'Too right,' Victoria flashed back immediately.
'So our meeting for lunch or dinner on a regular basis— perhaps a couple of times a week, something like that, nothing heavy—whilst you insist on following your own star would seem a fairly reasonable compromise to you?' he said mildly. 'Yes?'
'What?' Victoria had the sudden nasty feeling that she had been outmanoeuvred by an expert. 'I haven't agreed to anything.'
'With a proviso that if you have any problems, of any description, it is me you call?' Zac added evenly.
This was not how it was supposed to go, Victoria told herself silently as she tried to gather her scattered wits together. He had never once shown any remorse about what had happened, and even, even in the unlikely event of his story about Gina being true he hadn't told her he was spending a good deal of money on an apartment for his ex-lover, let alone about the business deal with the Chigley-Brown faction and Coral. He hadn't talked to her, he hadn't consulted her—his secretary probably knew far more about his life than she did. Their marriage had been doomed from the start but she had been too blind to see it—he didn't want a wife, he wanted a puppet, but… Her hand went unconsciously to her stomach. There was more than the two of them involved now.
'I'm not ever coming back to you, Zac.' She hadn't meant it to sound so bald and cold but panic was uppermost again.
'I'm talking about dinner now and again, not bed,' he answered just as coldly. 'I want to keep an eye on my child, that's all.'
She was right to insist on this separation and divorce. Victoria lowered her long eyelashes to hide her expression from that piercing gaze that was able to read far too much. He could be so intimidating, so icy and distant—there were times when she wondered how on earth she had been so taken in by him during their pre-marriage days, when it had been all laughter and fun and excitement He was like two different men in the same skin.
But she still loved him and she couldn't escape from that fact. Perhaps it was the same with all men of Zac's magnetic personality? Lesser mortals were swept into their dark, consuming orbit like faintly glowing lights round a brilliant black star, until those lesser lights burnt fainter and fainter and then eventually died altogether, drained by a force that fascinated them even as it destroyed them?
He talked about compromise, but in essence he wanted to go on just the same as he had always done without a change in his lifestyle—a wife was probably rated as less useful than his business advisors, his directors, even perhaps his secretary?
'Tory, I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes.'
Her head shot up at the sound of his voice, soft and quiet now, with that thread of dark huskiness that had always had the power to turn her knees to jelly. She stared at him, her eyes dilated and her mouth slightly open, as the knowledge that he could read her mind, sense exactly what she was thinking, brought fear to the surface. He was a formidable adversary.
'I wanted to protect you from the seamier side of life—' was he saying his relationship with Gina was seamy? Victoria asked herself silently '—and the cut and thrust of business, that's all, but maybe that was wrong,' Zac said slowly. 'You were so young when we met, numerically as well as in experience, and I didn't want life touching you with its dark side. And it can be dark, Tory, as dark as hell itself. So—' he paused, his eyes tight on her white face '—I made decisions as I saw fit.'
'I'm not a child, Zac.' Victoria didn't know where the strength was coming from to speak so dispassionately when she was a quivering wreck inside, but she was thankful for it. 'I had a very short childhood as it happens; my parents saw to that. Cats and dogs were only a step up from children in nuisance value as far as they were concerned, and I learnt very quickly to behave and think like a small adult. I don't want my child—' again her hand splayed instinctively over the mound of her stomach '—to be brought up like that I won't have history repeating itself.'
'And you think I am like your parents, like your father?' Zac asked softly, his ebony eyes, with their thick black lashes, almost closed as they narrowed cm her violet-blue ones.
'Yes. No. Oh, I don't know,' she said nervously, the hot colour coming and going in her face. 'I feel like everything has changed, everything is topsy turvy, and I don't know anything except—'
'Except?' he prompted carefully. 'Come on, Tory, talk to me.'
'Except this baby is the first person who has really needed me, just as I am,' Victoria finished painfully. 'It can't live without me, I'm everything to it and it is everything to me. It's mine and…and I won't ever let it go. It's my flesh and blood.'
'It is mine too, Tory.'
It was said gently, and his voice was soft, but the steel thread of warning running underneath the mild words was reflected in his face. And it was true, she acknowledged bitterly. It was his.
They stared at each other for what seemed an age, and then he inclined his head towards her, his face straight as he said, 'I'll be in touch,' before opening the front door and stepping into the mews beyond. He shut the door gently without turning round.
Victoria continued to stand there for some minutes staring blankly into space, and then a determined and almost peeved kick brought her back to reality. 'What's the matter, Sweet-pea? Aren't I taking any notice of you?' she whispered brokenly, her fingers trembling as they stroked her softly rounded belly. 'That was your daddy laying down the law as usual, and he didn't even have his coffee, did he?'
She stumbled through into the sitting room, feeling as though she had been run over by a steam engine emotionally, and sat down in one of the chairs with a dispirited little sigh. She had never felt so confused and mixed up in all her life, she thought wearily. And she wasn't going to blame it on hormones either.
She loved Zac, and at times hated him with equal passion. She wanted him to have a part in his child's life, and at other times she wanted him to be at the other end of the earth and to never have the opportunity to set eyes on her baby once it was born. Now, was that normal? She shook her head at herself. She didn't know about the maternity wing of the hospital—she'd be ending up in the psychiatric ward if she wasn't careful.
The brief moment of humour helped, enabling her to rise from the chair and pad through into the kitchen where she stood staring at the massive bouquet for a full minute. Zac, oh, Zac… She didn't realise she was crying until a tear dripped onto her hand. How could you even begin to understand a man like him? One minute fire and brim-stone, the next arriving on her doorstep with flowers and a winning smile that would get him anything.
Only it hadn't And now her mouth straightened as she reached for a piece of kitchen roll and dried her eyes determinedly. And it mustn't, she told herself grimly. It wasn't just her future they were considering here—there was someone far more important than her and Zac in all of this.
She wanted the warmth and security of a peaceful loving home for her child, and if that meant living with one parent, with visits to the other, then, awful though that was, she'd do it She would. She drew her chin down into her neck as she stared ahead doggedly. It wouldn't be easy of course, talking of which… She still had to tell her mother the good tidings.
CHAPTER SIX
Coral took the news of her imminent grandmother status even worse than Victoria had feared, which had been pretty bad.
'You've done this just to spite me, haven't you?' Coral's red-tipped talons gripped the edge of her wine glass so tightly, the stem snapped, spilling expensive red wine over the white linen tablecloth at the exclusive little restaurant Victoria had taken her mother to. Her generosity had an ulterior motive—Victoria knew her mother well enough to gauge that Coral wouldn't dream of causing a scene at Chaucer's. Although she hadn't reckoned on the wine glass, she thought now as she watched Coral play the gracious lady while the waiter mopped up and replaced.