‘That was in the bedroom!’
‘We’ve only been lovers for a few weeks—surely that’s a little early for conventionality to rear its head?’ His mouth gave a wry twist. ‘But if you’re insisting on the proximity of a bed then we can go upstairs to my suite right now and do it there.’
To Emma’s fury, she could feel the prick of tears at her eyes. ‘Why are you behaving like this, Zak?’ she whispered.
He stared at her, her question striking at a conscience he had no desire to feel. Why indeed? Because it felt safer to push her away than to acknowledge the way she was making him feel inside? Because she needed to know where she stood? More importantly, so did he.
‘Because I can,’ he answered simply and gave a shrug as he saw the sudden tremble of her lips. ‘I’m sorry.’
Emma stared at him, his words wiping away all the pretence she had allowed to fester and grow. All those stupid hopes and dreams that Zak might one day care.
Now she was forced to confront the truth—as she had been forced to confront it many times before. But this time she wasn’t a helpless child who was dependent on an erratic mother. And neither was she an inexperienced young woman who’d been blinded by a man’s fame and her mother’s ambition for her to make a ‘good’ marriage.
Now she was Emma. Grown-up Emma who wouldn’t do what she knew to be the wron
g thing. And the wrong thing would be to entertain any hope of a future with Zak. She’d known that right from the beginning—but she had been too blown away by her sexual awakening to listen to her very real doubts.
But she couldn’t let the desires of her body influence her into making another dumb mistake with a man. And she couldn’t let her foolish belief that she had fallen in love with him sway her either. She had to be strong. That didn’t mean she had to be bitter. Just strong. To accept Zak for the man he was, not the man she wanted him to be.
‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘I haven’t?’ he questioned, his eyes narrowing because he had expected a whole heap of accusations to come piling down on top of him.
‘Not really. You’re just being yourself.’
‘Now why does that make me feel some kind of heel?’
‘That wasn’t my intention, I can assure you.’
And he nodded in comprehension, because he knew that. Emma didn’t play mind games. In fact, she didn’t do the stuff which women usually did. She didn’t angle to have him buy her expensive gifts or to fill up his diary for the next year. All she’d ever done since that first time he’d taken her to his bed had been to become his perfect lover—except for now, when he had pushed her further than she had been willing to be pushed.
Yet wasn’t it ironic that her refusal to play the role he had wanted her to play was making him respect her—so that instead of the frustration he should have been feeling, he now felt an overwhelming need to appease her?
‘Look, just forget I ever asked,’ he said easily. ‘We’ll go back down to the party and, after it’s over, I’ll take you for dinner here in the hotel—how does that sound?’
Ten minutes ago it would have sounded like heaven on earth, but not any more. Now it sounded exactly what it was—a sweetener for her anger and no doubt a way of ensuring that she would perform to his satisfaction in the bedroom, later.
‘Tempting, but I’ll pass.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You’ll pass?’
It was the incredulity in his voice that did it. If ever Emma had needed proof that he was an arrogant and egotistical man who would never change, then now she had it.
‘Yes, Zak, incredible as it may seem to you, I’ll pass. My job here is done and I’m going to go up to my suite to pack because I’m leaving tomorrow. So I’ll let you go back down to your guests and to entertain them. Who knows? You probably won’t have any trouble finding a replacement stripper for the night!’
‘Now you’re making me sound cheap,’ he grated.
‘At least you know how it feels.’
For a moment they stood facing each other across the expanse of the minimalist office, their gazes clashing in a silent duel of wills.
‘Let’s be clear about one thing, Emma,’ said Zak, breaking the silence at last when it became clear that she was not going to back down and change her mind. ‘If this … withdrawal … of yours is supposed to make me your instant slave, then I have to tell you that it’s the wrong tack to take. You see, I don’t do emotional blackmail. I never have.’
Emma’s mouth opened and then closed again, because she was afraid that she might do something as undignified as screaming aloud with frustration and rage. Or throwing a pot of pens at his smug face, just as she’d wanted to do that very first time when he’d summoned her in to see him.
‘I feel sorry for you, Zak,’ she said, in a shaking voice. ‘There’s so much good in the world, but you just never see it, do you? Because you’re an emotional coward! Everywhere you look, you find some game or plot—some conniving woman determined to drag you up the aisle or to get you to commit. Well, I am not that woman—and I never will be. I wouldn’t dream of wanting something from a man which wasn’t given freely. I may not have much experience but that is something I have learnt! So you’ll forgive me if I say goodbye and leave you now. I’m out of here first thing tomorrow—and, to be honest, I can’t wait.’
She saw the disbelief which clouded the grey blaze of his eyes—and she saw something else, too. Something which looked like pain and was probably to do with the wounding of his wretched ego. Quickly, she turned away—before she revealed her own far more damning tears, grateful that her mother’s dancing tuition meant she never had any problem keeping her back straight. At least she was leaving Zak with her head held high, even if inside her heart felt as if it were breaking.