He had to stop this and to stop it now. He must have been out of his mind to think that he could dance with her and not want her. Abruptly removing his hands from her waist, he dipped his head to her ear, so that his words could be heard above the hypnotic lull of the music.
‘Let’s go,’ he clipped out.
‘Go?’ She turned her face up to his. ‘But we’ve only just started dancing.’
And in that moment, all the pretence he’d been maintaining and the defences he’d erected came tumbling down and desire transmuted into a quiet and burning rage. ‘I don’t know if you’re being naïve or disingenuous, Emma—but we can’t keep doing this,’ he hissed. ‘All this crazy flirting and touching and denying ourselves what we both really want. Because it’s wrong. We both know it’s wrong. And sooner or later, we’re just not going to be able to stop ourselves. You might find it acceptable to have two men on the go—but I won’t do it. I may want you, but I can’t have you. If you want the truth, there’s part of me which despises your siren ways even as I’m sucked in by them. And the thought that you’ve woven your spell around my poor, unsuspecting brother makes me sick to my stomach.’
She heard the venom in his voice as his accusation cut through her and she knew that she had to tell him. That maybe she should have told him a long time ago.
‘B-but I haven’t,’ she stumbled. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. There’s nothing between me and Nat and there never has been.’
He froze. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘We’re just good friends,’ she explained, her words coming out in a babble in their eagerness to be spoken. ‘I played along with the idea of you separating us because he thought it would get you off his back for a while. He was fed up with you always playing the big, controlling brother—and he thought it’d do me good to come to New York. That’s all.’
‘That’s all?’ A pulse beat at Zak’s temple as what she’d just told him began to sink in. He’d endured days of guilt and long, sleepless nights of frustration—and she thought she could shrug it off with an insouciant ‘that’s all’? A bitter anger crept over him. ‘We’re going,’ he bit out as he caught hold of her wrist and led her off the dance floor.
The expression on his face was dark and formidable and Emma was aware of people watching them. Grabbing her bag from her chair, she shot a glance at his stony profile as they made their way towards the exit. ‘Zak?’
‘Shut up,’ he gritted out, signalling for the doorman to have his car brought out to the front.
And they stepped out of the hotel to the blue-white flash of the waiting paparazzi.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘ZAK?’ Emma attempted for a second time as the car pulled away from the kerb.
‘Shut up,’ he gritted out again.
Her shoulders miserably tense, Emma sat upright in the luxury car while he brooded beside her in stony silence. What choice did she have but to obey him? She guessed she could jump out of the limousine when they stopped at a light. She could run down the road and hail a cab—but wouldn’t that only add to the general melodrama of the evening and make it even worse? Clutching at her little gold clutch bag, she could feel mounting frustration at her own stupidity.
Why the hell hadn’t she told him about Nat sooner—way back when? She’d known that there was some sort of chemistry between them right from the start. She’d known that they had both been fighting an unwanted and very physical attraction. So why had she just pretended that it wasn’t happening—until it had combusted in that steamy dance at the party and it had been impossible to hide from the truth any longer? And now he was angry with her—she didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone so angry.
The car stopped outside the Pembroke and she half expected Zak to storm off, but, still with that same grim look on his face, he led her through the lobby to the elevator, punching out her floor number with an angry finger. Within the closed confines of the empty lift, the atmosphere was unbearable and then suddenly he erupted, turning on her with pewter fire flashing from his eyes.
‘Why did you do that?’ he demanded, his voice low and fierce. ‘Why did you lie about your relationship with my brother, knowing as you must have known that the attraction between us was growing all the time? Or was that what turned you on? Is that what you always do with men, Emma—watch them getting eaten up with desire until they can’t help themselves? Did it amuse you to see me fighting the way I felt about you?’
‘Of course it didn’t!’
‘So why the subterfuge? Why not just come straight out and tell me?’
She shook her head, not ready to tell him that she’d felt too vulnerable to tell him the truth. That she’d been afraid of the way she felt about him and the effect it’d had on her. In fact, she was still afraid. Hadn’t her mother been made a fool of by men who were out of her reach, time and time again? And hadn’t the debacle of her own disastrous marriage proved that Emma was formed from the same mould as the woman who had given birth to her?
‘Because there never seemed a right time,’ she hedged. ‘And because I’d promised Nat that I’d get you off his back.’
‘If Nat had wanted that, then he should have had the guts to tell me so himself!’ he flared. And then he shook his head, amazed at his own stupidity. If Nat had really loved Emma, then there was no way on earth he would have tolerated her being moved away to another city like that. Why hadn’t he seen that before?
Because as usual he had been trying to fix things. To orchestrate events from the sidelines, the way he’d always done. A muscle worked in his cheek as he realised the full extent of his need to control. But he wasn’t going to beat himself up about it. That was the way he’d had to be. Hadn’t he needed every bit of that steely control, in order for his family to survive? When the Constantinides fortune had been bled away by his father’s vacuous new wife—and his mother’s consequent illness—hadn’t Zak been the one that everyone had relied on?
He stared down at Emma, at the slanted green eyes and pale tumble of her hair. He’d been planning to leave her at her room and then to go back to his own, to maybe drink himself into oblivion and think about what a fool he’d been. But his eyes now focused on the soft white silk which clung to yet concealed the pale, curvy body beneath. And suddenly he thought, What the hell?
The lift doors slid open at her floor but as she made to exit, he caught hold of her wrist and pulled her back inside, so that she was wedged right up close to his chest.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she whispered.
‘Let’s lose the innocent act, shall we? I’m going to do what you’ve been wanting me to do all night. I’m going to kiss you, Emma. To kiss you until you don’t know where your mouth ends and mine begins—and after that I’m going to make love to you. Unless, of course, you don’t want me to?’ He read the darkened hunger in her eyes and saw the helpless tremble of her lips. ‘No, I thought not,’ he said grimly as he hit the button for the 34th floor. ‘Because you want this just as much as me. You’ve wanted this from the first moment you ever set eyes on me. We both have. And now we’re damned well going to do it and maybe then it’ll stop eating away at me.’