The Innocent Behind the Scandal (The Marchetti Dynasty 2)

CHAPTER ONE

Paris

HE WAS THE most beautiful man Zoe Collins had ever seen, and that was some realisation when she was currently surrounded by some of the world’s most physically perfect men and women at one of Paris Fashion Week’s biggest shows.

He was sitting in the front row, so he had to be important.

Aware that she was staring, Zoe dragged her gaze away and looked around the vast ballroom that had been transformed into a fairy woodland scene, with real trees down the centre of the catwalk. The air was scented with the expensive perfume of the hundreds of guests milling around while they waited for the show to start.

Her heart was still pounding from the adrenalin rush of what she’d just done.

She’d been outside the Grand Palais, taking pictures of ‘influencers’ as they went into the show, and by pure fluke she’d noticed one of the catering staff outside a door, having a cigarette. When he went back inside he’d left the door ajar, and Zoe had seized the opportunity to get into the inner sanctum.

She knew that if she could actually manage to get into ‘the pit’, where the official photographers lined themselves up at the end of the catwalk, she would be able to try and convince them that she was one of them. Even though she wasn’t. At all. She was a self-taught amateur photographer.

There was no way she would have got accreditation to be in here officially. As it was, some of the other photographers were looking at her suspiciously. She hunched forward, letting her shoulder-length hair hide her face, and hoped they wouldn’t notice that she had no official lanyard.

Excitement buzzed under her skin. She’d never been at a fashion show before, and it had always been a dream of hers to see the spectacle up close. Along with the dream becoming a bona fide fashion photographer. For as long as she could remember she’d escaped into glossy magazines and pored for hours over the fantastical editorial created by the industry’s best photographers, editors and stylists.

But breaking into a tight-knit industry like this was akin to climbing Everest without oxygen. Next to impossible without contacts or experience.

She knew she shouldn’t draw attention to herself, but she couldn’t resist looking at the man again. When her gaze found him her pulse-rate skipped and her heart beat a little faster.

He had more than just good looks, she realised. There was an air of impenetrability about him. He was talking to no one. Looking at no one. Glancing down periodically at his phone. Totally relaxed, yet primed. Interested, but not showing interest. Aloof.

She guessed he was tall, just from the way he dominated the space around him. He had broad shoulders, a lean body. Very short hair—almost militarily short. Dark under the lights, but not brown, or black. More dark blond.

But his bone structure alone had Zoe lifting the camera to her face, almost without realising what she was doing. And when she looked through her viewfinder her heart stopped altogether.

Close up, he wasn’t just beautiful—he was breathtaking. High cheekbones, deep-set eyes. A mouth that promised decadence and sin. Firm contours. Sensual. A hard, uncompromising jaw that a shadow of stubble only enhanced.

There was a faintly olive tone to his skin. And then his head turned and his eyes connected directly with hers through her camera. She froze. His eyes were mes

merising. Dark grey. Cold. Cynical. Guarded.

Zoe acted on instinct. Her finger came down on the button and the camera made a clicking sound as it immortalised his image for ever.

But before she could even take the camera down from her face there was a blur of movement, and then she was being grabbed by her jacket and hauled up and out of the pit full of photographers.

‘Who the hell are you and why are you taking pictures of me?’

Dimly, Zoe recognised the fact that his voice matched the rest of him. Deep and authoritative. Slightly accented. She also recognised that he was much taller than she might have guessed. Well over six feet, and towering over her own far less substantial five foot four.

His eyes raked her up and down. ‘Who are you? Where’s your accreditation?’

‘I...’ She faltered, all the bravado that had led her in here dissolving. She swallowed. ‘I don’t have any.’

She vaguely heard muttering from the other photographers and guilty heat climbed up over her chest to her face.

‘Look, I’m sorry. I saw an open door and I just—’

‘Thought you’d enter illegally?’

Zoe spluttered. ‘Well, that’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?’

He put his hand on her arm and pulled her out of the photographers’ area and along the front row towards the main doors, on the opposite side of the room from where she’d entered. Her face burned with humiliation. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Acting like judge and jury? Crashing a fashion show was hardly the crime of the century!

Zoe could see people tucking their legs out of the way as they passed, and noted several iconic famous faces assuming looks of disgust and horror as she was all but hauled out.

When they were on the other side of the main doors she pulled free. She could see security guards approaching, but the man put up a hand and they stopped. She looked up, breathless. Adrenalin rushed through her system, and something else—something that felt disturbingly like excitement.

‘Who are you?’ She rubbed her arm, even though he hadn’t hurt her at all.

He didn’t answer, just reached for her camera, lifting it over her head before she could stop him.

She reacted instantly, reaching for it. ‘Hey, that’s my camera. You can’t just—’

But a hand planted squarely on her upper chest, holding her back, stopped her words.

She watched in dismay as he easily accessed and scrolled through the pictures, presumably finding the one of him, and the ones she’d taken outside.

He closed one hand around the camera and took his other hand down from her chest. ‘I’ll take this. You can go.’

Zoe went cold inside. ‘But you can’t just take my camera—that’s my property.’

Her most precious possession.