‘You were locking the back gate after someone’s swift exit this morning,’ he reminded her. ‘I was just curious as to what kind of guy scarpers fast instead of hanging around to offer you support.’
The idea of a heavily pregnant Susie staying around to defend her against this man brought a smile to Zoe’s lips. She’d had her share of boyfriends, of course—she was reasonable to look at and popular—but in truth there had never been anyone special in her life, at least not anyone she had felt passionate enough about to lose her head over.
Not that she was about to tell Anton Pallis that. ‘I don’t think my personal life is any of your business,’ she murmured.
‘It is if he’s willing to sell the inside story about your personal life.’
He was referring to pillow talk, Zoe realised, and how much information she would have confided to a lover about her family skeletons—namely Theo Kanellis.
‘What about the woman in your life?’ She threw the question back at him. ‘Is she likely to sell her kiss and tell story?’
As a counter response, it earned her a slow smile. ‘I don’t confide intimate family secrets, and anyway I asked first.’
‘Well.’ She did not like the way her insides responded to that smile. ‘Neither do I. And if there was a man in my life before I climbed into this car with you, then I should imagine he’s decided he’s been pushed out of the running.’
‘Because he knows he can’t compete with my fabulous good looks and overall sexy charm?’
He was teasing her, goading her to shoot him down. The problem was that he did have fabulous good looks and loads of sexy charm. ‘I was thinking more on the lines of your wealth—and Theo Kanellis’s, of course—money giving you both way too much clout for most men to want to try and compete with. However,’ she added, ‘I will give it to you that you’re physical attributes make you a daunting competitor all on your own.’
He laughed out loud this time, low and husky, because he was relaxed so it came from deep within the walls of his chest. Zoe found herself laughing too, softly and ruefully, her eyes connecting with his.
Her first burst of laughter in three long, horrible weeks, she realised suddenly, and then felt guilty because she could still laugh.
‘So, your turn.’ She shifted the attention onto him. ‘What about the current woman in your life?’
‘I don’t have one.’
‘That isn’t what your press says.’
‘The press likes to exaggerate.’
‘There was the model in New York three weeks ago,’ Zoe recalled. ‘She intimated you were both in it for the long haul.’
Anton affected a sigh. ‘The problem with women in high-profile careers is they see any kind of press as better than none at all. I broke the relationship off after that interview appeared in the papers.’
‘As you mentioned before, you are high profile.’
‘I am not hankering after a wealthy wife.’
Fair comment, Zoe conceded. ‘My father always says—’
She stopped, her lips coming together with a tremulous snap. Turning her face away, she stared blindly at the back of the chauffeur’s head and tried to swallow down the new lump in her throat.
‘Your father used to say—what?’ he prompted very gently.
But Zoe shook her head. The subtle change he’d made to her words didn’t stop her from feeling deeply that she’d mentioned her father in the present tense. She did it a lot. She still turned to speak to her mother only to find she wasn’t there. She had been going to say that her father had always said material wealth did not matter. Love mattered.
‘I met him a few times,’ Anton said quietly, bringing her face slowly back around so she could look at him. Her eyes looked huge again, and so damned vulnerable. ‘I was quite small and he appeared very much a grown-up to me, though he could have been only eighteen. He took me out on the lawn to play football. No one had ever done that with me before.’
Needing to swallow before she could speak, Zoe prompted, ‘Your own father?’
‘He’d died the year before. I barely remember him. He was always going off somewhere on a business trip and was much too busy being powerful to play football with me. We are here,’ he said, sounding as if he was glad of the excuse to call a halt to that line of conversation.
Zoe turned her head in time to watch the front police-car peeling away. The next second the car they were travelling in was slowing down to make a left turn and they were driving through a pair of big gates. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the two police cars had pulled across the gap into which the gates were in the process of closing behind them. Beyond the police cars the chasing pack had all pulled to a stop in a long line. She could feel their frustration as they climbed out of their vehicles and stared helplessly at their disappearing car. There was even the promised big fence cordoning off the area. Relief skittered down her spine as she turned to look forwards again.
And that feeling of relief died immediately. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded jerkily.
‘Our next mode of transport,’ Anton replied.