The Innocent Behind the Scandal (The Marchetti Dynasty 2)

She stared at Maks Marchetti. He looked grim. There was movement near them and Zoe’s boss appeared in her eyeline. An officious man in a suit, he’d been stressed already, and now he looked ready to blow completely. His face was red.

Zoe held the tray to her chest like a shield. She started to say, ‘Steven, I’m so sorry—

‘Stop talking. Clean this up and then see me in the kitchen.’

He made a motion to another waiter Zoe didn’t know and he rushed over with a brush and pan. Someone else arrived with paper towels.

Zoe couldn’t look at Maks Marchetti again. She bent down and started picking up the bigger pieces of glass, sucking in a breath when she pierced her finger.

Suddenly Marchetti was beside her, taking her hand, looking at the blood. ‘Leave the glass. You’ll hurt yourself.’

Zoe pulled her hand back, shocked at the zing of electricity that raced up her arm. She glared at him. ‘As if you care. Just leave me alone, will you? You’ve already caused enough trouble.’

She ignored the pain in her finger and continued to pick up the glass. When she stood again, her face burning with humiliation, Marchetti was gone.

She went back to the kitchen, where her boss was waiting for her. She put down the tray full of bits of broken glass and he handed her an envelope. His rage was icy, but his face was even redder now.

‘Do you have any idea who that was?’

Zoe’s stomach sank. This wasn’t going to end well. ‘Unfortunately, I do know who that was.’

‘What on earth were you doing, tussling over a tray with him?’ He waved a hand, as if he didn’t even want to hear her answer, then said, ‘Maks Marchetti is one of the most important people in the fashion and luxury industry. And not only that, but his brother Nikos is here too this evening.’ He handed her an envelope. ‘I’m sorry, Zoe, but we can’t keep you on this evening—not after this. We won’t be contacting you again.’

Zoe’s mouth dropped open. She started to formulate her defence and stopped. Nothing she could say would reverse this. They wouldn’t forgive her for this public humiliation.

Before he left, Steven glanced at her hand. ‘You’re dripping blood everywhere. Clean yourself up, please, and leave.’ Then he swept out.

Zoe looked at her hand stupidly. At her cut finger. Numbly she searched for and found a first aid kit, and cleaned the cut and put a plaster on her finger, wincing as it throbbed. She welcomed the pain. Damn Maks Marchetti anyway. Now she really hoped she never saw him again.

But unfortunately that was not to be the case. When she stepped into the street from the staff entrance a short while later, she saw a sleek low-slung silver car by the kerb. The door opened and a man uncoiled his tall, lean body from the driver’s seat.

Maks Marchetti.

She started walking away, but he kept pace easily beside her. She was aware of her worn black trousers, white shirt—still damp from the wine—and her even more worn leather jacket. Flat shoes. Backpack on her back. She couldn’t have been less like one of the women in that glittering space. And why did that even matter to her?

She stopped and rounded on Maks Marchetti. ‘Look, what do you want now? I’ve been fired—isn’t that enough for you? The last time I heard, streets were public spaces, so I don’t think I’m actually infringing on hallowed Marchetti Group property now, am I?’ She stopped, surprised at the depth of emotion she was feeling.

Maks put up a hand. To her surprise, he looked slightly...sheepish. He lowered his hand. ‘I owe you an apology.’

Stupidly, Zoe said, ‘You do?’ And then she remembered what had happened. ‘Yes, you do, actually.’

* * *

‘I didn’t mean for you to get fired. I saw you across the room and I...’

Maks trailed off, rendered uncharacteristically inarticulate for the first time in his life. He hadn’t been able to get the woman in front of him out of his head for the past two weeks. She’d dominated his waking and sleeping moments.

When he’d spotted her across that room he’d been so surprised to see her that any kind of rationality had gone out of the window. He’d even forgotten that he’d come to the grudging conclusion that she wasn’t actually paparazzi.

The truth was that she’d got to him. On some visceral level. From the moment he’d seen her camera lens pointed straight at him, provoking an extreme reaction. Not everyone would have reacted the way he had. His brother Nikos would have smiled and posed.

For Maks, though, camera lenses represented an intrusion of his privacy, and he’d spent the last two weeks wondering if he’d massively overreacted. A knee-jerk reaction to old trauma.

Yet when he’d seen her this evening, the mere sight of her had sparked that visceral reaction again. A need to see her up close juxtaposed with a need to push her away. And this time she hadn’t even had a camera.

Because you took it.

Whatever it was about the way she made him react, he knew he couldn’t let her walk away again. As much because he owed her this apology as for other, deeper and less coherent reasons.