell her this morning; he'd started to, at least. Then he'd seen her false smile, heard that crystalline laugh and knew in his gut she didn't want to hear. She wasn't ready. And why should she be? They didn't know each other well enough to have their relationship—if they even had one—tested so severely. What could a woman like Zoe, a woman so clearly used to the finer,
fun
things in life, do with a man like him? She'd been determined to have him involved in their child's life; would she want as much when she learned what he was and how little he was capable of?

She wouldn't have a choice.

He would not allow her to deny him his child.

His own childhood had been stark and hard enough. He wanted more for his own son or daughter. He wanted to give more. And yet even so, he wondered how on earth they could find that way forward. The thought of attempting some half-life with a woman who could only pity him made both rage and hurt boil up inside him.

Never
.

Max swallowed and forced his gaze back to Zoe. He heard a sigh, a tiny, breathy sound, one of impatience and perhaps even sorrow.

‘You want to go to town,' he said slowly.

‘Yes.'

Max tapped a pen against the burnished wood surface of his desk. Scrambling eggs this morning had been hard enough. He'd acted on instinct, simple movements, yet so achingly, agonisingly difficult. His body had been taut, his nerves frayed by the unfamiliarity of the tasks, the complexity of such simple procedures. He'd wanted to do something, to prove to Zoe and to himself that he was capable.

Of what? His mind mocked now. Making breakfast? And was that really going to impress Zoe, when the thought of walking through town, encountering all sorts of unexpected obstacles, people,
things
, terrified him? An uneven step, an open door? Who knew how he might reveal and humiliate himself?

‘Well?' Zoe asked, and Max forced himself to smile.

‘All right,' he said, rising from his desk. ‘We can go to town.'

 

The village of East Hampton was quaint in a wealthy, intentional way; Zoe couldn't help but admire the trendy yet tasteful boutiques, the handcrafted wooden signs, the strategically placed coffee shops. Yet even so, as she walked along the pavement past shingled shops with their cloyingly quaint picket fences, tension reverberated through and radiated from her body. Since the limo had dropped them off in the centre of town, Max had been acting like a man being slowly and excruciatingly tortured.

He walked next to her, his posture stiff, every step a
military march. His face was blank, his eyes dark, his jaw so tight Zoe wondered if it might snap.

For heaven's sake, she thought in annoyance, was walking through town with her such an imposition? Max didn't look as if he was irritated or bored; he looked worse. He looked as if he was in
pain
.

Was
he in pain? Zoe wondered. How hurt—how wounded—was he still from his accident? Was that what he'd been going to tell her this morning? She didn't know if she had the courage to ask the questions or, more importantly, to know the answers. Just like this morning, her mind shied away from such thoughts, and her own cowardice shamed her. How could she expect to have any kind of future with Max if she wasn't willing to face the truth, however hard it might be? And yet despite this ignorance, she still felt irritated—and hurt, perhaps unreasonably so—by his cold, stiff demeanour.

She found herself determinedly making up for his own stoic silence, chatting and even flirting with every male they came across, trying on outrageous hats and filmy wraps, batting her eyelashes and letting her perfect, cut-glass trill echo through shop after shop as Max stood stiffly by the door, unwilling to enter, looking as if he were suffering the ninth circle of hell.

Or maybe
she
was. She certainly wasn't enjoying herself, despite every indication she gave to the contrary. Zoe knew she was falling back on old tactics, her old self. She wanted to provoke a reaction from Max, childishly so. She needed to see—feel—something from him. She also knew that she fell back on these old habits because she didn't know how else to act. Who else to be? The realisation annoyed and shamed her. She wanted, she realised, to change. She wanted to recapture that curious little girl in
the armchair; she wanted to discover her hidden strengths and talents.