Anger spiked in Rose—anger that she was in this predicament with the one man she couldn’t have.
She pulled her arm free. ‘Because I’m not meant to be here.’
‘Says who?’
Rose glared at Zac and the anger bubbling up inside her was projected easily onto his arrogant tone.
She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Not everyone has to bow down to the mighty Zac Valenti.’
Zac’s cheeks flushed with dull colour. ‘I don’t expect everyone to bow down to me.’
But they always will just because of who you are.
That wasn’t fair. Rose’s anger drained away. He was not the object of her ire. He was the object of something else—something much darker and hotter. And if she didn’t get out now... Panic made her jerky as she looked around for her small clutch bag.
She couldn’t see it, and she stopped and took a breath, looked back at Zac. ‘I’m sorry. But I just...really have to go.’
Something in his expression hardened—again that glimpse of a more intimidating side. Intractability.
‘You’re married? You have a lover?’
Shocked, Rose answered with affront. ‘No! Nothing like that.’
Now he folded his arms across his chest. ‘Then tell me, Rose, why do you have to run?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Because it might be approaching midnight, but I don’t think you’ll turn into a pumpkin when the clock strikes, and you still have both your shoes.’
Something weakened inside Rose—some resistance she was desperately clinging on to. Zac filled her vision, filled every sense with his sheer charisma and masculine allure. And all of it was fixated on her.
She heard herself admitting, ‘I don’t want to leave.’
His stern expression immediately relaxed. He uncrossed his arms and stepped close to her again, cupping her jaw with a hand. ‘Then don’t. Stay, sweet Rose. Stay with me for tonight.’
She looked up into fathoms-deep, clear blue eyes and fell headlong into a dream where she did stay, and spent one beautiful, illicit night with the most exciting man she’d ever met.
A seductive voice whispered over her feverishly hot skin. You can do this if you really want to...take this night and keep it your secret forever.
Just then a shrill sound pierced the thick silence. Rose blinked out of the fantasy being woven in her head and saw Zac’s face tighten with irritation as he plucked a small phone out of his pocket. He looked at the screen and issued a curse.
He glanced at her. ‘I’m sorry, I have to take this for a moment...it’s an important call I’ve been waiting for. But don’t move...’
The phone kept ringing—insistent. Zac was looking at her, commanding her to his will, waiting for her promise that she wouldn’t leave.
Rose finally said, huskily, ‘Okay...’
But as she watched him walk away from her, with that powerful, lithe grace, she knew she’d just uttered a lie. This was her last chance. She had to leave—now.
At least, she told herself as she found her bag and stole out of the apartment, she wouldn’t be adding any further transgressions to her already blackened soul. She wouldn’t be betraying this man.
And she would never see him again.
Her chest grew tight and she bit her lip hard in the lift on her way back down to the ground level—a not so subtle reminder of where she belonged in the world. Not in the lofty heights of fantasy land, but here on the streets, among t
he millions of other anonymous New Yorkers who never got to taste the rarefied world inhabited by people like Zac Valenti.
Rose left through the main lobby and sent up silent thanks that George, the doorman, appeared to be busy with other residents. He barely spared her a glance.
When she emerged into the street she saw Zac’s car and driver nearby and quickly took off in the other direction, hailing a cab. She knew what she had to do now.
When she returned to the Lyndon-Holt residence, she slipped in through the staff entrance and went straight to the staffroom, where she’d left her own clothes after dressing earlier.